Assembly Standing Committee on Natural Resources

[Roll Call].

Good afternoon. Welcome to Assembly Natural Resources Committee. We have 21 measures on the agenda today. Please note that AB 1449 by Alvarez was pulled from today's hearing. Today's hearing has six measures proposed for consent. They are AB 573, Garcia. AB 585, Robert Rivas. AB 748, Villapudua. AB 1284, Ramos. AB 1307, Wicks and AB 176, Bonta. I believe. Do we have a quorum? Yes, we do. Okay, we do. Secretary, please take the role.

We have a quorum. We're taking bills in sign in order. So if there's an author and you haven't signed in, please go to the sergeant. We're starting with Assemblymember Grayson. Oh, consent. Okay, we have a motion and a second for the consent calendar.

[Roll Call].

That Bill has seven.

I mean, the consent calendar has seven votes. We'll leave it open for absent authors. We're starting with item 19, AB 1686 by Assembly Member Grayson. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. AB 1686 is a district Bill that would extend the period during which the State Lands Commission may waive the City of Martinez's obligation to remit 20% of gross revenues generated by the Martinez Marina to the Commission from June 30, 2021, to June 30, 2023. It is in 2014 that the Legislature adopted and the Governor signed AB 1424 woke, which granted public trust lands to the City of Martinez.

That Bill also required the City of Martinez to remit 20% of all gross revenues generated from the trust lands to the State Lands Commission, effective July 1, 2015, with allowances for waivers for this obligation only valid through June 30, 2021. The Martinez Marina was envisioned as an economic driver. Unfortunately, the city has been unable to generate sufficient revenues to pay for the ongoing infrastructure challenges at the marina, and it continues to be in a deteriorated condition.

These infrastructure challenges now total in the tens of millions of dollars for the necessary improvements, repairs, and replacements of the marina's breakwater and docks. Remitting this 20% of gross revenues obligation to the SLC is counterproductive, as all revenues generated through the trust lands at this time should continue to be dedicated to improving the marina and trust lands in order to provide more revenue for both in the long term.

The city does provide General Fund Dollars to subsidize the marina, and the city has also allocated 495,000 from the General Fund for the Waterfront Marina Trust Lands Use Plan, which started in August 22 and will be completed either in May or June of 2023. It is going to take extra time for that infrastructure improvement to be done for economic viability to come to fruition for the Martinez Marina and the greater waterfront.

So with that, AB 1686 would help both the city and the State Lands Commission by extending the period of time that the Lands Commission may waive payment of gross revenues to the state from 2021 to June 2023. This will provide the City of Martinez the much-needed extra time for necessary improvements to the marina and to make beneficial for all parties that are involved. I do have here to testify, through the Chair, Mayor Zorn from the City of Martinez.

Good afternoon, Members of the Assembly Natural Resources Committee. My name is Brianne Zorn and I am the Mayor of the City of Martinez. I'm here to support AB 1686, which will relieve the City of Martinez of the obligation to remit 20% of annual gross revenues, not net revenues, to the State Lands Commission.

The City of Martinez Marina is a regionally significant water access to the Carquinez Strait and the delta from the East Bay, and it is what makes the City of Martinez the special place that it is. Without the resources to invest in our marina, it has been steadily deteriorating over the decades, resulting in an underutilized waterfront, silted in slips and dilapidated docks. But over the past several years, the Martinez community has voiced their interest in investing in the marina and I believe we are turning a corner.

In the past year, we've spent nearly $2 million of General funds investing in a marina comprised of $1 million on dredging for construction and permitting, 60,000 on emergency repairs on the fishing pier and another 500,000 on the Marina Trust Land Use Plan. As he mentioned, this winter we've received a federal earmark for $2.6 million to rehabilitate the fishing pier as well as make repairs to the breakwater below it. That is one of the many sources of sediment into our marina.

We've been meeting with the California State Lands, who has agreed that it is worthwhile to relieve the City of Martinez from this obligation in order for us to take action and invest in the marina. I, as the mayor of this wonderful city, can confidently sit up here and say that I have every expectation that we will be making those investments in our marina and our waterfront.

At the end of the day this can be a win-win for the City of Martinez, the marina, and the State Lands Commission. I encourage your Ayevote on AB 1686. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in support? Okay, seeing none. Any witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Would you like to close?

AB 1686 is sponsored by the City of Martinez, has no known opposition. I respectfully ask for an Aye vote.

Thank you. Do we have a motion? Okay, we have a motion by Assembly Member Flora. Second by Assembly Member Pellerin. Secretary, please call the roll.

Motion is do passed to Appropriations Committee. [Roll call].

That Bill has six votes. We'll leave it on call. Thank you. Next, Assembly Member Ting, AB 1267.

Thank you, Madam Chair. AB 1267 provides an additional incentive for drivers who use the most gasoline, expediting the switch to zero emission vehicles. As we all know, transportation accounts for about 40% of greenhouse gas emissions, with about 80% of that 40% coming from passenger vehicles that we drive every day to get to work, take our kids to go to school. We have a variety of zero emissions incentive programs to help consumers purchase new vehicles. Unfortunately for many lower income customers, they can't afford the newer vehicles.

An analysis by Coltura, who's our witness today, found that super users making less than $50,000 per year spend an average of 23% of their income on fuel. So this Bill will target those who are the biggest users, the biggest commuters of gasoline, and biggest users of gasoline, but also the biggest commuters who are large super users. AB 1267 furthers this goal by asking the California Air Resources Board to create an additional ZEV incentive award for gasoline super users, targeting our top gasoline consumers in the state.

It also requires CARB to measure the emissions reductions achieved by our ZEV incentive programs. Quite simply, what we want to do is ensure that we are increasing the incentive for those super users so that we can get the biggest bang for our buck for these incentives and also to have the greatest reduction of greenhouse gases. With that, we have Janelle London from Coltura.

Hi. Thank you very much. So, by helping lower income gasoline super users switch to EVs, this Bill maximizes the climate impact of EVs and it also helps the gasoline burden families who need it the most. Super users are generally stuck using lots of gasoline. Typically, they're living where housing is affordable, but it's a long commute to where the jobs are, like Los Banos, a city with 6800 super users 80 miles from San Jose.

Or there are people who have to drive for their work, like landscapers and contractors, who have to drive to various job sites each day. So the majority of superusers are below the median household income. Spending an average of 15% on household income on gasoline is already a crushing burden for many. A spike in gas prices, like we saw this summer or an unexpected car repair can send them into a financial tailspin.

So helping these folks get into EVs would shift that spending to more predictable EV car payments and electricity. And because they're already spending, on average, $800 a month on fuel and maintenance, many would actually save on total monthly payments, even with a higher car payment. But they still need that initial boost of an incentive and targeted outreach to get them into the EV, which this Bill would provide. So the Bill's also a win for climate. CARB's latest scoping plan on page 190.

And footnote 332 calls for a 50% cut in gasoline use by 2030. But Energy Commission's staff says we're only on track for a 10% cut by then. Switching super users to EVs will cut gasoline use faster and require fewer total EVs to get to our emissions targets. So I ask that you please vote yes on AB 1267. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in support? Please state your name, affiliation, and position on the Bill. Hold on, please. Let me just. Okay, go ahead.

Good afternoon, Abigail Mile on behalf of Valley Clean Air Now in support. Thank you.

Sofia Rafikova with the Coalition for Clean Air, in support.

Thank you. Next. Are there witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? You want to move the bell? But we have a motion and a second. Would you like to close?

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

That Bill has six votes. We'll leave it on call.

Okay. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Please call the roll.

The motion is do pass to appropriations. [Roll Call].

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we have Assembly Member Aguiar-Curry. Two bills. We'll start with AB 625.

Thank you, Chairman and Members. First, I'd like to thank the Committee staff for all their work on this bill. I will be accepting the Committee's amendments and will work to incorporate an assessment of how bioenergy technologies impact air quality into the reporting requirements for state agencies. This bill addresses a growing problem that I have been working on since I started in 2016. We must figure out what we do with the forest biomass waste that we create during wildfire mitigation projects, and that's just a start.

The Air Board's 2022 Climate Change Scoping Plan calls for forest thinning and management on 2.3 million acres of forest a year to reduce wildfire risks and restore healthier and more resilient forests. Some of that forest thinning will be done with prescribed fire, but a lot will have to be done mechanically and will generate tens of millions of tons of forest biomass waste. We're not talking about healthy trees. We're talking about over 150,000,000 dead and dying trees and small underbrush that accelerates wildfire and leads to much more catastrophic fires.

Without the capacity to use this waste productively, it will be piled and burned or left to decay, both of which release greenhouse gases. This bill is about making sure that the forest waste is used in a way that is beneficial to the environment and the communities that are impacted by wildfires. This bill does not require specific alternatives to pile and burn.

It asks the experts at state agencies to figure out in a collaborative, instead of siloed way, what California should do, and to make recommendations back to the Legislature. It would establish a Forest Biomass Utilization Program at the Board of Forestry to coordinate efforts and ask multiple state agencies to examine ways to use this way and incorporate the recommendations into ongoing efforts. This bill will help reduce future emissions related to the open burning or natural decomposition-- oh, sorry--of forest waste.

And it will help increase energy reliability and resiliency in those communities at greatest risk for losing power at a time when we hope not to repeat the blackout threats of this past summer. With me to testify in support of this bill is Julia Levin, Executive Director of the Bioenergy Association of California.

Good afternoon. Again, Julia Levin with the Bioenergy Association of California. The Assembly Member explained the really urgent reasons for this bill. I'd like to address the two main opposition arguments. The first has to do with emissions from bioenergy, and the second has to do with the costs. And these are both really misplaced concerns. Some opponents will say that bioenergy is worse than coal, and in some situations they're right, but not what's going on in California.

They will cite studies based in Southeastern United States and other parts of the world where healthy forests are cut down for the purpose of producing energy. In North and South Carolina, they're shipping whole logs across the ocean to England where they are burned for energy. No part of that makes sense for the environment, and no part of that is what we're talking about in AB 625, which is focused on forest waste.

One of the things that AB 625 would do is extend the small-scale bioenergy program known as the BioMAT Program. When it comes to forest waste, that program can only use material removed for wildfire mitigation or forest restoration projects, very much like AB 625 as a whole. In those situations, the emissions from bioenergy are 98 to 99 percent lower than an open burn.

And that's according to the California Air Resources Board, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the Natural Resources Agency, and the entire statewide association of local air districts. So we're talking about a 98 to 99 percent reduction in air and climate emissions when you compare bioenergy to an open burn. In addition, new small-scale BioMAT facilities will be in the forest. So they will be located in attainment districts, not disadvantaged communities, and they will be using the most advanced technology possible, including pollution control and non-combustion conversion technologies.

The second concern about costs is also misplaced. Oftentimes, opponents of bioenergy will compare the cost of bioenergy to solar or to wind power. Solar is only there 20 percent of the time. The other 80 percent of the time, we're using fossil fuels, natural gas power plants, and increasingly, diesel backup generators to make up for the time when we don't have solar resources or wind resources available. As we move toward 100 percent renewables, the backup will be battery storage, which is currently several times more expensive than bioenergy.

Environmental Defense Fund funded a study last year that looked at how do we get to 100 percent renewable power, and found that having more bioenergy, geothermal, and other firm renewables would actually lower overall system costs by two-thirds compared to a world where we only have solar, wind, and batteries. Not to mention it would be a lot more reliable. So for cost reasons, emissions reasons, and wildfire reduction reasons, we respectfully ask for your aye vote on this bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in support? Go ahead.

Kris Rosa, on behalf of Calforests, in strong support.

Good afternoon. Abigail Mighell, on behalf of the California Compost Coalition, in support.

Good afternoon. Jack Yanos, on behalf of the Coalition for Renewable Natural Gas, in support.

Madam Chair, Chris Micheli, first on behalf of Pioneer Community Energy, in support of the BioMAT provision, and then on behalf of Humboldt and Mendocino Redwood Companies, in support of the bill in general. Thank you.

Julia Hall with the Association of California Water Agencies, in support.

Madam Chair and Members, Brian White, on behalf of Forest Landowners of California and California Licensed Foresters Association, in support.

And Madam Chair, Mark Fenstermaker for Valley Clean Energy, in support of the BioMAT provision. Thank you.

Thanks. Next, are there witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon. Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity, in strong opposition. I've also been asked to note opposition from NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense Council. Thank you.

Hello. Sakereh Carter on behalf of Sierra Club California, in opposition. We appreciate the author's consideration of the Committee's recommendations. However, we still have concerns about the emphasis this bill places on biomass as a climate-smart strategy. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Brandon Ebeck with Pacific Gas and Electric. We had a late oppose, but look forward to working with the author in her office on how we can move forward with this program. Thank you.

