Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Quality

You guys are being way too quiet. It's making me nervous. All right, well, why don't we call the Senate Environmental Quality Committee to order. Obviously, we are still awaiting a quorum, so we'll start as a Subcommitee. As you know, we continue to welcome public in person, but also via the conference service.

So for those folks who want to provide public comment today on the phone lines and not in person, the participant number is 877-226-8163 the access code is 736-2834. We're holding our Committee hearings here in the O Street building in Sacramento. I asked the Members of the Committee to come on down, be present here in room 1200, so we can establish our quorum, begin our hearing. A couple of important points to make up. Senator Hurtado is not available today.

She's being replaced for the day on the Committee by Senator Limon. We have a total of 16 bills on today's agenda. Two are on the consent calendar: items 15 and eight, that's SB 303 and SB 493. We have three bills that have been pulled from this hearing. Item seven, that's SB 768. That one's going to be a two year bill. We've got item 14, SB 239, that's been pulled. And then item 12, SB 740, we're pushing over till next week.

There have been some very productive discussions between stakeholders on that bill, but they weren't able to come to an agreement. We're hoping that we'll be able to get there this week. So that's item 740, the Cortese bill, that will be on the agenda next week, at next week's hearing on Wednesday. So, with that, let's get started. I see Dr. Jones here. Why don't you come and present item one? That's SB 32, a magical bill number here in this Committee. Is it magical? SB 32.

Oh, yes. With that comment, I would just make a motion we put it on consent.

There you go. Wouldn't that work? Well, I think we're going to get it out today. Okay. Almost as good.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, today I bring you an opportunity to make your constituents' lives, and my constituents' lives more affordable here in California.

SB 32 will immediately lower the cost of gas, gasoline in California by $1 per gallon by lowering the state gas taxes and fees for one year. This savings will allow California consumers to better afford basic necessities they have had to sacrifice in order to fuel up their vehicles. This measure requires the savings to be applied directly to the consumer because California motorists need relief now.

None of the so called solutions that have been debated in this building over the last several weeks and months that have been enacted actually have made a difference in the price the consumer pays for gasoline at the pump. This bill will. Even President Biden called on states to provide direct relief to consumers by suspending their own gas taxes, and many states have done that.

Last year, gas prices soared as high as $7 a gallon in some areas of this state, and that's on top of the rising inflation and cost of living. Our constituents should not have to make the choice between filling up their gas tank and putting food on the table for their family. Mr. Chair and Members, I ask for an aye vote on SB 32 to make all Californians lives better.

Thank you very much, Senator Jones. Let's hear from support witnesses. Yeah. Hey, there.

Hello. Scott Kaufman, Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. There's been much finger pointing in recent weeks over who is to blame for the high cost of gas in California, with claims of price gouging, corporate greed, and mystery surcharges. But it's not all a mystery. We know that Californians today, April 19, are on average paying a $1.22 more than the rest of the country. We know at least 72 cents of that as a result of higher taxes, environmental fees, and our special fuel blends.

And I would argue that number is likely higher when considering many of the other mandates businesses must follow in California. We also know that higher gasoline prices have a crippling effect on residents, on fixed incomes, and fixed and limited incomes, especially those who rely on long commutes to go to work, or those who require driving as part of their job. And we know that we can do something about that today.

AB 32 exempts transportation fuel suppliers from California's cap and trade program, low carbon fuel standard and gas tax for one year. It would significantly lower the cost of filling up in California and bring immediate relief to millions at the pump. I ask for you aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Let's hear from anyone else who wants to weigh in in support for the bill. Okay. Opposition? Opposition. Folks who want to raise concerns about the bill. None here. I know there's some listed. Okay, why don't we go to the phone lines? Is there anyone who wants to just weigh in, me too, on this? No. Okay. Go to the phone lines then on SB 32.

Mr. Chair, are you ready for comments?

We sure are.

All right. Anyone who wishes to comment on this bill, please press one, then zero at this time. And, Mr. Chair, there is no one.

We're making it easy for you today.

All right. Governor Dahle.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate you bringing the bill forward. I'll make a motion to move the bill when we have an opportunity with the quorum to move the bill. But I want to just say that we do have a lot of taxes. The taxes that we have are not, we've heard in this Committee about the $0.52, which is the amount of tax that we use to take care of our roads. That money actually goes to the roads.

But there's a lot of other taxes that most the public doesn't understand are in our fuel cost, and that is our low carbon fuel standards, our special blends, and that cap and trade monies that they're charged into the gas before it actually goes to the pump. And those $0.52. Come on.

So I think that if Californians understood that because of our cap and trade laws, that the emitters have to actually buy credits and that gets baked into the fuel cost, that's not in other states. And so I appreciate you bringing the bill forward to actually highlight that ability. You know, the crazy thing was I was just in my office watching the air quality standards and which cities in the nation have the best air quality and which ones have the worst.

And we're leading the nation here in California, supposedly with our environmental goals. But right around Sacramento here, our cities that were local here, even Sacramento, have some of the worst air quality in the nation. So are we really meeting our standards? And we saw last year or the year before when Senator Bradford asked for an audit of the California Air Resources Board, that all of the money we're spending isn't getting us the bang for the buck. We're not meeting our goals.

So I appreciate you bringing the bill forward to have the conversation. I'm assuming it's going to have a tough time in this Committee today, but I think we need to have this conversation and actually to try to drive the cost down for California. So thank you for that.

Thank you, Senator Dahle.

Yeah. Appreciate the comments. You know, I think Senator knows that you're taking a big swipe at some really important climate and pollution funds with this bill. And I absolutely agree.

One of the challenges we have here, Senator Dahle, is our geography, both in the Southland basin and the Central Valley are such that it does make it harder for us to have cleaner air, especially compared to the East Coast, where they've got the Gulf stream just pushing the pollution off into the ocean every day, whereas it's kind of stuck. It sits here whether you're living in LA or in the valley.

And it's part of why we've been working hard to try to make sure that our cars are burning cleaner. Anyway, look, it's been a big discussion, kind of large. We had the special session. We just obviously passed SBX 1 and 2 related to gas price gouging and unfair business practices. But you're right to bring up the fact that this is a part of the gas cost, too. And I know you're trying to highlight that issue with this bill.

I don't think anyone here is afraid of that conversation. Anyway, we're going to entertain the motion when we have a quorum.

Great.

But as always, appreciate you, Senator, and we'd love to give you the opportunity to close.

Thank you. I appreciate that. This is a simple bill to bring relief to all of our overburdened constituents. All right, respectfully ask for your aye vote. Vote to cut our state gas tax by $1 for one year, and more importantly, cut our constituents a break. Thank you very much. I ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. Okay. Appreciate that. Let's next go to Senator Durazo, who's here. Oh, Becker.

Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. All right. Well, go for it. Go for it. The kind Senator is deferring. That's very kind. Chivalry. It's not dead. It's not dead. Okay, so we'll hear from Senator Durazo. This is Item Four in your agendas: SB 415. You may proceed when ready, Senator.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, and thank you to the Committee staff for your thoughtful analysis. SB 415 will ensure Air Districts and CARB take account of the socioeconomic impacts of their policies on low-income and working class Californians, and that policymakers have information about the implementation of their policies. This bill would require the Air Districts to focus their socioeconomic impact analysis of rules and regulations on the impacts to families whose incomes are below 100,000 dollars instead of focusing on the big businesses only.

This bill will require CARB to incorporate socioeconomic impact analysis and focus again on these families. It includes explicit requirements to incorporate information on the effects on employment and a much wider range of economic impacts. Additionally, for both Air Districts and CARB, this bill adds standards for contracting with third party for the analysis. The Legislature has given Air Districts and CARB the power to approve programs and rules that have profound consequences for working families and low-income families.

Many climate solutions disproportionately burden the poor and communities of color. When the Legislature adopted California's recycling programs decades ago, they left out anything related to wage policy. It was left to ordinary people to make green jobs, quote unquote, 'that immigrant workers did.' They sorted through dangerous waste without safety gloves and for wages that are a societal disgrace. That would not have happened if the Legislature had tied economic justice to environmental sustainability.

And now, many years later, when the Legislature passed the climate package at the end of last year's sessions, these bills did not provide an analysis of socioeconomic impacts. Finally, in November of 2022, CARB released socioeconomic impact data showing the disproportionate financial impacts of the 2022 Scoping Plan on low-income minority households, particularly highlighting the disparate negative impact on families making under 100,000 dollars.

That's why my bill will ensure we are collecting the type of data to make sure we understand the full economics impacts of these types of rules and regulations. We need the right information to be able to plan effectively. Look at Pajaro and the research from UC Irvine, which showed that, quote, 'undocumented Latino indigenous immigrants have been systemically left out of disaster planning in California.' And when tragedy does strike, research has shown that those who live in under-resourced communities have little recourse.

Air Districts and CARB should assess consequences on the working class. SB 14 facilitates a fuller understanding of the impacts on the people who keep our state moving and thriving. Housekeepers, gardeners, farm workers, construction workers, janitors, nurses, factory workers should have all the information they need to support truly equitable policies. My witnesses today are Dr. Catherine Garoupa, Executive Director of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, and Lauren Ahkiam, Climate Co-Director at LAANE, the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Let's hear from your witnesses.

Good morning, Chair Allen and Committee Members. Dr. Catherine Garoupa, CVAQ Director and Co-Chair of the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee at the California Air Resources Board. Thank you for the chance to support SB 415 to ensure efforts for clean air, truly increase benefits, and decrease burdens for environmental justice communities. The State of California claims an environmental leadership role, yet doesn't currently assess the social and economic impacts of our policies on low-income Californians.

SB 415 would improve our understanding of the impacts on working people by requiring Air Districts and CARB take into account the impact of proposed actions on families making under 100,000 dollars, which is critically important for a region like the San Joaquin Valley, which is one of the poorest places in the United States. The majority of our households make less than 100,000 dollars.

We are the most polluted air basin in the United States for fine particles, and we compete with the South Coast for being the most polluted for ozone. We are home to two of the largest toxic waste dumps west of the Mississippi, and we light up the CalEnviroScreen map, and breathers are paying with our health.

A 2007 study estimated that the South Coast and San Joaquin Valley are losing 28 billion dollars a year due to costs like missed school and work days and premature death, and those costs are likely underestimated. As Senator Durazo mentioned the 2022 Scoping Plan, the EJAC developed dozens of robust recommendations to ensure that we were improving public health and reducing social costs, but many of those were left on the table because of the assessment being weighted towards the cost to business.

And the final scoping plan acknowledges that the policies adopted will create a disproportionate impact for low-income households and benefit wealthy households. So, to improve assessments of impacts of clean air policies on low-income households and to inform more equitable policies, please vote yes on SB 415. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. My name is Lauren Ahkiam, and I am the Climate Co-Director with the Los Angeles Alliance for New Economy or LAANE, and we are here to speak in support of Senate Bill 415. And thank you to Senator Durazo for her leadership on this and on climate equity and worker equity more broadly.

LAANE works with labor and community partners to advance climate, economic, and racial equity through policies that increase environmental and economic benefits, particularly to working class communities of color and working class communities, and to improve job standards and increase the number and availability of good quality union jobs. And we know from our decades of work--it's our 30th anniversary this year--that we can only address climate justice when we address economic justice.

We have worked on these issues in the waste, water, energy, and ports industries and have seen how crucial it is that equity be a central part of the analysis so that it can be integrated into the policy changes that we need to make.

For example, we have seen how in LA, many solar and EV incentives and rebates have overwhelmingly gone to affluent homeowners, which means that huge parts of Los Angeles are not able to access or shift to the electric vehicles or solar energy supplies that we need to all be able to do as a region. We've seen this countered with policy design, such as in LADWP, successful direct energy efficiency installation program, that also creates union apprenticeship pathways.

We've seen in our clean truck policies in Los Angeles that when these policies have shifted the cost of clean trucks onto misclassified drivers, they can't afford to maintain those vehicles and the air quality benefits are lost, and those workers are saddled with the crippling economic pressures that are an unfair and unintended consequence of those policies. These policies can only be designed better if we have the analysis that we need to assess what we need to do.

In the transition to clean energy, transportation, and water, we must do so in a way that limits these negative impacts on the frontline communities and workers who are bearing the burden of climate change and on the front lines of implementing this work that needs to be done, and we can do that when we have the analysis that we need to better design those policies. And so we urge a yes vote on this and appreciate the leadership of Senator Durazo, again, on this issue and so many others. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, let's go ahead and hear from other folks who want to weigh in support of the bill: SB 415. Anyone else who wants to come to the mic and express their support? No? Okay. Opposition? Concerns? Yes, sir.

Good morning, Chair. Alan Abbs with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. We have currently an opposed unless amended position, and the amendments we'd like to see is basically to remove Air Districts from this bill, and the reason I say that is because, as you're aware, Air Districts have a board of directors, and those board of directors are comprised of elected county and local officials, so city council members, mayors, and county supervisors.

When you look at the socioeconomic impact analysis that the Senator is talking about, we've had an historical requirement over the last 20 or 30 years that's listed in statute of how we do these economic analyses. We have to look at the effects on industry, the effects on the affected business sectors, the effects on the regional economy, and then looking below the regional economy to affected local economies based on rules that we develop.

