Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Quality

So let's call the Senate Environmental Quality Committee hearing to order as a Subcommitee. We're going to start with the illustrious Senator Dahle, who's come down to present item seven. zero, well, unless you want to. Okay, tell me what she. Is that okay? Just because she's. Or what do you prefer? Yours is fast. Okay. All right, great. Okay, we'll do item 17. This is SB. You know, you're good. You're good. You know how to do this. You're a pro. All right, SB 1062. Let's go, Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Mister chair Members. I want to start by thanking the Committee for working with me on this Bill requires the Department of Conservation, in consultation with various other state agencies, to create a biomass technology transition program to facilitate the conversion of biomass energy generation facilities to newer advanced bioenergy technologies. This Bill would require the Department of Conservation to identify biomass facilities that intend to convert to advanced bioenergy technologies that result in reduced emissions.

Once the facilities have been identified, the Department shall request information from the relevant air districts regarding the best available emission control technologies for each facility. There are two types of technologies in this Bill: advanced conversion technology and emission control technology. The advanced conversion technologies will be distributed to the facilities through the grant program that will allow the facilities to continue using biomass as a valuable fuel source.

The emission control technologies are the technologies that enable the facilities to meet the air quality standards of their specific air districts. Facilities in clear air basins will need to meet different air quality standards than facilities in non attainment areas, so the control technologies they may need will be different if the facilities were to receive any applicable air permit for their Pacific areas.

They must utilize the best available mission control technologies that are appropriate for their Pacific air basins as they determined by their air districts. The facilities then shall develop business plans to incorporate advanced bioenergy technologies once they become commercially available and viable. These bioenergy technologies are often expensive, so this Bill would facilitate the establishment of a grant program to assist the facilities in acquiring them.

These technologies will allow the facilities to continue using woody biomass as fuel source, but in a way that reduces emissions and consistent with California biomass regulations. The excess buildup of woody biomass is a major concern, especially in my district. Our forests have become tinderboxes, and inadequate vegetation management has led to the most catastrophic wildfires in California's history. In December, 2022, CARB passed a resolution regarding the 2022 climate change scoping plan in which the board resolved the opportunities for non combustible biomass solutions need to be prioritized.

This Bill is consistent with California's goal of prioritizing alternate biomass energy generation methods. SB 1062 would help protect our forest and rural communities while also continuing the usage of biomass as a viable fuel source. With me today, I have, i do not know if they're here, but I don't know if my witnesses are here yet. But I do have a couple witnesses if you want to hear from them.

I'm happy to here whoever's here to speak in testimony. This does enjoy a support recommendation from the chair. Anyone who wants to voice support or opposition to the Bill. All right, seeing none, we will entertain a motion for the Bill when we have a quorum.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Vice Chair. Appreciate it. All right, let's now hear from Senator Blakespear. Thank you for your patience. 906, not bad. We'll get started with. You have three bills up today. Do you want to start with SB 1045?

Let's start with 1426

1426. Okay. All right, fantastic. That's item four, SB 1426. Nice to see you, Madam Treasurer.

Yes, we have our madam treasurer here, so we will manage her time effectively. Thank you.

So you may proceed when ready.

Okay, thank you, chair and colleagues, I want to start by thanking the chair and the Committee, and especially BRIN , for all of their hard work on this Bill. And I gladly accept the Committee amendments. In the United States, we produce just over 292 million tons of waste a year. Half of that, 146 million tons ends up in landfills. This is an average of roughly five pounds of trash per person a day.

Our overconsumption has created a waste stream that is difficult to manage and overwhelming our existing infrastructure. SB 1426 is designed to improve upon our existing infrastructure and provide Californians who want to waste less and divert more away from our landfills the opportunity to do so. The simple reform will make California a destination to build more recycling infrastructure, create new green jobs, shift consumer behavior, and stimulate the growth of a truly circular economy where profitability is tied to diversion over landfills.

Specifically, SB 1426 creates a new pathway for third party services to collect materials for diversion. If the material, and there are four parts to this, one, cannot be effectively sorted by existing facilities, is currently not being collected at facilities for recycling or composting as part of an exclusive franchise agreement, will be recycled at a responsible end market and is not covered under SB 54.

I plan to take amendments in the Assembly that will require these entities to report directly to Cal recycle to ensure that these materials do have that responsible end market. What this newer language allows for are additional tools for individuals, businesses, and local governments to divert materials away from landfills, which is what we desperately need. If a local facility is unable to sort materials that are ending up in a landfill, SB 1426 would allow that third party service to collect them.

For instance, textiles can often end up in landfills and are unable to be sorted at facilities. Under this Bill, an entity will be able to collect these textiles from a household or a business and be recycled or reused for other materials. We have state mandates such as a 75% organic waste diversion goal by 2025. That's one year from now. Cal Recycle estimates 18 million tons of organic waste will need to be processed statewide. Our existing infrastructure can accommodate roughly 10 million tons.

This is a glaring problem, and it's obvious that these targets are out of reach with our existing infrastructure. To exacerbate this issue, the recycling partnership reported an alarming 79% of recyclable materials nationwide end up in landfills. This Low recycling rate is a clear indicator of how our existing system is not working. More recently, a study published in the journal Science last month found landfills are emitting 40% more methane than previously estimated, underscoring the need for addressing our landfill issue in order to mitigate our climate crisis.

And this issue is prevalent at facilities like Chiquita Canyon in La County, which has struggled to contain noxious fumes and contaminated runoff caused by an underground garbage fire, resulting in the relocation of nearby residents. What we are attempting to do is not merely a legislative change, it's an evolution, and it's an evolution toward a modernized and sustainable future for the waste and recycling industry.

I recognize the very important investments that waste haulers have made and are making, but the fact is that we need to be working faster. We need to be allowing for additional markets to support waste diversion goals. By supporting this Bill, we are taking a definitive step toward building a truly circular economy. We're talking about creating new green jobs, attracting private investment, and building the desperately needed recycling infrastructure.

With that, I'm very honored to have these two esteemed guests right next to me, California State Treasurer Fiona Ma and Rachel Oster, co founder of the Recyclerite Coalition, with 17 years of experience working in the waste and recycling industry, and I'll turn it over to them. Thank you. If that's okay, chair my witnesses.