Catherine Borg, on behalf of Southern California Edison. Same, late opposed, but we're working with the author's office. Thanks.

Thank you. Next, are there questions or comments from Committee Members? Seeing none. Oh. Assembly Member Zbur.

So, appreciate what a complicated issue this was, and in reading the various letters both in support and opposition, I've got to admit I was pretty confused by this one and have moved from one in which I was basically thinking that this was a pretty problematic bill to one where I'm understanding the complexity of what you're trying to deal with. So I want to just thank the author for all of that.

One of the questions I still have, and I'm glad to hear that you're still working with the electric utilities, is really about the BioMAT part of the bill, and why is that so underutilized, and can you explain why that piece is necessary?

It's a painful topic. It's really painful. So BioMAT was adopted pursuant to legislation enacted in 2012. It took the Public Utilities Commission a couple of years to adopt the rules to implement it. They adopted a very complicated price mechanism that took certain--having a certain number of projects in the queue before the price would start to go up. They set the starting prices lower than they knew the market would need.

It's hard to get a lot of projects to get far enough along in the development to go into the queue. They have to have their interconnection study done, their CEQA analysis, all of that without any certainty about where the price would end up. So it took several more years for the prices to reach a point where projects could actually accept a contract. Then PG&E stopped contracting for over a year because of a lawsuit around the REmap program, which is more about distributed solar.

That was another year lost. Then PG&E went into bankruptcy due to wildfire costs--a little bit ironic in the context of this bill--and that was another year lost. Then Governor Brown issued an emergency order asking the PUC to accelerate the price, at least in the forest category, which the PUC did. And for the first time, we saw four projects accept a contract. And two of those projects are--one has just come online and the other is coming online later this year.

So we are now starting to see some uptake, but the problem now that's really chilling the market is the program is set to expire in two years at the end of 2025. And it takes a long time for these projects to develop. They're not simple, they are not inexpensive. So that's why this bill would extend the deadline to allow more time for that uptake.

We know a lot of community choice aggregators, a lot of local governments want to use this program now as a way to deal with their diverted organic waste from landfills to meet their methane reduction requirements. So we think there will be a lot more participation going forward, but not if the program expires in just two years.

Thank you. That was helpful. That last question I sort of had was, I think, responding to what some of the environmental groups are, why some of them are opposed to it. And it sounds like to me that they've got concerns about sort of the long-term use of this biomass energy because it isn't the cleanest form of energy by any means.

And so what can you say about the bill and about the study that limits the--the intent of the bill, which I know the intent is really to deal with all of this fuel, right, that is being extracted for fire safety reasons, but that we limit it to that, and it doesn't become an industry where we perpetuate sort of a dirty form of energy, I guess.

And I think what I'm reading between the lines and from the bill analysis is that this just requires sort of a study, right, and that strategy is put in place, but can you talk about whether or not there's any constraints on sort of not accelerating what I would sort of view as not the appropriate use of clearing the forest?

Go ahead. Yeah.

So there are several really good points in your question. The bill doesn't require any additional forest thinning as a result of AB 625. That's already required by state law, SB 901, an agreement with the U.S. Forest Service to clear or not to clear--sorry, very bad misspeaking--to thin a million acres a year, and now the Climate Change Scoping Plan is saying that actually should be 2.3 million acres. All of that is happening to reduce wildfire risk and restore healthy forests to a more natural state.

Once that material comes out of the forest, the health agencies, the Air Board, CalEPA, Natural Resources, et cetera, all agree that bioenergy is much, much cleaner than an open pile and burn or even pile and decay, which remains a fire hazard. And as wood decays, it releases a lot of methane. So it also is a climate pollutant. But the bigger issue is it remains a fire hazard unless you do something with it. Most of the material has no commercial value except for energy.

And then in terms of the energy facilities themselves, under the BioMAT Program, they're going to be non-combustion conversion technologies. So they're very clean, much more efficient to begin with, and the gas they produce could be used in non-combustion, either a fuel cell or a linear generator. So they really are a lot cleaner than the old biomass combustion facilities. And that is one of the other goals, is to move beyond the old biomass combustion facilities to advanced technology, non-combustion conversion.

Even the old facilities are better than a wildfire and open burn, but the new facilities are significantly better than that, and they'll be in the forest, as I said, not in disadvantaged communities.

Thank you. I mean, I'm going to support the bill today. This is really complicated, and I sort of feel like I've had sort of a little bit of a brain freeze. So I want to just thank the author for tackling such a difficult question, and I'm grateful that the author is willing to work with both the electric utilities and hopefully the environmental community on some of the--

It sounds to me that they've got some legitimate concerns on sort of use of fuel that's beyond what's necessary for fire safety, and just want to thank the author. Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions or comments from Committee Members? I will be supporting this bill today, and I share some of the concerns that Assembly Member Zbur brought up, but I know that you will be working with all stakeholders involved, and it is a challenge on what to do with the fuel that is left in the forest, and I've experienced that firsthand. I've gone to visit to learn more about this issue in the time that I've been Chair, and so thank you for bringing this measure forward. Would you like to close?

Yeah, I would like to close. First of all, I appreciate the questions. They're great. I just came back from an incredible trip, and a lot of us talked about biomass and how other countries are using biomass, and the technology is there. There's a lot of great technology that's out there that's working with biomass. I mean, the country we were in was 55 percent's using biomass, and you're not seeing any fire, anything burning.

And so I know that we can do better in the State of California, but with or without this bill, California is on track to create a lot of forest bio waste, and the status quo is creating more harmful GHG emissions and much greater risks to people and the environment. So I respectfully ask for your aye vote to make sure that we consider how to use this waste in ways that benefit the environment, energy reliability, and our economy, and I simply ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Do I have a motion? Did anyone move? Okay. Motion by Assembly Member Mathis; second by Assembly Member Ward. Secretary, please call the roll.

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

Okay. That bill has eight votes. We'll leave it open for absent Members. Next is AB 1159, also by Assembly Member Aguiar-Curry.

I love bringing up difficult bills early in the day. Again, thank you, Madam Chair and Members. First, I would like to thank your Committee staff for working with my office to further refine the language in this Bill. And I'm happy to accept the proposed Committee amendments with the understanding that the intent of the language in the amendments regarding additionality is to reflect existing law and not to create a higher standard. Last year, AB 757 was enacted as part of the climate package at the very end of session

AB 1757 directed the Natural Resources Agency to set a range of targets for natural carbon sequestration and nature-based climate solutions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions to support the state's climate goals. Provisions were added at the end of sessions, which were intended to disallow the double counting of GHG reductions as well as the use of state funding to develop offsets.

The provision regarding state funding has caused some confusion among foresters, conservation groups, and others who have forest sequestration projects and seek state funding for other restoration and conservation efforts. AB 1159 will clarify that the prohibition only applies to the funding of GHG reduction or removal on natural working lands that will be sold as credits in the carbon market.

Simply put, the state does not want to pay for something that will become a money-making venture, and the state does not want to pay for something that would happen anyway. Whether you agree with this or not, the provision in last year's AB 1757 was ambiguous and confusing. The ARB has provided guidance on how to interpret this provision, which has been extremely useful. However, it does not have the force of law.

AB 1159 provides the certainty nonprofit conservation groups, tribes, and others require to continue accepting state funding for restoration and conservation projects on land with existing forest sequestration projects. Because there was not sufficient time last year to fully vet the final provision of AB 1757. This Bill is necessary to address unintended consequences and confusion. This is a complicated, multilayered issue that requires a full public process, so we expect to receive further input and additional changes may be necessary.

Madam Chair, I will continue to work with the Committee and the leadership staff, the Air Resources Board, and stakeholders as this Bill moves forward to make sure we get this language right. With me today to testify in support, I have Reed Addis, Principal Consultant for Environmental and Energy Consulting, on behalf of The Conservation Fund, and Paul Mason, the Vice President for Policy Incentives for the Pacific Forest Trust.

Thank you, Chair and Members, Reed Addis, on behalf of The Conservation Fund, in strong support today. This measure is really critical to the conservation community to take away some of the ambiguity that is creating a problem and us delivering on protection, restoration, and stewardship projects on the ground as we try to meet our climate adaptation 30 x 30 and recreational goals. Those conservation projects actually are very complicated.

It requires a lot of private funding and multiple state dollars to pull the dollars together and make sure we can advance a project.

Unfortunately, with the legislation last year, it created just enough ambiguity that many of our conservation projects, if we were to look at one of those revenue sources being a carbon offset project, if you were to put that in the mix to do your project, you wouldn't be able to accept state funding, and that obviously creates a chilling effect, and we're hoping we can fix it.

We know the language in the Bill today and working with Committee, is not necessarily perfect, but it definitely is putting us down the right road of identifying how to make sure that if I'm getting a dollar to protect conservation projects, I'm not using that to also get an offset project or credit. So we think this is a good fix. We'd like to continue working with the Committee, leadership, and others to continue fixing it, but in strong support today. And thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Paul Mason with Pacific Forest Trust. The author statement really covered most of what I otherwise would have said. I mean, when it comes right down to it at the end of session last year, AB 1757 passed included some well-intentioned provisions that were frankly confusing. The first five people I shared it with all interpreted it a little bit differently. Air Resources Board put out some guidance, but it's not binding. It does not the force of law.

This is just trying to make sure the statute is not confusing. And we urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in support? Are there witnesses in opposition? There are none. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Thank you. We have a motion. Several seconds. I'll take Assembly Member Pellerin. Thank you for bringing this measure forward. I remember last year how fast this was all going with the climate package. And I know that we need some clarification and thank you for working with our Committee on this. So I will be supporting this Bill. Would you like to close?

I simply would like to ask for your Aye vot, but I really do appreciate your team working with us. It is confusing. And at the end of session, let's face it, sometimes we do things and there's an unintended consequence, and this is it. And we're lucky enough to have a system like we have now, is to be able to come back and make amendments and change the policy and make it better so for our conservation groups and our tribal. I ask for your Aye vote.

Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. Secretary, please take the roll.

Motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations. [Roll call].

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Members.

That Bill has eight votes. We'll leave it open for absent Members. Next, Assembly Member Bennett. AB 673.

Thank you and good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members, as we evolve from a fossil fuel economy, I believe California will be much better off if we have a healthy competition between hydrogen technology and battery technology in as many areas as possible, particularly in this early stage of making this tremendous transformation that's taking place. Thank you. AB 673 helps advance this goal in a very modest and very measured way.

The Administration has stated in budget sub three and in other places that they intend to open grant pathways now for heavy and medium duty vehicles. And last year, and that's ZEV vehicles. And last year in sub three mentioned exploring having publicly funded stations serving all vehicle types. AB 673 simply requires the Energy Commission to consider whether it's appropriate to require the addition of light duty stations to a medium and heavy duty station.

And what I anticipate is, as we try to start to create the proper amount of heavy duty charging along our major quarters, the 5, 99, 101 that those would be appropriate places. If the CEC makes that determination, those would be appropriate places for that funding to also include having light duty stations. Be a small part of that. And I hark back to the experiences that I had when I bought a rabbit diesel more than 40 years ago.

It was a little, tiny car, and we just would pull. The truck stops were where we counted on being able to get our diesel fuel. It worked then. There's no reason why that couldn't work now. It'd be a small part if, in fact. And so this is just a requirement that asks them to make sure they consider that when they are siding those big heavy duty stations.

Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. Thank you. Next. Are there any witnesses in support? See none. Any witnesses in opposition? Hold on, please. Yes. Okay, go ahead.

Sorry, Christina Scaringe for the Center for Biological Diversity in respectful opposition.

Thank you. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Seeing none. We have a motion from Assemblymember Flora. Second by Assemblymember Addis. Would you like to close?

Respectfully? Ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Secretary, please call the roll.

Motion is do pass to appropriations. [Roll Call].

Okay, that Bill has seven votes. We'll leave it open for absent Members. Thank you. Next on the list, we have Assemblymember Irwin, but I believe she's not in the room. Assemblymember Garcia. Feel like you're the only. Oh, why did he.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. Thank you also to Committee staff and my own staff for their hard work on this Bill. And I do want to say that we accept the proposed amendments listed in the Committee analysis. I'm here today to ask for your I vote on AB 80 to create an offshore wind, or OSW, science entity within the Ocean Protection Council, or OPC. As you're aware, the Federal Government leased five offshore wind areas along California's coast in December of 2022.

Three of those are off the coast of Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo, my hometown and Assembly District, and two are off the coast of Humboldt County and Assembly District two. It is critical that we maintain California's strong commitment to ocean and coastal protections while we build offshore wind energy. And now is precisely the time to move forward intentionally by understanding our ecosystems and wildlife and how offshore wind energy will interact with our natural marine environment.