And so I think our elected officials really are tuned in to what their constituents feel about existing rules, and we've included that as part of our socioeconomic impact analysis. I've heard the Senator and the witnesses talk a lot about the CARB scoping plan and CARB or state level incentives, but I haven't heard anything about specific Air District rules and regulations that really require this broad change in how we do socioeconomic impact analyses.

And so for that reason, in my mind, it would be good to remove Air Districts from this, really take some more time to figure out what it is--if there's any examples of what Air Districts have done wrong in terms of their rulemaking related to criteria pollutants--and then come back at a later date and potentially next year with a different bill. Thank you.

All right, other folks who want to raise concerns or opposition to the bill? All right, let's go to the phone lines. SB 415.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this bill, please press one then zero at this time. Press one then zero only one time as pressing it a second time will remove from the queue. And Mr. Chair, no one has signaled that they wish to speak.

Okay. All right. We'll bring the measure back to the Members for discussion, comments. Senator Menjivar.

Thank you, Chair. Senator Durazo, I want to thank you so much for your leadership. We represent areas that are similar and that we have a lot of constituents that are making under the 100,000 income. And in my district, there's been decades, eight decades of entities that were placed there that now my community is really feeling the impact of. And I was taken aback when I read the analysis. I had no idea that that was not being incorporated. When we do an analysis moving forward, when the time is appropriate, I would love to move this motion to move, but I want to thank you for your leadership.

All right.

I have a question.

Yeah, certainly. Senator Dahle.

Senator Durazo, if I may ask, I've been very focused on, obviously, income levels and disadvantaged communities. And we just heard in the bill before us and the Chair talked about those on the coast have a break because of prevailing winds and really the disadvantage--we talk about San Joaquin, which is an area that I know--

The East Coast. On the East Coast, they have a break. It's the prevailing winds.

Well, in places in California, there are advantages to where you live, and there are places in California where there are disadvantages because of the geography of the state. So if you're in San Francisco, you don't have somebody polluting out in the ocean that's causing your air to get bad. If you're polluting in San Francisco, it ends up in San Joaquin, where those disadvantaged folks mostly live. Mostly wealthy people live in San Francisco. So that's my point.

But nonpoint source pollution, which is pollution that is created by transportation, by fires, when you have a fire somewhere and that blows into the district--so can you give me an idea of how--this is a statewide bill. Air Districts try to look at point source and nonpoint source pollution, so can you tell me how this bill would be looked at? Because some of those basins can never meet.

If you took all the people out of the basin, say San Joaquin, your air quality is still going to be bad if you don't do work in San Francisco or somewhere upstream of the wind. So can you kind of tell me how that would look? Because this is going to be a statewide bill that's going to take all that into consideration.

Well, there are probably a number of different ways of addressing your question, but for me, what has been left out of the information that we should have as legislators is the impact on these families, which earn under 100,000 dollars. And we've narrowed it down from last year's bill to this year's bill in a number of ways. We had a long list of impact, equity impact on issues of ethnicity and race and gender. So we really wanted to narrow it down.

It's these families that are hurt and/or don't get the benefits of a lot of the rules and regulations. So I'm really focused on that, and I think that deals with across the board, across California. It's not where you live, it's where do you live, how much do you make, and the impact on that particular community?

So I agree that if you picked a number of 100,000, so the number of 100,000 or less, and we've had that debate where the people that can't afford the electric car or can't afford the benefits of remodeling their home to make it more energy-efficient and more safe. So how is this going to change that? That's what I'm trying to figure out. This is an ARB regulation that will be statewide to analyze it, but how is it going to actually change it for that person who is making less than 100,000 in San Joaquin?

Well, I'm hoping it'll change it because we as legislators and policymakers will have that information at our disposal. Right now, we don't have that information that's specific to poor and working class families. We just don't have it. So by having that information, by being able to ask the right questions and get answers, then we have the information to be able to promote and support the policies that should be including those poor and working class families. Right now, we don't have that information.

We just don't have it specific to those families, and that's what this will do. So then you and I and others will be able to point to this and say, 'wait a minute. This rule or this regulation is not addressing these needs right here for these kinds of families. It's not addressing it.' So we want to fix it or we want to amend it.

We want to make sure that the voice of those working people is information that we get as policymakers and the public has as well. Anybody in the community will be able to say, this rule is going to have an impact on me in this way. I will speak up, and I will ask my policymaker and my Legislator to speak up as well.

Okay, just one more clarifying--because I'm trying to figure out, the way I read this bill, it's saying that the California Air Resources Board can do that. Right now, the Air Districts cannot change a rule without taking that into consideration.

Yeah. I'm a little more specific. Right now, it's much broader. My bill is about being specific to the impact on families that earn under 100,000 dollars. Thank you.

Okay, seeing no more questions. Thank you, Senator, for bringing the bill forward. When we have a quorum, we will take a vote, and I, obviously, will entertain Senator Menjivar's motion. I'll ask you to--

I ask for your aye vote. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and Members.

Thank you. Excellent. Okay. I saw Senator Becker, but then he skipped out. Oh, there he is. Okay, perfect. Senator Becker, come on up. Item two in your agendas, this is SB 308, Carbon Dioxide Removal Market Development Act. That's a mouthful. Before you start, why don't we establish a quorum? This is for your own good.

Senators Allen.

Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Thank you, Janet, for popping in. We're going to miss you. Okay, let's go forward. You may proceed when ready.

Thank you. Last year, we passed a bill with a goal of getting to net zero by 2045, which was a big accomplishment. This bill, SB 308, will make sure we actually get there. Last year's bill set a target of reducing emissions by at least 85% by 2045. That means we'll have about 15% of 1990 emissions remaining, which means about 65 million metric tons a year. So we will need to balance those remaining emissions with 65 million tons of carbon removal in order to be net zero.

That's just the definition of net zero. And today, California has no plan for how we're going to develop that much carbon removal capacity in time. This bill creates the plan that we need. Of course, most of our attention, energy and funding, should be going towards reducing emissions. Most of my legislative efforts have been on how we increase clean energy, reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. And our state budget also reflects those priorities. But that won't be enough to get to net zero without carbon removal, too.

And the need for carbon removal shouldn't be controversial. The UNIPCC has been telling us that it is essential for any 1.5 degree pathway. The Biden Administration is strongly supporting these efforts with funding in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Bill, and with the Department of Energy's carbon negative shot program aimed at driving down the cost of carbon removal below $100 a ton within a decade.

CARB has identified the need for large amounts of carbon removal in the scoping plan, and Governor Newsom's also said he supports the need for it. Basically, anyone who has seriously modeled what it will take to achieve net zero and keep temperature increases under 1.5 degrees, they all agree we're going to need large amounts of carbon removal even under the most ambitious scenarios for reducing direct emissions. And I'll just mention many people, that's just to get to net zero in California.

We have to remove, many people believe, trillions of tons of carbon from the atmosphere to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and we need to encourage new technologies. So this bill creates a plan for that carbon removal that answers four important questions. First, how do we make sure that we're getting carbon removal that really does balance out these emissions? This bill requires CARB to establish rules for what can qualify and how it should be counted.

This bill includes important principles such as requiring that carbon removal is durable, in other words, keeping the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere for hundreds of years, and only the net amount of carbon that has been removed is counted. After taking into account any emissions that may have been caused by carbon removal process itself, these principles are critical, and we'll make sure we get scientifically valid carbon removal and not the kind of questionable carbon offsets that are frequently used for greenwashing today.

Second, how do we make sure that all this carbon removal has co-benefits for neighboring communities in our workforce and doesn't result in bad side effects such as increased pollution or safety concerns. Those are valid concerns, and this bill addresses this by directing CARB to consider the costs and benefit of proposed carbon removal pathways beyond the value of carbon removal itself, and lets CARB decline to certify processes with significant concerns.

This should encourage carbon removal providers to work with neighboring communities to provide local benefits and avoid harms. This bill also prohibits counting carbon removal that is linked to enhanced oil recovery, consistent with bills last year, and to ensure that California retains a significant portion of the benefits of investing in carbon removal. The bill requires at least 50% of carbon removal each year must come from projects that provide direct benefits to the state. Third, who should pay for carbon removal? We need to offset ongoing GHG emissions.

The bill requires those who are responsible for that ongoing pollution to pay for cleaning up a portion of their emissions each year by purchasing carbon removal. It starts at a very small amount and ramps up over time, similar to our RPS, as I'll mention in a moment. Some other states have looked at using taxpayer dollars to buy carbon removal, but we think that a polluter pays model makes far more sense.

Fourth, how will we scale up our carbon removal capacity over time and to get the cost down? This is really the fundamental part of this bill. This bill takes an approach very similar to a successful renewable portfolio standard, which required utilities to start buying small amounts of renewable energy back when the technology was immature and expensive and then scaled up that amount purchased each year.

That approach led to a 90% drop in the cost of solar over a decade and enormous increase in solar generation, not just here in California, but around the world. This bill similarly requires emitters to purchase carbon removal equal to a very small percent of their emissions at first, just 1% in 2030, and then scaling that up over time until they have to offset 100% of their emissions in 2045, which is the definition of net zero.

Of course, emitters who reduce their emissions as much as possible will have to purchase less carbon removal, so it creates a good incentive for emissions reductions while still leaving companies flexibility to find the most cost effective tradeoff for themselves. And in this way, again, we create that long term, predictable market that investors need. They want to see there's a long term predictable market, and that's how we're going to bring down the cost of carbon removal over time. A couple of last points.

Some people have suggested this approach is redundant with cap and trade. It is not. Cap and trade limits the total amount of emissions across the state using the market to allocate the limited number of rights to pollute. This bill will then also require those polluters to clean up a portion of their pollution. So these are separate and complementary ideas, not redundant. I know carbon removal is a relatively new topic for this Legislature, but it's an important one.

We need to continue to focus on emissions reductions, but that won't be enough. We also need carbon removal, and we can't delay getting started because it's going to take a long time to scale up and reduce costs, just like we've seen with renewable energy. This will put a plan in place to get us started. With us, we have Dr. Corey Myers, a research scientist from Lawrence Livermore National Labs, to provide testimony.

Hi there. Hi, Mr. Chairman, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, my name is Corey Myers. I'm an engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I have a decade's worth of experience in industrial decarbonization and carbon dioxide removal technology development. At Lawrence Livermore National Lab, we don't have any stake in climate mitigation beyond trying to solve hard problems and provide you with scientifically accurate, sound information. So here it is. We need carbon dioxide removal.

Now, I'm happy to speak with you each individually about the details of that climate mass, but futures without carbon dioxide removal are futures with more human suffering, more environmental damage, and higher economic losses. Full stop. Now, 10 years ago, when I started developing carbon dioxide removal technologies, there were only a handful of admittedly vague proposals. Now, there are literally hundreds of options available and under development, with a wide variety of implementations. And I'd like to just give you a taste of what's possible in California.

There are rocks all across the state that react with carbon dioxide in the air and turn it into a rock. Okay? So there are methods being developed that speed up that reaction. Another form you can take municipal wastes, agricultural waste, forestry waste, convert them into a stable form of carbon while also producing green hydrogen and reducing wildfire risk. Something completely different.

You can take the waste brine from desalination and convert it completely into products, some of which store carbon permanently and at the same time, double the amount of clean water that you get out of existing desalination plants. And the list goes on. So, you can see, California is blessed with a lot of opportunities here for carbon dioxide removal, but it's also become the hotbed for technology development.

And we believe that with a parameter set forth by SB 905 last year, carbon dioxide removal can be done in a safe and responsible way. However, technical feasibility does not mean financial viability. Now, as we pick through the low hanging fruits of decarbonization, we hit sectors, we hit technologies where electrification and efficiency improvement just aren't going to cut it. What carbon dioxide removal can provide you is a cost ceiling. You never have to pay more than this to decarbonize your company.

The more quickly we scale up carbon dioxide removal, the lower that cost ceiling becomes. Now, if you can decarbonize your company cheaper than that cost ceiling, you don't need to pay a dime for carbon dioxide removal. Right? Now, we do a fair amount of economic analysis for emerging technologies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and what stands out here is financing. I talked about all these hundreds of options that are available. They're there.

But let me tell you, those companies have problems getting financing because there is no regulated market that they can point to. So what this does is it reduces the options of carbon dioxide removal to those that are being proposed by large companies that can get cheap financing. If you want carbon dioxide removal to compete on the merits, its technological merits, its co benefits, what local communities want, then you really need to establish a clear market pool as this bill contemplates. I'm very encouraged to see the depth of recent carbon dioxide removal activity in the Legislature. I'm available anytime for any questions you have. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right. Other folks who want to me too, weigh in in support?

Good morning, Chair. Martin Radosevich on behalf of Heirloom Carbon Technologies in support. We'd like to thank the author for his leadership on this issue.

That's a carbon capture company?

Direct air capture. Yes.

Okay. All right. Okay. Right. Not tomatoes. Okay. Yes.

Good morning. Will Breeger on behalf of Climate Action California and 350 Sacramento, we support the bill and thank the Senator. This is our top priority.