Thank you so much. Fiona Ma California State Treasurer I've been working on garbage and recycling issues for the past 20 years, since I was on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. First off, I want to thank the men and women who magically make our garbage disappear each week. I just got back from Korea yesterday, and one of the most famous places and parks is called Sky park. And it was a landfill for 15 years.

From 1978 to 1993, it held over 92 million tons of garbage, and it is one of the highest peaks in that country. It is 446ft tall, equivalent to about 40 to 50 stories of a building. That's how big this landfill was. And it grew in just that short 15 years. So we all know that landfills are filling up. No one wants new ones. It takes at least 10 years to expand an existing one.

And these material recovery facilities, these Mrfs, are doing their best to recycle, reuse and upcycle. However, there are certain commodities and products that they cannot do effectively right. Meats and seafood found at supermarket counters. Expired or wilting products. Produce like fruits and vegetables, textiles, as the Senator mentioned. And there are new companies, innovative companies that are finally coming to California to help in our recycling and garbage crisis.

And so this Bill is intended to clarify, both legislatively as well as legally, more certainty to these new countries. It will help the MERFs be able to keep out less soiled material. It will reduce toxic methane and hazarded gases. It's going to create thousands of green jobs with our teamsters and avoid these massive landfill buildups. So I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much, honorable Members of the Committee, good morning. I'm Rachel Oster, the Co-founder of the Recycle Right Coalition. I have 17 years of experience in the solid waste and recycling industry, spending five of my years deep in operations, overseeing collection contracts, collective bargaining agreements, and all types of solid waste and recycling facilities, including two of the largest compost facilities in the state. It's a privilege to stand before you today to discuss a matter of critical importance to our environmental future.

Senate Bill 1426 this legislation is a pivotal step toward meeting the statewide recycling goals we are currently failing to meet by a huge margin. Our goal is 75%. We're at 41%, 75% by 2020. SB 1426 is designed to clear away the outdated regulatory barriers that currently hinder Californians efforts to make personal choices to lead more sustainable lives. Currently, millions of California residents and businesses are prohibited from subscribing to services that reuse and recycle materials that are currently being landfilled.

This Bill corrects the ambiguities in our current waste management laws that unfairly prevent Californians from participating in these diversion efforts that are not only possible, but necessary for the health of our environment. SB 1426 ensures that Californians who wish to reduce the amount of reusables and recyclables sent to landfill are not just allowed, but encouraged to do so.

By clarifying that the exclusive right to be compensated for collecting material doesn't hinder other service providers from offering a service that would result in recyclable materials that are currently being landfilled to be collected and reused or recycled. We think that's pretty simple. As Senate Environmental Quality Committee Members, you are undoubtedly hearing testimony this session about how there's not enough infrastructure to meet SB 1383, the mandatory organics recycling goals.

SB 1426 directly solves those challenges, giving private companies that are investing billions of dollars into California infrastructure access to material that is going unrecycled in our current system. New modern infrastructure constructed without relying on the public to pay for it through increased rates, as the current system does exactly the type of companies California hopes to attract with their aggressive waste reduction and landfill diversion policies.

By supporting 1426, you are championing a policy that enables innovation we simply don't see under the current monopolistic structure of our waste and recycling system, SB 1426 will help us build the infrastructure and responsible end markets needed to manage our resources toward a truly local, circular economy.

Some of the opponents of this Bill, as you've probably heard in other sessions, would rather send our precious resources out of state than commit to investing in infrastructure here in California, as we face urgent challenges of climate change and begin to better understand the true impact of landfilling our resources. As the Senator mentioned, 40% more methane than previously thought, measures like 1426 offer a beacon of hope. This Bill is about empowering Californians to take meaningful action today for a better tomorrow.

With 1426, we envision a future where innovative solutions for collecting and recycling our resources are embraced and operate harmoniously with the curbside collection system we rely on for materials that are easily recycled in a single stream. We look forward to your support as we work together to transform our waste management system into models of circularity, sustainability and innovation. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone who also wants to voice their support for the Bill, they can come up and identify themselves here at the microphone.

Mister chair Members, Kathy Van Austen, representing Imperial Western Products and support.

Thank you.

[unidentified speaker] with TK public affairs representing Divert and Redwell in support.

Thank you. All right, let's give opposition the opportunity to come up. We'll probably ask the, maybe the author to move to that chair and then we'll have a couple witnesses in the front. Does that work? Okay, thank you. Great.

Okay, I'll go first, Mister chair Members. Matt Broad here on behalf of that aforementioned Teamsters, in strong opposition to SB 1426. You know, I want to be clear and start recognizing that we have employers sort of on both sides of this fight. The Teamsters recently organized workers at Ridwell in San Francisco. We hope to see them grow. We just strongly feel that a Bill that undermines franchise exclusivity is not the way to do so. And so we're here in strong opposition today.

I think the analysis did a good job of at least pointing out ways that the Bill would undermine sort of SB 54 and agreements we've reached. And I think we need more time to vet this through the stakeholder process, and that hasn't been the case so far, so we will be opposed today. Thank you.

Mister Chairman of Members. My name is Kelly Astor. I'm here today representing the California Waste Recycling Associate, pardon me, California Waste Haulers Council. I heard other witnesses at this hearing talk about their experience, so I'll share a little bit of mine. This is my 40th year representing the waste hauling industry, both at the local franchise level, and I've been a registered lobbyist for probably 30 years of that time. I know something of the issue, and I'm grateful for this opportunity to testify on it.

The first thing I'd like to do is kind of set the stage a little bit. Recycling comes in two forms. We recycle solid waste. That's material that's been discarded, and we recycle material that never enters the waste stream. So please bear that in mind. Most of the recycling that occurs today has been thrown away first. Secondly, local government has had a very traditional and profound and active role in regulating this activity for some very obvious health and safety reasons.

That's particularly true with regard to organics, which, as you know, is material that rots, that's garbage, as opposed to trash, or inert material. There's a potential health threat of great magnitude if that material is mishandled. It has to be overseen. It has to be properly addressed. The collection of municipal solid waste is not a right given by statute.

No hauler has a right anywhere right now to go into any city and declare he's going to haul if that city decides that it wishes to regulate the activity differently. This Bill is a departure from the norm by creating a statutory right to suddenly enter a community and charge for this privilege. When even haulers don't have that right, the right that they have is the product of a contractual relationship with the city, which they earn through negotiation. Another, often through a competitive process.