In doing so, we will remain strong stewards of the ocean now and for generations to come. So AB 80 requires the Ocean Protection Council to create a science entity to coordinate and oversee the scientific research and monitoring that decision makers need ahead of and during the development of offshore wind energy. And it is important to understand how marine life and habitat will interact with offshore wind energy infrastructure as well as development activity.

The science entity will follow, collect, and fund scientific research on offshore wind energy in marine environments and make that research available to decision makers and the public. AB 80 also calls for the OPC to create a steering Committee that will guide and oversee the science entity's work, and that steering Committee will be composed of representatives from state and federal agencies, from tribes, from environmental nonprofits, and from offshore wind developers.

The idea for the entity and its structure is based on a similar body from the East Coast called the Regional Wildlife Science Collaborative for offshore wind. And of note is that we feel the OPC is uniquely positioned for this work in California, first because the OPC was created to coordinate with state agencies on policies that affect coastal waters, but also because OPC staff and leadership have experience overseeing the scientific ocean research, including on offshore wind energy development.

And before I turn it over to my co sponsors of AB 80 for their testimony, I do want to recognize the strong work of the California Energy Commission, the Ocean Protection Council, other state boards and departments but also my legislative colleagues, some of whom are on this Committee, who've spent countless hours creating momentum for offshore wind energy in California so that California can meet its climate and clean energy goals. And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to my two witnesses.

First, Amy Wolfram, Senior Manager of California Ocean Policy at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And then Irene Gutierrez, Senior Attorney of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Rivas and Members, my name is Amy Wolfram and I am the California Ocean Senior Policy Manager at Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium strongly supports AB 80 to establish a West Coast offshore wind science entity.

We believe AB 80 is vital to ensuring that offshore wind development off of California's coast is managed in an environmentally responsible manner that safeguards ocean wildlife and ecosystems. There is a lot at stake. The California current ecosystem is one of the most biologically diverse and productive regions of the planet. It supports healthy fisheries, harbors iconic marine life, alongside numerous other benefits important to communities in California and around the world. We need more renewable energy to combat climate change.

Floating offshore wind is a relatively new industry, and the potential impacts are largely unknown. The offshore wind science entity will help speed progress towards understanding and mitigating these potential impacts. It will do this by bringing together federal and state agencies, the offshore wind industry, environmental organizations, tribes, and other relevant groups to identify knowledge gaps, align existing science efforts and design coordinated research and monitoring plans to obtain crucial information before development and throughout the project's life.

In addition, this collaboration will increase efficiency, enhance transparency, and build relationships across sectors essential for the long term success of any offshore wind enterprise. The aquarium is proud to cosponsor AB 80, a West Coast offshore wind science entity, will help combat climate change, protect our ocean environment, and grow our economy at the same time. Thank you, Assemblywoman Addis, for your leadership. Members, I respectfully request your aye vote.

Good afternoon, Chair Rivas and Members of the Committee. My name is Irene Gutierrez, and I'm a senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'm here to state my strong support for AB 80, which would create a science entity to more fully study the effects of offshore wind development. Offshore wind is an important tool to fight the climate crisis, and it's an exciting time in California. There's a lot of momentum to move offshore wind forward, and that's really exciting to see.

At the same time, as Assemblywoman Addis and my colleague Amy Wolfram have pointed out, there are many unknowns about what offshore wind will do in the vibrant and productive waters off the California coast. So there's a real need for the science entity. NRDC sits on the science entity, the regional wildlife science collaborative on the East Coast, and we've seen this model work well. It's a productive effort involving multiple stakeholders from government, from industry, from academia, as well as from environmental groups.

And it's a good forum to share knowledge and ensure that outstanding science needs are addressed in an organized and efficient manner. No other state agencies are currently covering the work that would be done by a science entity like this. The AB 525 process that's currently underway is a good foundation for understanding potential environmental, socioeconomic, and other impacts.

But that process doesn't provide the infrastructure to evaluate the long term research needs associated with wind development or provide a plan to address science gaps or direct funding to address those gaps. So there remains a need for an entity like the entity that's contemplated by AB 80. So, in closing, I'd like to thank Assemblymember Addis for her leadership, as well as Senator Laird for their leadership on this important issue, and respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in support?

Sakereh Carter, on behalf of Sierra Club California, in support.

Madam Chairman, Members Pat Moran with Aaron Read & Associates representing the California Association of Professional Scientists, in support.

Molly Croll with American Clean Power Association. We don't have an official support position, but conceptually supportive. Thank you.

Fatima Iqbal-Zubair with California Environmental Voters, in support,

Brian White, Offshore Wind California, in a similar position. We look forward to working with the author. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Assemblymember Zbur?

First of all, I want to thank the author and the sponsors of the Bill. I think this is incredibly important, and I want to thank you for your leadership on offshore wind. I know we've been working together on a whole host of things in the area, but I think one of the things that we've talked about is the climate requires us to figure out a way of getting offshore wind entitled and built.

We also want to retain the jobs here in the state, but we can't do it at the expense of basically the coastal habitats and sensitive species and the ocean environment and the cultural resources that are so important along the coast. And so this Bill, I think, is a really important part of what we do in California, which is actually to make our decisions based on science and information.

And it's an area where we don't have adequate information yet to understand how these huge turbines are going to affect our fisheries and our marine habitats and our coastal resources. And so this is incredibly important. I would love to sign on a co sponsor if that's. And I would like to move the Bill.

Assemblymember Pellerin.

This is a great Bill and I'm really excited about offshore wind and look forward to seeing what it brings up as far as the impacts. And I'd love to be added as a co author as well. And I'll second.

Any other questions or comments. So thank you for your leadership in this area. Much needed in the Assembly. We're happy that you brought this Bill forward. We have a motion and a second and I'm happy to support the Bill. Would you like to close?

Just thank you so much for the comments of support for those that stood up today and we asked for your aye vote.

Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll.

The Bill has eight votes. We'll leave it open for Members that are absent. Thank you.

Motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. [Roll Call].

Next, we'll go back to the sign-in sheet and Assembly Member Irwin AB 891.

Thank you and good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. I'm pleased to present to AB 891 in 2019. Assembly Member Ting and I joint authored AB 793, which requires beverage bottle manufacturers to contain at least 50% recycled content by 2030.

While the changes secured by AB 793 are a momentous step in the right direction, we must continue to reduce the carbon emissions that fossil fuel-based plastics create as we move to a fully circular economy. Many manufacturing processes still need virgin material, and that is what the Bill focuses on. AB 891 would incentivize the use of recyclable, nonpetroleum, bio-based plastics.

This Bill would provide an up to 10% processing fee discount for plastic bottle manufacturers if they use plastic derived from agricultural waste. This Bill would also set a goal for plastic bottles in California to contain at least 15% of plastics made from nonpetroleum biomaterials by 2030. I would like to express my appreciation to the industry for engaging in productive conversations with my office. We look forward to continuing conversations and addressing some of the recently communicated concerns through Committee amendments.

With me today in support of this Bill is Mark Murray of representing Californians Against Waste.

Madam Chair and Members, Mark Murray with the environmental group Californians Against Waste. Making plastics out of plant material, plant waste material, is happening. In case you didn't have a chance to read last week's plastics news. The Biden Administration is calling on 90% of plastics to be made from plant-sourced materials. This is happening. There are hundreds of companies in this space.

This Bill is an opportunity for California to define some terms and to create some basic incentives for moving forward in an area where California has already been a leader. We are the global leader in requirements for recycled content in plastic beverage containers. We should be the global leader in specifying definitions and creating incentives for using plant waste material in plastic beverage containers. I say plant waste material because California doesn't want companies to be making plastic out of food products.

We don't want them making it out of sugar and corn and material that we need for food. But there are plenty of plant waste materials, forestry waste materials that can be made into plastics. That's the key of this Bill. The key of this Bill is its definitions and its very modest incentives to utilize the existing processing fee provisions of the beverage container recycling program.

The analysis is excellent in terms of talking about the need for us to use all of the tools in the toolbox, but also identifying if everyone in the plastic beverage container world was to meet the maximum amount of plant-based materials, the total amount of this financial incentive would be about $1.0 million. There's $31 million of surplus money sitting in the Plastic Processing Fee Account. So zero chance we're going to run out of money in terms of this incentive. Again, we're moving forward.

The nation is moving forward with making plastic materials out of plant-based materials. But California needs to define what that means and create incentives that moves people in the right direction. Urge an Aye vote.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in support?

Sakereh Carter, on behalf of Sierra Club California in support.

Any witnesses in opposition?

All right. Right next to you. Good to see you. Well, we enjoy working with the Assembly Member and appreciate that. Unfortunately, I'm here on behalf of the American Beverage Association and the Consumer Brands Association. We must oppose AB 891. We've worked closely with the Assembly Member, as she mentioned, and Mr. Murray on several bills, including the 793 and when they passed, when the Legislature passed, Governor signed 793 in 2020.

They put the industry, everybody spoke and the industry listened and said, we're on a track now for RPET, for recycled PET and we're going and there's requirements to report and there's that system. But as we go on that track, this is where we're kind of a train going down the track. We've coordinated our supply chains for RPET, coordinated our investments to RPET. We've developed some technology for RPET, and frankly, we've even changed our policy views. And Mark knows this.

We've worked very closely last year on a couple of bills and some budget deals to try to clean up the California recycling system to make sure we have more available California material. And that has been a change of policy that our entire industry has supported. So when we add a second lane on this train track, which doesn't work very well, you got to go one way on a train. This is what this Bill is doing. It's changing some of the rules.

It's changing our supply chains, it's changing things. When. I just want to point out, we don't even have the regulations for 793 drafted yet. They are not final. Well, they've been drafted. Excuse me, they are not final yet. And so we're sitting there with 793. We don't even know those rules. And by the way, it's not non-controversial. There's still several controversial issues in that. And now we're already adding a new requirement that now. Okay, is it a requirement? I'll address that. 15% goal.

Well, as we know, when the Legislature passes something, Governor signs it. That goal means the administrative agencies need to dedicate grants to it. They need to dedicate their regulatory actions towards that. And so now they're going to start dedicating some money for this type of process, when in fact, we should be putting that money to the recycling system that, Mark and I would both agree is not as healthy as it should be. And I think the consultant as well.

I do want to point out one other thing. It's still uncertain of why are we doing this Bill? There is no commercial production in the United States at all. Of that material, zero. And so, thank you.

Madam Chair and Members, Eloy Garcia for the International Bottled Water Association. By the way, this is my friend Dennis Albiani, who neglected to introduce himself. I know you only had so much time, so I'll use some of my time for that.

Let me just start off with one issue on behalf of the International Bottled Water Association. We were happy to work with Assembly Member Irwin and Mr. Ting on AB 793 a couple of years ago. Worked cooperatively in that respect. Also last year and over the last several years on SB 54 with Mr. Allen, we do have back-to-back significant pieces of legislation. California is moving policy forward significantly in this respect. But as Mr. Albiani mentioned, we haven't even adopted the regulations for AB 793.

We have a long way to go with regard to AB 793 CalRecycle has its hands full. Industry has its hands full. We would respectfully request a little bit more time to see that process be successful before we add another lane to Mr. Albiani's point, but also with the issue of requirement. Is this a goal or a requirement? At one point, in the Committee analysis, this refers to this as codifying intent. Page seven calls this a requirement.

Thank you. I have a motion from Assembly Member Ward. I need a second. Second by Assembly Member Zbur. Secretary, please call the roll.

So we would really appreciate clarification on whether this is a goal, codified intent, or an actual requirement or mandate, because I think we read it as a requirement. The Committee analysis calls it a requirement. And so we distinguish that from some of the incentives and definitions. We don't have issues with that, but a requirement, we should at least be clear on whether this is a requirement or a mandate. Thank you very much.

Is there additional witnesses in opposition?

Not quite opposed. John Kennedy with RCRC wanted to thank the author and the Committee for working to address some of the concerns we'd expressed about the definitions. Thank you.

Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Assembly Member Ward?

Thank you. I want to thank the author for bringing this for us, a chance to review the Bill. Very excited for forward thinking about where we could possibly use plant-based materials for the intended purposes, the outcomes that you want to seek under this Bill. And I, kind of recognizing some of the arguments, want to be careful, I think, about our approaches. But I do believe even though we continue to are iterative and continue to work on some of our regulatory needs, you're thinking ahead of that.

And so I know that that will be finalized, and I appreciate that should this become law next year, that would be something that would be able to help us reach even further. And as I was looking at this over the weekend, was coming to aware, was thinking with my staff, what about the capacity for California to be able to even apply this? How are companies out there, how are partners out there within our state even be able to meet this demand that you might project?

Is it limited, or do you see the ability for multiple companies to be able to support the goals of this Bill if it were in effect?