Great. Thank you. All right. Opposition. Anyone wants to raise concerns about the bill?

Good morning, Chair and Members.

We got EJ and the Farm Bureau and the chamber altogether. It's very exciting.

It's a rare combination, for sure. But when we all get on one side of something, you got to know something might be going on. My name is Katie Valenzuela. I'm here on behalf of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition and a handful of other environmental justice and environmental organizations, regrettably in opposition to 308. We have a fundamental opposition to market mechanisms because evidence shows that they not only fail to reduce emissions, they actually increase environmental justice impacts in our communities.

But we also have really strong concerns with this technology in general, which really carries many of the same risks that carbon capture does. We did work really hard, despite that opposition to put protections in place through SB 905, and we are already finding ourselves defending those protections as CARB is starting their rulemaking and projects are moving forward with our limited capacity, we're spending a lot of time saying why enhanced oil recovery shouldn't be included. And that was something the Legislature said very clearly this year.

So I want to use this as an example to say that providing direction like this to CARB is a blank check to industry. It will cause us to have to spend a lot of time defending what the Legislature says, as we always do, and it'll going to end up in a situation where we're going to potentially have many, many more.

The well intended protections of this bill may never actually manifest, and that's something that we're already seeing with SB 905 and regrettably anticipating that we would see if this bill passes today. This bill is not equitable. It will exacerbate environmental inequalities, and fundamentally, it's going to drive investment in an unproven technology, further delaying the investment we want and the things that we know will work. So we have offered to the Senator back in January, to work with his office.

We appreciate his intention with this bill to try to find something that wouldn't further delay the reductions and the benefits for EJ communities that we've been waiting over 17 years for since the passage of AB 32. And that offer continues to stand. But unfortunately, as those discussions have not been happening, we'd ask the Committee to please not pass this bill forward today so that we can continue to work with the Senator's office to figure out how to do this in a more equitable manner. Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Members. Brady Van Engelen, California Chamber of Commerce. Respectfully opposed. We appreciate the work the author put into this bill and the outreach efforts he's made, and we do see CDR as a promising technology to reach our shared carbon neutrality goals. However, this bill includes a layering of a compliance obligation on top of existing science obligations, which we find to be a bit problematic.

We simply think that if this were incorporated into cap and trade, and assigning a multiplier to take account for the value of CDR, that it would actually be a much more feasible solution. So, respectfully opposed.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Members. Virgil Welch, the California Carbon Solutions Coalition. We're a labor business organization committed to ensuring that CCUS technologies are part of California's efforts to achieve our greenhouse gas reduction goals, including climate neutrality in 2045. I did want to state we are very supportive of CDR and fully agree with much of what the gentleman who spoke in support of this bill noted with respect to the role that CDR is going to need to play in California's efforts. That is clear.

Experts have made that clear. The scoping plan has made that clear. We believe CDR has to be part of the equation in addition to CCUS. We would like to see the focus be on development of the protocols and the scaling of the projects to ensure that we can actually start to incorporate those technologies into what we're trying to do to reduce emissions in California, rather than putting yet one more, frankly, flexibility reducing mandate on entities who are already actively working to invest in these technologies, whether they be CDR or CCUS. So for that reason, we are opposed unless amended. And as I stated, we'd like to see the focus, really, beyond the deployment of these technologies. Thank you.

Morning, Mr. Chair. Zach Leary with Western States Petroleum Association. We're opposed. Thanks.

Thank you.

Morning, Chair, Members. Dean Talley with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, respectfully opposed.

Thank you.

Katie Little with the California Farm Bureau, respectfully opposed.

Thank you so much. Okay, phone lines. Let's go to the phone lines, folks who want to weigh in on SB 308.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For those who wish to comment on this bill in support or opposition, please press one then zero at this time. Press one then zero only one time. As pressing one, then zero a second time will remove yourself from the queue. There are people who signaled that they wish to speak. One moment, please. It's. We're going to go first to line 73. Line 73, your line is now open.

Hello, my name is Margaret Ferguson and I'm representing Indivisible Yolo. Our chapter is one of the more than 80 groups that makes up state strong Lolo Indivisible. And we're strongly in support of Senator Becker's Bill 308, the Carbon Dioxide Removal Market Development Act. We think it's a very good bill. Our children and grandchildren will live in an unsustainably hot planet if we don't work right now to reduce legacy harvest in our area. We are trying to meet our goal for carbon neutrality. Thank you so much for letting the opinion of our group in strong support.

Line 65, your line is now open.

Lawrence Abbott, Family Andrew in support.

Line 12, your line is now open.

Hello, my name is Carl Dans and I'm a volunteer with Open Air Collective. I strongly support SB 308. According to the IPCC, as has been noted, we must be removing gigatons of CO2 per year by 2050.

The only way to make that happen is to start aggressively scaling up our capacity to remove legacy emissions that were put in the air by our parents and grandparents since the beginning of the fossil energy era. SB 308 would have the polluters pay, as has been noted. I like that approach and many of the firms that will benefit are based in California.

And I also appreciate that the bill will ensure that investments in CDR bring co-benefits to the state and neighboring communities while avoiding unintended harms. Thank you.

Line 47, your line is now open.

Thank you. My name is Gary Hughes and I work as the America's Program Coordinator with the organization Biofuel Watch, and our organization is in opposition to SB 308. We think this bill is a dangerous distraction in promoting speculative and dangerous technologies. We oppose SB 308.

Line 51, your line is now open.

Hi, my name is Chris Nidal. I am the co-founder of the Open Air Collective, a grassroots network advancing CDR at the state and national level all over the world. And we proudly have over 600 citizen activists in California. I strongly support SB 308. I just want to emphasize a couple of key points that must be borne in mind is, again, carbon removal is necessary. This is per the IPCC.

I'm so sorry, sir, but we're asking folks to just weigh in with their affiliation and their position. But we're happy to accept written testimony later. If we could do the next caller. Thank you.

Line 18, your line is now open.

Yeah, my name is Steve Murphy. I am with Indivisible Yolo in strong support. I'm also a Member of Ocean Iron Fertilization Alliance, which is also in strong support of SB 308. Thank you.

Line 44, your line is now open.

Thank you and good morning, Chair Allen, Committee Members. My name is Sammy Den from Conservation Strategy Group, and we support this bill.

Mr. Chair, there is no one else who signaled that they wish to speak.

Okay, thank you. Let's bring back to the Committee. I know Senator Dahle had some.

Well, I just--this is awesome. I love to see the different people come together on different issues. But at the end of the day, it's about carbon capture and the technologies that we're going to use. And my question is the efficiencies of it. Is it direct carbon capture versus trying to reduce carbon out of a refinery or a smokestack of some sort? But at the end of the day in California, as we know, carbon is not all the same.

If you're a forest fire releasing carbon, we don't count that. If you're a refinery releasing carbon, we count that. But now, last year we saw in legislation that we can't capture that carbon and directly inject it back in the ground to be carbon neutral.

So what's the goal here? So at the end of the day, are we going to really capture carbon at an efficient rate and actually allow these folks to be able to do it, or are we just going to play around the edges and not take this technology that's available to us and actually use it?

I think that's an important clarification of this bill, is that we set up the 85% direct emissions reductions and then the 15% carbon removal in the bill that passed last year. Carbon capture from the point of emissions is part of the 85%. So that is considered a direct emissions reduction. This bill doesn't touch that area at all. So that was under other legislation that's going forward. This bill doesn't touch that. This is the 15% of carbon removal.

And these are the new kinds of technologies that our witness talked about that people are using to actually sequester carbon in cements now, going forward, right. Kind of reversing the process of making cement that releases emissions. They're actually using it to capture it. Other people are using it to paralysis and to bury it. So again, just to be really clear, so this is completely separate from that. That's going forward. That's a direct emissions reduction.

This is saying we also need to scale up carbon removal, and that could be direct air capture. Right. That's just remove, as you know, direct air capture. You've seen just removing it from the atmosphere. It works today. It's just very expensive. And there's hundreds of other technologies now. They work. Some of them are still pretty expensive. And this is to create a long term, predictable market. Unlike what was said, it's not a market mechanism like cap and trade. This is just creating market demand. This is much more analogous to the renewable portfolio standard.

The renewable portfolio standard said utilities have to purchase a certain amount of renewables, and that was an unproven technology or high cost technology, and then the cost came down over time. We're just trying to do the exact same thing in carbon removal.

Okay. I'd love to ask you, Senator, you've heard a variety of concerns from the opposition. I'm very different in nature, of course. Could you just give some thoughts on some of the comments that are made? We've certainly been hoping that you'd be engaging with stakeholders, including to ensure that protections for frontline communities are effective, that communities are meaningfully engaged. There are also some concerns about how this is going to from industry. I'd love to just hear your response, I suppose, to some of the various concerns that were raised just now.

Sure. Yeah. Let me just start with, I'll take it in order. Sure. Comments from friends in the Environmental Justice community. There's a concern, which I get, and I get that people are skeptical about CARB because of some of the things that happen in our existing cap and trade system. And so I absolutely get that. And there's concern raised that this would give a blank check to CARB. My response is it's exactly the opposite. CARB already has a blank check. CARB already defines carbon removal in the scoping plan.

CARB can already do whatever it wants now with carbon removal. And I think there's a very real concern we could end up with a very weak carbon removal with weak offsets that allows us to get to net zero, but not really because those aren't real offsets. It's not actually carbon that's captured and stored for hundreds of years.

So this bill actually puts guardrails on what CARB can do, and I hope folks will see it that way, and I hope we can continue those discussions about those guardrails, number one. Number two, I also get there's just a general concern, both with carbon capture and with carbon removal that somehow it just is going to let industry keep polluting, and it's an excuse for industry to keep polluting. Again, my response is I'm full forward, as you know, on everything we can do to reduce emissions.

And I've got many bills on those this year. But still, if you look at any reputable scientist, they say we also need carbon capture and we also need carbon removal. And as we've heard here today, so this notion that this is somehow going to delay or distract from direct emissions reductions, I just think if you look at the intent of the Legislature and everything else we're doing, this is not going to distract at all. This is just completely separate, saying we also need these other things.

Concerns about harm to communities, again, CARB already has a blank check. We're actually putting in a lot of safeguards for communities. And those specifically are conversations that I look forward to continue with Environmental Justice communities. I think there's a lot of work we can do together there to really define those guardrails and make sure that we're doing whatever we can to make sure it's not harmful to communities.

Because we know those communities are going to benefit a lot from the overall reduction of carbon. But we want to make sure that there's not negative externalities from the carbon removal itself. So that's on that front. On the other front saying that this should be part of cap and trade, I don't think there's any appetite from the Legislature to reopen cap and trade, and I just don't think it's going to happen.

So to say, hey, this should be part of cap and trade, I think that just is a separate battle that people probably don't want to fight and just going to confuse things. And again, as we said, this is very separate from cap and trade. Cap and trade puts a limit on emissions and then divvies that up and people can pollute up into that. This is completely separate. This is just creating a market mechanism. Well, not really market mechanism. This is just creating a market. Right.

Just saying, hey, companies have to purchase it. Over time, investors can invest in these new technologies, and that's why we feel it's very complementary to that. And then the question is really on who pays. And our belief it should be a polluter pays model. And if you believe in carbon removal, if you believe in these new technologies, then it's actually not going to be that costly for industry. For know, we hope they'll come on board with that model as well. So it's still pretty early.

We look forward to continuing those conversations. I know with some folks we've been talking to, they're pointing to Stanford and Stanford scientists. And then just this week, Stanford, the new Doerr Center, which is their new $1.0 billion sustainability school, announced atmospheric carbon removal as their first focus area. So I'm looking forward to getting together with some of the opposition with experts at Stanford to focus on that. Because if they've said this is our first focus area, atmospheric carbon removal, great. We want to work with them.

We want to be part of that. So I think there's a lot of conversations to be had going forward, and so I ask you to pass this bill today, and we'll look forward to keep working on it.

Okay, why don't we take that as your close, and we'll entertain a motion when we have a quorum. We do have a quorum. We do have a quorum, even though she left. All right, move by Senator Menjivar. Secretary, please call a roll.

The motion is do passed to Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay, two to one. We'll leave that on call. Why don't we? Thank you. Thank you so much, Senator. Senator Portantino I saw running around. He stepped out. Okay, why don't we entertain a motion for the consent calendar? Secretary, please call the roll.

The consent calendar consists of SB 493 and SB 303. [Roll Call]

Okay, we'll leave that on call. I know that.

I make a motion on Senator Jones's bill.

Senator Jones's bill, SB 32. Senator Dahle moves SB 32, item one.

Motion is do pass to the Governance and Finance Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay, that's one to one. That's on call. I know that. Senator Menjivar also wanted to move the Durazo bill. That's SB 415, item four. Won't we take that up?

The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay, two to one. That's on call. All right, we're waiting for authors Senator Limon, Senator Portantino, Senator Caballero, come on down. We'll take a quick. Let me check to see if these folks are coming, and then if not, we'll proceed with our bill. Hang on a second. Okay.

We're going to take a quick recess for just a second.

390.

Well, clearly the person who is a little taller.

You may proceed when ready. Yeah, that was Becker.

