Assembly Standing Committee on Utilities and Energy

Good afternoon. Welcome. I'd like to convene the Assembly Committee on Utility and Energy hearing. And while the Chair is going to be joining us later, I will temporarily preside over today's hearing. Sergeants, can you please call the absent Members? And as a reminder, I'll maintain decorum during the hearing. As is customary in order to hear from the public within the limits of our time, we will not permit conduct That's disruptive to our hearing. Any individual who is disruptive may be removed from the room.

Today, Assembly Member Ting will be representing or will be absent, and is represented by Member Gregg Hart, who's substituting in for Mr. Ting. And items 3 and 4, SB 410 and 420 Becker, will not be heard at today's hearing. Today we have nine measures on the agenda, four on consent, regular orders of business. Testimony is limited to four minutes total, two minutes support, and two minutes in opposition.

For any additional witnesses on measures only, state your name, position, and affiliation, if any, and if we exceed this time, please limit or please submit your testimony through email and the email addresses on our website. So not seeing a quorum, so we'll just continue as a Subcommitee and we're going to go a little bit out of order. And if we could have Senator Archuleta item number 11, SB three, or sorry, 837 for energy building energy standards. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and the staff for working with me on this Bill, Senate Bill 837, which would further California's building energy efficiency goals by directing the California Energy Commission to simply consider, not require, simply consider allowing the installation of unvented attics in new homes when the Energy Commission updates its building energy efficiency standards. California's energy code encourages builders to construct energy efficient buildings while giving them flexibility to choose which design techniques and technologies best suit their work.

Senate Bill 837 is a straightforward Bill that adds another tool to the builder's toolbox. As the energy code becomes more and more difficult and more expensive to comply with, builders need as many tools as possible in their toolboxes. The use of unvented attics is recognized by International Residential Code, utilized in other jurisdictions and proven to have significant energy savings.

Current standards do not include unvented attics in the definition of condition space, therefore missing an opportunity to maximize energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with heating and air conditioning systems. California is the only state in the nation that does not consider unvented and unsealed attics as conditioned space. With all these new housing being built, god willing, we'll able to fulfill our dream to put people in new homes and housing. We need to consider the future and this building codes.

Senate Bill 837 would further incentivize builders to construct more energy efficient homes. So once again, Senate Bill 837 directs the California Energy Commission to simply consider changing its definition of indirectly conditioned spaces to include unvented and sealed attics. And this Bill, importantly, will create new mandatory requirements for builders, which is why the Bill is supported by the California Building Industry Association.

And with me today in support of the Bill to answer any questions is Silvio Ferrari on behalf of the California Building Association. And for these reasons, I ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Senator, you're welcome to come up. More comfortable.

Yeah, this is fine as well. Madam Chair Member Sylvio Ferrari on behalf of the California Building Industry Association. I actually think the testimony by the Senator was so thorough that there's not a whole lot I can add, but I'd like to commend the Committee analysis. I think it did a great job kind of getting into what really is at the end of sort of code nerd geeky terminology and sort of parsing apart to figure out, okay, what's really going on here.

And I think what's important about the analysis is it made crystal clear that this is not a mandate. It's not mandating, at the end of the day, what a standard is going to be. It's not predetermining what the Energy Commission will ultimately determine, but it is going to ensure that a conversation happens on this really technical important point, because as builders, as home builders, we are seeing the cost of construction go up every single day.

And we are looking for those win wins, those win wins that are energy technologies, that are cost effective, but bring down the energy use in any particular building, any residence, whatever it may be. So we think this is an important Bill to add tools to the toolbox, like the Senator said. So we think it's a simple Bill. So appreciate your time. Urgent I vote and happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. And do we have any witnesses in opposition? Okay, seeing none. Moving to public comment, do we have any witnesses in support.

Good afternoon, chair and Members, Brady Grant on behalf of the California Building Officials in strong support of this measure.

Thank you.

Margie Lie Samson Advisors, on behalf of Huntsman Building Solutions in strong support.

