Information related to the current status of legislation and regulations impacting California’s rural counties.
AJR 5 (L. Rivas): Wild and free-roaming horses and burros. AJR 5 would urge the federal government to declare a moratorium on all further wild horse and burro round-ups and would urge the United States Bureau of Land Management and the United States Forest Service to introduce and support populations in areas of California where wild horses and burros were historically present. Status: AJR 5 has been recently introduced and has not yet been referred to an Assembly policy committee. RCRC Status: Oppose
Assembly Bill 1 (C. Garcia): Hazardous Waste: Assembly Bill 1 establishes several new governance, policy, and fiscal reforms to improve the Department of Toxic Substances Control, including significantly increasing several fees and repealing several important fee exemptions. Status: AB 1 is awaiting consideration by the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 33 (Ting): Natural Gas: Prohibits new public buildings from having natural gas connections and utilities from subsidizing natural gas line connections. Status: AB 33 is awaiting consideration in the Assembly Utilities and Energy and Natural Resources Committee. RCRC Status: Watch
Assembly Bill 322 (Salas): Energy: Electric Program Investment Charge program: Assembly Bill 322 requires the Energy Commission to allocate at least 20% of all funds appropriated for the Electric Program Investment Charge program (roughly $25 million annually) to bioenergy projects for biomass conversion. Status: AB 322 is awaiting consideration in the Assembly Utilities and Energy and Natural Resources Committee. RCRC Status: Support
Assembly Bill 332 (ESTM): Hazardous waste: treated wood waste: Assembly Bill 332 seeks to reestablish a statutory pathway for the alternative management and disposal of treated wood waste in a landfill. Status: AB 332 is awaiting consideration by the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. RCRC Status: Support.
Assembly Bill 410 (Fong): Nurse Licensure: Assembly Bill 410 would enact the Nurse Licensure Compact, under which the Board of Registered Nursing and the Board of Vocational Nursing and Psychiatric Technicians would be authorized to issue a multistate license that would authorize the holder to practice as a registered nurse or a licensed vocational nurse, as applicable, in all party states under a multistate licensure privilege, as specified. Status: AB 410 is awaiting consideration by the Assembly Business and Professions Committee. RCRC Status: Support
Assembly Bill 732 (Quirk) Increases the Environmental Fee paid by businesses with 50 or more employees to fund oversight of hazardous waste management and disposal and to remediate orphan and legacy contaminated properties. Status: AB 732 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 783 (Gray) Authorize a surface mine that has been accepted into, and is currently in compliance with, the Voluntary Protection Program of the Division of Occupational Safety and Health to be excepted from the annual inspection requirements. Prohibits the state from issuing a citation or notice to a surface mine employer more than six months after the occurrence of a violation. Status: AB 783 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 819 (Levine) Requires lead agencies and project applicants to post California Environmental Quality Act notices and documents on their internet websites and to submit CEQA documents to the State Clearinghouse in electronic form. Status: AB 819 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 843 (Aguiar-Curry) Allows Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) to access the CPUC BioMAT program that provides funding for renewable bioenergy electricity projects, including biomass and biogas. Status: AB 843 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Support
Assembly Bill 881 (Gonzalez) Repeals the ability for local governments to claim diversion credit for most types of plastic waste that are exported for recycling. Status: AB 881 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 1078 (Patterson) Exempts residential buildings damaged or destroyed in a disaster during the 2020 calendar year from having to install solar energy systems under the California Energy Commission’s recently adopted building requirements. Status: AB 1078 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 1086 (Aguiar-Curry) Requires the state to prepare an implementation strategy to achieve the state’s organic waste, climate change, and air quality mandates, goals, and targets. Status: AB 1086 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending.