Good morning, Chair and Senators. I present to you SB 390, a bill that would enact protections for purchasers of carbon offsets. Carbon offsets, also known as carbon credits, are tradable financial that claim to represent a reduction of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Due to the lack of regulations and enforceable standards, the carbon offset markets are broken and we are seeing businesses lose confidence in this product.

This bill would bring much needed clarity and accountability to the voluntary offsets space by establishing truth in advertising rules for offsets. If you participate in these markets, any claims made to California customers must be founded in a reasonable basis that the projects underpinning the offsets produce real, quantifiable, and additional carbon benefits. As stated by the academic researchers who support this bill, we have based our bill on standard industry terminology and common industry best practices, and I expect that good faith actors will be able to comply.

We have allowed these markets to develop with no government oversight for more than three decades now, and the evidence is piling up that enforceable standards must be in place to restore confidence in these products. To protect Californians and to protect our climate goals, I ask for support of this measure.

Okay, do you have folks who testify in support? Here we go.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee. Alfredo De Rodondo, here on behalf of a company called H Cycle. H Cycle is a renewable hydrogen developer planning to do a lot of work here in California. But I wanted to take a moment to really articulate the business impact of having junk offsets permeate the market, not only here in California, but internationally.

And what that ultimately means for the folks that are actually working on how you defosilize our economy and move away from fossil fuels altogether. The fact is that there is a lot of commitments being made to achieve carbon neutrality, not only for our state, but really across the globe. And I think that's leading people to the assumption that you can offset your way out of this.

We do agree that offsets have a role to play, but ultimately, really what we're talking about, what the challenge is, is getting our emissions down to a level where we're not emitting fossil carbon into the atmosphere and being able to transform our economy to one that can be sustainable in achieving all our climate goals. And having junk offsets in the marketplace really becomes a stain on all the climate projects that we're all working on, and it becomes an excuse.

So we really do support and applaud the efforts of the Senator in moving this measure forward and strongly support this measure and respectfully request an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, other folks who want to weigh in and support? Folks who want to weigh in opposition, raise concerns about the bill? Let's go to the phone lines is SB 390.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to Bill 390, please press one then zero at this time. Press one, then zero. Mr. Chair, no one has signaled that they wish to speak.

Okay, let's bring it back to the Committee. Thoughts, questions? Okay. All right, well, appreciate you, Senator. We will entertain a motion when there's another Democrat who's here who's not the Chair or the author, unless Senator Dahle wants to.

I'm actually going to lay off the bill. And the reason is I'm trying to figure out how you're going to enforce it. That's my concern with the bill. So I'm going to wait till I get more information on it. So I'm not opposed or in support yet.

All right, thank you.

Is she allowed? She can move her own bill.

She can't move her own bill, but we can wait.

Okay.

Yes. Okay, great.

Thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you.

I'll move the bill.

Okay. Thank you, Senator. That's very kind. All right, let's call the roll.

Okay, SB 390. The motion is do pass to the Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay, that's on call. Why don't we let Senator Limon add on to the other votes that we have. Let's start with Item One. This is SB 32: Jones, that the Chair is not supporting.

And it's 'do pass to the Governance and Finance Committee.' [Roll Call].

Okay, we'll go to Item Two. That's SB 308 by Becker.

Current vote is two to one. Senator--Chair voting aye. Vice Chair voting no. [Roll Call].

Okay. Three to one; we'll put that back on call. Let's go to Limon's bill so that Senator Menjivar can add on. This is SB 390.

390. [Roll Call].

Three to zero. That's back on call. Let's do the Durazo bill, SB 415.

Current vote is two to one. Chair voting aye. Vice Chair voting no. [Roll Call].

Three to one. Back on call. Let's do the consent calendar.

The consent calendar: File Item Eight and File Item Number 15. [Roll Call].

We'll put that back on call. And I guess Senator Portantino is still presenting in Governance and Finance. All right, let's hear from Senator Blakespear: Item Nine in your agendas. This is greenhouse gas emissions inventories.

Well, thank you, Chair and colleagues. I appreciate your patience. I was coming from another Committee, as I think many of us do.

No, thank you. I know. Thank you so much. You may proceed when ready.

Okay, so this is SB 511, and I just wanted to say first, thank you to the work of the Committee consultants on the analysis of this bill. I've accepted the amendments that were proposed by the Committee consultants. So today I present to you SB 511, which would direct the California Air Resources Board or CARB, to prepare and provide data on greenhouse gas emissions for local jurisdictions. This will help them in preparing their climate action plans and subsequently then, of course, reducing their emissions.

So the bill would provide CARB with an appropriation to carry out these activities. So we're well past the eleventh hour for addressing the advances of climate change. 2021 was the sixth hottest year ever--wildfires, floods, extreme heat, cold, drought, all manifestations of this existential threat to California's communities--and we can still take action to mitigate the severity and frequency of these events. So, collectively, reducing our GHG emissions is critical.

California has taken numerous steps to incentivize private corporations and consumers and to direct public agencies to reduce GHG emissions, and these have been implemented with great success. But we should do better at the local level. So I know this as the former mayor of the City of Encinitas, where we took these challenges to heart. In 2015, SB 379 directed cities and counties to incorporate climate adaptation and resilience strategies into their general plans.

But most local governments have struggled to effectively develop these strategies due to the resources and expertise that are required to collect and maintain accurate data on GHG emissions. The data is essential for setting reduction goals and measuring progress toward meeting these goals. So directing CARB to provide cities and counties with an inventory of their GHG emissions will enable them to create data-driven climate action plans that are more effective.

In addition, by making CARB responsible, SB 511 would ensure consistency in data collection and methodology that allows for a robust analysis of regional and statewide trends. Finally, having CARB collect these data points will simply be more cost-effective. Rather than funding each individual city and county to hire specialized staff to carry out this function, we can achieve economies of scale by directing CARB to do this.

I now invite my sponsors, Jody London from Contra Costa County, and Brian Schuster from the Environmental Science Association to provide their testimony on this bill.

Hi there.

Good morning. My name is Jody London. I'm the Sustainability Coordinator for Contra Costa County. My job is to oversee implementation of our county's climate action plan. An important tool in our work is tracking progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions inventories are necessary. Residents want to know our progress, and inventories provide value to our board of supervisors in understanding how to invest limited funds. Right now, only half of jurisdictions in the state have a climate action plan or emissions inventory.

Only one-third are tracking emissions reductions targets. Local governments face challenges with staff, funds, and the skill set needed to develop inventory. Of the 19 cities in Contra Costa County, most are lucky if they are able to assign one person halftime to work on climate issues. Across the state, the lack of inventories is one of the biggest barriers to substantial local action. Having the Air Resources Board develop emissions inventories will provide many benefits for local governments and for California.

First, this would provide standard metrics across the state, allowing apples to apples comparisons of progress. Second, there would be great value for local governments as the state realizes economies of scale. Our rough estimate is that the cost for each local government to develop its own emissions inventory can be as high as 40,000 dollars, while having a centralized inventory developed by the state would be about 4,000 dollars per jurisdiction, a tenfold difference. This lack of inventories presents an equity concern statewide in terms of who has access to data.

There will be greater participation by local governments on climate action if there's a statewide inventory. Local governments will be able to focus on implementation. The inventory tool previously provided for free to all local governments by the Air Board is no longer free, and there is no staff support internally or externally to help local governments.

We've seen a significant decrease in the number of inventories since this help was rescinded. Cities and counties want to help California reach its ambitious goals, and we need the state's help with the data to inform our actions. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. You come up to give some testimony? Okay. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. I am Brian Schuster, Air Quality and Climate Change Director at Environmental Science Associates, and I'm here representing the California Association of Environmental Professionals Climate Change Committee, in support of this bill. I have prepared hundreds of greenhouse gas inventories and dozens of caps for cities and counties across California in my 15 years of consulting experience.

SB 511 supports local climate action planning, which is critical to achieving the state's long-term climate goals. By providing inventories, SB 511 will give local governments a head start on their caps, which will help communities align with statewide targets and transition to a low-carbon economy. Many cities and counties want to develop a cap but cannot due to this cost and time commitment. This bill will reduce costs and staff time, making caps more accessible.

In turn, this will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions statewide. According to CARB, quote, 'a substantial portion of California's GHG emission reduction potential comes from activities over which local governments have authority or influence.' Cities and counties control local land use, building energy standards, and transportation services. Local action is a core component of CARB's 2022 Scoping Plan. Caps create the necessary conditions for state policies to succeed. The state is counting on local governments to reduce emissions, and this bill will help more cities and counties do that.

As you heard before, inventory data collection can be costly and time-consuming. This is especially true for energy use and vehicle activity data. CARB can centralize and streamline this process. I know from experience doing multiple inventories that it's far more cost-effective to do it that way than doing them one by one. Finally, SB 511 will help cities monitor progress and adjust their strategies to reduce emissions more effectively.

This will also allow CARB to see the contribution from local to statewide emissions and better implement its own programs. The AEP Climate Change Committee has strategies and ideas for how to successfully implement this bill, and we are more than ready to work with CARB moving forward. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, other folks who want to weigh in support?

Good morning, Chair and Members. Roger Dickinson, on behalf of CivicWell, formerly Local Government Commission, cosponsor of the bill, in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Priscilla Quiroz, here on behalf of StopWaste and City of West Hollywood, in support.

Morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Ross Buckley, on behalf of the City of Sacramento, in support.

Good morning. Lillian Mirviss with MCE and Northern California Community Choice Aggregator, here in support. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you so much. Opposition to the bill? Folks who want to raise concerns? All right, seeing none, let's go to the phone lines.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this bill, please press one then zero at this time. Press one then zero only one time as pressing it twice will remove you from the queue. We're going to go to line 56. Your line is now open.

Good morning. Woody Hastings, Phase Out Polluting Fuels Program Manager with Climate Center, in support of SB 511.

Line 78, your line is now open.

Good morning. Valerie Ventre-Hutton, representing 350 Bay Area Action, the Democrats of Rossmoor, and Sustainable Rossmoor, in strong support.

There is no one else.

Okay. All right, let's bring that item back to the Members. Senator Dahle.

You are accepting the Committee amendments?

Yes.

Thank you for those. It makes the bill a lot better, I think, and it allows for the voluntary option to come in. So for that, I will move the bill.

Thank you. All right, any other questions? You may close.

Thank you. So I appreciate your support of this bill. I just want to say briefly that when I served as the Mayor of the City of Encinitas, when we wanted to do a mode shifting project that would put in a major bike lane takeout, a lane of traffic, it was nearly impossible to tell what the emissions reduction from that project would be.

And that's the kind of data that helps support projects like that in a community that maybe is aligned in some ways, but not in other ways. And so providing this data to cities that want it will really help us to fight climate change at the local level, and ultimately, that is where climate change will be solved. So I just want to say thank you so much for your support. I urge an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. Thank you. Okay, it's been moved by Senator Dahle, and let's go ahead and do the vote.

The motion is 'do pass as amended to the Appropriations Committee.' [Roll Call].

Four to zero. We'll put that on call. Thank you so much, Senator. All right, I see Senator Portantino here, fresh from the Governance and Finance Committee. He's here to present SB 422. That's item five in your agendas, Members. You may proceed when ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. This bill should look familiar to a number of you on the Committee because you heard a similar bill last year and voted for it on the floor as well. Senators, California is leading in addressing climate change policy, innovation, and technology, much of it driven by the Chair. And to implement that state ambitious climate goals and achieve the target reductions in emissions, significant modifications must be made to our existing facilities and infrastructure.

If we're going to meet our goals, we got to have the capacity to actually meet our goals. To implement these ambitious goals and achieve the target reductions emissions, significant changes must be made to help. SB 422 aims to expand the CEQA review process for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, incorporate pollution control equipment, and meet energy efficient standards, while providing for a skilled and trained workforce to ensure that the state can meet its climate goals and minimize duplicate work and expenses.

SB 422 will eliminate layers of environmental review for certain projects without compromising environmental protection. These policies will help facilitate the building of climate oriented projects by providing certainty in designing, financing, permitting, and provide for a skilled workforce. With me today we have Beverly Yu with the State Building and Construction Trades Council and Tim Carmichael with the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote when appropriate. And I want to compliment the Chair for working closely with me.

And I know he is going to be continuing to monitor this bill as it moves through the process as last year, and we hope we get engagement from the governor's efforts on infrastructure as well. We know there's an infrastructure tsar that's been appointed and we look forward for a broader conversation, and it's just important to get something done that helps make us meet our goals. So with that, I'll hear from my witnesses.

Okay, let's hear from the witnesses.

Mr. Members. Beverly Yu on behalf of State Building Construction Trades Council, proud sponsor of SB 422. I defer my time to Mr. Medrano here with the LAOC Building Trades. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning, Senator Allen, Members of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. My name is Ernesto Medrano, council representative for the Los Angeles and Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council. Senate Bill 422 is a bill that enables our existing industries to implement pollution control devices in a way that is safe, efficient, and effective. We have a lot of work to do in California to reach our super aggressive climate goals. This requires a multilayered approach.