Thank you. And any witnesses in opposition or public testimony? Okay, seeing none. Do I have a motion on SB 837? Okay. Moved by barraquen. Okay. And any comments or questions back to the dais for the author. Okay. Do we need a second? Okay. We do not have a quorum. Is there anything you would take my motion? Sorry. Yeah, we're not there yet. That's the appropriate time. And would you like to say anything in closing?

I just thank you for your time and Madam Chair and everyone have a great day and I respectfully ask your aye vote.

Thank you. Leave it open. Thank you so much. Okay, back in order. So, Mr. Becker. Senator Becker. It seems like it's the Senator Becker show today. So SB 48, welcome to present thank you.

Thank you, Members. This Bill is about improving the efficiency of our largest buildings. We need to be looking at greenhouse gas emissions, holistically and tackling each category and buildings is one of the big ones. And we've done a good job. Many localities actually have focused on emissions and in some cases all electric new building standards for new buildings. But the question is, what are we going to do for all of the existing buildings?

So what this Bill does is directs the Energy Commission develop a strategy, possibly including building performance standards, for leveraging the energy benchmarking data that we already collect to help achieve the state's targets for efficiency improvements and greenhouse gas reductions. So the Bill only applies to very large buildings. Those are 50,000 above. So it's not going to apply to small building owners or single family homes. And these buildings over 50,000 for about 19 million tons of CO2 a year.

So about 5% of our total just from this area. And there's a lot of room for improvement. The energy benchmarking data that we have so far shows that for in the case of, say, large residential buildings built before 2010, the least efficient 20% could cut their energy use in half if they were as good as the top 20% of older buildings. So that would mean hundreds of dollars of savings per year on energy bills, for example, for our tenants in those buildings.

So one of the challenges in this area when you talk about the residential piece, which is a small part of overall buildings of that size, but one of the challenges is concerned about how it's going to impact housing costs. And so it's really important to find the right balance. And we've gotten a lot of helpful input from housing advocates.

So the Bill requires the CEC to prioritize housing issues as it develops the strategy and to make sure tenant advocates are given a strong voice in working out the details. So when we think about the residential side, again of a strategy, we want to make sure that it's a strategy that doesn't significantly raise rents on tenants. Again, one of the things That's important parts about this, because the issues are complex, what the Bill does is really a first step.

So it's calling the CEC to propose a strategy. They will then have to come back to the Legislature for all of us to review that and decide whether to authorize the CEC to take action on it. So I want to make sure people understand that. The last part I'll say is that we really have to give building owners flexibility in how to meet these goals. And That's why building performance standards have become a really popular policy approach across the country for tackling emissions from older buildings.

They give owners long term visibility to the standards they'll need to meet lots of flexibility for which technologies to choose and how to align the timing of improvements with their normal maintenance cycles whenever possible. So That's why Colorado, Washington State, Maryland, Washington DC, New York City. Others have taken this very same approach that we're taking today. So, lastly, wrapping up, I'll accept the Committee's amendments to add local governments to the list of stakeholders to be consulted on strategy. Thank the Committee for this Improvement and respectfully ask for your aye vote, we've got two witnesses here today, and I'll let them introduce themselves.

I'm sorry, if I could just interrupt for 1 second. We do have a quorum, so we'd like to establish that first.

[Roll Call]

Okay. Wonderful. We have a quorum. Thank you so much. Please proceed.

Respected Chair and Members of the Committee, good afternoon. My name is Paul Mathew. I'm a recently retired staff scientist from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley. I don't need to say California, I guess, where I led our technical work on building performance standards, working with states such as Maryland, Washington, and five different local jurisdictions on their plans for building performance standards and building decarbonization in General. I was also a co-author of the ASHRAE Technical Guide on Building Performance Standards.

I should state upfront that my testimony is my own and that I don't represent the US Department of Energy, the University of California, or Lawrence Berkeley Lab. With that, I'd like to amplify Senator Becker's statement in support of SB 48 with just three quick points. First is that I believe Bps building performance standards are critical to addressing our climate goals because almost 66% of the commercial buildings we'll have in 2050 exist today. Secondly, cost effective retrofits for those buildings simply aren't happening at scale.

