(a) Any information, analysis, plan, or specification that discloses the nature, extent, quantity, or degree of an air contaminant or other pollution that any article, machine, equipment, or other contrivance will produce, which any air pollution control district or air quality management district, or any other state or local agency or district, requires any applicant to provide before the applicant builds, erects, alters, replaces, operates, sells, rents, or uses the article, machine, equipment, or other contrivance, is a public record.

(b) All air or other pollution monitoring data, including data compiled from a stationary source, are public records.

Terms Used In California Government Code 7924.510

  • Process: includes a writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings of either a civil or criminal nature. See California Government Code 22
  • public records: includes any writing containing information relating to the conduct of the public's business prepared, owned, used, or retained by any state or local agency regardless of physical form or characteristics. See California Government Code 7920.530
  • State: means the State of California, unless applied to the different parts of the United States. See California Government Code 18
  • Subdivision: means a subdivision of the section in which the term occurs unless some other section is expressly mentioned. See California Government Code 10

(c) Except as otherwise provided in subdivision (d) and Chapter 3 (commencing with Section 99150) of Part 65 of Division 14 of Title 3 of the Education Code, a trade secret is not a public record under this section or Section 7924.700.

(d) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, all air pollution emission data, including those emission data that constitute trade secrets as defined in subdivision (f), are public records. Data used to calculate emission data are not emission data for the purposes of this subdivision and data that constitute trade secrets and that are used to calculate emission data are not public records.

(e) Data used to calculate the costs of obtaining emissions offsets are not public records. At the time that an air pollution control district or air quality management district issues a permit to construct to an applicant who is required to obtain offsets pursuant to district rules and regulations, data obtained from the applicant consisting of the year the offset transaction occurred, the amount of offsets purchased, by pollutant, and the total cost, by pollutant, of the offsets purchased is a public record. If an application is denied, the data shall not be a public record.

(f) As used in this section, “trade secret” may include, but is not limited to, any formula, plan, pattern, process, tool, mechanism, compound, procedure, production data, or compilation of information that satisfies all of the following requirements:

(1) It is not patented.

(2) It is known only to certain individuals within a commercial concern who are using it to fabricate, produce, or compound an article of trade or a service having commercial value.

(3) It gives its user an opportunity to obtain a business advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.

(Added by Stats. 2021, Ch. 614, Sec. 2. (AB 473) Effective January 1, 2022. Operative January 1, 2023, pursuant to Sec. 7931.000.)

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