We need to bring on more green generation and this is something that the LAOC building trades are working on in earnest, converting the scattered good power plant to hydrogen, building sustainable aviation fuel facilities, and embarking on carbon capture to scale. We are excited about our work with arches to hopefully make LA a hydrogen hub and our members are poised to work on offshore wind construction up and down the coast.

It was our members that traveled to the high desert to build a vast utility scale of wind and solar fields that made California a global leader. Beyond new generation, we are ahead of the curve, building in ways that decrease emissions. We have led the way in most environmentally innovative construction. Take a look at all the LED platinum buildings that we've built in Southern California. In fact, I think this building is one of those.

And our apprenticeship training centers began training in climate innovation long before it became a reality in California with our IBW Local 11 Building, the first net zero training center of the state. Beyond new generation and new construction, we also need to look at existing needed industries in California. Nearly every blue collar job is to some extent depending on an emitting industry. We cannot and certainly should not wipe out employment opportunities for our blue collar workforce. So we need to work together to make these industries cleaner.

And that is what SB 422 is all about, making our employers' ongoing operations as clean as possible and doing so with the highest skilled and trained construction workers in the nation. There's a lot of talk in the capitol about finding common ground between our state's blue collar workforce industry and environmentalists. Well, SB 42 does just that.

We sincerely appreciate the work Senator Portantino has done with the building trades on this bill, and for the reasons above, I ask your support of Senate Bill 422 on behalf of the LAOC Building and Construction Trades Council. We ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, sir.

Good morning. Tim Carmichael with the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance. Good to see you, Senators. Good to be here in support of SB 422. Siebe is a coalition of labor, business and environmental policy leaders working together on environmentally sustainable solutions and a strong economy here in California. In 2022, this Legislature increased California's already ambitious climate goals, setting a target of 85% reduction in greenhouse gases below 1990 levels and carbon neutrality by 2045. This Committee, along with Assembly Natural Resources, the Joint Legislative Committee on Climate Change, and others have expressed concerns about our progress towards these goals.

Additionally, California has significant goals for short lived climate pollutants, zero emission vehicles, natural and working lands, 100% renewable and clean electricity by 2045. All of these energy and climate goals will require new infrastructure at a scale and pace that the scoping plan and other planning documents illustrate is multiple times faster than California has ever built new infrastructure.

Growing consensus from a range of media outlets, from CalMATTERS to the LA Times to the Wall Street Journal and within the uncertainty analysis of the scoping plan indicate that CEQA is a major barrier to achieving our climate and energy ambition. The governor stated as recently as the end of February of this year, our CEQA process is clearly broken. SB 422 is a modest effort to improve CEQA for some of California's decarbonization projects.

We are committed to protecting the environmental integrity of CEQA while providing certainty for project developers to quickly put capital to work reducing emissions here in California.

If we could ask you to wrap up.

Okay. We appreciate Senator Portantino's leadership on this challenging but critical policy. We would welcome the opportunity to work with the centers of this Committee to help convey the urgency of new infrastructure that is needed to enable the achievement of California's greenhouse gas reduction goals. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Okay, other folks who want to just give their name and affiliation in support?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members. Matt Cremins, on behalf of the California Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers, in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Dominic Lucero, business agent for Bowl Makers Local 549, along with all my other brothers and sisters in support.

Krista Warner, with Western Propane Gas Association, in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Troy Arnson, business agent for the Iron Workers Local 118 here in Sacramento, in support.

Virgil Welch, California Carbon Solutions Coalition, in support.

Hector Mesa, unit electrician in support. Sorry, I still want to say this disappointment at 740 got taken out. I came all the way from the Imperial Valley, so hopefully we'll make it next week. Thank you.

Good morning. Raymond Davis, President, Iron Workers Local 118, in support.

Support. Thank you, sir. Yeah.

Vince Segue, on behalf of Sheet Metal Workers Local 104, in support.

Aloha. Mitchell Bechtel, on behalf of the District Council of Iron Workers, in support.

Evan Timothy Jefferson, international representative from Boilermakers, in support of the bill. And we will be back next week for SB 740. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. John Hershey, on behalf of Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, Local 447 here in Sacramento in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Angel Greer, with Local 549 out of Pittsburgh here to support SB 422 and SB 740. Thank you.

Good morning. Randy Thomas, Boilermakers Local 549 business manager, secretary treasurer, in support.

Thank you.

Che Rothschild, Boilermakers 549, in support.

Good morning. David Hogan Dorn, Boilermakers Local 549, in support.

Good morning. Luis Miramontes, business manager for Boilermakers Local 92 out of Los Angeles, in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Go Dodgers.

James Warren, Local 549 apprentice for support.

Good morning. Catherine Barr, Local 549 apprentice in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Alfredo Leva, with Boilermakers Local 92 in support.

James Bradshaw, Local 549 in support.

Good morning. Maurice Jones, Local 549, in support.

Thank you so much. Another Dodger fan.

Jessica Sepela, Boilermakers Local 92, in support.

Thank you. Thank you so much, everybody. Thank you. Anyone who wants to raise concerns about the bill? Opposition? Anyone on the phone lines is the phone lines for SB 422?

Anyone who wishes to speak in support or opposition to 442, please press one, then zero at this time. Press one, then zero. And Mr. Chair, we have several people who have signaled that they wish to speak. One moment. We're now going to go to line 11. Your line is now open.

Thank you. Manny Panero, Monterey San Cruz County Building Construction Trades Council. We're in support with the State Building Trades SB 422. Thank you,

Thank you.

Line 30, your line is now open. Line 30, your line is open.

This is Danny Wright, Plumbers and Pipe Cutters, UA Local 246 in Fresno. We are in support of SB 420.

Line 33, your line is open.

Hi, good morning. This is Anthony Visquisto, business agent for Local 16 Heat and Frost Insulators, and we are in support of bill 422. Thank you.

Line 32, your line is open.

Good morning, Committee. This is John Henry Lopez with the UA Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, Local 246 out of Fresno, and we stand in support of SB 422. Thank you.

As a reminder, if you press 1 and 0 a second time, this will remove you from the comments queue. We're now going to go to line 28. Line 28, your line is now open.

Thank you. This is Mark Buff from IBEW Local 595 representing Alameda, San Joaquin, and Calaveras County electricians. We are in strong support of Bill 422. We'll be back next week for Bill 740. Thank you.

Line 58, your line is now open.

Broader and Pride, Local 549 in strong support.

Line 41, your line is now open.

Good morning, this is Jason Gumatalto with IBEW Local 595, stand in support of SB 422. Thank you.

Line 59, your line is now open.

Morning. This is Mike Greenley representing Painters and Allied Trades Picture Council 16 and we are in support.

Line 49, your line is now open.

Morning, my name is Paul Moreno, President of Iron Workers Local 433, Los Angeles. And we stand in strong support with the Building Trades on SB 422. Thank you.

Line 17, your line is now open.

Hi, Derek Cole with Electrical Workers Local 302, and we stand in support. Thank you.

We have several more people of signal that they wish to speak. One moment, please. Line 74, your line is now open.

Good morning, my name is Robert Ofetta, training coordinator for Plumbers and Pipe Fitters out here in Fresno, Local 246, and we are in support of this bill and go Giants.

I don't know now.

I align my comments with the Chair.

Line 10, your line is now open.

Yes, this is Bill Chisholm with the International Union of Elevated Constructors, Local Eight, and we are in strong support. Thank you.

Line 20, your line is now open.

Good morning. This is Brandon Lovingberg, business agent, UA Local 246 Plumbers, Pipe Fitters and HBRC Techs at Fresno in support of SB 422.

Ladies and gentlemen, final call. For anyone who wishes to comment on this bill, please press one, then zero. Mr. Chair, there is no one else who signaled that they wish to speak.

Okay, thank you. So much. Let's bring it back to the Committee for questions, comments.

I'll move the bill. Go Kings. How's that?

All right. Yeah. Light the beam. All right, let's let you close.

Now, as it's been stated, we have ambitious goals. We need to try to meet them, and we need to try to meet them in an environmentally sound way. And that's the sweet spot we're trying to hit. And I look forward to working with the Chair and continuing as this bill moves forward and respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. All right, so move by Senator Dahle, let's call the roll.

The motion is do pass to the Labor Public Employment and Retirement Committee. [Roll Call]

Senator Gonzalez said I could present her Bill, so I'm just going to go ahead and do it. That'd be great. That'd be great. Yeah. This is item 13. It's a resolution. Um. Yeah. You're good at this. I know you can do this.

All right. Don't ask me questions.

Yeah.

Either way.

Do you have a preference where I do it from?

You can do it from there. Happy to... So we're going to have Senator Limon present SJR2, item 13.

Great. Thank you, Members. I'm presenting SJR2 on behalf of Senator Gonzalez. This measure would formally endorse the call for a fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty, State of California's agreement with the principle of nonproliferation of fossil fuels, and urged the United States government to join in formally developing a fossil fuel non proliferation treaty. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you so much, Senator. Folks who want to weigh in support of the SJR.

Wilbur here for Climate Action California in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jordan Harmon, policy analyst with the Indigenous Environmental Network, and I am signed up for witness testimony. According to the 2023 IPCC report, fossil fuels development is a primary cause of global warming. Coal, oil and gas account for 86% of all co2 emissions. In the past decade, the block of six Pacific nations representing primarily indigenous populations has called for the international community to join this fossil fuel nonproliferation treaty and for a just transition away from fossil fuels on a global scale.

As the fifth largest subnational economy in the world, California has a unique responsibility to lead the way for this country's transition. By adopting SJR2, you can join the over 80 cities and subnational governments already supporting this call, including the City of Los Angeles and the State of Hawaii. Each fraction of a degree of warming results in climate devastation and millions of people being displaced.

Even the goal of the Paris Agreement of capping warming at 1.5 degrees celsius is a devastating compromise that will lead to sacrifice the world's most vulnerable people, especially indigenous peoples. The IPCC report shows that emissions from just the current existing and planned fossil fuels infrastructure already planned will vastly surpass 1.5 degrees in warming. Carbon removal technologies are not enough, and 1.5 will never be achieved without phasing out fossil fuels.

As a result, indigenous peoples suffer devastating damages such as loss of land and sacred sites, food sovereignty and culture. It's our right as indigenous peoples to practice our cultures in this land and climate devastation is a direct threat to that right. California has among the highest indigenous populations in the country. California is also among the states suffering the most from climate destruction as a direct result of fossil fuels development.

By adopting SJR2, you can add California's powerful voice to the call that we are ready for an international treaty to phase out fossil fuels, because we have to be. And you are upholding your responsibility to your state and to the indigenous peoples of this land to protect the vital public and cultural resources. So we ask that you vote yes for SJR2.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes, sir.

Good morning, everyone. Michael Brune, former Executive Director of the Sierra Club and former chair of the Blue Green alliance, here to speak and offer some testimony as well. I just want to say it's a privilege to be here to speak in support of California extending its leadership on climate and clean energy. California was one of the first states in the country to phase out coal, and we're almost done with the job.

Almost all coal that's being used in the state has been phased out over the last few years. California is also one of the first, obviously, to pass the rooftop solar Bill. 1.5 million households now using solar, almost completely phasing out of gas, effectively banning the internal combustion engine to reduce our demand for oil. The full suite of policies that California has adopted, 100% clean energy, the net zero by 2045. All of these policies have done a great job in reducing our demand for fossil fuels.

But almost everyone will recognize that supply and demand are linked. And if we're going to cut supply, just like when you're cutting something with scissors, you have to have a sharp blade. And right now we're cutting our carbon with only one sharp blade. We need to link supply and demand and cut the supply at the same time that we cut our demand.

So this resolution would do what is obviously needed, which is to have a thoughtful, managed wind down of fossil fuels to couple all of the great work that we're doing to reduce the demand for fossil fuels. It's not enough to simply say we have to reduce our use of coal and oil and gas. We also have to reduce the production. We want to be exporting not pollution, not pessimism, but optimism and innovation in clean energy in this state.

So let's please show the country and the world that California is ready to continue to lead on clean energy. Let's pass SJR2. And one final thing. Go A's.

All right, moneyball man. All right. Any other folks who want to weigh in support, give their affiliation name and affiliation?

Good morning. Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity and strong support with thanks to the author.

Thank you. All right, opposition concerns. Zach, attack.

Morning, Mr. Chair. And apologies. Didn't get our letter in, but we are posting.

It's all good. Thank you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? Okay, let's go to the phone lines. SJR2.

If you wish to speak in support or opposition, please press one, then zero. We're going to go to line 83. Your line is now open. Line 83, your line is open. We're going to move on from line 83. And we're going to go to line 91.

Good morning. Woody Hastings, a polluting fuel program manager with The Climate Center in support of SJR2.

Pardon me, line 91. We couldn't hear you very well. If you want to repeat that please.

Yes. Woody Hastings up polluting fuels program manager with The Climate Center in support of SJR2. Thank you.

Thank you. Going to move on to line 90.

Yes. RL Miller from Climate Hawks. Vote in strong support. And go, Dodgers.

There you go.

Line 85, your line is now open.

Hi, my name is Nathan Taft. I'm a senior digital campaigner with Stand.earth calling in support of SJR2 for the organizations Stand.earth and Safe Cities. Thank you.