Assembly Bill 1154 (Patterson) Exempts from the California Environmental Quality Act egress route projects undertaken by a public agency and that are recommended by the Board of Forestry to improve fire safety of an existing subdivision. Status: AB 1154 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Support
Assembly Bill 1277 (Rubio) Expedites the litigation timeline for challenges to student housing projects brought under the California Environmental Quality Act. Status: AB 1277 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 1311 (Wood) Will seek to made modest changes to the Beverage Container Recycling Act to increase consumer access to redemption opportunities. Status: AB 1311 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 1325 (Burke) Requires the CPUC to develop a Clean Community Microgrid Incentive Program to fund community microgrids that support the critical needs of vulnerable communities that utilize distributed energy resources for the generation of electricity. Status: AB 1325 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Assembly Bill 1350 (Patterson) Until 1/1/2025, exempts businesses with 50-100 employees from having to pay the Environmental Fee, which funds oversight of hazardous waste management and disposal and to remediate orphan and legacy contaminated properties. Status: AB 1350 awaits consideration from the Assembly Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Senate Bill 30 (Cortese): Building Decarbonization: Senate Bill 30 prohibits state agencies from designing or constructing a state facility that is connected to the natural gas grid and prohibits state agencies from funding projects for the construction of residential and nonresidential buildings that are connected to the natural gas grid. Status: Senate Bill 30 awaits consideration by the Senate Governmental Organization Committee. RCRC Status: Watch
Senate Bill 38 (Wieckowski): Beverage Containers: Senate Bill 38 replaces the existing Beverage Container Recycling Program (Bottle Bill) with a new recycling program administered by beverage container manufacturers and increases the CRV from $0.05 to $0.10 per container if the state fails to achieve specified recycling rates. Status: SB 38 awaits consideration by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Senate Bill 42 (Wieckowski): Department of Toxic Substances Control: Senate Bill 42 establishes a new Board of Environmental safety to oversee the Department of Toxic Substances Control, consider permit appeals, and propose regulatory changes and establishes an ombudsperson to make and receive public complaints and suggestions. SB 42 is anticipated to be amended to also include many of the fiscal changes suggested by the Administration to address DTSC’s structural deficit. Status: SB 42 awaits consideration by the Senate Environmental Quality committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Senate Bill 52 (Dodd): State of Emergency: Power Outages. Senate Bill 52 clarifies that deenergization events (also known as PSPS events) qualify as events for which a state of emergency or local emergency can be declared under the California Emergency Services Act. Status: SB 52 awaits consideration in the Senate Governmental Organization Committee. RCRC Status: Support
Senate Bill 99 (Dodd): Community Energy Resilience Act of 2021: Senate Bill 99 requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to develop and implement a grant program for local governments to develop community energy resilience plans. It also sets forth guiding principles for plan development, including equitable access to reliable energy and integration with other existing local planning documents. Status: SB 99 awaits consideration in the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Senate Bill 207 (Dahle): Photovoltaic Recycling Advisory Group: Senate Bill 207 seeks to spur the recycling and reuse of solar photovoltaic panels by requiring an advisory group to make recommendations to ensure that, to the extent possible, all solar photovoltaic panels in the state are reused or recycled at the end of their lives in a safe and cost-effective manner. Status: SB 207 awaits consideration by the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. RCRC Status: Support
Senate Bill 244 (Archuleta): Lithium-ion batteries: illegal disposal: fire prevention: Senate Bill seeks to prevent lithium-ion battery fires by requiring the state to develop training and best practices for the detection, safe handling, and suppression of fires that originate from discarded lithium-ion batteries in solid waste collection vehicles, transfer and processing stations, and disposal facilities. Status: SB 244 awaits consideration from the Senate Environmental Quality and Natural Resources and Water Committee. RCRC Status: Support
Senate Bill 341 (McGuire) Makes several changes to increase oversight and accountability of telecommunications service outages. Status: SB 341 awaits consideration from the Senate Energy, Utilities, and Communications Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Senate Bill 359 (Caballero): County of Merced; Natural and Working Lands: Senate Bill 359 requires the Department of Conservation to develop and implement the Resilient Merced County Incentive Pilot Program to assist the County of Merced to develop and adopt a climate action plan through the use of a scenario-planning tool developed by the department and provide financial assistance to private landowners in implementing activities resulting from the use of the scenario-planning tool set forth in the adopted climate action plan. Status: SB 42 awaits consideration by the Senate Governance and Finance Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Senate Bill 533 (Stern) Require electrical corporations to ensure electrical transmission and distribution systems achieve the highest level of safety, reliability, and resiliency by modernizing, upgrading, replacing, hardening, or undergrounding any portion of its transmission and distribution wires or poles that experiences a specified number of recurring deenergization events. Requires the CPUC to create a database of critical facilities, infrastructure, and circuits located in high fire threat districts. Status: SB 533 awaits consideration from the Senate Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Senate Bill 580 (Hueso) Authorizes the state to study the feasibility, cost effectiveness, and environmental benefits of including recycled plastics in asphalt used as a paving material in the construction, maintenance, or rehabilitation of a highway or rad. Status: SB 580 awaits consideration from the Senate Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending
Senate Bill 619 (Laird) Will seek to provide local governments with additional flexibility and funding to achieve the state’s organic waste recycling requirements. Status: SB 619 awaits consideration from the Senate Rules Committee. RCRC Status: Pending