The only exception to what I just said is a state law called the five year law, which has no application here, but which does confer a services continuation right to certain holders who are threatened with displacement by a city or county. As I said, this Bill rewrites the law to give a statutory right to any person to haul municipal solid waste, including areas governed by an exclusive franchise.

It is utterly silent as to the practical impacts on existing franchise agreement provisions or local ordinance provisions, which confer exclusivity and limit who may legally haul. This Bill is no mere clarification of law. It profoundly changes the rules by which solid waste enterprises and their host jurisdictions have operated for generations, and it is anything but clear. Here are some examples. We are not told who will make the determination that material is or is not being effectively sorted, or what that even means.

We are not told whether the material must first be source separated by the generator, which has long been a requirement for non franchise hauling. The new right is not limited to the organics waste stream. It is not limited to commercial waste generators. Let me just pause there monopolization, as some call it.

The idea of an exclusive franchise arose, particularly in the residential context, because of the potential threat to large scale trucks coming in and out of the same neighborhood at different hours of the day, serving different companies. So it's from a safety standpoint as much as an operational efficiency standpoint that we've gone migrated toward the exclusive model. There's reason for it. SB 1426 completely bypasses not only the franchise system, but also the important protections given to solid waste collection systems and programs under SB 54.

Enacted just two years ago, these protections were the product of three years of negotiation, and the assurances they gave were instrumental in enabling the waste industry to move to a position of unanimous support for SB 54. Franchised haulers incur costs that are recovered and the rates that are authorized to charge by the local agency. Many of these costs result from compliance with applicable law, but many more arise from the contract itself and the obligations it imposes. The payment of a franchise fee is just one example.

These and other franchise related expenses will be avoided by this new tier of solid waste enterprises that we're calling third party recyclers, placing franchise haulers at a distinct competitive disadvantage. What are the effects of that? The very folks that we're talking about here are the ones responsible for building the infrastructure on which this state now relies. It didn't exist before them. It wouldn't have arose without them, and they are as responsible as anyone for this state leading the nation currently in solid waste recycling.

Just going to ask you to wrap up. Ok? Thank you.

None of this is meant to suggest that the current system is not above improvement. However, we submit the change on the scale that this Bill contemplates must be proceeded by a level of exchange and thoughtful study that we have not yet an opportunity to fulfill. While the author has made herself and her staff available for meetings, more discussion is needed. The latest Bill text was only supplied to us yesterday. We have time. SB 54 has yet to be implemented and won't be for another few years.

SB 1383 is now only being implemented by some jurisdictions, while others have yet to do so. The Bill is premature. With all due respect, and we urge your no vote. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, anyone else who wants to express their opposition to the Bill, you can come to the mic.

Kayla Robinson, on behalf of the California Compost Coalition and CRNR Environmental Services in respectful opposition.

Thank you. Chair and Members Ada Waelder with the California State Association of Counties in respectful opposition.

Thank you, Mister chair Members Dawn Koepke, on behalf of the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance in respectful opposition.

Nika Lapis with Californians Against Waste in respectful opposition.

Good morning. Veronica Pardo with the Resource Recovery Coalition and I sit on the SB 54 advisory board. Respectfully, we're in opposition today.

Good morning. Stephanie Morwell, on behalf of Recology in opposition.

Mister chair, Members of the Committee, Marc Aprea on behalf of Republic Services, in opposition and also want to point out that this measure runs contrary to the producer pays model in SB 54.

Mister chair and Member Steve Carlson for Athens Services, a family owned waste and recycling company in the Los Angeles area. We're opposed.

David Krieger for Waste Connections. We serve 51 localities here in California in strong opposition.

John Kennedy, Rural County Representative of California, in opposition.

Melissa Sparks-Kranz with the League of California Cities. We submitted a letter of strong concern that if the local preemption language is not amended out of the Bill, we will move to a opposition.

John Moffat, on behalf of Waste Management in opposition.

Morning, chair and Members, Adam Regley with the California Chamber of Commerce is someone who spent hundreds of hours on SB 54. We believe this is in direct contradiction to what was negotiated. Thank you.

Okay. All right, we got everybody. Anyone else? Okay, another fun Blakespear Bill, the one that has been substantially amended, and I understand that folks haven't had the chance to go over everything. I think the Bill does seek to address a really important problem, which is that a lot of material that is collected curbside is not being recycled or composted. You know, once material is out at curbside, it can get contaminated with lots of other things that get thrown in the same bin.

A lot of this, of course, has to do with consumer education. There are places for us to improve to make curbside cleaner. We had a truth in labeling Bill SB 343 that I think will certainly help because there's so much stuff that's getting tossed into the bins that have the recycling symbol that wasn't actually recyclable.

But part of why I have been open to aspects of this Bill is because it's really clear to me that unless our curbside systems really improve dramatically, a lot of material that goes into curbside is just ending up in the landfills, even if it could be recycled or composted. And I think that's what the author is trying to address here.

We've got substantial Committee amendments that help to clarify the author's intent to keep this recyclable and compostable material out of the landfills while making sure that we're not interfering with local control. I understand that it doesn't go far enough for folks, and who knows what's going to happen in the Committee today on this Bill.

But our amendments specify that material can be collected by third party recyclers if that material is not currently being accepted by facilities for recycling or composting, either from curbside or from some other diversion surface that's already offered by an exclusive franchise agreement. The amendments also ensure that material brought in by third party recyclers is actually diverted from landfills and goes to responsible end market. That was important for us. We wanted specificity there and then.

Most significantly on the 54 front, covered materials under SB 54 will not be affected by the Bill, and recyclers will have to work with the PRO for collecting SB 54 covered material. And that, of course, was really important to us. Now, it's my understanding that the author has agreed to take amendments moving forward that would add a reporting requirement to the Bill where recyclers collecting material under the Bill would report to Cal Recycle on what they're collecting, where it ends up.

Likewise, it's my understanding that the author plans to amend the Bill to authorize Cal recycle to consider responsible end markets for materials diverted from landfills. In this way. You know, I understand. So I've never quite, especially when there's back and forth on amendments. I'm never quite sure when. Sometimes the opposition is. Some of the opposition concerns were more based on the original version of the Bill.