Line 89, your line is now open.

Thank you. This is Gary Hughes, the America's Program Coordinator for Biofuelwatch, and our organization is in support of SJR2. Thank you.

And we're going to give line 83 an opportunity to press one, then zero again, please. Mr. Chair, there. Pardon me just a moment. We're going to go now to line 83.

It's confusing. Gannett Cox for climate action in California. We're very much in support.

Too much going on today.

Mr. Chair. There is no one else.

Great. Thank you so much. Let's bring it back to the Committee. Questions, comments, thoughts from the Members. Okay, thank you. I think this is very much in line with our values. Appreciate you bringing this forward, Senator. Appreciate your forbearance, appreciate the motion and the initial presentation from Senator Limon. And with that, I'd love to give you the opportunity to close.

I just want to thank Senator Limon, now that we're in this era of baseball, for pinch hitting, for me. Yes. And I also want to thank Mr. Brune and Ms. Harmon for their incredible work. Actually, the reason I brought this forward was my visit to COP15 last year where one of our indigenous partners said, why isn't California a part of this? Why do we not take a stand on non proliferation for fossil fuels. And that was the impetus for me bringing this forward.

And so with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote. And I thank everybody for being here.

Thank you, Senator. Okay, moved by Senator Limon. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is to be adopted. Senators Allen? Allen, aye. Dahle? Dahle, no. Gonzalez? Gonzalez, Aye. Limon? Limon aye. Menjivar? Menjivar, aye. Nguyen? Skinner?

Okay, great. Thank you so much. We're going to leave that on call for other Members to add on. Let's ask our Senator Caballero to come forward to present item six as SB 438. You may proceed.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And Senators, thank you for the opportunity to present SB 438, a Bill that clarifies provisions from last year's carbon capture Bill, SB 905. Climate change in California, has increased in severity and poses a significant threat. As we all know, California has led the world to create policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and to move our state to meet the goals to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2045.

Numerous experts, and these are the ones that I have been working with to include the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, Stanford University, Lawrence Libermore National Laboratory, UC Berkeley, UCLA, and the California Air Resources Board, agree that carbon capture, removal, utilization, and storage is a critical and necessary component of successful climate action. On September 162022 Governor Newsom signed into law SB 905 as part of the historic climate package, establishing breakthrough policy for CcRus application.

SB 905 was an essential element and commitment to achieve carbon neutrality. The Bill established a carbon capture, removal, utilization and storage program to evaluate the safety and efficacy of carbon capture and removal technologies, maximize workforce benefits, and protect frontline communities by minimizing impacts to health, safety, and the environment from these new innovative technologies. Since the passage of the Bill, several stakeholders and scientific researchers have assisted with recommendations to clarify the intent of the specific provisions of the Bill without changing the original direction or meaning.

SB 438 specifically clarifies an unintended residual oil that is expressed during sequestration, is not considered enhanced oil recovery when there is no oil production well equipment present. And that's really important. There's no oil production well equipment present. This simple change will allow California to continue its work to balance efficient project approval processes and thorough health and safety guidelines and reporting mechanisms, and gives California an avenue for emissions reduction projects while maintaining our strict environmental standards.

And I have to say that if there is the expression of oil, it gets reported to the appropriate agencies as an oil expression as part of the process. It's not that it's just allowed, and we close our eyes, we monitor it, and it's part of the CCRUs process. So with me to testify in support is Virgil Welch from the California Carbon Solution Coalition.

Hi. Virgil may proceed.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator. Members Virgil Welch, California Carbon Solutions Coalition. As you heard from the Senator, and as we heard this morning a little bit as well, CCSC is a critical component of California's efforts to achieve our climate goals, 2030, and specifically carbon neutrality in 2045. We have world class geology in this state for the permanent and safe storage of greenhouse gas emissions that will contribute to our climate goals.

We have dozens and dozens of industries who are poised to make investments in these technologies, and we now, thanks to Senator Caballero, have a framework to start to deploy rapidly these projects that we are going to need. So this Bill builds on that framework. It's a part of the effort that we are all collectively working on to make sure that we have the right framework in place so we can get CCus technologies deployed and operational and contributing to our climate goals in California.

Be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Theo. Mr. Chairman, Members Theo Pahos, representing Calpine. Just to be clear, this Bill does not degrade in any way the prohibition against enhanced oil recovery that was passed by Senator Limon last year. Really, this is the story of how this economy is transitioning. Right? What used to be used to produce or to store oil will be used instead to capture carbon and then permanently sequester it.

When you do that, you might get a little bit of oil that comes out that's not to be produced, that's to be disposed of, as the Senator said in her opening remarks. So it really does nothing but have a technical clarification of SB 905. And for those reasons, we support it. Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Israel Salas with SoCal gas and San Diego Gas and Electric in support. Thank you.

All right, let's hear from other folks who maybe want to weigh in in support. Metoos, any opposition concerns about the Bill?

Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity in Opposition. Thank you.

Great. Let's go to the phone lines. Anyone who else raised concerns about the Bill? 438 or raise support for the Bill? 438. For those who wish to speak in support or opposition to this Bill, please press one, then zero at this time. We're going to go first to line 91. Your line is now open.

Woody Hastings, phase out polluting fuels, program manager for the climate center, respectfully opposition to SB 438.

Good morning, chair and Members. Elise Fandrich from Tretton Price consulting on behalf of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, respectfully opposed.

Line 95, your line is now open.

Hello, everyone. Melissa Roth on behalf of Sierra Club California, in opposition of SB 438. Thank you.

Mr. Chair. There is no one else who signaled that they wish to speak.

All right, great. Let's bring it back to the Committee. Questions? Comments? Thoughts? Senator Gonzalez?

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. And Senator Caballero, I first want to thank you. I know you and Senator Limon have been working on this issue for the last year. We worked very closely together on the climate package. So I thank you for that, first and foremost, because I know what your intentions are here.

I do want to ask you about the opposition and what they argue in terms of, and I have questions, too, as to the broader impacts and what thresholds would be considered accidental or incidental oil, because I think the question is, and I think the opposition lined it out, is we understand that carbon capture is part of our future. We certainly want it to be part of our future.

But knowing that at scale, at some point in the next, maybe two to 510 years, we're going to have a lot of carbon capture projects potentially. What does this look like? And I'm just afraid that, I agree with the opposition that at some point we're going to have accidental oil left and right, and then what does that mean for the communities impacted?

And although they do have to report this out, I'm just wondering if you can address what that could look like and how we can continue to safeguard our communities. I appreciate, both of us care about.

Well, thank you for that question, and I appreciate it very much. Some of the opposition is just simply, we don't like carbon capture, and it's still the same old battle. But the issue over what's the difference between, first of all, is that what we've said is that if there's no equipment to take that oil and to use it, then, number one, it's incidental to the carbon capture.

Number two is that there's a regulatory agency already that determines what happens when there's been an oil spill and what has to happen in mitigation and at what point of an extraction that's gone wrong, for example, at what point there is liability and that there's questions and penalties and those kinds of things. We're not changing any of that at all. The agency has the ability to regulate and to regulate and to penalize, I guess, is the best way to put it.

Any oil producers that is expressing oil as part of expressing oil and not having it go into their rigs. Right. So the question becomes, do we think there's going to be a need or a higher need for regulatory oversight? That may be, but we're not going to know until we start actually doing the process and can get a good idea of whether we need something above and beyond what we already have, which says that you can't have oil that is uncontrolled.

That's not going into a process without there being inspections and oversight and penalties if it is damaging the environment. So I'm not saying we wait. I'm just saying that this Bill doesn't address the specifics beyond what we already have as a framework for managing that product.

Okay. Thank you for addressing that. I think we've talked very briefly, but I still have concerns with what this may look like in the future. And I personally believe it kind of lends to a bit of a loophole in potentially providing more leeway for this technology that's still being figured out at this point. And I understand the Committee has done good work in ensuring that there's technicalities that have been straightened out. But that's where I stand now.

So I will be laying off the Bill and then seeing where this goes and would love to continue working with you on this. Thank you. Very good.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Senator. Other thoughts? Questions? Motion moved by Senator Dahle. Senator, you may close.

Thank you very much, chair Allen. Let me just say that the process would be a lot easier if people would come to the table and express their concerns, and then we can figure out how to write it in, because I'm more than happy to look at what are the things that we need to do for oversight.

But when it's the same opposition to a technology just on principle, because you just don't, this is not in regards to anybody's comments, but it makes it much more difficult to look into the future and foresee what kinds of things we need to do. There's no question that I am interested in protecting the public, meeting our goals, and as part of that, ensuring that we have a workforce that's trained, ready to go and can do the work that needs to be done on this.

And part of traveling to other countries to see how they do things, it gives us the opportunity to see how it operates, how it works, and what we're not doing in our own country, in our own state, and we'll soon lose our leadership role if we don't keep up with what's going on. So let me just say that I'm more than happy to discuss at what point does the expression become more than an expression and that it's a liability and there should be some action taken?

It's my belief that the regulatory entity has that oversight and has that ability to react, but we can look at that specifically and beef it up if we need to. I'm committed to having this work, not to creating an environmental hazard. And so this was discussed last year. It didn't end up in the Bill because there were several oversights, and so that's why it's back this year. And so I respectfully ask for your. I vote.

Thank you. All right, let's call a roll.

The motion is do pass to the Appropriations Committee. [Roll call].

Okay, thank you. Five-zero. We'll leave that on call. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

I see Senator Laird here. Thank you for coming back. I know you've been in the middle of a difficult negotiation. I appreciate your return. This is item 10, Members. Item 10, SB 560, in your agendas. Thank you for your patience, Senator Laird.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And Members. Senate Bill 560 would establish an extended producer responsibility program for small gas cylinders under 20 pounds. And to back up for a second, when I was secretary for natural resources, the big problem was identified that people are abandoning these after use at beaches all across California. I see it at the beaches in my district, and I actually recorded a public service announcement to ask people to safely dispose of them.

And it was stupid because we did it on a beach, and we only had 20 seconds to do a tape before a wave would break. And so it took us forever to tape the damn PSA, but it had meaning. And so Senator Wieckowski attempted to address this last year and got a Bill all the way to the governor's desk that he vetoed because it was an absolute ban. And the Governor said in his veto message that you should look in the direction of extended producer responsibility.

That's what this Bill does. And so we have had to put in the Bill a plan while we are, in fact, negotiating with people. And it's a chicken and the egg, because people want to see a plan, to move a Bill, but we want to negotiate and have in it what people can live with as different stakeholders. And so there might be a desire to have more specificity. But we want to have specificity after we negotiate with the stakeholders.

And there's a meeting tomorrow that includes extended producer responsibility, one of the manufacturers and Committee staff, in which we want to take the next steps to get the specificity that we need to work this out. And it's chicken and the egg because some people think it's not in their interest to negotiate. But if the Bill moves, then they think we have to negotiate and it brings them to the table and we actually have to get there.

Right now, the Bill addresses the veto message by establishing the program for cylinders under 20 pounds. It goes further and expands the type of gas cylinders to be covered in the program to propane, helium, isobutane and butane. And as the Committee analysis points out, there's items that still need to be worked out between my office and the primary stakeholders. And as I said before, this Bill is a vehicle for those continued negotiations.

And so I do not have a main support witness with me today, but they're stakeholders who have taken a support in concept position as we move this Bill along. And I would just ask for your favorable movement as a statement that we want the negotiations and we want to work this out and we want to get to a solution that meets the governor's veto message. So I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. Appreciate it. All right, let's hear. So you don't have a support witness, but I know. Is there anyone else who wants to weigh in support? Yeah, he's going to be opposition, so I'm just guessing.

Well, I really hope he's opposition for now.

Well, for now.

Yeah.

He's not. He's not yet. California Product Stewardship Council, the always Association of North America Legislative Task Force, Stop Waste and Western Plaster Waste Management authority. We're all in support in concept, really appreciate Senator Laird's office and Committee's work on this. We were for California Product Stewardship Council, the sponsors that Bill for the Wieckowski Bill last year. And we really have done a lot of EPR bills the past few years, lessons learned from programs that have failed.

And so we really want to make sure that this is a successful program to ensure that local governments no longer have to bear the cost, but that it's convenient for folks to be able to take these products back and to encourage consumers to go to ideally refillable, but that they are no longer in the trash.

So we hope that there's an EPR model that's similar to AB 2440 by Irwin, but understand that this is a different product and that we need to continue working with stakeholders and the industry to ensure, how can we ensure that this is a program that's successful for this particular product? So look forward to continue working with the Committee and the Senator's office on this and other stakeholders. Thank you.

Great, Thank you.

John Kennedy with RCRC. I'll echo a lot of Priscilla's comments and why we're supporting the Bill. These cylinders are very expensive for us to manage in our HHW collection facilities. Often it's very difficult to know whether they are empty or not, which means they have to be managed as hazardous waste. And so we support efforts like this program to ensure that manufacturers who introduce these materials into the stream of commerce bear some responsibility for their management and collection at the end of the day.

We were sad to see that last year's Bill was vetoed, but look forward to working and making sure this is a robust producer responsibility framework that works.