Well, certainly we think with the incentive, we will continue to bring additional companies into this space. But there are companies who have developed bio-based plastic technology or are currently developing the technology, and among them are Danomer Scientific, LG Chem, ADM, and BASF. So there's definitely work being done in this area already. Perhaps you want to add something to that.

Yeah. So again, Mark Murray, with Californians Against Waste, there are multiple companies that are working in this space, there have been beverage producers, name brand beverage producers, that have been touting their use of plant-based materials in their plastic beverage containers for seven years now. So we've already moved forward. What this Bill is doing is, just to be clear, it's not a requirement. I might wish it was a requirement, but it is just a goal. It's got an incentive, a financial, a very modest financial incentive.

And it's got definitions. The definitions are really what the key are. We could just put definitions out there in law, but without an incentive or a goal to drive them, it seems kind of silly. So multiple companies in this space, California-bred companies focused on using orchard waste. When they take out an orchard, almond shells and walnut shells. So the feedstock, the plant waste feedstock is here in California. The companies that invented these policies are here in California.

And we think it's important for California to take a lead in this definition.

Thank you. No, I appreciate the clarification on the record that we would be able to meet that goal and meet those needs that are out there. And then just some of the other issues to make sure that this would implement well. I'm sure that we'll get administrative feedback as it gets closer to the Governor's Office as well about their ability to make sure that they're able to support that, in addition to all the other ongoing programs that we have. So thank you for the effort.

I like the vision and where it's headed. And happy to move the Bill.

Assembly Member Flora.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Learned a couple of things today. That plastic actually has a newsletter. So that's impressive. Plastic News Weekly. I don't, weird. I don't know. Somebody's been stealing it. But no, I appreciate you, and it's a very interesting Bill. But I am curious and we've talked a little bit about it. Like, currently there is no commercial production of this. And we talk about there's small, maybe potentially startup companies that are looking into doing this.

But to meet these goals in this timeline seems really, really challenging to me. So when we talk about incentives, I am worried that as a Committee, we pass all of these very aggressive goals, but we've never allowed time to actually meet the goals we passed last year. And then we're adding on top of that at some point. I think we need to take a break and we have to let technology catch up a little bit.

If there was a mass commercial market for this right now, it'd already be done, and we don't see that right now. And so as we move forward, with all of this stuff, whether it's clean energy, whether it's renewables. Let's take a moment. Let's take a breath. We have to be able to produce this stuff if we're going to mandate this, if we're going to encourage, if we're going to incentivize this, people have to make it. And right now we simply do not have that.

And I am concerned that seven years, I mean, 2030 seems like a ways away. It's not, especially to ramp up to meet these demand or meet these numbers. So I know the author, we've worked together a lot, and I know where her heart is in all of this. But just let's take a break. Let's take a breath and let's let some of these regulations catch up.

Thank you. Any other Assembly Member Hoover.

Thank you. Thank you to the author. I certainly do have some concerns about this, and I won't quite repeat them. I am concerned, as the opposition pointed out, that a lot of things, these things start out as goals, but it does appear that there is a desire to move beyond just a goal in the future. And I think that is certainly a red flag for me.

But one question I would like to ask of the author and also of the opposition, if they're willing to answer it as well, is what the impact this is going to have on the consumer in terms of cost and in terms of are we going to see an increase in cost for consumers because of this Bill? I'd love to ask that.

Madam Chair Members. Mark Murray, with Californians Against Waste, I don't want to pretend that requiring recycled content, as we've already done with current law, or requiring plant-based waste material as we're envisioning in the future, isn't going to increase the cost of delivering tap water and sugar water to people. It may.

Well, so several of our companies, as Mark mentioned, have actually engaged with the one company that we're aware of that has some testing that they've done. And even when they do the perspective of when they build their plant in Ontario, Canada, that they're planning on building up there, even when they do that, that the costs are going to be, again, in best case scenario, three times more than that, but again, our argument isn't against cost.

Our argument is let's focus on the current system recycling system here in California. Let's make it better. Let's focus there. Let's focus grants and money there, and we'll help pull that product through.

Thank you. Yeah. And I appreciate both of those responses. I think they're pretty consistent with what I expected. I think the market is moving this direction with some of the encouragement of this body already. And so I'm not going to be able to support the Bill today because I think we need to let the market move at the pace that it needs to move without overly impacting consumers. So I appreciate it. Thank you.

Any other questions, Assembly Member Zbur.

I had a question. I mean, as I'm reading this, it looks like it's merely an incentive program. Isn't that right? It doesn't require anyone to do anything unless you're actually claiming the incentive, at which point you would actually have to calculate the amount in the bottle, which if you're not claiming the incentive and there's nothing in it, then you don't have to do anything, right?

That's correct. It's an incentive program with a goal and whatever that. I think the opposition is saying that a goal is going to morph into something else, but that's not what this Bill is. An incentive program will help create a robust market and hopefully attract companies into this space.

Thank you very much.

Any other questions or comments from Committee Members? Thank you for presenting this measure. I will be supporting. This is a goal. I know there was some questions about that. This is a goal, like you said, with an incentive. There's nothing in here that says that it's going to be a requirement. We never know what's going to happen in the future. But our job is to evaluate what's before us today through this Bill. So I will be supporting. Would you like to close?

I just respectfully ask for your Aye vote, and we will continue to work with the opposition. As Mr. Albiani stated, we have worked collaboratively on bills for a number of years, and when we finally got 793 to the finish line, we had no opposition. And certainly, if this gets to the finish line, we would hope that we're in the same situation. So just, again, respectfully ask for your Aye vote.

Motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations. [Roll call].

Okay, that Bill has six votes. We'll leave it on call.

Okay, thank you. And I have 1534.

Oh, yes, go ahead. AB 1534. Okay, you have a motion and a second.

Oh look at both sides like it. Yes, I'll be quick.

Methane is responsible for nearly a third of all greenhouse gas emissions. The California landfill methane regulation requires landfills to reduce methane and other air pollutant pollutant emissions through emissions monitoring and through capturing fugitive methane. Currently, the enforcement for methane plumes in landfills rely upon surface emission monitoring methods that are inefficient and require operators to use handheld instruments to detect methane plumes.

New remote sensing methods that use airplane flyover satellites and drones have proven to accelerate the timeline for discovery and remediation of methane plumes when compared to traditional methods. AB 1534 would grant CARB the authority to incorporate remote sensing data into their enforcement efforts to reduce methane from municipal solid waste landfills. I would like to recognize and thank the recycling environmental group's engagement and support for this Bill. With me to testify today is Nick Lapis from California's against waste.

Good afternoon. Nick Lapis with Californians against waste being cognizant of the motion. And second, I'll ignore most of my comments and just say that the last time we updated the landfill gas regulations was in 2010. At the time, what we did to find methane leaks from landfills is to require that landfill operators walk a tighter grid. So they walk around with a little sniffer up to three inches from the surface of the landfill, basically hoping to stumble upon a leak.

Since then, we've done the flyovers, the satellites EPA just approved, drone technology. We can do a lot better than the human error and inconsistency involved with walking around a landfill on a 30 foot grid. Thank you.

Hi. Darryl Little Jr. With the Natural Resources Defense Council in support.

Sofia Rafikova with the Coalition for Clean Air in support.

Chris Grogan with the ... on behalf of Republic Services in support.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Okay, we have a motion and a second. I will be supporting this Bill. Would you like to close?

Just respectfully ask for your vote.

Thank you. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is due. Pass to appropriations. [Roll Call].

That Bill has eight votes.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we have AB 408, Assemblymember Robert Rivas presenting for Assemblymember Wilson.

We'll hold it open for absent Members.

Well, good afternoon. Thank you, Madam Chair, colleagues. And as the chair mentioned, I'm here this afternoon on behalf of Assemblymember Lloyd Wilson, and I'd like to start by thanking the Committee staff as Assemblymember Wilson will be accepting the proposed amendments by the Committee. You know and I'm proud to be here this afternoon to present this legislation on behalf of Assemblymember Wilson because it's time that we build a foundation here in California for a better food system.

A food system that is more resilient, more sustainable, and certainly more just. You know, as we all know here in California, our farm and food system is on the front lines of our climate crisis. And if we hope to create a more climate resilient agricultural sector, then we must act now to scale up investments in this space. This legislation, it proposes a 3.4 billion in bond funding, funding that seeks to improve our food system in four key ways.

First, this bond will promote sustainable agriculture and climate resilience, which brings a host of co benefits such as supporting our biodiversity, improved air and water quality, and support for local jobs and economic development. This is especially important as we also know that our recent pandemic, flood and wildfire impacts and ongoing supply chain challenges, they've negatively affected our farmers, our farm workers, and California's overall agricultural productivity. Second, this bond effort will protect farm and food system workers.

It does so by expanding resources for their safety, for their well being, and by making a range of investments to proactively address farm workers health and safety needs. And third, this bond will combat hunger and expand healthy food access for our school students, access for our most vulnerable families and our senior citizens. And fourth, this bond will invest in food processing, distribution and market infrastructure. By making significant investments to increase capacity for emergency food distribution across our state.

I know firsthand, as we worked on this issue last session, that a lot of work has been invested in this legislation. There is a broad coalition supporting this effort, supporting this work and the much needed food system reforms and investments that we need here in California. And with us this afternoon is Sandra Nakagawa, the Policy Director for the California Climate and Agriculture Network CalCAN, and Emilie Winfield, coordinator for the North Bay Soil Health Hub. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon. My name is Sandra Nakagawa. I'm the Policy Director at CalCAN. We are proud to be one of the 18 organizations cosponsoring AP 408, a Bill which would put a $3.4 billion bond on the ballot for 2024. The climate crisis is already having devastating effects on California's broader food system. We know that climate impacts are going to intensify in the coming years and that those impacts won't be felt equally.

Low income communities of color are especially vulnerable to climate related risks, and they also experience higher rates of food insecurity. That's why this Bill seeks to create a more climate resilient and equitable food and farming system by providing funding for sustainable, healthy food access and regional food economies. These are critical investments that can help disadvantaged communities and tribes obtain or produce foods grown, caught and harvested here in California.

AB 408 will help build certified farmers markets, school kitchen facilities and much needed infrastructure to deliver meals to California's growing senior population. This Bill also recognizes that building climate resilience in the food system requires investing in farmers and ranchers as they adapt to intensifying climate related extremes. We've heard from farmers impacted by recent storms who are questioning whether they're going to be able to continue operating.

I'll leave the Committee with the words of one of those producers, Molly Myerson of Little Wing Farm, a small, diversified organic farm in Marin County. Molly shared, quote, "small scale crop producers have been left out to dry with regards to support and relief programs. These operations are potentially the most vulnerable to increased climate change challenges as we already struggle day to day. The newer generation of farmers don't have generational wealth, land stability or government backing to buffer losses due to climate related damages.

The decision to fold your business or double down in the face of increasing security is a daily debate." In closing, it's absolutely urgent that California invests in a more climate resilient food and farming system, and I urge your aye vote today on AB 480.

Good afternoon. My name is Emilie Winfield. I serve as the Regional Coordinator for the North Coast Soil Hub. I'm based at the North Coast Resource Conservation districts and I work with farmers, ranchers and technical assistance providers across six counties in the North Coast region of the state. I'm here today speaking in strong support of AB 408 as a pathway to improving the resilience of agricultural operations, increasing equity and access to healthy food, and supporting regional food systems.

Farmers and ranchers in our region and throughout the state face many challenges, including increasing cost of goods and supplies, stagnating prices, and increasing pressure to feed a growing population while farming sustainably, improving wildlife habitat, water quality and air quality, storing carbon in the soil and providing additional ecosystem benefits. On top of all of these challenges, they are on the front lines of experiencing the negative impacts of climate change, ranging from extreme drought to extreme floods to extreme heat.

In light of these challenges, the demand for financial and technical assistance related to climate resilient agriculture remains high despite ongoing investments from the state. This Bill provides much needed funding for oversubscribed climate smart programs at the State Department of Food and Agriculture, including the Healthy Soils Program, the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program, and the Alternative Manure Management Program. This Bill represents an investment in the sustainability and resilience of agriculture in California.

If we seek food systems that provide healthy, nutrient rich foods at the local level that are accessible to all communities, then we must continue to invest in the farmers and ranchers who steward our lands and sustain us. In representation of the people I work with on the ground, I urge your support for AB 408. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in support?

Nick Clappis of California's Against Waste in support.

Hello. Darryl Little on behalf of co sponsors Natural Resources Defense Council, Agriculture Institute of Marin, American Farmland Trust, California Certified Organic Farms, California Nurses for Environmental Health and Justice, Carbon Cycle Institute, Center for Food Safety, Central California Environmental Justice Network, Food Forward, Healthcare without Harm, Mandela Partners, Monterey Bay Central Labor Council, Roots for Change Sustainable Agriculture Education and Community Alliance with Family Farmers in support. Thank you.

