Weekly Notice of Proposed Legislation
CSAC has been providing weekly notices this month of proposed legislation from the current session. The past two weeks have focused on the numerous pieces of legislation related to the 2017 fire season. This week we turn to other legislation in the areas of agriculture, environment and natural resources. Of note, there are several bills this session that deal with the consolidation of drinking water systems. These bills aim to give the state tools to help get clean drinking water in areas of the state where it is lacking. In addition, there are number of bills related to resiliency and disaster preparedness. Other policy areas covered in these bills include, animal control, cannabis, CEQA, mining, and recycling.
Animal Control Bills:
AB 2362 (Rubio): – This bill would set temperature standards for animals during transportation and would apply to local animal control agencies. The bill would set ambient temperatures for mobile or traveling housing facilities and require that dogs and cats not acclimated to colder temperatures be provided proper bedding to conserve body heat. This measure also requires that mobile or traveling housing facilities be sufficiently ventilated and well lit for proper cleaning, inspection and observation when dog and cats are present.
Cannabis Bills:
AB 2914 (Cooley): This bill would prohibit a commercial cannabis licensee from also being licensed as a retailer of alcoholic beverages or tobacco products. It would also prohibit a licensee from selling a cannabis product that is an alcoholic beverage, including, but not limited to, an infusion of cannabis into an alcoholic beverage. This bill would also prevent alcohol retailers from selling cannabis products and alcohol infused with cannabis.
AB 2929 (Quirk): This bill would allow a cannabis licensee to conduct any commercial cannabis activity allowed under its license with any other licensee.
AB 2980 (Gibson): This bill would define premises of cannabis operation as the area specified in an application where the licensed privileges are exercised. The bill would require that provisions of MAUCRSA not be construed to prohibit two or more licensed premises from sharing common use areas wherein no licensed privileges will be exercised so long as all licensees comply with the requirements of the act.
CEQA Bills:
SB 948 (Allen): This bill would provide for a streamlined CEQA process, through the Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act of 2011. The bill would deem community plans that include all of the following elements as certified by the Governor and eligible for a streamlined CEQA process.
- It includes two or more statutorily defined transit priority areas
- If the community plan is for a jurisdiction with a general plan that includes a circulation or mobility element adopted on or after January 1st.
- Is consistent with the sustainable communities strategy or alternative strategy approved by a metropolitan planning organization and certified by the California Air Resources Board as achieving the required reductions in GHG.
- Complies with regional clean air standards
- Includes enough housing capacity to meet regional housing needs.
- Is consistent with applicable regional plans to protect sensitive habitat, farm land, parks, flood zones and high fire areas.
- Includes projects and strategies designed to reduce vehicle miles traveled.
- Are approved after January 1st, 2017
Mining Bills:
SB 1222 (Stone): This bill would allow for the use of suction dredges or vacuums in streambeds provided they are not used to move mineral bearing material.
Resiliency Bills:
AB 2645 (Patterson): This bill would continuously appropriate $74,805,000 from the greenhouse gas reduction fund annually to CALFIRE for the purposes of back filling the funds that had previously been generated from state fire prevention fee beginning in 2019–20 fiscal year. The bill would also provide for continuous appropriation of $450,000,000 from the fund annually to CALFIRE in the following amounts for the following programs:
- $195 million for health forests in state responsibility areas, local assistance grants that benefit habitable structures provided by counties, grants for fire safe councils, grants to qualified non-profits to do fire prevention projects, funds to do inspections for defensible space in state responsibility areas, public education to reduce fire risk, and other non-specified fire prevention activities authorized by CalFIRE in state responsibility areas.
- $5 million provided annually to the California Conservation Corps
- A minimum of 10% must go to local jurisdictions
- At least $125,000,000 million annually for local entities, including, but not limited to, counties and Fire Safe Councils, for vegetation management projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- At least $75,000,000 annually for the implementation of MOUs regarding federal lands for vegetation management that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
- At least $20,000,000 annually for resource management, including, but not limited to, urban forestry programs.
SB 1015 (Allen): This bill would establish the California Climate Resiliency Program within the Wildlife Conservation Board to increase resiliency to climate change impacts in urban and rural communities throughout the state and to fund the planning and implementation of projects that improve and enhance the climate change resiliency of natural systems, natural and working lands, and developed areas. The bill would create the California Climate Change Resiliency Fund in the state treasury and require a portion of funds to be spent in disadvantaged areas.
SB 1088 (Dodd): This bill would establish requirements, through the Office of Emergency Services and other agencies, for utilities to protect against damage from storms, floods, mudslides, wildfires, earthquakes and other major events. It would require IOUs to file, and the CPUC to review, adopt and enforce, safety, reliability and resilience plans to prevent and mitigate risk from wildfires and other major events that affect the safety and reliability of the electric and gas systems. Utilities would be prohibited from diverting money from safety, reliability and resilience plans. If a utility failed to comply with its plan, it would be penalized by the CPUC.