But I do recognize that some of the key players here have reviewed the amendments, and they don't take opposition off from the way stallers and some others. And I do want to kind of really emphasize what important stakeholders, the waste haulers and all the folks who've come up and spoken today play in this space. Another issue that we're going to have to work on more thoroughly, I think, is how does this ultimately support, rather than work against all the ongoing efforts with regards to SB 1383?

So I know there's going to be a lot of conversations on that policy moving forward. So I certainly applaud the author for her deep interest in this space, really trying to take on an important issue. Regardless of what happens with the Bill today. I do think that our friends in the holler industry, I think they recognize this. But part of why bills like this are bubbling up is because there's so much stuff that's not getting recycled or composted under the current system.

And I think that's what the Senator is trying to address here with this Bill. So with that, those are my thoughts. I appreciate the author taking the amendments, and I know this is going to continue to be a very wild and woolly discussion. So let me turn to the Vice Chair, and maybe if. Maybe. Well, I don't know if we want to. Okay, let's.

I was just thinking, if one of the lead witnesses for the support wants to come up just so we can have both sides here represented. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. I appreciate that. Let's go to the Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mister chair. First, I want to just maybe give a little history. I was the county supervisor for 16 years and worked on these franchise agreements, and they're very competitive, and there's a lot of give and take at the local level to do what we need to do.

Number one, we need to make sure that the garbage gets picked up every Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or whatever day that is, because we can't just leave it sitting there for health reasons and for just good government. So. And I want to just qualify that we did SB 54, a Bill that the Chairman of this Committee and many of us worked on for a long time to get to a place where we're trying to do what is right.

And it's been, yes, a few years now that we've got SB 54 and we're pushing to get these waste streams. So I have some direct questions on. So I know there's been some amendments, but they're really not that clear on exactly what's going to happen. So I want to ask some direct questions on this Bill. So would this Bill require reports to the local government and Cal recycle as to what material is collected, where the material goes and what its end of life is?

Yes. With the amendments that we plan to take on the Assembly side, there will be a reporting requirement to Cal recycle and the local government on where material is going. And that the requirement is that it goes to responsible end markets.

So why is that not amendment today? This Bill is what. So that, I mean, why is that not, this is that this is the, I think one of the, that's my first question. I have like five others. But, but that, this is the critical thing. Look, you're, we have franchise agreements and we, they're required to pick up whatever's in that can out there.

Now, we have 54, which is going to do some different things, which is a work in progress, but you're, this Bill will allow somebody else to come in and without a franchise agreement and be able to take whatever they choose to take. And so, and this Bill doesn't clarify that the end of life or is calorie cycle, what is going to happen? I mean, that to me is a very huge problem. Number one. I mean, the question that.

You'Re asking is really very much on the operational side of how is this exactly going to be implemented? And it's really important, but we're getting the framework here. Like even the exclusion, SB 54, this doesn't cover SB 54 things at all. So that's a big change. And so the reason we're taking them later is because they've just come up as issues about how it will be operationalized. But I also want to let the chair say something, if he wants to on this.

I'll also point out that the Bill is intended to cover materials that are currently not being diverted by the curbside collection program and that these materials are contaminants in the curbside Bin. Anything that's not recycled in the curbside program but put in the blue nin is considered contamination and it's an added cost. So these services are meant to operate harmoniously with the curbside program and accept materials that are not currently being recycled by the curbside program.

Which SB 54 is going to include those in the curbside pickup.

There are many materials outside of 54's cover material.

So let me just clarify a couple, two quick things. First of all, we have, and this was a whole back and forth as originally written. This covered 54 and did disrupt 54. We have now explicitly excluded covered material from the Bill with the amendments. The other thing I should just say. So the issue here on the commitment that you're making, it's important that we specify the Calvary cycle, do the five factor test. The issue here is that, and this is for everyone to hear.

We also put in place, we took, we addressed the local preemption concerns with amendments as well. It is our hope and belief that local government will waive hearing now that those amendments are, are being taken. We have not gotten confirmation from them yet.

The issue here is, of course that if it goes to local Gov. That screws up going to appropes on this side, it's my hope and belief that they will waive hearing, which then means that you can accept the amends now as opposed to the Assembly so as to have it go to a props now on the Senate side, that's my understanding of how things are going to work. But we have not gotten confirmed receipt from local Gov. yet.

Thank you, Senator. Just to respond to two points. Number one, the fact the express preemption provision was eliminated doesn't eliminate preemption. Okay. The Bill still says to local governments, you can no longer regulate here. That's a preemption, whether it's express reference to the state constitution or not. So the suggestion that limited preemption, this is divesting local government of one of the essential tools it's relied on for 40 years. Number two, to Senator Daly's commentary, this is the fourth version of language we've seen in six weeks.

None of those four versions included local oversight or control. The very agency charged with overseeing and safeguarding public health at the local level is not given any tool set. They're simply told we have to allow these others to come in in unlimited numbers, hauling unlimited amounts of unlimited types of material. That's what this Bill does.

As I think everyone here knows, we have a lot of smart people on this topic. The local preemption question is ultimately going to be decided by the local gov folks.

Are you going there?

They're reviewing the amendments right now, making the determination. There is an argument to be made, and you're going to make it forcefully to them that this messes with the franchise agreements. They're going to make the argument that they are explicitly focused on items that are outside of the scope of the agreements. That's going to be the debate over there. They're going to make a determination. This determination will impact, assuming it gets out today, of course. But that determination will impact the path of the Bill.

Yes, sir.

So just want to make sure everyone was clear on all those. Thank you, Mister Vice Chairman.

Well, first I just want to, I want to have a discussion here today. I'm fully prepared to dig in because I think this Bill really is complicated and I think I'm very nervous about some of the things with concerns to franchise agreements we already have in place. I mean, so where is the oversight and enforcement in this Bill to ensure that the material goes responsible in market that we've determined we don't have?

We're going to get that somewhere in a future amendment and then are we, so, and we're just going to take these companies word for it that they're going to come and take the stuff off the street and they're going to go do good things with it. That's what this Bill says.

The amendments say for recyclable material. The material will be recycled at a responsible end market.

And what does that mean, responsible? Who's going to enforce that? Is Ca; Recycle. I asked that - is Cal Recycle going to make sure it's done? Is the local government going to make done or is the franchise agreement going to make sure it's done? Because today in a franchise agreement you say to the waste hauler, these are your responsibilities. And we have teeth because we have a contract.

