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

Assembly Bill 246 (Quirk) Contractors: disciplinary actions. Assembly Bill 246 allows the Contractors State Licensing Board to take disciplinary actions against a contractor who violates state or local laws prohibiting illegal dumping.  Status: AB 246 was signed by Governor Newsom. RCRC Status: Support

Assembly Bill 297 (Gallagher) Fire Prevention. Increases funding for forest health improvement and wildfire risk reduction projects and makes other substantive changes to help expedite project completion.  Status: AB 297 is a two-year bill. RCRC Status: Support

 Assembly Bill 322 (Salas): Energy: Electric Program Investment Charge program: Requires the Energy Commission to consider bioenergy projects for biomass conversion when awarding funds under the Electric Program Investment Charge program. Status: AB awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Support    

 Assembly Bill 332 (ESTM): Hazardous waste: treated wood waste. Reestablishes a statutory pathway for the alternative management and disposal of treated wood waste in a landfill.  Status:  AB 332 was signed by the Governor. RCRC Status:  Support

Assembly Bill 418 (Valladares) Note: Assembly Bill 418 codifies a Community Power Resiliency Program modeled after some of the recent Office of Emergency Services grant allocations to counties, cities, special districts and tribal governments. Status: AB 418 awaits consideration by the Governor.  RCRC Status: Support

Assembly Bill 819 (Levine) California Environmental Quality Act: notices and documents: electronic filing and posting.  Requires lead agencies 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 was signed by the Governor. RCRC Status: Watch

Assembly Bill 843 (Aguiar-Curry): California Renewables Portfolio Standard Program: renewable feed-in tariff: 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 by the Governor. RCRC Status: Support

Assembly Bill 881 (Gonzalez) Plastic waste: diversion: recycling: export. Repeals the ability for local governments to claim diversion credit for mixed plastic waste that is exported for recycling. Status: AB 881 awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Watch

Assembly Bill 970 (McCarty): Planning and zoning: electric vehicle charging stations: permit application approval: AB 970 will require applications to install electric vehicle (EV) charging stations to be deemed complete by a local jurisdiction within five business days for one to 25 charging stations on a single site, or 10 business days to construct 25 or more, and also requires such applications to be deemed approved within 20 or 40 business days (respectively) after the application was submitted, as specified. For a local jurisdiction with a population of less than 200,000 residents, the bill’s provisions would become operative on January 1, 2023. Status: AB 970 await consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Oppose

Assembly Bill 1078 (Patterson) Energy: building standards: photovoltaic requirements. 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 is a 2-Year bill. RCRC Status: Support

Assembly Bill 1154 (Patterson) California Environmental Quality Act: exemption: egress route projects: fire safety. 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 is a two-year bill. RCRC Status: Support

Assembly Bill 1201 (Ting) Solid waste: plastic products: labeling: composability and biodegradability. Requires CalRecycle to adopt regulations requiring local jurisdictions to bifurcate organic waste collection and processing systems if it first determines that is feasible to do so and bifurcation will improve processing and recycling.  Authorizes CalRecycle to adopt regulations for plastic product labeling to ensure that plastic products labeled as compostable or home compostable are clearly distinguishable from no 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 by the Governor. RCRC Status: Oppose

Assembly Bill 1311 (Wood) Recycling: beverage containers: certified recycling centers. Makes modest changes to the Beverage Container Recycling Act to increase consumer access to redemption opportunities. Status: AB 1311 awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Support

Assembly Bill 1344 (Arambula) State Department of Public Health: Needle and Syringe Exchange Services.  Exempts needle and syringe exchanges services from the California Environmental Quality Act.  Status: AB 1344 awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Neutral

Assembly Bill 1346 (Berman and Gonzalez): Air pollution: small off-road engines: Assembly Bill 1346 would require the California Air Resources Board, by July 1, 2022, to adopt cost-effective and technologically feasible regulations to prohibit engine exhaust and evaporative emissions from new small off-road engines, which include portable generators as well as lawn and garden equipment. Status: AB 1346 await consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Oppose Unless Amended.

Assembly Bill 1403 (Levine) Emergency Services. Assembly Bill 1403 clarifies that deenergization events (also known as PSPS events) qualify as events for which a state of emergency can be declared by the Governor under the California Emergency Services Act. Status: AB 1403 awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Support

Senate Bill 37 (Cortese) California Environmental Quality Act Exemption.  Senate Bill 37 eliminates the ability to use a “common sense exemption” under the California Environmental Quality Act for any projects undertaken at over 40,000 sites throughout the state that appear on the Cortese List of currently or formerly contaminated properties.  Instead allows specified types of projects to use either a statutory or categorical CEQA exemption if certain circumstances are met.  Status:  SB 37 was moved to the Senate Inactive File.  RCRC Status:  Neutral

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 local emergency can be declared under the California Emergency Services Act. Status: SB 52 awaits consideration by the Governor. 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. Status: SB 99 was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on the Suspense File.  RCRC Status: Support

Senate Bill 244 (Archuleta): Lithium-ion batteries: illegal disposal: fire prevention: Senate Bill 244 seeks to prevent lithium-ion battery fires by requiring the state to develop 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 by the Governor. RCRC Status: Support

Senate Bill 341 (McGuire) Makes several changes to increase oversight and accountability of telecommunications service outages. Status: SB 341 awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Support

Senate Bill 343 (Allen) Prohibits the sale of any product or packaging using a deceptive or misleading claim about its recyclability, including using the chasing arrows symbol unless CalRecycle determines the product or packaging is recyclable.  Requires CalRecycle to identify the types of plastic products and packaging from which a claim of recyclability may be made. Status: SB 343 awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Watch

Senate Bill 533 (Stern) Electrical corporations: wildfire mitigation plans: deenergization events: microgrids. Requires utilities to discuss in their Wildfire Mitigation Plans efforts to improve their electrical systems, focused on those areas and assets that have been deenergized the greatest number of times.   Status: SB 533 awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Support

Senate Bill 594 (Glazer): Elections: Redistricting. This bill would, for the June 7, 2022, statewide direct primary election, make various changes, as specified, to existing law relating to candidate nominations and compilation of registered voter data to accommodate the extended state redistricting deadline. The bill includes a provision to clarify that the requirement for counties to adopt supervisorial district boundaries can be satisfied by either ordinance or resolution. Status: Enrolled. RCRC Status: Support.

Senate Bill 619 (Laird) Organic waste: reduction regulations. Provides local governments with one additional year to come into compliance with SB 1383 organic waste recycling regulations without being subject to penalties by CalRecycle, if certain conditions are met.    Status: SB 619 awaits consideration by the Governor. RCRC Status: Neutral