Hi Laura Placencia on behalf of Valley Improvement Projects in support.

Fatima Iqbal-Zubair with California Environmental Voters in support.

Asha Sharma with co sponsors Pesticide Action Network and Californians for Pesticide Reform in support and also on behalf of the California Food and Farming Network in support. Thank you.

Amara Eger, on behalf of the California Compost Coalition in Support.

Madam Chair, Mark Fenstermaker for the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority in support.

Chair and Members, Kathy Mossberg with Roots of Change the project of the Public Health Institute in strong support.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in opposition? I see none. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Assemblymember Zbur? Oh, thank you. We have a motion and a second. Okay, Assemblymember Addis.

Now I want to thank the author and thank the witnesses and Assemblymember Rivas for presenting this and just say how incredibly important this is. I saw some of the effects of the climate crisis both in January and in March through the storms across the central coast that largely affected the farm working community, and so want to appreciate you bringing this forward and ask if you're accepting co authors. If the author is accepting co authors, that we add on to that.

Thank you. So we have a motion and a second. Oh, Assemblymember Wood I didn't see.

I'd just like to say thanks for bringing the Bill forward on behalf of Assemblymember Wilson, and I'd like to ditto her comments and let the additives if you she would be willing to take me. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments from the Committee? Okay, you have a motion and a second. Thank you for presenting for Assemblymember Wilson, would you like to close?

Just respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. [Roll Call].

That Bill has eight votes. We'll leave it open for absent Members. Next. Assemblymember Haney, AB 593.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. First of all, I will be accepting the Committee's technical amendments, and thank you for your work with us on that. In California, commercial and residential buildings account for approximately 25% of the state's greenhouse gas emissions, second only to the transportation sector. In addition to contributing to climate change and its impacts, building emissions also contribute to indoor and outdoor pollution that disproportionately harms the health and well-being of low-income and communities of color across the state.

This Bill, AB 593, will direct the California Energy Commission to identify and implement an emissions reduction strategy for the building sector, complete with emission reductions milestones to advance California's path to carbon neutrality by 2045. While the state has made an effort to create policy and fund pathways that would reduce emissions from buildings, it has not implemented an overarching strategy to actually reduce building emissions.

We now need a comprehensive statewide building emission reduction plan that helps the state reach its carbon neutrality goals and prioritize equity for all communities. AB 593 would be the next step to build on existing efforts because it requires the state to take action on their findings related to building greenhouse gas emissions. It also requires the CEC to prioritize high-road workforce development, send clear market signals to appliance manufacturers and installers, lessen impacts on ratepayers, support climate goals, and address barriers for low-income communities.

Here to testify and support with me today is Panama Bartholomy, Executive Director of Building Decarbonization Coalition, and Srinidhi Sampath Kumar from Rocky Mountain Institute.

Well done. Assembly Member. Chair Rivas, Committee Members, Committee staff my name is Panama Bartholomy. I'm the Executive Director of the Building Decarbonization Coalition. We're a coalition of manufacturers of heating equipment, utilities, the design and construction community, and environmental NGOs focused on eliminating pollution from buildings. And I'm happy to be here to present in support of AB 593. We are the sponsors of this Bill.

We're at a very exciting time for building decarbonization, and I have to thank the Chair for her leadership on this issue through the lens of extreme heat mitigation. Right now in America, we have one in five Americans live in a jurisdiction that's adopted a building decarbonization policy for the first time last year. Across the United States, heat pumps outsold gas furnaces largely in states like South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Texas. And this is a movement that really started here in California.

Last year, the California Energy Commission adopted a building code that largely requires heat pumps for space heating and water heating across the United States, with the Builders of California not in opposition of that movement. And now AB 593 really serves as an opportunity for us to be able to take that next step, to be able to put together a thoughtful, comprehensive strategy for how we are going to be able to move the building stock to full decarbonization here in this state.

Right now, we have about seven different agencies implementing policies. And when my manufacturing members come to California to try to talk to agencies, they say, why do we have to go to seven different forums to be able to have the same message on building decarbonization here in this state?

And so what this Bill does is it ensures a public process with accountability and milestones for the State of California on building decarbonization so that the Legislature and the residents of California can hold the Administration accountable for the building decarbonization policies that they're going to be implementing. This will allow really clear signals to the marketplace so that manufacturers and the supply chain will know what the state is planning.

They'll know whether the state is making progress and they can start to base their businesses off of the plan that the State of California is adopting. AB 593 is an essential next step to help the state meet our carbon neutrality in an effective, cost-effective, and thoughtful way. I want to thank Assembly Member Haney for his leadership in authoring the Bill, and thank you for your time and happy to answer any questions the Committee may have.

Thank you very much. Next witness

Good afternoon Chair Rivas and Members, I'm Srinidhi Sampath Kumar, a program manager at RMI, previously known as Rocky Mountain Institute. RMI is an independent nonprofit that transforms global energy system to secure a clean, prosperous, and zero-carbon future for all. As Panama just shared, the state cannot meet its climate targets or provide healthy, resilient, and affordable housing without swiftly reducing emissions from the buildings.

In addition to the climate benefits, creating a plan to decarbonize our building sector will offer critical clean air and resiliency core benefits. More than half of all Californians live in areas with unsafe levels of ozone pollution, as do 99% of all disadvantaged communities in the state. Buildings are also responsible for roughly two-thirds of nitrogen oxalate pollution, as much as the state's 16 million passenger cars.

Decarbonizing the state's building sector provides direct benefits to Low income and disadvantaged communities that are disproportionately burdened by indoor and outdoor building emissions and their negative impacts, including asthma and other illnesses. Additionally, heat pumps, the state's current zero-emission appliance option, simultaneously provides both heating and cooling. So as we retrofit homes with these really efficient zero-emissions appliances, we are also supplying nearly 25% of Californian homes without air conditioning during really extreme weather events.

As we all know, wildfires have been increasingly prevalent with actual tools to address their extreme weather situations. The Federal Government and California have recognized this and have begun investing in this through the Inflation Reduction Act and also through the equitable building decarbonization programs. To be both strategic about how we use these limited federal and state funding and achieve these other benefits we desperately need in the state.

We need to create targets and develop a roadmap for how the state is going to equitably and effectively decarbonize the building sector. AB 693 will create a comprehensive plan to ensure that all Californians can benefit from the health and resiliency associated with decarbonizing our buildings and also support the needs to meet our set greenhouse gas milestones to ensure we are on track to meet our long-term climate targets. Thank you.

Thank you very much anyone else in support?

Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Members. Scott Wetcher, on behalf of the California State Association of Electrical Workers, the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers, the California Coalition of Utility Employees, and the California State Pipe Trades Council in support. Thank you.

Hello. Darryl Little with NRDC in support.

Fatima Iqbal-Zubair with California Environmental Voters in support.

Sakereh Carter, on behalf of Sierra Club California, in support.

Good afternoon. Silvio Ferrari, on behalf of Rewiring America, in support.

Catherine Borg, on behalf of Southern California Edison, in support.

Thank you very much. Anyone in opposition to AB 593? Seeing none. zero, she's coming. Sorry, Jen.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee Members. Jennifer Speck, on behalf of the California Association of Realtors. We had a great dialogue last week with the member's staff. We're hopeful that we'll eventually be able to come to a resolution on what our concerns are. Specifically, we're asking that any of the regulatory authority be limited and not allow the carbon reductions to happen during the home purchasing process. As we all know, buying a home right now is one of the most expensive things that you can endeavor in.

And the transaction process is the least available time that we have to be able to meet the requirements that the Energy Commission may impose. And so it's not that we don't believe in the opportunities to reduce carbon emissions. We just think that there needs to be other opportunities to look at other than the time of sale process. And in order to ensure that the Energy Commission does not consider that, we would like to have that explicitly contained within the Bill.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in opposition? Seeing none. Bring it back to the Committee. Any questions from Committee Members? We got a motion with Dr. Wood seconded by Addis. So, Haney, would you like to close?

And we're going to continue to work. With the opposition and thank the sponsors. And respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you very much. The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. Madam Secretary, please call the roll. [Roll Call].

The last five vote we'll leave it open for absent members. Thank you. And place on call. I don't see any other Members who will bring it to Committee bills. Mr. Mathis, with AB 65.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Presenting AB 65, which would authorize the development and construction of small modular reactors, SMRs up to 300 megawatts per unit within California.

This is a bipartisan bill, and I would like to thank assemblymember Arambula and Hoover for co-authoring it with me. I think the big question here today is what are small modular reactors? A small modular reactor uses energy from a controlled nuclear chain reaction to create steam that powers a turbine to produce electricity. Advanced SMR designs plans a range of sizes and technology options.

Some use light water as a coolant, while others rely on coolants such as gas, liquid metals, or molten salt. Some SMRs would use fuel akin to what runs today's nuclear reactors, while others would use new fuel types. So these aren't the same things that we think of, or even the same as what's listed in the bill analysis.

We tend to think nuclear, we think Diablo, we don't think the new technology. Small modular reactors also can vary in size from a dozen megawatts to hundreds of megawatts per module.

Modules can be added or taken offline to match electricity demand, giving the plant emission flexibility. Importantly, the modules can also be individually refueled so that a SMR plant is never fully offline. Now, what are the current uses of SMRs? Small modular reactors are part of the United States energy plan.

According to the Federal Government Department of Energy, SMRs are a key part of the department's goal to develop safe, clean and affordable nuclear power options. The advanced SMRs currently under development in the United States represent a variety of sizes, technology options, capabilities and deployment scenarios.

The department has a long recognition that transformational value that advances SMRs can provide to the nation's economic, energy, security and environmental outlook. The department has provided substantial support to the development of light water-cooled SMRs.

SMRs are currently being designed and constructed in Idaho. Members, they are already being used in other countries. Some of us took a trip to Japan this last fall, where we saw that SMRs are a key part of Japan's energy portfolio and long-term energy strategy.

They're being used in the United Kingdom. The UK government is currently spending over €215,000,000 for small modular reactors to develop a domestic smaller scale power plant technology design.

A 2023 policy paper entitled Advanced Nuclear Technology states that advanced nuclear technologies have an important role to play in the transition to a low carbon economy.

The UK government believes that SMRs play an important role alongside large nuclear as a low carbon energy source to support a secure, affordable, decarbonized energy system. SMRs are smaller in size and could use modular offsite manufacturing for flexible deployment. Now, what are the environmental concerns?

I'm aware there are a number of concerns raised by the opposition in relation to the environmental impacts of nuclear. I understand many of their concerns, but I think there are several misunderstandings about what this bill and what SMRs do.

SMRs provide a key tool for sustainable development. According to the International Atomic Energy Council, within the United States, SMRs and nuclear power plants offer unique attributes in terms of efficiency, economics, and flexibility.

While nuclear reactors provide dispatchable sources of energy, they can adjust output according to electricity demand. Unlike some, renewables, such as wind and solar are variable energy sources that depend on weather and time of day.

SMRs could be paired with and increase the efficiency of renewable sources in a hybrid energy system. These characteristics position small modular reactors to play a key role in the clean energy transition while also helping countries address the Sustainable Development Goals. California already relies on nonrenewable sources of energy.

According to the 2022 report by Calmatters and the California Energy Commission, California imports more electricity than any other state. About 30% of its supply in 2020 included some from coal fired plants that are large sources of greenhouse gases.

Nuclear power accounted for 9.3% of California's electricity in 2020. Natural gas was by far the primary source at about 37%, according to the California Energy Commission. Members, 28 other states have at least one commercial nuclear reactor.

Diablo Canyon has played a crucial role in providing carbon free energy and maintaining the reliability of California's power. However, small modular reactors are not Diablo Canyon. Small modular reactors are the key to achieving the state's 2045 goals.

Members the reality is that California is not going to meet our 2045 goals without small modular reactors. According to a report by the Environmental Defense Fund and both Stanford and Princeton universities who are the global experts in nuclear.

For California to reliably generate the electricity needed in 2045 from wind and solar power, it would require building up to nearly 500 gigawatts of power generating capacity, along with 160 gigawatts and 1000 gigawatt hours of new storage. However, this goal was deemed unrealistic and unforeseeable.

The increased energy demand is equivalent to approximately half the capacity of the entire United States. Electricity generating systems today and about six times the current total generation capacity now serving California of about 80 gigawatts, which includes nuclear, gas and coal generation stations and hydroelectric dams.

The same report, Members, also found out that not only may it not be possible to construct the wind and solar facilities at the required scale to achieve the 2045 goals, but that the necessary wind and solar power infrastructure would be extremely costly to both the state and the ratepayers.