We have a contract with the local entity to say you're going to do certain things and if you don't do that, you're in reach of your contract. There is no contract because these people are able to come in and just take this material in an area where the local government has a contract. This is very uncooked, at least in.

That there will be required reporting to calrecycle and the local government. And many, some of the materials are already being reported because anytime you handle a certain material, you have to report it through the RDRS. If you have a recycling facility that covers materials that are recyclable commodities, you have to report to the recycling and disposal reporting system, to the state. So many of these are already covered under current law that they would have to be reported to the state.

Senator Daly, if I may respond as well. It's not just a reporting function. We're concerned about the lack of tracking of the material. That's one of the things you have a presence in unlimited numbers of new people coming in, doing new things in the residential sector, not to mention the commercial sector. Who's policing that? Exactly where is the funding to support that.

Do you know that most of the policing function now in terms of defending exclusivity under a waste collection franchise is the responsibility of the waste collector himself or herself. Why is that? Because local governments don't have the funding to have enough or staff people going around policing this. This activity is going to touch every citizen in the community and no one's watching. And to say, well, we're going to report the results to the state doesn't begin to address the upstream problem.

If they want access to this material, let them get it from us, not from our customers. That way they're supplementing our efforts.

So I'm going to let me get through my list here of other concerns that I have. Would the companies need to use the same truck types, clean air, clean trucks that are required by franchise agreements, CARB rules that we've forced on these waste haulers, are they going to be required to do those same types of laws?

Those requirements are granted under a long term exclusivity and franchise agreement that guarantees revenue. And these services will be abiding by all local and state laws for vehicles. And they would, if they were given a franchise agreement for, you know, 20 years of guaranteed revenue, comply to those rules.

But what about. Okay, let me just. So basically, because you don't have a franchise agreement and you're going to be competing, and that's why we have franchise agreements, is so that we can make sure that they do the CARB rules. And so the next question would be, what about prevailing wage labor requirements? Are these companies going to be subject to the same requirements if they're operating outside of the franchise?

They are, yeah.

And who holds them accountable then?

The local government can regulate these under a permit system.

So now we would basically you're saying that the local government would have two franchises, one with the franchise hauler and one with the new company?

No. Then who, if they don't, then who enforces it?

No.

Well, there are already local and state laws that cover this that they would be required to comply with. And we, the local jurisdiction has the ability to come in and regulate these services in any way under their, under their jurisdiction and police power.

Okay, would these companies coordinate with the solid waste franchisee to ensure traffic requirements in franchise areas aren't made worse?

Again, the local jurisdiction can require them to do anything they want. We're not trying to preempt the locals from governing this sector of services.

I want to say the reason that the local governments are not. You're saying, yes, the local government can do that. They're strapped. They don't have the people do it. If you're in a county, you're going to now try to, with this Bill passed, you're going to try to figure out, we're putting the burden on the counties and local governments to get in the middle of what they already have as a franchise agreement, and then it's going to disrupt that.

We have labor laws that we've had union negotiations over these contracts with local counties. We, we've had airborne regulations to force the waste haulers to have natural gas trucks. There's so many reasons that I think this Bill is definitely not cooked, and I really don't think we should get it out of this Committee. This is the Environment Safety Committee. And so for those reasons, I will not be supporting the Bill today.

And if we are going to have amendments, let's put the damn amendments in here before we have to send it somewhere else. So I think that this, I'm frustrated about this Bill because I think it's going to, at the end of the day, really cause chaos at the local level. And there's really no. But there's no teeth in it. There's no teeth in it to come in and say, we do have teeth with the franchise agreements. We have it.

Let me establish a quorum. Let's do that.

We can go to the waste haulers and say, hey, this is what we expect you to do. And those are negotiated over time. They're competitive. There's other companies that come in, and the counties and cities pick the right choice for their locality. So for those reasons, I won't be supporting the Bill today. There's just too much uncertainty and negotiations going on. And obviously, you can tell by the opposition that there's plenty of problems here.

Senators [Roll Call]

Okay, let's. Now, could I respond to this last comment?

So I just. I wanted to just make sure that we're focused on the fact that California residents and businesses are being told that materials that could be diverted have to be landfilled from overly broad readings of the franchise agreements. So if a city wants the franchise agreement to cover absolutely every possible thing and they don't want any other diversion to happen in their city, they could establish that.

I think what we see is that there's a hunger from residents and businesses to do better, and we have third parties that want to help, and the franchise agreements are stopping it. And so the Bill is aimed at allowing for the diversion from the landfill while respecting what the franchise agreements are actually doing, the things they are actually diverting from the landfill.

But recognizing that we are so far away from meeting our landfill reduction targets, and there's not anything happening within the waste hauler space that is providing for these things like textiles or the organics. The organics that are not being diverted. When that type of, when there's an investment in composting or a digester to manage the organics in the city, then the franchise agreement would cover that space.

But what's happening is that the innovation and the residents and the businesses are being told, you can't do this because of these exclusive franchise agreements. And it's an overly broad reading. So this Bill is meant to say that there is this space where we can provide for both the success of the haulers, which is critical, but also to allow for some innovation, and also importantly, better recycling and diversion so that we're compost or so that we're landfilling less. Thank you.

All right, Senator Menjivar.

Thank you so much. Senator Blakespear, we quickly checked in last night about some of the concerns I have. They are very similar to what the Vice Chair has mentioned. I was in local government during the time that the City of LA and so forth. You know, they had their franchise agreement with public services. And I remember one of the key things was where can consumers, customers go for complaints? And we would sit down and strategize about where is the center, where can they call?

And so forth because of all the complaints. It's a new system, right? We wanted to make sure they were heard. My concern is here that there's going to be no system in place for anybody to reach out for XYZ company who is going to come in. I do hear a commitment for oversight. I do want to see that Cal recycle oversight just like all the other ways haulers have that oversight. I do also want to echo that.

I do agree they should be taken in this Committee. But I'll leave that to the chair's discretion here because we don't know if it is going to go to local Govt. or XYZ. Another thing that I want to ask you, Senator, directly, is is it your intent to give private companies a right to collect unrecycled waste without regard to local government? Is that your intent of this Bill?

