Information related to the current status of legislation and regulations impacting California’s rural counties.

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 318 (Levine): Hazardous waste: Assembly Bill 318 excludes from classification as hazardous waste green waste that has not been contaminated by a hazardous or toxic chemical during production, harvest, or processing.  Requires those green wastes to be disposed in a permitted solid or hazardous waste landfill or composting operation.  Status:  AB 318 is awaiting consideration by the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. RCRC Status:  Pending

Assembly Bill 322 (Salas): Energy: Electric Program Investment Charge program: 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: 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 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 is awaiting consideration by the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials 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 Natural Resources 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 Utilities and Energy 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 Natural Resources 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 Natural Resources Committee. RCRC Status: Support

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 Natural Resources 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 Natural Resources Committee. RCRC Status: Support

Assembly Bill 1201 (Ting) Authorizes CalRecycle to adopt regulations for plastic product labeling to ensure that plastic products labeled as compostable or home compostable are clearly distinguishable from non-compostable products.  Prohibits the sale of a plastic product labeled as compostable, home compostable, or soil biodegradable unless the product meets specified standards.  Status: AB 1201 awaits consideration from the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. RCRC Status: Watch

Assembly Bill 1276 (Carrillo) Prohibits food facilities and platforms from providing single-use food accessories to consumers unless requested or necessary to protect public health and safety or safe delivery.  Status: AB 1276 awaits consideration from the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. RCRC Status: Watch

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 Natural Resources and Judicial Committee. RCRC Status: Watch

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 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 Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. RCRC Status: Watch

Senate Bill 30 (Cortese): Building Decarbonization: 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: 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 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 Appropriations 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 219 (McGuire): Property Tax Payments: Shelter-in-Place Order. Senate Bill 219 codifies a county tax collector’s ability to cancel late payment penalties for taxpayers who have experienced financial hardship due to shelter-in-place orders. Status: SB 219 secured passage in the Senate Governance and Finance 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 264 (Min): Firearms: state and county property: Senate Bill 264 prohibits the sale of firearms and firearm components on state or county property, most notably fairgrounds.  Status: SB 264 awaits consideration from the Senate Public Safety Committee.  RCRC Status: Oppose

Senate Bill 286 (Min): County Officer Elections Top-Two Advance. Senate Bill 286 would require the top-two vote-getters seeking election to a county office to face-off in a General Election.  Status: SB 286 awaits consideration in the Senate Elections & Constitutional Amendments Committee. RCRC Status: Oppose

Senate Bill 289 (Newman) Recycling: batteries and battery-embedded products.: Requires producers of battery and battery-embedded products to create stewardship organizations and programs for the collection, transportation, and recycling of those products. Status: SB 289 awaits consideration in the Senate Rules 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 Energy, Utilities and Communications 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 Transportation Committee. RCRC Status: Watch

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: Support