The report estimated that if such infrastructure could be constructed, the wholesale electricity rate would increase by approximately 65% compared to current rates of electricity. I say that again, without nuclear, the 2045 goals would be 65% higher in cost than what current rates are today.

The advantages of SMRs according to both the International Atomic Energy Council within the United Nations and the Office of Nuclear Energy within the US Department of Energy, states advanced small modular reactors offer advantages such as relatively small size, reduced capital investment, ability to be site in locations not possible for large nuclear pants, and provisions for incremental power additions.

Small modular reactors also offer distinct safeguards, security, nonprofit advantages and specific benefits, including configurability, modularity, flexibility, reliability, energy concentration and adaptability, plus enhanced safety. Members, it is important to clarify that by allowing small modulars to be built, this bill is not a mandate.

This bill is not saying that we have to build these. This bill simply is saying that there's a process and that we are asking for small modular to have a chance to go through the process.

They still have to follow the procedures, the safety measures and regulations, and be subject to the authority and oversight of the California Energy Commission.

Members, I can go on and on, but I want to give an opportunity to the experts with me today to speak a little bit and then to answer any further questions, and I would love to get into the concerns that others have. With me today is James Hoff and Kevin Hickerson. I'm going to hand it over to you gentlemen. Thank you.

I'll go first. My name is Dr. Kevin Hickerson. I'm a Caltech trained nuclear physicist. I originally worked in the renewable energy space for the last 20 years. I became frustrated.

I helped start many companies doing that, but I became very frustrated by the slow pace, the cost, and the large amount of resources like land usage, that it used. I became very interested in small module reactors because they were first proposed about 20 years ago. We've been working on them for the last 20 years.

I mean, we nuclear physicists have been working on them. They're a really exciting alternative to the much older, clunkier versions of nuclear that we're used to. Those are typically generation one and generation two reactors. We're now on generation four.

These are advanced reactors. Part of the reason that small module reactors are so appealing is because they're much easier to manufacture because of their small size. They can be manufactured in a central facility the way cars and other devices, things on that scale are.

They can be put on the back of a truck, not a pickup truck, but a large truck, and they can be delivered to where they need to go. So, they can reach much more diverse communities that are not normally have access to this type of clean energy.

They allow energy to be extracted in ways beyond just electricity. They can also provide something called process heat. We heard earlier today people talking about converting biowaste into other things. One of the biggest issues there is the lack of energy. This is the thing that has caused those processes to be so difficult.

Small module reactors actually have a way of addressing this, where that energy can be used to convert low grade waste that's not food, that otherwise would be thrown away into higher energy components, including fuel and desalination and things like that. The other most exciting thing about small moderator reactors is earlier we heard about new types of fuel.

In just the last three years, there's been several manufacturing startup plants, two of them at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the other at Los Alamos, New Mexico. And this fuel is much different than traditional fuel in that it cannot melt down. That's not my opinion.

That's a DOE statement. It's on the DOE website. And that significantly reduces the risk of the danger from previous accidents that we've heard about. It also doesn't allow for the release of fallout.

This advanced technology is significantly different than what we've seen before, and I think it's really important to reach climate goals that we have in California. We have to use something like small modular reactors.

Hi, my name is Jim Hoff. Thanks for this opportunity to testify in support of AB 65 on behalf of Generation Atomic, a grassroots nuclear advocacy organization. If we want to fully decarbonize our power grid and meet our climate goals, nuclear is going to have to play a significant role.

There is growing consensus that it will not be practical or affordable to get all of our power from intermittent sources due to the extraordinary amount of electricity storage that would be required.

Analyses show that inclusion of firm, non-intermittent sources like nuclear significantly reduces the costs of the overall power grid. A recent U.S. Department of Energy study showed that the United States will have to build a significant amount of new nuclear capacity if it is to fully decarbonize its power grid.

The IPCC itself also concluded that worldwide nuclear power generation will have to increase by a factor of three or more if we're to meet the 1.5 c climate goal.

Support for nuclear power has increased greatly over the last few years, both in the US and abroad. The Biden administration strongly supports nuclear, and a large number of nuclear supportive bills have made their way through the Federal Congress.

Five us states, both red and blue, have just repealed or recently repealed their nuclear moratoria, and Illinois is now in the process of getting rid of its ban. California still gets 50% of its power or so from fossil gas plants.

And a big part of the reason for that is that those plants are required to back up intermittent solar and wind generation. If California were to build some new nuclear as well, they might be able to get rid of all those gas plants much more quickly while maintaining grid reliability.

And finally, as Mr. Mathis said, this is not a requirement to use nuclear. Getting rid of this ban, it just allows it a fair chance to compete.

If nuclear is more expensive than other options, it will not be built. And just in one final thing I want to talk about know, they're fundamentally different than the large reactors in terms of the level of hazard due to fundamental features. The chance of a severe accident is much, much smaller, probably orders of magnitude.

But on top of that, because the amount of physile or radioactive material inventory inside the core, the maximum release, even if you did have a severe accident, would be much, much lower.

So much so that the analyses are showing that even a worst case accident for an SMR would produce no significant impacts outside the plant site boundary. So we no longer have a case where you might have a wide area be affected in the case of a severe accident. Thank you.

Thank you for having me. My name is Alex Trembath, and I'm the Deputy Director of the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank with offices in Berkeley and Washington, DC. Breakthrough is a 501(c)3 independent think tank that promotes and identifies technological solutions to environmental problems.

We act in the public interest and do not receive any funding from industry. Breakthrough is pleased to agree with Mr. Mathis.

We only allow two witnesses in support. So just because you've started, can you make this brief?

Right, yes, I can do that.

I'm sorry, I thought you were the witnesses in opposition.

Okay, excuse me, sorry about that. In that case, I'll just echo the remarks of my colleagues here in emphasizing that nuclear has just about the lowest environmental footprint of any energy technology.

When you look at the lifecycle, everything from mining and manufacturing to production and including waste disposal, advanced reactors are much smaller. We have eight going on, more startups in California.

Advanced nuclear reactors are a tremendous environmental and economic opportunity for a state that has mandated 100% low carbon electricity within just two decades. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are there any additional witnesses in support.

Madam Chair, Chris Mccauley, on behalf of fission transition, as well as Californians for Green Nuclear Power in support of the bill. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Committee Members Kyler Joaquin on behalf of the California State Pipe Trades Council and the California State Association of Electrical Workers in support. Thank you very much.

Dinara Ermakova, Anthropocene Institute in full support for advanced nuclear in California.

Are there any witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon, Madam Chairwoman and Members of the Committee. I'm Bill Allayaud with the Environmental Working Group, and we're opposed to the bill, and I'm going to read, there's a short list of who I'm also representing.

Committee to Bridge the Gap, Sierra Club California, California Coastal Protection Network, The Climate Center, 350 Sacramento, San Francisco Bay Area Physicians for Social Responsibility, Climate Resolve, Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, and the Climate Action Committee.

In the 1970s, this Legislature passed a law that was upheld by the US Supreme Court that said until the nuclear waste problem is solved, there will be no more of these plants built in California. So that's still the law today. This bill would override that. So we still have a problem with waste, even though there apparently may be less severe meltdowns and affecting communities.

The waste problem has not been resolved, and if you're worried about slow and expensive in solar, you should go back to the nuclear thing. That's the whole problem with this industry nationally with billions of dollars in overruns, and there's no one's proved that a modular nuclear is cheaper and more safe and won't have the waste.

Lastly, I think it's still in the bill. We don't think the PUC should study the getting out of gas and going somewhere else. The California Energy Commission is rapidly looking at electrification issues as well as we have solar going and growing, and we are going to meet that 2040 thing using solar, wind and geothermal. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in opposition?

Sakereh Carter, on behalf of Sierra Club California in opposition. The nuclear waste problem is unresolved. It would be exceedingly reckless to allow the production of more nuclear waste in our state while we remain unable to responsibly handle the waste from the previous generation of reactors. Thank you.

Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Assemblymember Ward.

I want to thank the author for approaching this topic and had a chance to talk a little bit about it over the months, as this is something that we need to, I think, very carefully and thoughtfully and proactively think through as an option for our energy security in our future.

And I very much understand the distinction between SMRs and more large nuclear facilities. I would be very supportive of us very carefully thinking about that into our future as well. But I recognize the intent of the prohibition.

That's on the books right now and why that exists. And a couple of questions we had talked just by some examples, for example, that our US military, our navy, right in my own backyard, has nuclear power for some of its facilities.

And I hadn't gotten the chance to ask them more directly, but are you aware or do you know how do they address the issue of waste or disposal or reuse of any of their materials?

I'm less familiar with the military side than the civilian nuclear power side, but I believe they. I'm not sure I know the answer to that question. Did you?

I can answer that, in general. I'm also not as familiar with the military's policy. But spent nuclear fuel is always put into dry casks and is stored somewhere, usually on the site that it's collected. It sits there, it's harmless. It doesn't hurt anyone. You can walk right up to it when it's in a cask and it stores there, and it lowers in energy density.

That's true. I'd have to see and double check.

Through the chair. I think one of the other proponents actually has the answer to the question.

Hi, I'm Dinara Ermakova, and I actually have a PhD in nuclear waste management. And throughout the years of studying the problem technologically, the problem, we solved it. We have the casks that can store the waste for as long as we need.

The technology for recycling is already used in Russia and France. There are many countries that trying to build more capacities.

In the United States right now, DOE works on content-based approach to find the communities that are able to host or don't have the problem of not on backyard, but have the problem of please on my backyard, which is Canada implementing, which Finland implementing.

So we're going towards solving the problem, but as of right now, the solution is to store it and it's safe as of now. Right now like this.

So we've got a challenge in my part of the state songs, of course, and some of the challenge there, granted a large facility and my constituents are not comfortable with storage nearby. And their solution to date has been to put it in cast and bury it in the sand and hope that there won't be environmental issue or erosion of that site. That is a problem.

What I like about your bill is your intention to be able to offset natural gas opportunities, which we also want to be able to hit. And I can kind of see us maybe sort of pivoting from one to the other.

Notwithstanding that we have other areas of energy procurement that we're looking into as well to facilitate the same. But getting back to the original tenant, we talked just before the weekend about what more could this bill do?

Well, again, I like that as a planning effort for the PSC, I would love for us to be able to have more strength, especially with all the money that ratepayers have put into already, the opportunities for waste management going forward. But we can't answer that question about where it's going to go.

And so if this Bill were somehow able to transform into really stoking that question and getting that question resolved sometime this decade, I think that there would be a great space very soon for the opportunity for SMRs.

And that's where I would like to make sure that we're focused and we're not putting the cart before the horse. There is a potential, a very good potential for a future for this. But I think that that's where I'm at.

So I don't necessarily oppose for where you want to go with this, but I'm not sure I'm going to listen a little bit more that I be in a position just yet to support it, just because I don't want to put the cart before the horse. I'd want to be able to see us really get behind that effort to answer the storage site location.

To further answer that, it's my understanding, that as I stated, any SMR would still have to go through the procedures and the safety measures and the regulation and the oversight of the California Energy Commission.

So the commission is going to decide, well, part of that is going to be, hey, what are you going to do with your waste? What is your plan? And that would get addressed through that process. So, this bill is simply saying, do we want to allow SMRs to go through that process, yes or no?

And I need to think a little bit more about whether or not that opens up.

And the next step for this bill will be utilities and energy.

And I need to think a little bit more about whether that opens up a very open universe of opportunity sites that aren't thoughtfully approaching how we deal with waste. And so let me process that. We'll see how the discussion goes.

But I don't want this concept to necessarily die here in committee. I want to continue us to be able to work on nuclear as maybe a potential option for the future.

Thank you.

Okay, Assemblymember Hoover.

Appreciate that. Thank you for the bill. I think Mr. Ward asked some of the questions I had, but I was wondering if you could expound a little bit on the process. Like the next steps that would happen were this bill to be signed by the Governor.

What is the next steps, and what is the future of this bill, if that happens? And what's the application process like?

You want to address the application process?

Well, any SMR would have to go through the rigorous NRC process. Like, for instance, one SMR, even though it's very similar to a light water reactor, simply scaled down, you think that'd be pretty straightforward.

They've spent almost 20 years developing, doing analysis, getting their reactor ready for NRC review, and then the NRC process itself took several years. So, it suffices it to say it's a very long and arduous process to get something licensed.

Yeah, I would just say nuclear is probably one of, if not the most regulated industries in the world, for good reasons, including the waste as well as the reactors. So I would agree with Mr. Mathis that this Bill would create an opening, a commercial opening for this domestic, in state advanced industry.

But obviously, there are many other sort of bodies and laws and regulations, both statewide and nationally, to ensure that the deployment of this advanced technology is done in a transparent and responsible way.