Not without regard to local government. I envision the local government has all the oversight here that they act and Cal recycle, but that they are deeply involved in this. I mean, in my experience in local government, we had requests to do these various other things, but basically you get into a discussion about what does the franchise agreement say? What does it cover?

And so I do not see this happening outside of the city process, the city complaint process, all of the police powers that the city has would be in effect here, and all of the laws covering labor standards and all of that. They would have to, of course, comply with that as well.

So you're looking to preserve the existing franchise contract?

Okay. And then I know we briefly talked, got into it. Who's going to determine which materials are eligible for this outside recycled system?

Exactly.

You want to speak to that?

It is written out in most franchise agreements, what is included for recycling. So it's a very clear line, what is included and what is recycled through the curbside program and the franchise agreement. So we're looking at materials that if handled differently by the consumer, could be recycled but are not getting through the system and being recycled through that single stream curbside program. We're talking about, you know, keys, Christmas lights, you know, yard signs.

I've seen it firsthand. I've visited those recycling centers and I saw exactly how they get pulled out and so forth. I've seen that process. It's marvelous. I'm wondering if you could respond to one of the questions the opposition asked, witness or Senator, is if the goal is here to be able to recycle the contaminated materials, why can't we collect it from the waste haulers? Once they pick it up, they have it in their, in the recycling centers. Why can't these other waste haulers then pick it up from there?

These are all contaminants when they're placed in the curbside bin, but handled separately by the resident or a business, these items are recyclable. It's a service, really to the franchise haulers that we remove these items from the single stream and put them toward a higher and better use. Anything that goes in the blue bin that is not accepted by the curbside program is considered a contaminant.

I mean, I do think that's a great question. And I would say that waste haulers make their money on landfilling. I mean, that there is a profit motive to putting things in the landfill. So the idea that they would be incentivized to do that, I think it's just not practical. I don't know if you want to respond to it, too.

Before you answer, I also want to say, but isn't like they're under. I want to use that phrase, they have incentive with under local government to meet certain goals. Right. So what? Isn't that incentive enough to ensure maybe that you don't agree?

Frankly, they're not meeting them. We have a 75% diversion requirement by 2020. We're at 41%. So this is important to look at these different areas. And yes, to answer the question, any of these operators with this Bill, any of these franchise haulers, could set up a system to collect doorstep service, to collect and provide these. In fact, in some areas of the country, these haulers are providing these services and the rates are not going up and the chaos that they're talking about is not happening.

These are, again, these are materials that are outside of the franchise agreement. They are recyclable if handled a certain way by the consumer, and they are not getting recycled. So if the franchise hauler wanted to start a doorstep service where they could provide options for residents to collect these items that are recyclable but not getting recycled, they could do that easily.

And one more thing I just want to add is that SB 1383 puts the obligation on the city. It doesn't put it on the waste hauler. So the city is required to divert organics, but cities, a lot of times don't have the capacity or interest to dive deeply into that. So they look to their waste haulers. What are the solutions that you're offering?

And so if there aren't actual facilities for the diversion, for the organics to be going to the composting or to the digester, then it does continue to go to the landfill. So this would allow a. A city to meet the obligation. And it's important to think, to remember where that obligation sits so that this Bill is aimed to give cities more ability to meet these goals that we've set for them.

So you're asking for the city, if they want to, to enter into a contract with other haulers? Is that what your language is?

Outside of the franchise contracts.

It's not other haulers.

They certainly could. They certainly could pull this type of service into the franchise agreement and require it. It's just that the haulers have never offered this type of service to the residents that direct them to source separate these materials. We've relied on single stream, and it's failing.

Would, under your Bill, would waste haulers, the ones you're looking to bring in to address the uncollectible or contaminated materials, would they be required to be in a contract with the local government, or would they come in and be able to do the work without a contract or approval?

I don't think we have that specified yet. I'm open to Committee amendments today or suggestions on that, but the specifics around that are just, they're just not specified yet.

And Mister chair, I'd like to direct one, my last question to the opposition. Sir, I'd like to go back to the question I asked, where, why wouldn't we be able to do a system where these waste haulers can come to your centers and pick up the contaminated materials? Do you agree that you're not incentivized enough to do such work?

Well, there are several questions there. Let me say that we have fought hard, very long to protect and to grow our core business, which is the business of collection and first processing. If someone has a better master right now, we secondarily process, send out to others recycled glass as an example. Beneficiators handle that. So there's precedent for this now, but any disruption in our relationship with the customer is of primary concern to us.

And we know that we're going to be upgrading even further the MRF infrastructure that we have now when SB 54 takes shape and some of the financing that it contemplates becomes available to do further upgrades. But we've got the nation's State of the art recycling system here now hearing a lot of criticism of it. It can be improved, but the idea that we should toss it aside and do this wholesale change, they can access the materials from us.

If we don't have a compost facility or other facility we're already supporting. Absolutely. I don't know why any Haller would not want to see further processing occur with her material, because the more diversion she achieves, the better off she is with her city.

My last remark is, you know, Senator, I had committed to you already, and a lot of the late concerns, even from my local government agencies, came really last minute. So I'm not going to go back on my word, but I do have a lot of concerns in this Bill. I will be voting no on the floor if there's no movement to ensure that we are protecting and not impose or just not going against the franchise agreements we have and ensuring there is local control of this.

So I just wanted to state that.

Okay, other questions? Yeah, Senator Gonzalez, thank you.

Thank you, Mister chair. And I want to first thank the author. I know this is a valiant effort. We chatted a bit as well. And the reasons, of course, I don't want to belabor as to why I won't be supporting the Bill today. I will be playing off, of course, go in alignment with what's been said, and I know that you will continue to work on this Bill whether it gets out or not.

I know that that's something that I think many of us are committed to doing. But I do share the concern, similar to Senator Jolly, on the local government perspective, because being from local government, working on franchise agreements as a City Council Member for Long Beach, one of the largest cities in Los Angeles, you know, it does seem to undermine that process. So it's hard to say that many of the contracts will be the same.

But then, you know, we haven't baked out the details in terms of the third party, you know, just coming in. So lots of concerns. But this is not local government, obviously, this is environmental quality. So oversight on end use, which has been talked about, and of course the mechanics on it all. It's just very difficult for me to understand how this will all work. So with that, I'll be laying off. Would love to keep working with you on this and I know you're committed to that. Thank you.

