Assembly Standing Committee on Natural Resources

Okay, we have a quorum. Whenever you're ready, please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair and Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present SB 149, a Bill that was heavily negotiated between the Administration, the Senate and the Assembly. I want to thank the Governor, the speaker and Madam Pro TEM, and all of the staff Members that worked to achieve this really important compromise. It was not an easy task, given the short period of time and the complexity of the issue, but it is a three part agreement.

SB 149 is an important Bill which will streamline and expedite critical infrastructure projects. California expects to make historic investments in infrastructure as a result of federal funds that are available in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, Chips, and the Science Act. In addition, California has put additional resources into important energy and climate change projects necessary for us to meet our climate change goals.

These investments will lead to the development of numerous transportation, clean energy and water related facilities across the state, to further California's commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and to protect the residents from the worst extremes of climate change, which we have unfortunately seen magnified in the State of California. These projects will be publicly financed in whole or in part, and will result in substantial public benefits, including the creation of high skilled jobs during construction and after the projects are constructed and operating.

SB 149 provides unique streamlining benefits under Sequa to advance clean energy, water, transportation, and semiconductor or microelectronics projects without reducing the environmental and governmental transparency benefits of the environmental review process. Given the substantial public benefits expected from these infrastructure investments, it's imperative that the environmental review and planning process proceed as efficiently as possible without sacrificing the public's ability to participate while preserving all environmental protections.

To that end, this Bill does not reduce, alter, or eliminate Cequa's requirements for public engagement, including tribal consultation, environmental study, consideration of alternatives, or imposition of mitigation measures. And that's critically important to understand. Instead, this proposal, consistent with judicial streamlining in numerous previous bills, promotes finality and efficiency in the back end of the environmental review process by requiring that any lawsuits brought on behalf of Sequa be completed, to the extent feasible, within 270 days.

And that's really important to understand, because I don't think any of the prior construction projects that have had SQL litigation filed have been finished within that 270 day process because it takes a while, but to whatever extent feasible is important. This Bill also extends a sunset on the judicial streamlining process currently active for Environmental Leadership Development projects, which authorizes a Governor to certify projects investing over 100 million in the California economy or which provide affordable housing so long as they meet heightened environmental and labor standards.

Lastly, this Bill streamlines procedures related to the preparation of the public record for legal challenges brought under Sequa. In order to expedite this legal process, SB 149 contains important administrative streamlining proposals, while at the same time preserving the fundamental protections embodied in Sequa. The Bill also extends current law related to streamlining the projects regarding affordable housing. Historic drought, massive flooding, and dangerous energy grid blackouts have offered insight into the consequences of regulatory gridlock and the impacts it can have on our communities.

The thoughtful changes that are represented in SB 149 were drafted because they are necessary not only to achieve our climate goals, but to ensure safety and a better future for our constituents. I'm proud to be joined by my colleague and joint author of SB 149, Senator Becker, to further expand upon the benefits of the Bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Members. In 1965, the President's Scientific Advisory Committee concluded the only way to prevent the effects of climate disaster was move towards a global, coordinated effort to eliminate the use of fossil fuels fuels and switch to renewable energy sources. So we've known what we need to do to beat climate change for more than my lifetime, and maybe more than all of your lifetimes as well. Over the last 58 years, what we've been puzzling how to do is how to build clean faster.

The inability to switch to climate solutions, either for political or financial or technical barriers is not new. Even in California, where our Scoping plan lays out the path and where we have vast support for this, we struggle with timely implementation. Our targets. To meet our 2030 target of 40% reduction, we need to be reducing emissions four to 5% a year. Right now, we're reducing emissions more than closer to 1% a year or one to 2% a year.

So what really is new is that the technology for many years was just not quite there, or it was very expensive. But now the technology is there in terms of solar, in terms of wind, in terms of geothermal, in terms of long duration storage. So again, how do we build faster? This Bill, as my colleague described, expedites lawsuits for priority clean energy, water and other projects that are necessary to fight and adapt to climate change.

While accounting for historical land use disparities and creating high road jobs. We did work with many colleagues to create significant guardrails. And I'd like to mention four critical protections that were added. Number one, sunsetting this pathway in 2032.

The investments from the IRA, which again we should recognize, are historic it's about $891,000,000,000 of investment across the country from the Inflation Reduction Act, plus, of course, all of our state money that we're putting into it, the billions of dollars that we fought for in our Budget Subcommittee and the Assembly as well. Many of these investments are competitively distributed on tight timelines. Others will expire in the next ten years. So the tax credits, for example, expire in 2032.