At current rates, it would take 50 years to retrofit the entire commercial stock. So we need a forcing function in effect, and Bps has essentially provide that. Second, I'd say building performance standards, as Senator Rebecca said, offers flexibility to owners. They can set targets, standards have the targets, and owners can determine how they want to best meet that target. I would also note that the Bill has guardrails to protect tenants and avoid increased housing burdens.

And finally, I'll say that Bps are not some risky new thing. They're already emerging as best practice for addressing existing building emissions. 12 states and cities in the United States have passed legislation for Bps, and more than 30 have actually committed to passing it by Earth Day 2024 as part of the White House's Coalition on Building Performance Standards. So, in closing, I'd say that California has traditionally been at the forefront of building energy efficiency. Oddly enough, for existing building performance standards, it's actually been lagging. So I think this relatively modest Bill really enables us to leverage the benchmarking data we already have and to use that to really advance an effective BPS for California. So thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. My name is Dan Jacobson with Environment California. I'll be very short here in just saying this is exactly the kind of Bill that we need to gather the information and figure out the best way to move forward. This is information that we're already collecting. This allows the CEC to come up with a really intelligent plan for ways to cut the amount of CO2 that our current buildings are generating. I thank the author for his support, thank the Committee and their staff for their amendments and urge in aye votete. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And do we have any witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon Chair and Members, Karim Drissi on behalf of the California Association of Realtors here today with an opposed, less amended position. First and foremost though would like to sincerely thank the author for his leadership on this issue. The author has been a leader on these types of issues for many years and so we certainly want to commend him and his tremendous staff for that. Unfortunately, some of the amendments that were taken on June 8th have prompted us to resurface with an Opposed unless amended position.

So we are respectfully asking for clarifying amendments that would ensure that the CEC's new strategy conforms to existing housing provider tenant law, especially the heavily negotiated provisions of AB 1482, which was the Tenant Protection Act of 2019. And so we have respectfully submitted those amendments to the Committee as well as to the author for his consideration. And we greatly appreciate the author considering those clarifying amendments. Unfortunately, at this time though, we must respectfully request a no vote. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Any other primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Do we have any witnesses in the public open to General public for support?

Izzy Swindler with Shaw Yodder Antwih Schmelzer and Lange on behalf of the City of West Hollywood in support.

Thank you. Cynthia Shallit on behalf of California Indivisible State Strong, which represents 80 chapters up and down the state. And we all voted in support of this Bill. Thank you for bringing it forward, Senator Becker.

Madam Chair and Members, Roger Dickinson on behalf of Civic Well, formerly the Local Government Commission in support. Thanks.

Good afternoon. Tiffany Phan on behalf of the California Efficiency and Demand Management Council in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members, Rod Brewer for Southern California Edison, here in support of SB 48.

Rocky Fernandez with the Center for Sustainable Energy in support.

Meg Snyder on behalf of Rewiring America, in support.

Amara Eger on behalf of the Building Decarbonization Coalition in support.

Janet Cox expressing support for Climate Action. California, the Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, 350 Humboldt and the 350 Southland Legislative Alliance. Thanks, Senator Becker.

Thank you. And any witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Okay, back to the dais for questions. Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I want to thank Senator Becker for this Bill. I think it's really important what you're doing here, just generally that you're trying to get us the answers we need to do good policy. I think we should do more of that, Senator. So I really appreciate the way you're approaching this policy. I did have a question about the opposition because it confused me a little bit. These are very large buildings, right? So even residential buildings that are this large have many tenants.

And so I guess I was confused by how data that would probably come in a pretty aggregate fashion would impede the privacy of those residents. Is it specified per unit? I just want you to address that because I imagine there are ways to easily address that and get the information you're looking for.

Yeah, thanks for the comment. And the question on the privacy piece, I think there's two parts. There was an opposition letter on privacy and that sort of implied that there was info for renters for five plus units. And That's just not in the Bill. The benchmarking only applies to buildings with 17 plus units and 50,000 sqft overall. And this energy benchmarking requirements already exist.