SB 1301 (Beall): This bill is a revised introduction of SB 594 from last year and provides for expedited permitting. The bill is sponsored by the Santa Clara Valley Water District. This new version would require state natural resources agencies to report to the Legislature their average permit processing times for designated permits. In addition, projects that reduce risk to human life safety through flood and mudslide risk reduction would be eligible for expedited 90-day permit processing and approval. Eligible projects would be required to have completed CEQA review and meet one of the following priority conditions:
• Reduce the risk of flooding or mudslide in a watershed that has experienced wildfire within the last 10 years
• Located in a watershed that has experienced flooding within the last 10 years that resulted in cumulative losses exceeding $50 million
• Reduce flood risk through the seismic retrofit or repair of dam classified as a high hazard or extremely high hazard
• Reduce flood risk through the repair, reconstruction, or retrofit of Oroville Dam, or through the repair of levees or sediment removal to prevent flooding from the Feather River downstream of the dam
• Repair or replace dams in serious disrepair as determined by the Department of Water Resources
• Reduce the risk of tidal flooding for an urban area in which a 1 percent tidal flood event is estimated to cause damage exceeding $5 billion and threaten industries vital to the state and national economies.
Solid Waste and Recycling Bills:
AB 1884 (Calderon): This bill would prohibit a food facility from providing single use plastic straws plastic straws unless they are requested by a customer. This bill exempts:
- Public and private school cafeterias.
- Restricted food service facilities.
- Licensed health care facilities
- Commissaries.
- Mobile food facilities.
- Mobile support units.
- Temporary food facilities.
- Vending machines.
- Certified farmers’ markets
- Farm stands
- Fishermen’s markets
AB 2779 (Stone and Calderon): This bill would prohibit a retailer selling or offering for sale a single-use plastic beverage container with a cap that is not tethered to to the beverage container.
AB 2921 (Low): This bill would create the Polystyrene Food Service Packaging Recycling Organization. This organization would be funded by an assessment on the manufacturers of polystyrene and food service containers. The organization created by this bill would be required to improve access to food service package recycling through the provision of grants, promote the recycling of food service packaging, and reduce litter from food packaging.
Water Bills:
AB 1876 (Fraizer): This bill would change the authority of the Delta Stewardship Council and vest much of that authority in the Delta Protection Commission starting on July 2020. The Commission currently exists in state law and would be granted more significant authority under this bill. In addition, the bill also changes the number of members of the Delta Stewardship Council to 13.
AB 2038 (Gallagher): This bill would require the Department of Water Resources, no later than January 1, 2020, in consultation with the State Water Resources Control Board and other relevant state and local agencies and stakeholders, to use available data to identify small water suppliers and rural communities that may be at risk of drought and water shortage vulnerability and require the department to notify counties and groundwater sustainability agencies of those suppliers or communities. The bill would require DWR in consultation with the State Water Board to propose to the Governor and the Legislature by January 1, 2020 recommendations and guidance relating to the development and implementation of countywide drought and water shortage contingency plans to address the planning needs of small water suppliers and rural communities.
AB 2050 (Caballero): This bill would create the Small System Water Authority Act of 2018 which would authorize the creation of small system water authorities that will have powers to absorb, improve, and competently operate noncompliant public water systems. Specifically, The act would require the State Water Board to notify all small water systems with less than 3,000 service connections and or less than 10,000 people served and that are in violation of drinking water standards to cure drinking water violations no later than January 2024. The act would allow the Water Board to create new authorities that consolidate failing or non compliant water districts and appoint interim administrators to those authorities and would require the interim administrators to apply through the LAFCO process for approval for the consolidated authority. In addition to the authority to consolidate non-complaint water systems, the act would also allow for the state board to use a voluntary method of creating new authorities using the LAFCO process. This act would prohibit a local agency formation commission from including any dependent special district in the authority if the county board of supervisors objects in writing within a certain period to the inclusion of the special district. It would require a board of supervisors to levy the standby charge in the amounts for the respective parcels fixed by the board of the new authority. The bill would require all county officers charged with the duty of collecting taxes to collect district standby charges with the regular tax payments to the county and would require the charges to be paid to the authority.
AB 2501 (Chu): This bill would authorize the state water board to order consolidation of a disadvantaged community is reliant on a state small water system, an individual domestic well, or an unregulated water system serving fewer than five connections into a receiving water system. It also would require the state water board to consider ordering consolidation of a water system with a receiving water system if the disadvantaged community served by the water system does not have an adequate supply of safe drinking water and at least 75% of the households in that community petition the state water board for consolidation. The bill also makes other changes to public hearing process of consolidation, prevents increased fees from being charged to users who have been subsumed by a new water provider and adds additional rules for extension operations. This bill would redefine “small public water system” for the purpose of the bill as a system with 200 connections of less.
AB 2975 (Friedman): This bill would require the Natural Resources Secretary to hold a public hearing and take actions necessary to add that river to the California wild and scenic river program to protect rivers in California that may have become delisted or unprotected from the Federal Wild and Scenic Rivers Act or related federal provisions.
SB 998 (Dodd): This bill would prohibit an urban and community water system from shutting off residential service until the system notifies the local health department and the local health department assesses that a shutoff at the residence would not pose a grave threat to the health and safety of the residents, except as provided. In addition, the bill would make a number of substantive changes to the procedure for how urban and community water systems implement water shut off as related to outstanding payments.
SB 1215 (Hertzberg): This bill would authorize the state water board to set a timeline and performance measures to facilitate the completion of an extension of service for drinking water. It would also and authorize the state water board to order consolidation or extension of sewer service to a disadvantaged community. In order to consolidate sewer systems, the bill would require the state water board to take steps that are similar to those required for the consolidation or extension of water systems and would require that at least 75% of the households in the community potentially subject to extension or consolidation to have agreed to receive sewage service from the receiving sewer system. In addition, this bill would expand the definition of “disadvantaged community” for purposes of consolidation and extension to include a community that is in an incorporated area but not served by a public water system or wastewater system.