The Loan Programs Office, which oversees $444,000,000,000 in loans, that money must be allocated to shovel ready projects in the next three years. And so for California to again meet our goals and access some of these credits, we have to make sure that we don't have unnecessary and that frivolous lawsuits aren't preventing us from receiving these once in a lifetime investments. So again, we've time limited it there. And second, we've modified their criteria, align with legislation broadly adopted and broadly supported around SB Seven in 2021.

third, we eliminated any streamlining of the Delta conveyance projects, as many of the colleagues in the Senate and the Assembly had expressed concerns about. And fourth, working with the Assembly exempt any projects from receiving streamlining and disadvantaged communities. Thank you for your work to protect the areas that have historically already been worse impacted by fossil fuel and industry pollution. It's time for California to move to write its historical land use disparities in 2021 with many colleagues.

We were at the Cop talks, the climate change talks, and I was proud to share with really the world about California's goals and the legally binding goals that we've set. But if we're serious about these targets, not just being a number, we need to build clean faster without letting green tape, as our Natural Resources Department says, get in the way of clean energy infrastructure and climate adaptation projects. All the while, we are still preserving public input and environmental protections.

I'm here to answer any questions that the committee may have. Otherwise, appreciate the thank you. We'll be referring questions to Chris Kelvie. Thank you.

Let's get to that 4 to 5% reduction rate while creating high road clean energy jobs. Let's get California to zero emissions. Let's empower California to fight climate change. With us today, we have Chris Calfy, special counselor to the California Natural Resources Agency, to testify.

Thank you, Senators. Next, we're ready for additional witnesses and support.

Is it on? Oh, there. Good morning. Mike Robeson, here on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association, in support. Thanks, Madam Chair and Members, Alex Torres, Director of State Government Relations for the Bay Area Council as also here today on behalf of LA BizFed, representing hundreds of businesses up and down the state in strong support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Brenda Bass, California Chamber of Commerce, in support. Good morning. Alex Bearing, California Farm Bureau in support. Chris Anderson, association of California Water Agencies, in support. Melissa Cortez, on behalf of the California Wind Energy Association, in support.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Chris Mckayley, on behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce in strong support. Hi, madam chair Members Antonio Alfar with the Santa Clara Valley Water District. We are support if amended. We believe there's some provisions that need some cleanup regarding the water storage investment Program in order to be able to use the judicial review provisions.

Also, we would like to suggest that we add the Anderson Dam Project, as it has been identified as the highest priority dam nationwide by FERC in order to mitigate the potential for loss of life. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members Aaron Nemela representing Intersect Power Eastern Municipal Water District and Santa Margarita Water District in support. Thank you. Madam Chair and Members Beth Olaso on behalf of Water Reeves, California in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Alchemy Graham on behalf of the California Transit Association and several of our Members in support. Thanks. Thank you. Next, are there witnesses in opposition? A lot to say. Good morning. My name is Aaron Woolley. On behalf of Sierra Club California. We appreciate the work that's been done on SB 149. The new language is in a much better place. But to truly tackle the urgency of the climate crisis, we must adequately invest in resource permitting agencies and local jurisdictions, not unnecessarily deregulate.

There are a few provisions in the Bill that we have lingering concerns about, and we'll be submitting a letter later this afternoon with more details. Thank you.

Good morning. Kim Delphino, representing Defenders of Wildlife in the California Native Plant Society. We are removing opposition and just would like to very much thank the Legislature for vastly improving the bills. Chairwoman Rivas, thank you so much for the hard work that you did and others. We appreciate the changes that have been made. We do still have concerns.

We do believe that dealing with these issues on the back end through judicial review is sort of ignoring the issue that we should be doing better planning and staffing of agencies so that we could be doing these projects better and faster, rather than weakening environmental protections for wildlife and communities. However, with that said, again appreciate all the hard work, the changes that have been made, and are removing our opposition. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Raquel Mason speaking on behalf of the California Environmental Justice Alliance committees for a Better Environment and Leadership council for Justice Accountability in a Tweener position. We continue to have concerns about the process, but are really grateful to the Chair and Members for really strengthening this and supporting environmental justice concerns.

In these conversations, we have liguring questions about SB 149, particularly in respect to how the Administration will choose to implement the authority to certify projects and to evaluate potential harms to disadvantaged communities that SB 149 now we're grateful requires to be avoided, minimized and mitigated. We have questions about project eligibility still that and it's unclear to what extent, if any, hydrogen production could be allowed in this Bill questions about highway expansions and if they would be seen as a possibility under CAPDI safety enhancements principle.

But thank you again to everyone for making this a lot stronger. We really appreciate all the hard work.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll bring it back to the committee for any questions or comments. Assembly Member Wood I just want to.

Thank you, both of you, for your work on this. I want to support the Bill today. I think that this protects the central goal of sequa while ensuring that important infrastructure projects aren't tied up in the courts. We hear over and over as we seek to try to get as much of our green energy portfolio online. That one of the biggest challenges that is faced, is a myriad of things in the process, obviously. But part of this is in the courts.

I think it's important for a variety of energy projects. That's really my concern as we look at offshore wind and we look at a variety of other projects, storage and so forth. So I think we can all acknowledge there's a problem. And I think this is a big step in the right direction. Many of our districts will benefit from these projects, and I'm happy to support this today.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Assemblymember Zbur.