In fact, we got more money in the budget That's in the budget that we all voted on to keep increasing that benchmarking That's, again ongoing. So there are no new data disclosure. So the privacy is really a non issue. The other point that was just raised by our friends in the realtor community is there were some amendments taken that and the whole goal of these amendments is to make sure that none of this contributes to harassment of tenants.

So it's just guidance, really, to the CEC to say, hey, when you're doing this, please don't do anything That's going to increase harassment of tenants or increase burdens on tenants. But I think they're concerned that it maybe conflicts with, say, 1482, which was a chew Bill from a few years ago, or may open up other burdens on buildings owners. So we'll continue those discussions. We don't think it does. And again, the whole intent of that is not to impose any new requirements. It's really just to say, hey, CEC, when you're doing this, please don't do anything else that contributes to harassment. So we don't think it changes anything in terms of their obligations or liability, but we'll continue those discussions.

Thank you, Senator.

Any other questions? Seeing none, is there a motion moved okay, so moved by Assembly Member Bauer Kahan and seconded by Assembly Member Calderon. Call the roll.

SB 48. The motion is do pass as amended to Natural Resources. Garcia. [Roll Call]

And we'll keep the roll open for other Members. Thank you. See you next week.

Yeah. First, we'll raise consent. Okay. Moved by Bauer-Kahan. Second by Ward. Hart. I'm sorry. Secretary, please call roll.

Item number two, SB 49. The motion is do pass as amended to Revenue and Taxation. Item number five, SB 755, the motion is do pass to Natural Resources. Item number seven SB 506, the motion is do pass to Appropriations. Item number eight, SB 605, the motion is do pass is amended to appropriations. [Roll Call] I'll keep that roll open.

Yeah, okay. We'll keep that open and we'll go back to Archuleta, which I'll second Mr. Mathis's motion. Okay.

SB 837. The motion is do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Okay, we'll keep that open as well. And we will wait until we have the next author here to present. Thank you.

Welcome, Senator Padilla. So happy to hear your presentation on SB 688.

Thank you, madam. Thank you, Madam Chair. Great to be in your company as you make analysis. SB 688 directs the California Energy Commission to take specific steps with regard to a pilot program and the use and application of agrovoltaics, both for the benefit of additional resources around renewable energy and dual use and higher yield around agricultural outputs. I will be brief in light of the III recommendation and be happy to take questions and would respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Witnesses?

I do. Michael Jarred from Community Alliance of Family Farms and Rebecca Marcus on behalf of American Farmland Trust.

Hi. Good afternoon, chair and Members. Michael Jarred on behalf of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. We're happy to support SB 688. Our farmers are seeing the impacts of climate change, including droughts, flooding, wildfire, and extreme heat. Increasingly, our farmers have had to invest in their limited resources, develop Shading structures to protect their crops, livestock and farm workers from extreme heat.

CAFF is very excited about the possibility of pilot projects to test and research agrovoltaics in different areas of the state. We are very hopeful that agrovoltaics will assist small family farms with Shading solutions that generate clean energy and incomes for farmers. We thank the author for authoring this Bill and for his work, piloting and researching agribultics. We are very hopeful that this will benefit our Members.

Good afternoon, chair and Members. Rebecca Marcus, representing American Farmland Trust, and strong support of SB 688. As the national leader in both agricultural production and solar energy deployment. California should be leading the nation when it comes to integrating renewable energy projects and diversified climate smart agriculture. Across the country. States are working with clean energy associations, farm viability advocates, solar developers, and researchers to Fund research, demonstration projects, market incentives for agrovoltaic projects.

For example, the State of Washington recently approved $10 million for research and demonstration projects to advance agrovoltaics. And New Jersey enacted legislation for a 200 to 300 megawatt agricultural dual use pilot project. This program will be introduced this summer or fall. California needs to be at the forefront, but we are behind. For these reasons, we ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. And do we have any primary witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. I'm actually here to remove my opposition, but I don't see any other opposition in the room, so thanks for your indulgence. Cara Martinson, on behalf of the Large Scale Solar Association. As I mentioned, we did have an opposed unless amended, position on the Bill and really support the intent of the measure and thank the author for bringing this forward through conversations with his office and, I think some ongoing forthcoming amendments. We're happy to remove our opposition and really want to thank the author and his staff for working through our issues. Thank you.