Also, just one thing I'd like to point out, kind of the way things are going, the initial demo projects for several of these advanced or SMR design are happening in other states, like Utah or Idaho.

So it's looking like if California was to get an SMR, it probably wouldn't be the first one of that design. In other words, the design will have been vetted or demoed in some other state, like Idaho, for instance.

I'd like to add that even from a purely scientific view, the review process is very much a demonstration to other scientists and engineers. That's part of why it takes so long. And you're not allowed to change even a single aspect of the design.

You present the design, that's the one that gets reviewed. And so it's a very careful process that startups and older companies go through to make sure that this process is safe and reliable and repeatable.

Okay. Assemblymember Spur. Oh, wait, sorry. Do you have more questions?

One more question, if I could, just on the timeline of one of these projects actually getting off the ground, and kind of the reason I'm asking is trying to figure out the urgency here, why this bill is needed today and how long these projects actually would take to get off the ground.

Our expectation at the Breakthrough Institute and our researchers expect that if these advanced reactors are licensed through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is a whole other sort of basket of questions that we at Breakthrough are working on, and we'd be happy to talk about that.

We could see demonstration within the next few years in places like Idaho and Utah and in other countries, and sort of fuller scale commercial deployment by the end of the decade.

Again, there's a number of if's in there, but we think that this could be a competitive commercial industry within the next 10-15 years, which would put California, I think, on a glide path to being able to take advantage of these technologies by 2045 when we need to have all of our electricity coming from zero carbon sources by law.

Appreciate it. Thank you for that.

I think that's the point, is if we're going to meet 2045 goals for zero carbon, we have to have a sustainable grid while we do it. It also needs to be economical. We also need to do it in a way that's not going to increase ratepayers costs by 65%. I think we've all had plenty of phone calls from people that their power bills are too high as it is.

And we've seen questions from utilities asking the PUCD increase rates yet another 30% that's on the books today. So we have to take the approach of what is it that we can do as a body that will meet the zero carbon goal, but also reduce cost and will be effective and will be safe? And I believe that's through small modular reactors.

And I think nuclear, and this technology needs to be part of that solution, particularly when it comes to reliability. So thank you for that, the bill and the court of supporting.

I appreciate that. I appreciate the intent of the bill. I will be supporting it today. I think that we have set a lot of really bold goals in our state on energy, and I'm very concerned that we're not going to be ready to meet those goals. Our grid is not currently there where it needs to be.

And I think nuclear and this technology needs to be part of that solution, particularly when it comes to reliability. So thank you for that, the bill.

Thank you, Assemblymember Zbur

Thank you for bringing the bill. I've got to say, I used to be someone who believed that nuclear was part of the solution to a carbon free future. But after the accident in Japan, I became 100% convinced that my views before that were wrong.

And frankly, I think the specter of having reactors on flatbeds running around our cities or in industrial parks and the risks that that pose and the terrorist risks of actually having that kind of fuel so readily available is something that is, frankly, frightening to me.

I don't think that the California public supports this. I don't think that we need this to get to a carbon free future.

I think the pathway is to more non nuclear renewables with distributed battery technology and wind energy off the coast and wind energy coming from other parts of the country. And so while it's just something, I just think that the risks to the public are too great.

One accident is something that, even though you may say it may happen once in a hundred years, when it happens, it's something that affects huge population.

You know, when I looked at the potential, looking at what would happen with both Diablo and Santa Onofre before, I mean, we were talking about something that would change the way of life in our major population centers here in California.

So for those reasons, I just think the risks are too won't. And this isn't even something that's even a study. I mean, this is something that exempts these reactors from regulation. Anyway, so that's. I'm not going to be able to support the bill.

Just one comment to your comment, you mentioned that California has to be led by scientific approach, by science, and this is where the nuclear is backed up by science in so many ways. ICCA reports.

I'm going to stop. He just commented. He didn't ask a question. We're just trying to move the hearing forward. Are there any other questions or comments from Committee Members? Assemblymember Pellerin?

Just a couple of questions. How many SMRs are there in the United States right now?

I don't have an exact number, but there's a number of research reactors. In terms of the type of advanced small modular reactors that this bill is talking about, there aren't any. We haven't licensed and constructed any advanced reactors yet, which I think obviously speaks to some uncertainty.

But as well, I think it also speaks to the degree to which the technologies that we're talking about here with this bill are just pretty radically different from the nuclear technologies at plants like Fukushima or any of the nuclear plants that are operating commercially in the United States today.

There's no other.

Several advanced reactors from companies like Oaklow, which is a California based company, and new scale and X Energy are being worked through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission as we speak.

Okay. Yeah, I definitely.

Nationwide, about 50% of our national energy is produced by nuclear.

Okay, thanks. Any other questions or comments from committee members?

Right. No, I read that. Yeah. I do have concerns about the waste issue and the security of these plants and would rather see our investment in renewable energy, because I really think that's the future. So unfortunately, I'm not going to be able to support today. Thank you.

I share the concerns that some of my colleagues in the committee discussed on security, the waste issue, and the risk and uncertainty, and those are the reasons that I will not be supporting the bill today. But thank you for bringing this forward. I was willing to have this discussion in the committee. Would you like to close?

Absolutely, Madam Chair. Again, Members, I want to remind you of the study that was done by the Environmental Defense Fund on this very topic, which states, for California to reliably generate the electricity needed for 2045 from wind and solar power, it would require building up to nearly 500 gigawatts of power generation capacity, along with 100 gigawatts and 1000 gigawatt hours of new storage.

However, this goal is deemed unrealistic and unfeasible as. Where's my other piece anyway? The study flat out says it's not feasible.

The leading experts in the industry tell us point blank, California cannot get. It's great. It's novel to say, hey, we can get there with wind and with solar and with batteries, but to build it out to scale.

And when we talk about what are we going to do with the waste, are we also talking about what are we going to do with the waste of depleted batteries, depleted solar cells? What are we going to do with those?

With small modular, we have the opportunity to ensure a cost effective, baseload capacity. And again, this Bill today, Members, is simply asking the question of should we allow small modular to go through the process?

I'm not saying that it's going to make it through the process, but we're saying it deserves a chance and that our constituents and that the people of California deserve that opportunity to have low-cost energy at their fingertips. With that, I ask you for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. We don't have a motion. We have a motion by Assemblymember Hoover. Second by Assemblymember Flora. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is do pass to utilities and energy.

[Roll Call]

That Bill has three votes. We'll leave it on call.

I've got one more if you want me to go real quick.

Assemblymember Gabriel, since you're on the Committee, I would like to let Assemblymember Gabriel and McKinnor go. Thank you. Next. Assemblymember Gabriel, AB 1305. Whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the courtesy very much. Hopefully, this will be very brief. I am pleased today to present AB 135 which is going to deal with the wild west of voluntary carbon offset to bring some transparency to this market. I think as many of you know, carbon offsets credits are supposed to represent a reduction in carbon emissions through investments in projects that reduce, sequester, or prevent the release of carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, that's not always the case in practice, and there have been a number of recent reports that have shown that many of the claimed offsets fail to represent or achieve any actual reduction in carbon emissions. There was a recent report by the Guardian that found that over 90% of offset credits related to rainforest preservation on one of the largest project registries did not represent any meaningful reduction in carbon emissions.

And because there is no governmental standards or regulation for the voluntary offset markets, this leaves consumers with little confidence that what they are producing is legitimate. And this Bill seeks to address this unregulated marketplace by requiring the disclosure of critical information, including where offset projects are located and the data and methodology used to calculate the amount of carbon that has been offset.

So, for businesses that purchase these credits and make claims to consumers regarding emissions reductions under AB 1305 they would be required to disclose some of this basic information and the details regarding where the credits are purchased and how the reduction in emissions they claim was achieved.

So these disclosures will give consumers the ability to compare those credits, decide which are the most impactful, and also give researchers the tools needed to further evaluate these products, and see what type of projects or practices represent legitimate offsets of carbon emissions. I apologize. We were supposed to have today to testify with us, Barbara Haya, the Director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project at the Goldman School of Public Policy, but due to a last minute family emergency, she's unable to join us. But I am happy to to answer any questions you may have and respectfully would request your aye vote.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in support?

Sakereh Carter, on behalf of Sierra Club California, in support. We support the Bill in concept, but would like to see the Bill improved before it's enacted. We look forward to working with the author to discuss our recommendations. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any witnesses in opposition?

Madam Chair and Members, given the hour, I'll be short. Paul Diero. We're representing Western States Petroleum Association. Now we understand the problem the Bill is attempting to address, which is to ensure the information that reporting on a voluntary carbon offset credit is accurate and credible. However, we believe that the reporting requirements in the Bill are duplicative of existing reporting.

Now, a business entity, as the Assemblyman said, who is interested in developing a project to generate voluntary carbon credits, must follow protocols developed by existing carbon registries, such as the American Carbon Registry or Climate Action Reserve. Protocols developed by these registries ensure that the project is delivering carbon reductions or removal. Once the project is verified, it is listed on the respective registry's website for public view, and it includes all the information that AB 1305 is asking for. I have not had a chance to sit down with the author or his staff. I look forward to working with him and his staff, and for those reasons, we oppose the Bill.

Any additional witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any questions or comments from Committee Members? Assemblymember Zbur. Okay, thank. Okay, we have a motion from Assemblymember Zbur. Second from Assemblymember Pellerin. Assemblymember Gabriel, would you like to close?

Yeah. Just would respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you.

Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll.

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

That Bill has seven votes. We'll leave it open for absent Members. Thank you. Next. Assemblymember Mckinnor of AB 1705. Whenever you're ready.

Good afternoon. Excuse this voice of mine. Good afternoon, Chair and Members, I'm pleased to present AB 1705 today, which aims to protect low income communities of color from toxic health hazards poised by transformation and related waste to fuel or waste to energy technology sites in California communities. AB 1705 will establish a statewide moratorium on establishment and expansion of transformation and EMSW facilities until existing state recycling and organic waste goals are met in three years.

The Bill covers technology like incineration, which is the practice of burning trash to create energy, and related technologies such as paralysis, which use high temperatures to break down garbage to create fuels or energy. There are two existing incinerators and two industrial facilities permitted to burn trash in California, and these facilities are typically cited in communities with populations that are less likely to speak English and will access to fewer resources. Incineration at EMSW facilities emit a wide range of harmful pollutants.

These pollutants can cause respiratory, reproductive, and other health issues, and dioxins are among the most carcinogenic substances known to humankind. Some EMSW convergent technologies burn trash biomass with hydrogen as output. California considers this technology a form of disposal, and Cal Recycle has repeatedly denied this technology to be eligible to meet SB 1383 goals. Paralysis, like incineration, emits a slew of dangerous air pollutants.

In fact, a recent investigation report by ProPublica and the Guardian found that one of these proposed facilities proposed to make jet fuel it's expected to create a one in four lifetime cancer risk for those who are exposed to its emission, higher even than the lifetime risk of lung cancer for current smokers and I quit smoking years ago and poses a risk of 250,000 times greater than levels typically accepted by the EPA.

Proalysis, often labeled as chemical recycling, generates large quantities of hazardous waste, stores or releases hazardous chemicals on sites. The end product is also energy or fuel, whose burning generates the same harmful pollutants as burning fossil fuels and comes with a hefty carbon footprint. With me here today in support of this Bill, I have Tom Helm, co founder of Valley Improvement Projects, and Nick Lapis of California Against Waste. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Thank you. Sorry. My name is Thomas Helm. I grew up and currently reside in Stanislaus County. I'm the co founder and project Director of Valley Improvement Projects, a nonprofit organization that advocates for social and environmental justice.

Since our founding 10 years ago, we have been raising awareness about the fact that West Stanislaus County has one of two remaining trash incinerators in the State of California and advocating for the county and our cities to work towards a more sustainable waste practice that doesn't rely on incineration. We see this as an environmental justice issue.

In 1984, a report commissioned by the California Waste Management Board stated that rural, low income catholic communities with a high school diploma or less who work in farming and ranching would be the least likely to oppose an incinerator being built in their community. One year after that report came out, construction on the Covanta Stanislaus trash incinerator began in West Stanislaus County, an area historically home to farm workers with a population that is nearly 80% people of color, mainly Latinos.

Not only is this incinerator, one of the largest stationary sources of air pollution and greenhouse gases in Stanislaus County. It also incentivizes the creation of more trash and disincentivizes more sustainable local waste practices. For example, since the incinerator was built in the 80s, until this year, Modesto did not have a curbside recycling service. Most recyclable material that was thrown away in the trash was burned at the incinerator. In addition, over 100 cities and several large companies send waste to be burned at the incinerator every year.

