October 24, 2019

It has been a busy year on regulatory front for counties, with a number of rule-makings on a variety of different issues moving forward. In addition to representing counties in front of the Legislature, part of CSAC’s core mission is to see through the implementation of laws and actively represent county interests as regulations impacting local government are developed.  

CSAC has advocated on several of these regulatory efforts over the past year, including the development of Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) regulations at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), the development of the Governor’s Water Resiliency Portfolio, the Department of Water Resources’ drought contingency plan, and Cal Recycle’s SB 1383 Organic Waste Diversion regulations, to name a few.

Most recently, CSAC has been closely tracking regulatory efforts at the CPUC to create rules for investor owned utilities during Public Safety Power Shutdown events. The CPUC’s unique rulemaking process and the significance of these regulations precipitated CSAC retaining outside counsel to engage in the rulemaking and file comments on behalf of counties. As a result, CSAC has actively engaged in this process and submitted several rounds of comments to the CPUC on both phase I and II of this process, based on significant county input. Comment letters are available on CSAC’s website. 

CSAC also provided comments regarding two major administrative efforts on water and resiliency. Most recently, CSAC provided comments to the County Drought Advisory Group (CDAG) on the development of legislatively required report to improve planning and preparedness of small water systems for the next drought. San Luis Obispo County Supervisor Bruce Gibson represented CSAC on the CDAG and worked closely with the AENR team to provide comments. In addition to the comments provided to CDAG, CSAC also reached out to counties to provide comments on the administration’s Water Resiliency Portfolio. The update was part of the Governor’s efforts to incorporate climate change into California’s water policy in an effort to improve future water resiliency.

CSAC is also advocating on the development of organic waste diversion regulations. Cal Recycle is developing its SB 1383 Organic Waste Diversion Regulations which will require a 75% reduction in the landfilling of organic waste by 2025. CSAC has been advocating on these regulations since late 2017 in conjunction with several other local government associations and the solid waste industry. CSAC has been successful in advocating for improvements to the regulations that make them less burdensome and costly to counties. However, CSAC still has serious concerns about the final regulations and the lack of infrastructure statewide to process this new waste stream, and the costs associated with its implementation. The final version is expected to be adopted soon, and will require implementation starting in 2022.

To view our comments letters, and get more information on the AENR team’s regulatory efforts, visit our updated website here: https://www.counties.org/regulatory-roundup