Thank you. And can you clarify did you take Committee amendments for the record?

Yes, Madam Chair. If I forgot to do that, we are taking amendments. And thank you for working with our office.

Thank you. Okay, now, public comment. Any in support?

I've been asked to give a MeToo for the Coalition for Community Solar Access. They're in support of the Bill.

Hi, Janet Cox expressing support for Climate Action California, 350 Humboldt, and the Santa Cruz Climate Action Network. Thanks.

Thank you. And any in opposition? Okay, seeing none. Back to the dais. Any questions? Okay, I think yeah, that already happened. Right? Who was it? Motion by Calderon and second by Mathis. We're going to share the love. Okay. Would you like to close?

I would just respectfully ask an aye vote.

Thank you, Secretary. Can you call the roll.

Item number nine, SB 688. The motion as amended do pass as amended to Appropriations [Roll Call]

Thank you. We'll hold that open for the rest of the Committee as well. And I understand you are presenting SB 795 for Senator Stern.

I am. Thank you. Madam Chair and Members. Thank you. Happy to present on behalf of the Senator. SB 795 promotes California's energy efficiency and greenhouse gas reduction goals by ensuring we take building permits and compliance documentation reporting to the next level by requiring California's Energy Commission to create two databases that will be the repositories of local building permits, compliance documents and a sales registry for better enforcement of estate building codes and in the end, improve energy efficiency.

Both the CEC and the PUC have already found that contractors pulling HVAC replacement permits occur as little as 10% of the time, and that compliance with Title 24 quality installation requirements are as little as 15% of the time. The lack of compliance directly results in increased energy demand. Improperly installed HVAC systems, for example, have been found to increase energy use by up to 20% to 30%.

SB 795 would provide the databases needed to catch contractors who fail to pull permits and provide an electronic document verification process to ease the energy code enforcement local enforcement burden on building officials. With me today to testify in support are Tom Enzlow with the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers and also Marion Borgeson with the NRDC.

Actually, it'll be Scott Wetch. On behalf of the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers. This has been a decades long problem. Heating and air conditioning systems are one of the single largest consumers of energy in a building. And thus the energy efficiency that we need to obtain from them is critical to meeting all of our climate goals. Unfortunately, as the Senator pointed out, we've gotten to a point where it's less than 10% of the system installations are pulling building permits. Title 24 is our energy efficiency code.

It is the way we actually implement all the things that this body passes in way of energy efficiency. This is directing the Energy Commission to come up with a database so we can match units to building permits and try to get the type of enforcement we need to meet our energy goals. So we'd urge and aye vote.

Thanks. And my name is Merrian Borgeson. I'm the California Director of the Climate and Clean Energy Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'll admit to you that this is probably the least sexy Bill that I'm working on, but it's actually one of the most foundationally important ones because it allows a lot of other important things to happen. As was mentioned, this issue has been worked on for like a decade and still no solution.

It is vitally important that we install equipment as it was designed to work, so that we get the energy efficiency benefits at peak times and on. Folks'bills, this Bill does not solve all of the quality installation pieces that need to be addressed, which the CEC is also working on, but it's a vital tool. So what does this Bill do? And just to be clear, this Bill tries to keep the tasks pretty manageable.

It starts with just HVAC and commercial lighting, because those are areas of particular importance and where there's a need for compliance. On the lighting side, we actually have fairly high compliance with permits. The issue is that we often don't have the documentation That's required by code checked by code officials. This simply gives access to code officials to be able to check did that documentation go in? And that documentation makes sure that those lighting systems actually are designed and installed properly. So That's vitally important.

On the HVAC side, as was mentioned, the issue is that people just don't get permits. Lots of reasons for that. But it means that if you're not getting a permit, we don't have the opportunity to inspect it, make sure it's installed correctly, make sure the ducts are functional. And if we don't know where HVAC is going in, we also don't have the opportunity to make sure, for example, that we're getting rid of the old refrigerant properly from the old AC systems.