Okay. You know, obviously there's a lot of challenges here with this Bill, and I think they've been well aired.

Do you mind if she responds?

Yeah, sure. Yes.

Well, I just want to make, maybe provide a few examples of how this plays out. One of the Member companies supportive of this Bill was trying to provide services to collect reusable and donatable items. We're not just talking about recyclable, we're talking about setting up a system where there's a convenient option for residents to donate items to local nonprofits. And that's a really a local circular economy, in my opinion.

And what is being, being done at the local level is that there is an inference that since the franchise hauler provides a once a year bulky item pickup for free, that no one else can provide any service that collects and redistributes donatable, reusable items in the local jurisdiction that would be sent to the landfill. That seems crazy. And then another example would be in the City of LA, where multifamily dwelling apartment owner was being fined $800,000 a year for improperly sorting contamination fees, distance fees.

And they entered into an agreement with a third party to help them sort the materials at their multifamily dwelling to reduce the amount of contamination in the bins and get it to a better place so that they didn't have to face 800,000 a year in fines and penalties. And they were told that they have. That the hauler has the exclusive right to touch the material at all. So even that provider was unable to help an apartment owner reduce their fees and better sort.

I mean, there are existing programs on your previous point where vets can come pick up clothes, boy scouts, you know, those all exist. It's not as though you want to charge folks to do that. And then there's some products where that might make sense, but it's not as though these pickup programs don't exist right now outside of the hauler system.

That's true, however, that residents are seeking convenient options. They want to employ a more convenient option to come to their door, you know, in the years to come. And the generations that are coming up behind us are not driving around in their cars with bags of clothes for donation in the back. You know, that's just not the world that we're living in. So we believe that this convenient solution is what can get more donatables and reusables to local nonprofits that need them.

Gotcha. Okay. All right. Senator Nguyen.

I just. So you mentioned you have the ability to collect all sorts of. I mean, so e waste. So electronics, Christmas lights, are you able to collect those too?

Yes. If those are source separated and handled differently by the resident, they could be collected and recycled, but thrown into a single stream recycling Bin, they would be considered a contaminant and not only impact the ability to recycle that, but also the whole stream that it's contaminating.

Okay. Yeah, I mean, where the chair is stating is that a lot of these items can be picked up. And my boys are in baseball schools, they always ask for items from us to donate, and then the money goes to that boy Scout boys, you know, the school, whatever gets donated, the money gets donated to the school instead. And so I think there's opportunities out there. And so I agree with most of the comments here, is I think it's not cooked.

And so I don't think, you know, this is, this is not the right Bill. Maybe as it moves forward, if it does. We can all relook at it, but as of today, I won't be supporting it.

Okay. Appreciate all the comments. You know, a lot's been said and a lot of. So you've made a lot of commitments to us. I'm willing to give you the opportunity to keep doing this work.

I don't have any idea where the rest of the Committee is, so I'm going to support it. With all the amendments and commitments that you've made, this has got a long, unwinding path ahead. If it gets out of Committee today, if Senator Manjivar is willing to move the Bill for the purpose of the vote, and then we'll see where this goes, we'll let you close.

Okay. Thank you, Committee and staff and also those who came today. This is obviously a really important issue. I mean, the bottom line is that we are landfilling too much and we could be diverting more. Our current system is not serving us as well as it should. We need to be able to find ways to divert and recycle better. So I am eager and have had many conversations with the waste haulers. I'm eager to work together on solutions to make that happen.

I recognize the waste haulers have a critically important role, and I feel that I've always had a great relationship with waste haulers and still do. But there's a reality here that we need to be pushing if we're going to see a different result. And so I think it's important that we think about and continue to work on this together.

And I invite the waste haulers to work with me and anybody else who's listening to this today, who's interested in this topic and finding a solution and a way forward, because I do see this as something that needs attention and that it's a clear area where we could change our regulations, where other states are doing this better, and they are allowing for more flexibility, more innovation, more recycling, and they are seeing a difference compared to California. So with that, I urge your I vote today.

But I also am just, I am heartened that there's so much engagement, and I hope that we're able to really substantially make progress on this topic.

Thank you. All right, secretary, please call the roll file.

Item four, SB 1426. The motion is do pass, as amended and re refer to the Committee on Local Government. [Roll Call]

Okay, we'll leave that open. Thank you, everyone, for your participation. zero, yeah, of course. 100% the consent item. So let's let the folks who are going to help present SB 1302 come up. Sorry, 1054. But let's also. We have a motion for the consent Calendar. Secretary, please call the roll consent calendar.

[Roll Call]

Okay, and then. And then we'll have a motion from Senator Nguyen for Senator Dolly's SB 166062. Secretary, please call her all. Yeah, yeah, he's just. He's a total to me and he's a total overachiever today.

[Roll Call]

All right, so we'll leave that open for others to present, for others to add on. Let's now go to item two in your agendas, Members. This is. They were on opposite sides of the last Bill, but they're here together on this one. Okay. All right, SB 1045. Yeah.

Are we doing 1032?

Oh, do you want to do 1032 or 1045? You want to do 1302?

Can we do 1302?

Sure. Okay. You just. Yeah. Okay. So we'll go to item three. That's SB 1302.

Okay. So thank you, Chair and colleagues. I want to start by thanking the Committee staff for working with my office on amendments to this bill. I gladly accept them. I'm pleased to author SB 1302, which will create a new pilot program under the California Bottle Bill for recycling machines. To encourage recycling of beverage containers, consumers pay a California Redemption Value, or CRV fee, when purchasing beverages, and they receive a CRV refund if they return their empty containers to a recycling center.

By taking beverage containers directly to a recycling center, there's less contamination and thus more recyclable material actually gets recycled. Unfortunately, the number of recycling centers that buy back empty CRV containers has dramatically decreased. From 2013 to 2022, more than 1300 of the state's redemption centers have closed, leaving only 1,245 statewide. As a result, Californians are missing out on roughly 600 million on non refunded deposits. Further, the CRV redemption rate has fallen from 74% to 58.5%.

New technology can help us achieve the original goals of the California Bottle Bill. SB 1302 does this by creating a new pilot program for recycling machines. As defined in the bill, recycling machines accept containers and refund customers, just like reverse vending machines. They also recognize, sort, clean, cancel, and process empty containers. Recycling machines that can accurately identify and sort materials will reduce contamination and lead toward closed loop recycling. With me today, I have Mike Murray on behalf of Californians Against Waste.