Yes. I'm going to support this Bill as well and want to thank Chair Previs and those of you who've been involved in the think. I agree with a lot of the comments that were made by Seha just this morning. But I think those are things that we can continue to work on after we pass these budget trailer bills next year.

I also appreciate the fact that this is the product of really hard negotiations where the environment was improved significantly as part of those negotiations, both on the Senate and the Assembly side. So while there are things in the Bill that I don't particularly love and there's some things in it that I actually like a lot, I recognize this is the product of some hard negotiations. And I think it's our responsibility.

Things that I like were the changes in the Delta infrastructure, the fact that there's more put in place to protect disadvantaged communities, not just with these bills, but the whole package of bills. And I do think that when folks come to the table in good faith, we have a responsibility to embrace and respect the negotiations. So with that, I'll be supporting the Bill today and want to thank everyone who was involved.

Assembly Member Pellerin.

Yes, I just too want to thank everybody for the extensive work on this Bill. I certainly am very grateful for the time and effort, and we've come a long way with it. Have we seen the list of projects yet? Has anyone seen that? The projects that no, we haven't seen. So I just want to also echo the concerns raised by Anderson Dam that's in my district, and it's a high priority project for me.

And like my colleague Assembly Member Zbur said, I do have concerns with the Bill, but in the spirit of moving this forward and understanding the urgency of the work that we need to do, I'll be supporting it today. So thank you.

Assemblymember Hoover.

Thank you. Yeah, I just want to echo those comments. Thank you both for your work on this Bill. My community is greatly appreciated that the Delta Conveyance Project was removed from this final language, so I very much appreciate of that. And with that, I'll be supporting it today. Thank you.

Any other questions or comments, though? Assembly Member Mathis I'm probably one of.

The only ones that doesn't fully appreciate the Delta stuff being removed, as it would significantly help my district. But I do appreciate the hard work in looking at other ways that we can take care of the San Joaquin Valley and what that means and how our water system and everything kind of comes together with our natural resources. So it's not too often I can say I'd like a budget trailer Bill. So I appreciate the work that's done here. So thank you both and the staff for working on it.

I just want to make it clear, this is not a budget trailer Bill. This is a policy Bill going through our committee.

Yeah.

Okay. Any other questions or comments? Okay, seeing none, I want to thank everyone involved, especially the staff that pretty much gave up their weekend to work on these bills, including this one. I'd like to thank my chief consultant and the speaker staff and the Senate staff that all worked hard, like in a very short time frame where attachments are flying around and which version is which, and does it match what we agreed to or not?

And I really believe that the Members, at least in the Assembly, we really fought for more environmental protections and to protect disadvantaged communities. I think that was our goal, and I really believe we did the best we could. And so just want to thank everyone involved. Would you like to close?

Thank you very much. I appreciate all of the comments. I think if there's one thing I could say, is that I do agree with everything that's been said. There's some stuff I like in it and some other stuff that I'm not thrilled about. But the point of this Bill is it really is a three part agreement, and so you give up a little bit and you get something.

And so I really appreciate all your support, both my co author and I. And we have a lot of work to do, a lot of work to do, and we absolutely have to get some of these projects moving as quickly as possible. And the fact that there is tremendous support from the federal government to help us to achieve some of our goals, there's a snapshot in time and we got to be able to pull in those resources.

And California has a reputation for taking way too long, for being too bureaucratic and taking a long time to get things done. So if we can show that we've adopted policies that are going to help us to move projects along that are going to be good for the environment, good for our workforce, and good for reducing the impacts of climate change, we're in a good place. So respectfully ask for your Ivoo.

Grail. Just say a moment as well. Again, thank you to Members and staff and chair, particularly, for your absolute, passionate advocacy and your deep commitment to the environment throughout this whole process. And I just echo some comments from my co author and to pick up a theme. The Assembly Member, I think Wood said, I think this is a start, right? We're looking I think during the conversations, some of these conversations, we had conversations with the Doe.

Obviously we didn't get any money in the first round of battery grants that were allocated, but there's a lot more to be continued. And I think once the dust settles from all this, I know I look forward to sitting down with folks and saying, okay, what else do we need while protecting the environment? What else do we need to move things along faster now at the front end, now that we've addressed some of these other parts?

So I do think this is a start and a beginning. But again, appreciate everyone for all their hard work and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. I believe we don't have a motion. We have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll. The motion is due pass Rivas aye Rivas aye Flora Addis Addis not voting Friedman Hoover Hoover aye mathis Mathis aye maritsucci Pellerin Pellerin aye Ward Ward aye Wood Wood aye Spur Spur aye This Bill has seven ayes. We'll leave it open for absent Members.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. They were like but all my communities.

Because modern and like the rest of us are like everybody gets their day in court, buddy.

Opening the roll. The motion is due pass Marisuchi aye Marisuchi aye. That Bill has nine votes. The Bill has nine votes. It's out. Meeting adjourned.