New Legislative Session

This week a batch of new bills for the 2015 legislative session were introduced after the swearing-in of State Legislators for the biennial session. The following is a small sample of the natural resources/environmental and medical marijuana bills that were recently introduced and will continue to be monitored by CSAC as the session gets under way next year. Many more bills will be introduced up until the Legislature’s bill introduction deadline of Friday, February 27. 

Water

AB 1 (Brown) — Pending

AB 1, by Assembly Member Cheryl Brown, is similar to legislation that was introduced last year and failed. This bill would prohibit cities and counties from imposing a fine under any local maintenance ordinance or other relevant ordinance for a failure to water a lawn or having a brown lawn during a period for which the Governor has issued a proclamation of a state of emergency based on drought conditions. 

SB 13 (Pavley) – Pending

SB 13, by Senator Fran Pavley, appears to be a legislative vehicle for clean-up amendments to the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act which was signed into law in September.

SB 20 (Pavley) – Pending

SB 20, by Senator Fran Pavley, would address the availability of reports regarding the digging or drilling of specified types of wells to the public. 

Medical Marijuana

AB 26 (Jones-Sawyer) – Pending

AB 26, by Assembly Member Reginald Jones-Sawyer, would enact the Medical Cannabis Regulation and Control Act within a new division of the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. It would establish a framework to regulate and control the mandatory registration of all entities involved in the commercial cultivation, processing, manufacturing, testing, transportation, distribution, provision, donation, and sale of medical marijuana in the state. 

AB 34 (Bonta) – Pending

AB 34, by Assembly Member Rob Bonta, is a spot bill that expresses legislative intent to establish a comprehensive and uniform state regulatory structure to govern the cultivation, processing, testing, and distribution of medical cannabis.

Solid Waste

AB 45 (Mullin) – Pending 

AB 45, by Assembly Member Kevin Mullin, is a spot bill that states the Legislature’s intent to enact legislation that would establish curbside household hazardous waste collection programs, door-to-door household hazardous waste collection programs. Mr. Mullin carried a bill on the same subject last year, AB 2371, which would have required cities and counties to review the effectiveness of its household hazardous waste (HHW) plans and to identify ways to improve the convenient recycling and disposal of HHW. CSAC has concerns with the curbside approach as this circumvents existing local household hazardous waste programs. 

Climate Change

Several bills were introduced this week dealing with California’s Cap and Trade program and Climate Change laws. While all bills are still in spot form, they fall under a few specific categories. The Republicans in both houses have introduced measures – AB 23 (Patterson), SB 1 (Gaines) and SB 5 (Vidak) – that would exempt transportation fuels from the state’s Cap and Trade Program. The Democrats have also introduced measures related to Cap and Trade requesting additional information and requiring interim targets. AB 21, by Assembly Member Perea deals more specifically with the State’s Scoping Plan and would require GHG reduction targets beyond AB 32, requiring statewide emissions reductions for 2030 to be include in the state’s GHG planning document. Finally, AB 33, by Assembly Member Quick, would require the California Air Resources Board to submit a report to the Legislature with updated information on the implementation of AB 32.