Applied Materials Building 100 EPIC Center Semiconductor Research and Development Laboratory, Air District Permit Application No. 700650

The Bay Area Air District is considering issuing an Authority to Construction and Permit to Operate under Air District Permit Application NO. 700650 for two new permitted stationary sources at the Applied Materials Arques campus at 974 East Arques Avenue in Sunnyvale: Source S-264, a semiconductor research and development laboratory containing vacuum deposition and plasma etching tools and wet process tools, with integral point of use abatement devices, eight packed bed acid scrubbers, a two stage concentrator wheel, and an electric regenerative thermal oxidizer, discharging through nine exhaust stacks; and Source S-265, a surface preparation (wipe cleaning) operation. The sources would be housed in Building 100, the Equipment and Process Innovation and Commercialization (EPIC) Center, a 592,567 gross square foot research and development building that implements Phase 1 of the Arques Campus Specific Plan. The City of Sunnyvale, as Lead Agency, certified the Arques Campus Specific Plan Environmental Impact Report in June 1999 (SCH NO. 1998092072) and approved the building and associated improvements in April 2024. The Air District's discretionary action is limited to the stationary source permits and the conditions under which the permitted sources may operate. The issuance of an Authority to Construct is a discretionary approval subject to CEQA. Through its evaluation of the permit application, the Air District developed a project specific emissions inventory quantifying emissions of greenhouse gases and criteria air pollutants that were not evaluated in the 1999 Arques EIR. Pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Section 15163(a), which provides that either the Lead Agency or a Responsible Agency may prepare a supplement to an EIR, the Air District has prepared a focused Draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Report addressing Air Quality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The document identifies significant and unavoidable impacts related to a cumulatively considerable net increase in ozone precursor emissions and to the generation of greenhouse gas emissions and the resulting conflict with plans adopted for the purpose of reducing those emissions.