Thank you.

Krysta Wanner with Western Propane Gas Association in support. I just want to make a quick comment, that the propane industry in California has had a long standing stewardship program for our barbecue bottles, and we support this initiative as an extension of our ongoing environmental stewardship. Thank you.

Great. Mr. Worthington.

No Mike Robeson here on behalf of Worthington Industries. So I'm not here in support and concept. I'm not here in opposition either. And actually, Senator Laird had a really good opening statement and said a lot of what needs to be said on this subject. Worthington is the largest producer of pressurized gas cylinders of all sizes in the country. And those of you who were in this Committee last year and in the Legislature last year will remember that.

All through that Wieckowski Bill's legislative process, I came up and said the better solution is an EPR solution. Banning a product is not a solution. Thankfully, the Governor vetoed that Bill because it was a bad Bill. And so we want a Legislator to take this issue up and do an EPR approach, and we want to work with Senator Laird and the other stakeholders to do so. There's a lot of people that need to be involved, as Senator Laird said in a statement.

There's other products because you can't just do EPR. This is a unique product. It's not like batteries. If you do gas, you can't just do propane gas. You got to do the other things, isobutane and things. Otherwise, there's just going to be product switches. And so you have to be thoughtful about it. It's going to take some time. It's going to take some effort. I think Senator Laird is the right author for it.

I think this Committee and your Committee staffs are the right people to be working on it. I wouldn't be adverse to this being a two year Bill, just so everybody knows, because I think it's going to need some time, and we can't just rush this through.

That said, we are meeting for the first time tomorrow, and I appreciate that. There are models on this in Canada, and I think we have a lot of information to bring to bear for the folks who vote in this Committee and for the Committee consultants and for Cal Recycle. So look forward to working with people and keep you posted.

Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yes, sir, you have some comments?

Yes. Good morning. My name is Josh Simpson. I'm the Vice President of Little Kamper Propane. We are Members of the Western Propane Gas Association and the National Propane Gas Association. I'm here in support of Senate Bill 560. This Bill is long overdue relief for the people of California in the cost and consequence, excuse me, of fuel cylinders being left in recreation destinations.

This is something that is within the means of the legislation and obviously the intention for the State of addressing this problem. Our company has been working on this problem for years, and we're looking forward to seeing the work of the Senator and seeing this Bill through to become law.

Thank you, sir. I appreciate it. All right, let's go to the phone lines. Other folks who want to weigh in on the Bill. This is SB 560 on the phone lines moderator.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For those who wish to speak in support or opposition, please press one, then zero. Press one, then zero. And Mr. Chair, we have several people of signal that they wish to speak. Just a moment, please, while we process them through. Again, we appreciate your patience. Just another moment.

Hi, Chloe Brown, on behalf of Californians Against Waste and so support in concept. Thank you very much.

Line 97, your line is now open.

Mara Eger, on behalf of Rethink Waste. And we just want to align our comments with the California Product Stewardship Council with a support in concept position. Thank you so much.

Mr. Chair, there is no one else.

Okay, let's bring it back to the Committee. And Senator Dahle.

First off, I just want to say I'm going to lay off the bill because there's really nothing to, there's no policy. And with all due respect to this author, who I think will do a great job with this bill, and I believe I'll probably be in a support when you get some language in there that we actually can look at.

But I just want to say as a frustration, as the Vice Chair of this Committee, that we've seen so many bills with amendments at the last second when we don't really know this is a policy Committee and we should be doing policy here. And it's very disserving, I think, to the public and to us Members who are trying to, I mean, I changed my vote on a bill today because I got some new information that was like, really last second.

I just want to make that comment because I am getting frustrated. I will just say that Senator Stern had so many bills that I had no idea what was going on with the bills, and that's unfair to the Members. And I just want to make that comment. Nothing against this author. I have total confidence that I'll get to a point where we're probably going to have a good bill. We need to do something in this area.

But I just want to make that statement for the Chair and other Members who may or may not be feeling frustrated with this, and I've seen it in many committees, and I just want to bring that point up. It's very frustrating. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, could I speak to that for a second?

Of course.

Because, as I said in the statement, we want to negotiate and we want to put in the bill what all sides believe is a path to the negotiations. And so we didn't have significant things in this bill, and the Committee suggested they wanted a formulation.

And so that's why you got the amendment at the last minute, to be responsive and to put together a structure, even though, as Mr. Robeson sort of hinted that he would like a two year bill. But if you have a two year bill, then there's no pressure for people to negotiate until next January. And so we want to keep the negotiation. We gave a formulation for you to look at, but we want to get something that everybody agrees with, and that's where we'll end up. And that's when you'll feel comfortable and you won't lay off and you will vote for the bill.

Well, I just want to say this is, again, not directed at you at all, but it's just a comment that I wanted to say that is very frustrating. And I know you can't get a negotiation. Senator Caballero just before said she has opposition to her bill and they won't come to negotiate with her. I understand that part of it, but at the end of the day, we've seen many bills come forward that are like, well, kind of. I'm trying to figure out where we're going.

Well, look, either you have policy, you don't have policy, and the public shows up here for a policy discussion in a policy Committee. So I get what you're saying. I know that sometimes you have to force the issue that means pass something. On this bill, particularly Senator Wachowski worked on this bill, and we know the problem. Look, we all are trying to deal with the problem, but his bill basically just banned him. He just come down to the two pound. It was between 1 and 2 pounds. I get all that, but my comment is addressed not just at this piece of legislation, but many pieces of legislation.

You know, if you approved this piece with the amendments, it went all the way to the governor, it would work. However, we want it to go with some of the people that testified feeling like it works for them. That's the process that is still ongoing.

Well, I think people understand where I'm coming from. I'm hoping the Chair understands where I'm coming from. And other Members, I picked you because I know you're tough and you're good. But I've been getting somewhat frustrated with the negotiations that happen as we're in the hearing on amendments with bills, and it's not right.

Well, with so much respect, Mr. Vice Chair, you've been here for a while. I mean, I think you know that these are hard negotiations. You got lots of different stakeholders. Everyone's got different perspectives. People oftentimes push things to the last minute on purpose. The truth is, this is the first Policy Committee, which is part of the very beginning of the session, and there is a certain degree of creative chaos involved with trying to pull together difficult pieces of legislation.

I mean, all, you know, all I can offer to you is an absolute open door, always an answer your questions if you have issues or concerns about the way things are proceeding. But I don't know that there's, unless we totally revamp the system, I'm not sure there's kind of a ready solution to the problem you're raising, which is that there's going to be a certain degree of messiness and negotiation associated with the development of these bills at the Policy Committee level at the first hearing.

You know, it's part of why we go through so many stages. Right. We, you know, it's gonna go to the next Committee, it's gonna go to the floor, it'll come back. It'll go to the other's house, it's gonna come back. You have a 72 hours rule. Everything's got to be in print. And there's so many opportunities to weigh in over the course of the year or two years. So I share your frustration as well.

But the flip side is, I think it's unrealistic to assume that we're going to have everything tied up with a bow every time we have a bill come before Committee. And I will say, this author knows well, we've actually met twice. We haven't just given him a pass and said, hey, you're a friend. We know you're going to do the right work.

We've been pressuring his office quite a bit to get us more specificity, to learn about exactly what the plans is, how they're devising it, what sort of conversations are happening with the stakeholders. Of course, we went through this intensely on previous EPR bills, so we know what this is all about. I think if you ask the author, he would definitely say that there's been quite a bit of engagement.

Not all of it warm and fuzzy.

I no means am saying that it has to be perfect. And this is totally not towards this author at all. It's just in general. I know there was times in this building when Willie Brown said, you're going to cook the bill. He made you have language in your bill back in the day. I'm just saying we're moving down a path where, I mean, I have no idea what the hell is in these bills.

And literally, till I come to Committee, I'm trying to get with my consultant, and again, I have full, total faith in this author to get the job done. But I'm telling you, there's many times, and I want to bring it up because it's very frustrating to sit here and try to actually do the right thing. I love this Committee. It's my favorite Committee because I actually do want to do the right thing for the environment. But I can't if I don't know what I'm dealing with. And that's my frustration.

If I can close this discussion by having some fun with Senator Dahle?

Sure. Yeah, why not?

One of the bills that bound us together was the Sierra Conservancy Bill. He was on the Board of Supervisors of one of the only counties in the Sierra that supported the bill. And I always said I would die and go to heaven, since people in the Sierra opposed it, if somebody got elected to the Legislature that had served on the board for many years and then embraced it, that is Senator Dahle.

And when I brought the Sierra Conservancy Bill to the first three committees, I was negotiating with Senator Leslie to have a bipartisan bill, and it was not fully cooked. And then we had a historic agreement. The bill's named after both of us now because we allowed it to move ahead and have those negotiations. And that's how you got to serve for six or eight years on the board because we allowed that process to unfold. And that's just what I'm asking for.

Here, just to put this to rest. I'm one of those legislators who will call out something that I think is not fair. And there are many of my people on my side that may not have that enough to say it, but I want to say it because it's frustrating. And not only this Committee, the Energy Committee, and I'm telling you, there's some authors, and if they were here, I was waiting for my opportunity, but they don't show up to have their own bills.

And so I just want to say it, and it needs to be said. So I'm going to say it because it's not fair. And I know that there's a process we have to go through, but I would like a little more transparency, to not have to sit here and try to figure out on most bills today what the hell is in the bill. That's all. I'm just going to say it. And I appreciate the work.

And I think I have the respect of the people on the other side of the aisle because I do want to work hard and I show up to these committees. I'm not one that doesn't come to the committees. I come, I read the legislation, I read the bills, and I try to do what's right. Just want to say it. Thank you. And I look forward to be able to support this bill when it gets cooked.

Thank you, Senator. I know Senator Menjivar wants to say something. I will just say to you that your sentiment, you're not wrong. The sentiment you just expressed, I think, is shared by many people on the EQ staff and in our office. It's a constant challenge we have, and I will reiterate your message to the world and to authors and to staff. There's always going to be frustration and pushback from our Committee.

If you're coming to our Committee with half baked or quarter baked bills, we understand it's an iterative process and these are works in progress, and we want to give you some latitude to do the work you need to do. But authors have run into problems this session because they've come to this Committee with weak sauce bills and we're pushing back. And you're giving me more courage to push back further. Senator Menjivar.

Senator Dahle, you know, on the other side of the aisle, I agree with you, and maybe Chair, I can also help give you that courage to push back because I said in the first Committee Hearing, I don't want headlines. It's hard for me to vote on headlines, and I want to make sure I'm voting for things that are flushed out.

And, Senator, you mentioned that if this were to pass and the governor were to sign it through and it would work, I want to push back on that. I don't think it would work because we don't have the plan of how it will work. Right. So I'm going to give you the same respect I gave to the first author who proposed an intent bill, because we're not here to say I have an idea.

We're here to say I have an idea and have a plan on the idea. But I'm going to reserve my right for the floor to change my mind. And I hope that you put effort. No, sorry. I'll take that back. You are putting effort. I hope that it continues to be fleshed out, because my question to the Chair, if the meeting, someone said that the first ever meeting they're having is tomorrow, why couldn't we have heard this next week with perhaps more fleshed out information?

Well, let me intervene in that. There have been plenty of conversations going on. First meeting with the Committee staff and the parties is tomorrow. There have been lots of different iterations, and I think I totally appreciate this conversation because I'm in the position as a Committee Member the other way. But the nuance is that if somebody doesn't want to agree and they hear that somebody will vote no at an immediate future stop. It gives them leverage to not participate and not negotiate.

And so that's what I mean by the chicken and the egg. We are determined to negotiate. We are determined to get a good bill earlier in the process that will move. But we have to do that iterative process where people feel like, I mean, I feel very lucky. I've been here for a number of years in different configurations, and there are certain people that think I will run them over if they don't agree. And so it's enough to bring them to the table. But we are partners in that. If you vote to move this bill today, you're supporting that in a way that people think, I have to come to the table and I have to work this out.

I'll be voting it out. I do share some of that frustration, though.

I really look forward to the first Dahle mench of our bill. That's going to make my year.

Okay. I'm happy to entertain a motion to put it out today, but if it's important to you, Senator, to push it next week, that's fine with me. I know the author is not going to like it, but the author knows how frustrated we've been with the lack of progress.

But they're making much of a different debate next week because there'll be a meeting, and that will encourage some people not to be forthcoming in the meeting. It's important to get it out and to have that discussion when it gets to the floor.

Okay. All right. So with that understanding, I'm happy with moving forward on the vote today. It's been moved by Senator Menjivar.

It's been an animated discussion. I've really appreciated it and am open to anybody that has any comments about this as we move it along.

Thank you, Senator. Thank you. Okay. All right, let's call the roll.

The motion is do pass to the Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]

Okay. All right. Let's go ahead and I'll present now. We'll give it to Brian. Okay, well, while Brian's finishing up, let's just lift a couple of calls. Item one, SB 32.

File item one, SB 32. Chair not voting. [Roll Call]

Okay. Item two, SB 308.

[Roll Call]

Okay, we're going to lift calls later because I know you got to go somewhere, but we need to get going on these next two bills, so we'll make sure that you have the opportunity to add on later on after your event, okay?