Our community of West Stanislaus County should not be a dumping ground. Incineration has no place in California's vision of being the model zero emissions and zero waste state of the future. And with that, I respectfully ask that this Committee vote yes on AB 1705. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Good afternoon again. Nick Lapis with Californians Against Waste we are proud to co sponsor AB 175 which would place a moratorium on new incineration and EMSW sites until the state achieves its recycling and composting goals. In the past decade and a half, the Legislature has passed several landmark pieces of waste reduction legislation that have served as models for communities around the world.

Among those are AB 341, which set a statewide recycling target, SB 1383, which set a statewide composting target and SB 54 which regulates plastic and packaging. Each of these bills was motivated not only by the desire to prevent the impacts from disposal, but also from a desire to build a circular economy where what was previously considered a waste is now a material that is an input into the manufacturing of another product or a soil amendment.

In response to these bills, recycling and composting businesses have opened up all over the state, creating thousands of jobs. However, at the same time, several companies have come forward with proposals to incinerate, pyrolysize, gasify or otherwise destroy these valuable materials. These companies span a variety of different technologies, but the vast majority of them dispose the underlying resource as opposed to truly recycling it. Moreover, they have a tremendous history of turning into very expensive boondoggles, both for the communities and for their investors.

The few facilities of these kind that have been built have resulted in far greater environmental impacts than predicted by their proponents. As the Assemblymember mentioned, there was a recent expose by ProPublica and the Guardian that found one of these proposed facilities would result in a one in four cancer risk. They also compete directly with real recycling and composting, but for all that, they yield shockingly little output relative to their high energy demand and emissions.

We cannot afford to waste time and very limited ratepayer funds building disposal facilities that take us further away from the goals we need to achieve. For these reasons, we urge your aye vote.

Thank you. Are there any additional witnesses in support?

Amara Eger, on behalf of the Clean Seas Lobbying Coalition, in support.

Nyisha Green-Washington, on behalf of Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, in support.

Sakereh Carter, on behalf of Sierra Club California, in support.

Laura Placencia, on behalf of Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, California Environmental Justice Coalition, Clean Water Action, Surf Rider Foundation, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives, and 5 Gyers Institute in support. Thank you.

Asha Sharma with Pesticide Action Network in support.

Thank you. Next, are there witnesses in opposition?

Chair and Committee Members, my name is Evan Edgar. I'm the engineer for the California Compost Coalition. If we really wanted to get rid of incineration, we did that last year with AB 1875 Garcia Bill. It limited all recycling credit for incineration. This Bill is not about incineration. It's about EMSW. I'm an engineer. It's called engineered municipal solid waste. Right now in California, we have a lot of recycling facilities that we recycle. I represent the Recycling Coalition and we have these Murph residuals, a material recovery facility.

What's left over is a bunch of little pieces of plastic shard, a little paper, some food waste, and it's death into the landfill. Over the last three years due to more recycling, there's 3 million more tons of Murph residuals going to the landfill. So right now, we're filling up a landfill full of Murph residuals. There's no other home for it. I represent the California Compost Coalition. We cannot compost this junk. That will ruin our certification of organic compost.

So it's a fallacy to think that we're robbing the recycling system of this Murph residual when instead we can make an energy product, we can make hydrogen, low carbon fuel, bioenergy for non combustion thermal activity. So I'm here to oppose AB 1705. It's not needed. Plus, it will be a 10 year moratorium. Part of the Bill says we have to reach that 75% recycling rate for three years in a row. SB 1383 says 75% by 2025, we're at 5%.

And with all incentives we have at Cal Recycle, we may get to 30% by 2025. So we're not going to reach SB 1383 till well after 2030. So this is a 10 year moratorium on EMSW facilities that takes a wasteful product that we can make some beneficial use out of it with energy and hydrogen. And by no means can you make compost out of this junk. It's what's left over after recycling.

And when you make EMSW, you do another pass through recycling to get all the contamination out in order to make a product that you can make fuel out of. For this reason we urge your opposition to 1705. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Alfredo Redondo and I'm here providing comments on behalf of H Cycle, a company dedicated to taking the organic fraction of municipal solid waste and converting that to renewable hydrogen through thermal conversion. The folks at H Cycle agree that we really shouldn't be incinerating any more waste in California. Our issue is not with the transformation section of this Bill.

Our issue is primarily with the EMSW designation itself being included in this piece of legislation, because the last thing we want to see is additional impacts for these communities, often low income, as was articulated by the author and the sponsors, to actually move away from not only the hazards of incineration, but also be part of the solution to displace fossil diesel in heavy duty truck applications and other hard to decarbonize industries. So H Cycle's process is non incineration, non combustion.

We'll take the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, which will also include some additional post processing to ensure that we are removing the inerts, the plastics and the metals to be able to then take that through a process that is known colloquially as thermal conversion, which doesn't incinerate the waste itself. If we did that, we would actually be losing the hydrogen that we're trying to actually pull out and be able to utilize in heavy duty applications and other hard to decarbonize sectors of the economy.

The EMSW waste permit is the one that H Cycle will be pursuing, and as a result, our concern with this Bill is that it would fundamentally obstruct the ability to move forward on these critically needed projects. So with that, we regretfully have to oppose unless amended.

Thank you. Are there additional witnesses in opposition?

John Kennedy with the Rural County Representatives of California for all the reasons mentioned. Thank you.

Julia Levin Bioenergy Association of California. Same reasons as H Cycle. Thank you.

Thank you Madam Chair and Members, Dawn Koepke, McHugh Koepke Padron Government Relations, on behalf of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, also opposed.

Madam Chair and Members, Tim Shestek with the American Chemistry Council in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Are there any questions or comments from Committee Members? Assemblymember Flora.

Just more of a statement. As somebody who was born and raised about 10 miles from this facility, not once in my entire life have I ever heard anyone complain about this facility and being built out there. So it's my backyard. It's my community. My family still lives out there. This is a part. It provides jobs, and it provides us, quite frankly, a service that we have no other alternatives to take care of it. So I am opposed this.

We've seen this Bill before trying to get rid of this plant, and once again, it's sort of frustrating, quite frankly, and I'm sorry, when legislation comes down in my backyard that haven't heard anything about, have not heard anything about from the community, and here we. Yeah, I oppose.

Any other questions or comments from Committee Members. Assemblymember Hoover?

Thank you. I have somewhat of a specific question. I am kind of worried that this Bill may have some of the opposite of its intended effects. I think that EMSW is an important tool to help some of these larger industries achieve carbon neutrality. And that's something that I think has been mentioned, has been kind of pursued in previous legislation.

But one thing that specifically has been brought to my attention is as it comes to the cement industry and allowing the cement industry to use this tool to help them reach carbon neutrality. Are you willing to work with those folks on some of those concerns, on exempting them out or finding a way to address their concerns as we move forward, particularly since they're providing such a product of such great need in our state? I was just curious what your thoughts might be.

Oh, absolutely. We will talk to them.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments? Seeing none. Would you like to close?

Yes. In conclusion, I would just like to say we're not closing any plants here. We just want a moratorium on building them. And I'm asking for an aye vote. This Bill will help communities like mine be free of toxic pollutants. So I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have a motion? Motion by Assemblymember Muratsuchi. Second by Assemblymember Addis. Secretary, please call the roll.

The motion is do pass to appropriations. [Roll Call].

That Bill has seven votes. We'll leave it open for Members that are absent. Thank you. I believe we're on our last Bill by Assemblymember Mathis. Thank you. Thank you. For your patience. We're in this very cold room, and I know we're trying to move this along as fast. Whenever you're ready, Assemblymember Mathis.

Quickly. Madam Chair, may I ask for reconsideration on AB 65?

Hold on. Or we pass that. Yeah, we haven't lifted.

Okay.

How about first this Bill and then we'll move on?

So, seeing that we have support and a motion in a second, I'll just say, Members, this is AB 356. We're just looking to extend the sunset that was previously established. And I must state, I'd like to thank the chair and the Committee staff and note that I do accept the amendments. This Bill simply helps refurbishment of abandoned or dilapidated buildings and gets them cleaned up for our communities and makes things a lot better and move along a lot quicker so we can have nicer, better communities. With that, I ask you for an aye vote.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of Committee. Adam Regele on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce. We register our support for AB 356. I'll keep it brief. Basically, this Bill for any existing vacant, dilapidated building that keeps its footprint, does not get any taller. All other CEQA analysis is preserved.

John Kennedy with RCRC. We also support the Bill. We think it's a very common sense approach to address aesthetics. Claims that are raised and have been raised to destroy senior housing projects, community center, affordable housing and after school care projects by NIMBY groups. So we urge your strong support today.

It literally just streamlines the aesthetic analysis such that you do not need to analyze the aesthetic impacts under CEQA for an existing dilapidated and vacant building that retains its footprint and the exact same size in terms of height, such that there wouldn't be any aesthetic impacts for something that was already analyzed under CEQA. And so we believe this will help streamline housing in California. And we support the extension of the sunset of existing law. Thank you.

Thank you. Any additional witnesses in support?

Silvio Ferrari, on behalf of the California Building Industry Association, in support.

Nick Romo of the League of California Cities in support.

Are there any witnesses in opposition? I see none. Questions or comments from Committee Members? Assembly Member Wood?

Just clarification. I saw your comments that extend the sunset. The legislation says eliminate the sunset. Your Bill seeks to eliminate the sunset. Correct.

The original Bill sought to. We added a sunset to get rid of the sunset altogether. The Committee amendments put a five year sunset and a few reporting requirements on it. I'm sorry.

Any other questions or Assembly Members? Burr?

Yeah, I support the Bill. I think we haven't had a lot of, I think, complaints about the existing exemption, essentially, and I think it makes sense for us to continue that. And so I do think it will help us expand the housing that we need in the state. Thank you.

We have a motion and a second, I believe. Right. We did. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll. The motion is do passed as amended, to appropriations. [Roll Call] That Bill has 11 votes. It's out. Thank you.

First one. Okay, now we are ready to add on or probably lift the call. Okay, so, item one, AB 65.

The motion is due pass to Utilities and Energy. [Absent Member Roll call]

That has three to seven. That bill fails. You're asking for reconsideration. Assemblymember Mathis is asking for reconsideration. Are there any objections? Yes, you object?

I mean, it's usually common courtesy to give a Member reconsideration. Well, I understand that there's opposition, but maybe they can work through it and continue to have conversations.

We can vote on the reconsideration. Assembly Member Addis?

Will this come back in a different form or are we going to just hear the same arguments, the same witnesses, the same people that already made the motion? Like, are we going to do repeat or, in reconsideration, are we going to get something new and different?

It means that the bill will be eligible to be heard again. This is the beginning of a two year session, and so very unlikely to be heard this session because we only have a few hearings left, and so the author is asking for the bill to be reconsidered for a future hearing.

The exact same bill? Just to clarify.

It can change. It's a two year session.

Yeah. Next January, we would come back at the beginning of the two year session, and it could potentially be- it would be eligible to be hurt. There's no commitment. But that is what your vote, if you vote aye, you're allowing it to be eligible for hearing in the future, which, if it were to be heard, would very likely be next January before the deadline for two year bills. If you vote no, it will not be eligible to vote if that's what the Committee decides.

But you can just ask again to confirm if there's any objection.

Okay, so we had an objection. It was withdrawn, right?

Okay, so then there's going to be a recorded vote on reconsideration. If there's no objection, it'll be 11-0. You'll all be recorded as voting aye on reconsideration.

Is there an objection to reconsideration? Without objection, reconsideration is granted. Okay, next. Item two, AB 80.

The motion is due passed as amended to Appropriations. [Absent Members Roll call]

Bill has 11 votes. That's out. Item four, AB 408.

Motion is due pass as amended to Appropriations. [Absent Members Roll call]

Bill has 10 votes. That bill's out. AB 673.

The motion is due pass to Appropriations. [Absent Members Roll call]

That bill has 10 votes. That bill is out. We are on AB 891.

The motion is due pass as amended to Appropriations. [Absent Members Roll call]

That bill has eight votes. That's out. Next is AB 1159.

Motion is due pass as amended to Appropriations. [Absent Members Roll call]

Bill has 11 votes. That's out. AB 1267.

Motion is due pass to Appropriations. [Absent Members Roll call]

Bill has 11 votes. That's out. AB 1305.

Motion is due passed to Judiciary Committee. [Absent Members Roll call] .

Bill has eight votes. That's out. AB1534.

Motion is due pass to Appropriations. [Absent Members Roll call]

Bill has 11 votes. That's out. AB 1686.

Motion is due pass to Appropriations, [Absent Members Roll Call]

Bill has eleven votes. That's out. AB 1705.

Motion is due pass to Appropriations. [Absent Members Roll call]

Bill has eight votes. That's out. And the consent calendar.

[Roll call]

The consent calendar has 11 votes. And that's out. And we are adjourned. Thank you.