So it's a really important intervention point for many of our climate relevant policies. On a personal note, I recently got a heat pump in my house. I did get a permit as part of the duct inspection and testing. I actually discovered they discovered I wasn't in the crawl space, which is like 2ft high. They discovered that the duct to my kids bedroom was partially detached and that had fraying asbestos all around the edges of it. So it was both a health and an efficiency disaster.

This happens all the time and it's why code is so important. So this Bill provides a simple solution for that. Contractors and distributors register if they bought a piece of equipment That's compared to the permitting documents. So if a contractor buys 100 heat pumps and they only get permits for 10, we know there's an issue that gives information to the CEC and the Contractor State Licensing Board to make sure that those contractors are identified.

I actually don't think that this is going to require a lot of penalties or follow up because once contractors know this information is out there, they're going to comply. So we ask for your aye vote on this important Bill. I've also been asked to register support on behalf of the American Institute of Architects in California and also the San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility. Thank you.

Thank you. And any primary witnesses in opposition? No. Okay. Any public testimony now?

In support, Silvio Ferrari on behalf of the California Building Industry Association and the California Business Properties Association in support.

Brady Garrett on behalf of the California building officials, in support. Thank you.

Cynthia Shallit California State strong indivisible Green Team Sac 350 and Indivisible Sacramento in support. Thank you.

Matt Clovenstein on behalf of SMUD, in support.

Izzy Swindler on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco, in support. And also seeking amendments. Thank you.

Mark Fenstermaker for Earth Justice in Support.

Janet Cox for three organizations that prioritize reductions in emissions from short lived climate pollutants. Climate Action California 350 Humboldt and the Santa Cruz Climate Action Network. Thank you so much.

Tiffany Phan, on behalf of the California Efficiency and Demand Management Council. In support. Just want to thank the author, his staff, the Committee and the sponsors for accepting our suggested amendment.

Meg Snyder on behalf of Rewiring America, in support.

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

Tom Anslow on behalf of the International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials. In support.

Hunter Stern, IBEW 1245. This helps the electricity my Members deliver go farther and helps reduce customers bills. We're in support.

Thank you. And any witnesses in opposition? Okay, seeing none. Back to the dais.

I promise not to ask you a question, Senator, because I know this is your Bill, but I know that the Bill has improved since the last time I saw it as it related to the privacy concerns. I know this isn't going to privacy, it's going to judiciary. So as a Member of the Privacy Committee, I do want to raise that it looks like those definitions are not quite there yet, that you're trying to limit access to individuals information to the public and even through a PRA. But the definitions, according to the analysis and I think the reading of it, are not quite sufficient to ensure that one couldn't PRA people's personal information. And I think it's really critical that we get to those definitions before it goes to the governor's desk. I think we can do exactly what you want and protect individuals privacy. I know you've taken a huge step forward. There's just a little more to go. Thank you.

Any other questions? Comments? Okay, so the Bill has been moved by Assemblymember Bauer Khan and second by Calderon? Correct. Did you want to close, sir?

Just would respectfully, on behalf of Senator Stern, request an aye vote.

Thank you, Secretary Call the roll.

Item number 10, SB 795, the motion is do pass to Judiciary. [RollCall]

Thank you. And keep that open.

Thank you. Madam Chair and Members.

And while we're waiting for Senator Eggman, do we want to missing Members to add on to the bills that we had voted on? Is anyone missing?

Okay, while you're getting settled, why don't we open up the bills for missing Members?

Okay, this is the consent file. Item number two, five, 7 and 8. [Roll Call] Item number one, SB 48. The motion is do pass as amended to Natural Resources [Roll Call] Item number six, SB 355, the motion is do pass to Appropriations. Excuse me. Item number nine, SB 68, the motion is do pass is amended to Appropriations [Roll Call] Item number 10, SB 795, the motion is do pass to Judiciary, [Roll Call]. Item number 11, SB 837, do pass to Appropriations, [Roll Call].

Okay, thank you so much for presenting.

So today on item six, SB 355, Senator Eggman. We have Majority Leader Gomez Reyes presenting. Thank you.