Sure. All right. I am chairing. You better watch out, Ben Allen.

I know this is the problem with running bills in your own Committee.

But. Now it's Dahle's Committee. Okay, well, I want to thank you, chair Dahle, and I want to thank the Members. And I do want to also just give a special thanks to Eric from our Committee staff, who really has dug in deep on this issue. It's not an easy one. The LCFS is complicated. We had a great deep dive, including one for the entire EQ staff.

And if you want an LCFS 101, Eric's got the presentation, and I'm sure he'd be happy to provide it to your office, because we've really learned a lot together on this process. I also learned a lot when I took the opportunity to travel with some of you, including chair Laird from the climate working group, who led a group down to the Central Valley. We went to Merced and met with some Tulare county residents, some folks from Pixley, some of whom are represented here today.

They wanted to talk to us about the impacts that nearby mega dairies have been having on their local water and air quality and their family's health. So we heard about foul odors. That's something that wasn't a big surprise, having spent some time on some farms myself.

But what I was surprised to hear about was some pretty pernicious stories about contaminated drinking water, frightening health complications resulting from industrial dairy pollution, and also surprised to hear about the extent to which we were hearing about how the state's LCFS program might actually be making the situation worse. That was the real kind of AHA realization that hit me. So, back in 2016, the Legislature passed Senator Lara's SB 1383, which aimed at reducing short lived climate pollutants like methane emissions.

We know about this program here on this Committee, and the measure calls for a 40% reduction in methane emissions, but it allows dairies to comply by generating LCFS credits if they use digesters to capture manure derived methane that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.

Now, while some argue that this compromise has been a success because at least some of the emissions have been captured and used to offset more polluting fuels, a whole set of other questions have been raised about whether or not this has resulted in some perverse, unintended consequences.

So, for example, since CARB allows livestock and dairy LCFS pathways to base the carbon intensity of the fuel they generate solely on avoided emissions, ignoring other emissions generated on site, these fuels appear incredibly carbon negative under the formula, meaning that the dairy digesters provide the operators with a significantly high number of lucrative credits to sell. Now, this has raised some concerns that these facilities are now growing and consolidating in an effort to generate more and more credits.

And while greater participation in the program may appear to be helping the state meet our climate goals, we can't ignore the costs nor the impacts. And while there's some debate over whether the LCFS is encouraging growth, there doesn't seem to be any debate about the fact that it's leading to some greater consolidation. And you're going to hear some folks today about some of the impact that consolidation seems to be having on nearby communities.

So, to ensure that we're meeting our climate goals and to avoid exacerbating inequities resulting from the commensurate water and air pollution associated with mega dairies, it's time that we take a careful look at the program to ensure that we're not perversely encouraging the production of greater amounts.

Senator Allen if you'll just. I have to go add on. They're done. And of course. So I'm going to pass the gavel to my partner over here.

Yes, I know your co author, your joint. I love it. It's a beautiful thing. Thank you. All right. It's our sense that we need to start to take a careful look at the program to ensure that we're not perversely encouraging the production of greater amounts of pollution for financial gain, and we're not unwittingly disincentivizing better, cleaner alternatives. So here's what we're looking to do with this Bill. It takes a three tiered approach to ensure that the program is actually meeting its intended goals.

First, the Bill removes the incentive for dairy operators to expand their facilities, which is arguably creating more air, water and methane pollution, simply to take advantage of the LCFS credits. Second, the Bill asks CARB to conduct a more comprehensive analysis of the full emissions associated with these operations to ensure reductions credited to the program are actually real.

And then finally, the Bill removes a statutory guarantee that allows dairy facilities participating in the program to receive LCF credits for 10 years, regardless of whether or not it's in the state's best interest, and truly reduces pollution. So, considering the outsized greenhouse gas pollution generated by the dairy and livestock sector, California's climate goals may slip out of reach if reductions credited to these facilities are not real and scientifically sound.

All this Bill is trying to do is take a step toward ensuring that we're getting it right. And I have with me today some folks to speak in support of the Bill. First we have Maria Arevalo, who's a resident of Pixley and also Phoebe Seton with the leadership Council for Justice Accountability. So Maria is going to, I think, give some testimony in Spanish and I'm happy to translate or Phoebe's happy to translate. Usually we do here at the mic.

Okay, switch things around a little bit. I'm going to go first. Phoebe Seaton with leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. We're a community based advocacy organization based in the San Joaquin and Coachella valleys. We are joined by residents of the San Joaquin Valley where large dairies are getting larger while state subsidized infrastructure expands to turn more manure into gas environmental credits and profits. Proponents and beneficiaries of factory farm gas talk about their win win industry. What they don't like to talk about is the losers.

Large and growing dairies pollute the air, and some studies show that digesters themselves exacerbate ammonia emissions, odors and flies, keep windows closed, and prevent families from enjoying a meal or a game of catch outside. Nitrogen from manure leaches into groundwater, polluting drinking water. For decades, the vast majority of groundwater pollution from dairies comes from land.

Applied manure digestate, the material that comes out of a digester has just as much nitrogen as undigested manure and just like raw manure is applied to land and contributes to contamination, more cows means more air pollution, more groundwater pollution, period, and all in the most compromised air basin and hydrologic region of the state.

While our access to data is limited, based on agency practices of redacting information about herd size and manure production, and local land use policies that allow dairies to expand with little oversight, environmental review and transparency, we see a pattern of biogas infrastructure happening near in time to dairy expansions. One project that generates credits through the Low carbon fuel standard identified several associated dairies in Merced and Stanislaus county.

Of those dairies, at least seven recently expanded alum farms increased their herd size by about 2000 animals Viera dairy by 1520, Aj Borba and Oliveira by over 2000 as well. The incremental increase of over 2000 cows generates the same amount of waste as a City of about a million people. California's Low carbon fuel standard can provide a path to unfettered profit for manure and gas manufacturers, or it can get us closer to reaching our climate justice goals. But it can't do both.

This Bill moves the program toward the latter. Thank you Senator Allen and Members. I respectfully ask for your aye vote thank you.

Thank you, Phoebe.

Okay. My name is Maria Robello and I'm from Pixley. I've lived there for 47 years.

...

Okay, so Maria Arebolo is from Pixley. She's been there for 47 years. She's here representing an organization called the Defenders for clean water and clean air. She's asking people to support SB 79. She says that Pixley is surrounded by 27 dairy. Seven to the north, and then there's a digester about a mile and a half that's contaminating the area with its emissions. It's making her community sick. Smells of ammonium. Burnt rubber, cow manure. The smell is really strong, especially when it's hot. There's also a lot of flies.

They're here to proposing this Bill that's looking to prevent more contamination with more rules relating to incentives about the production of methane gas. These incentives right now are being used to expand and expand the number of cows that are producing more manure and more methane gas in the area. But the digesters that the state is promoting are also contaminating the environment and making people sick in the community with pulmonary issues, asthma, allergies, sinuses, sleep apnea.

She talked about her son, who's 26, and then her grandson is 10. Of course, using, they actually have to use machines to help them sleep at night because the air is bad and they're having trouble breathing. And this is the reality that she and so many of her, of her fellow community Members are dealing with. There are issues of arsenic, TCP, and she was just talking about also about not having sufficient clean water for the communities because of the contamination in the water. So then she was told to wrap up, and so she said, this is what we're dealing with. These are some of the issues, particularly our children. She's here fighting for her children there for community.

If anyone is here to provide a meeting support, please step forward and I'll return back to the Vice Chair.

Do you want me to translate it?

I apologize. We have to go back to the author, who's going to translate all that to English.

Okay, so Maria Arebolo is from Pixley. She's been there for 47 years. She's here representing an organization called the Defenders for clean water and clean air. She's asking people to support SB 79. She says that Pixley is surrounded by 27 dairy. Seven to the north, and then there's a digester about a mile and a half that's contaminating the area with its emissions. It's making her community sick. Smells of ammonium. Burnt rubber, cow manure. The smell is really strong, especially when it's hot.

There's also a lot of flies. They're here to proposing this Bill that's looking to prevent more contamination with more rules relating to incentives about the production of methane gas. These incentives right now are being used to expand and expand the number of cows that are producing more manure and more methane gas in the area. But the digesters that the state is promoting are also contaminating the environment and making people sick in the community with pulmonary issues, asthma, allergies, sinuses, sleep apnea.

She talked about her son, who's 26, and then her grandson is 10. Of course, using, they actually have to use machines to help them sleep at night because the air is bad and they're having trouble breathing. And this is the reality that she and so many of her, of her fellow community Members are dealing with. There are issues of arsenic, TCP, and she was just talking about also about not having sufficient clean water for the communities because of the contamination in the water.

So then she was told to wrap up, and so she said, this is what we're dealing with. These are some of the issues, particularly our children. She's here fighting for her children there for community.

Thank you. Anybody else wishing to come and support? Name and Association, please.

Sosan Madanat at w strategies here on behalf of Animal Legal Defense Fund. In strong support. I've also been asked to testify in support for friends of the Earth and 350 Bay Area. Thank you.

Thank you. Next. Step right up.

Good morning, everybody. Or is it afternoon? Hello, my name is Elena Saldemar. I am from Tulare county, the community of Pixley as well. Thank you for listening to us this day. I'm coming with something that's not probably new to too many of us, that we are all endowed with life, liberty, in any rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We're here today.

Your name and your Association or just your name in support or opposition, please.

Okay. Elena Saldemar. And I am in support of State Senate Bill 709.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I am Empress Nointizike-Lelo. I have to have an inhaler. I am in support. Is that the right one? I am in support of the Bill. I had to use this as we came into Pixley this morning. Thank you.

Will Brigger for 350 Sacramento in support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, my name is Maria...

Good morning. Raquel Mason, registering support for the California Environmental Justice Alliance. Also registering support for the Central Coast Alliance United for Sustainable Economy, the center on Race, poverty and the environment, communities for a better environment, and physicians for social responsibility, Los Angeles. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Maria Rivera and I support this Bill from Tulare County.

My name is Benjamin. I'm also supporting the Bill. I'm from Tulare county.

Hello. My name is David Rodriguez. I live in Planada, California, which is in Merced County, the town that got flooded in January. I am support of Senate Bill 709, and I, and I implore you, help to get it through. Thank you for your time.

Good afternoon. My name is Rita Rodriguez, and I am also from Planada, California, Merced county. First of all, I want to thank the Senators who have visited our counties, and I do support the Bill of SB 709, and we do ask very much for your help. Thank you.

Thank you. You can move that mic down if you want to.

Hello, I'm Kathleen Moreno. I'm also from Planada, California. I live 1 mile away from the dairy, so I really want to support the SB 709. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Zaray Ramirez, policy advocate with leadership council for justice and Accountability for Merced county, in support of SB 709. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Kyle Jones, policy and legal Director with Community Water center, in strong support of SB 709.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Josefa Gonzalez, and I support the Bill 709 and thank you. If you help us with this problem we have. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Emma De La Rosa, regional policy manager with leadership council. I support SB 709, and we urge you for your support as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Katie Valenzuela, on behalf of the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, the Central California Asthma collaborative, and as a kid who grew up in the valley with asthma, urging your support of this Bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members, Jennifer Fearing, as a California resident and as a proud Member of the board of directors for Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity in strong support.

Thank you.

Ilana Miroff with Leadership Council on behalf of Clean Water Action, offering strong support.

Thank you.

Leslie Martinez with leadership Council but also very proud San Joaquin Valley resident, lifelong in support of SB. 709.

...

My name is Lennon Moreno, I'm from Merced county, and I hope for your support for 709.

Barry Anderson from Santa Nella, California, in full support of the SB 709. Thank you.

Patricia Ramos Anderson from Santa Nella... Harris Ranch. Every day you smell that at home in your own backyard.

Anyone else wishing to. Thank you for testifying. Anyone else in support? We're good. We got it. Thank you. Okay. For those who wish to speak in opposition, do we have any witnesses? Okay.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Sam Wade. I'm with the Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas. We're the National Trade Association for the RNG industry, headquartered here in California. We have over 350 Member companies across the RNG supply chain. We oppose SB 709 because it contradicts California's existing methane strategy. As the Committee's analysis correctly recognizes, the Low carbon fuel standard is successfully driving deployment of RNG projects at Dairies.

But there is no evidence of a perverse incentive to grow herd sizes to produce more rng. What is empirically observable is that methane emission levels from manure management at California farms are going down as the state intends. We didn't get here easily.

Developing a framework for dairy digesters of the state required more than 10 years of input from academic experts, extensive public process at CARB and CDFA, and smart legislation in the form of Senate Bill 1383, which guaranteed at least 10 years of crediting so that firms like our Members would feel comfortable investing in these projects. All of this was necessary to convince the investors, the dairy owners, and project developers to commit private capital to these long lived assets, which take a long time to pay back.

And CARB and the US EPA continue to support dairy digesters as a method to improve the environmental performance of dairies. The US EPA has been working on this for more than 20 years with the Eggstar program and highlights the California LCFs as a success story for environmental performance on its website. I've worked on greenhouse gas issues personally at CARB for over nine years, including with the LCFS program for four.