Thank you. I present to you SB 355 on behalf of Senator Eggman. This Bill would make change to the Solar on Multifamily Affordable Housing Program by expanding the requirements of the program to include properties in which at least 66% of the households have income at or below 80% of the area. Median income properties located in California Indian country and rental housing properties owned by public housing agencies or authorities. Here to testify on behalf of Ms. Eggman. And I will allow them to introduce themselves.

Thank you. Good afternoon to the chair, to the Committee Members, and the Committee staff. My name is Rocky Fernandez and I'm with the Center for Sustainable Energy. We are in strong support of Senate Bill 355 as part of the program Administration team for the SOMA program. CSE has numerical and anecdotal evidence of what's working and what barriers are excluding Californians from this important program. I'm happy to report that with hundreds of active and completed applications, we're more than 21% towards our 300 megawatt goal.

Under current law, however, we estimate that we need roughly 54% of identified eligible properties in the state to take part in the program. That's a big ask. We need to expand the pool of eligible properties, which is what Senate Bill 355 seeks to do. Furthermore, our data under current law suggests that those who started, then withdrew their applications because they didn't meet the eligibility shows that many of those projects could move forward with Senate Bill 355's changes.

Let's bring those interested parties back in and get them going on Soma. Expanding Soma to an income eligibility pool that matches several other state and federal programs, along with Tribal Master Metered and public housing agencies, will help us further our progress in extending the benefits of solar to the multifamily affordable housing community. It will also create many jobs doing this essential work along the way. We thank Senator Eggman for this Bill and urge an aye vote.

And I'm Andrew Dawson. The California Housing Partnership. I just want to say, affordable housing developers love putting solar on their developments, and this program helps to do that.

Thank you. Thank you. Are there any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any opening to public comment? Any public comment and support?

Good afternoon, chair and Members. Kim Stone of Stone Advocacy on behalf of the California Solar and Storage Association in enthusiastic support.

Merrian Borgeson with the Natural Resources Defense Council in support.

Meg Snyder on behalf of SunPower, in support.

Raquel Mason on behalf of the California Environmental Justice Alliance in support.

Thank you. And any witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Would you like to close? zero, questions from the dais. Sorry. We're good? Everybody loves okay. Okay. Now, would you like to close?

This Bill is meant to clean up some issues with SOMA so that funding is able to be dispersed. And with that, aye respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. And we have a motion by Santiago and second by Wallace Secretary please call roll

SB 355. The motion is do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

We'll keep that open as well. Thank you. SB 795 Mathis from I to no. Thank you.

This is the consent file. Item number two, number five, number seven, and number eight. [Roll Call] Item number one, SB 48. Do Pass as amended to Natural Resources [Roll Call] item number six, SB 355, do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call] Item number nine, SB 68, do pass as amended to Appropriations. [Roll Call] Item number 10, SB 795, do pass to Judiciary. [Roll Call] Item number 11 SB 837. Do pass to Appropriations [Roll Call]

I will keep those open.

This is the consent file. Item number two, five, 7 and 8, [Roll Call]. Item number one SB 48 do passes amended to natural resources. [Roll Call] Item number six SB 355. Do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Item number nine SB 68 do passes amended to appropriations. [Roll Call] Item number 10 SB 795 do pass to Judiciary. [Roll Call]. And item number 11 SB 837 do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]. Thank you, thank you. And we'll keep the roll open. This is a consent file. Item number two, five, 7 and 8,[Roll Call]. Item number one SB 48 do pass as amended to natural resources. [Roll Call]. Item number six SB 355. Do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call] Item number nine, SB 68, do Passes amended to Appropriations. [Roll Call]. Item number 10 SB. 795 do pass to Judiciary Committee. [Roll Call]. Item number 11 SB 837. Do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Just announce the consent file is 13-0. That Bill is out. The consent file is 14-0. Item number 1; 10-3, also out. Item number six, SB 355, 13-0. That bill's out. Item number nine, SB 68 14-0. It's out. Item number 10, SB 795 12-0, also out. zero, he changed. Item number 10, SB 795 That's 12-1. It still out. Item number 11, SB 837 13-0, also out. And we are adjourned.