Or Mark Murray. Either way.

They're similar in spelling.

Yeah. Mark Murray with the environmental group Californians Against Waste. This is really a technical measure that is aimed at authorizing CalRecycle to be able to certify recycling machines that count beverage containers as opposed to simply weighing them, and as noted, to separate, clean, and densify those containers all in one machine. Right now, the CRV is paid on a statewide weight based average basis, and a secondary entity has to do the densifying and canceling.

We have technologies that can do those two things, and with this pilot option, CalRecycle will have the authority to certify them and allow them to play in the CRV game. Ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. All right, other folks who want to wait in support of the bill? No? Yeah? Mr. Kennedy?

John Kennedy with RCRC. We don't have an official position. Want to say thank you for the Committee amendments. I think they address a lot of the questions and concerns that we were having. Look forward to taking a look at the language and hopefully being supportive, because this can fill a big gap that we have. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, John. Opposition, concerns about the bill folks want to raise? All right, let's go back to the Committee for questions, comments, thoughts? All right. Moved by Senator Gonzalez. This is item 1302. Would you like to close, Senator?

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Okay. Secretary, please call the roll.

File item three, SB 1302. The motion is do pass as amended and re-referred to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Okay, 4-0. We'll leave that open for others to add on. Let's go now to 1045. We've been moving back in time. We're at item two, so we'll turn to you, Senator, for your final bill presentation.

Okay. And if Neil Edgar. Okay.

Hello. Welcome. So, thank you, Chair and colleagues. This is SB 1045. I'm thankful for your work and gladly accept the Committee amendments. In a critical effort to reduce methane and other short lived climate pollutants, in 2016, we set organic waste diversion targets of 75% by 2025. This was the passage of SB 1383. In order to meet these targets, CalRecycle estimates that the state needs approximately 50 to 100 new or expanded organic waste recycling facilities.

One obstacle to getting these facilities up and running is the time consuming and complicated process to get them cited and permitted. To address this, my legislation would require the Office of Planning and Research to to develop a technical advisory on best practices for facilitating the sitting of compost facilities and require locals to consider the advisory. It's important we provide needed tools to local government in order to be successful. And with that, I'd like to introduce my sponsor, Neil Edgar, executive director of the California Compost Coalition.

Hi there, morning Chair Allen and Members. This is the fun Blakespear bill you were looking for. I'm Neil Edgar, executive director of California Compost Coalition. Our members are predominantly service providers for local governments, municipalities throughout California who process yard trimmings and increasingly, food materials to meet the lofty climate goals of SB 1383. As the Senator mentioned, CalRecycle predicted the state needs to double our existing composting capacity, adding some 50 to 100 facilities.

Since SB 1383 has passed in 2016, we've added about a dozen facilities, only two of which are permitted to accept food materials, which requires a higher bar for permitting. In my day job, I permit and develop composting facilities. Having permitted 44 facilities in 23 counties, I know firsthand the challenges of getting them on the ground and operating across the state. This bill is intended to resolve some of the hurdles that we are facing in moving forward with critical infrastructure by providing model zoning ordinance language.

We appreciate the collaborative approach that CAPCOA has taken and look ahead to working with them on concepts that would make it easier for their districts to permit these facilities. Local governments have every incentive to plan for and permit organic waste facilities in the interest of meeting SB 1383 requirements. I just don't believe they have the right tools to resolve the issues that delay numerous projects. This bill would help provide some of those tools.

Agraman, one of our members, spent 12 years to complete two zone text amendments in Ventura County to expand an existing facility, largely because the zoning ordinance did not explicitly allow commercial composting operations on agriculturally zoned land. Closing the loop on organics will require, in part, that compost be returned to agricultural land. Local solutions are important to limiting transportation impacts. We appreciate the Committee staff working on the amendments. I want to thank Senator Blakespear for bringing SB 1045 forward. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, let's go to anyone who else wants to weigh in support of the bill. You can come to the mic.

Nika Lapis with Californians Against Waste in strong support.

Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee, Mark Oprea, on behalf of Republic Services. We urge your aye vote.

Everyone's coming together on this one.

John Kennedy with RCRC. Again, don't have an official position. We worked closely with the author and the sponsors earlier in local government to address the local concerns and make sure it's providing us tools we can use with this Committee. It looks like striking sections 3 and 4 from the bill dealing with air and water, it's one I think we can fully support. So look forward to seeing those amends and joining you in support on the bill. Thank you.

All right. Thank you. So, opposition, concerns? So we haven't brought everyone together. Yeah, inevitable.

I'm happy to report, Mr. Chair. Brendan Twohig, on behalf of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association. We appreciate the Senator working with us and also the sponsors. And with the amendments removing air districts from the bill, we will be removing our opposition. So thanks to everyone's work. We appreciate it.

All right, we're back together again. Good. Okay. Other concerns or challenges? Right? That's right. So let's bring it back to the Committee for thoughts, questions, comments. All right, so moved by Senator Gonzalez. Hearing no more, you made close.

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

All right, moved by Senator Gonzalez. Let's call the roll.

File item two, SB 1045. The motion is do pass as amended, and re-refer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Okay. Thank you so much, Senator. I think we're waiting for Senator Caballero, who is here, but she left. I'll text her.

Sorry, we're going to take a brief recess. Caballero. I think Caballero is first. It's here to present item five. This is SB 1140. All right.

Good morning, Mr. Chairs and Members. Thank you for the opportunity to present SB 1140. From the early 1950s until the state dissolved them in 2011, city and counties redevelopment agencies used property tax increment financing to pay for economic development projects in blighted and deteriorating neighborhoods. After RDAs were eliminated, local officials sought other methods to raise the capital needed to fund critical public works projects. In response, a Legislature enacted SB 628 to allow local officials to create enhanced infrastructure financing districts, or EIFDs.

EIFDs can finance public capital facilities or other specified projects to provide significant benefits to the district or the surrounding community that result in a useful life of 15 years or more. Similarly, SB 852 use this same model to create climate resiliency districts, or CRDs, to raise revenue, planned climate mitigation or adaptation projects with a funding mechanism to implement infrastructure projects. Both EIFDs and CRDs are vital tax increment financing tools to fund and finance public facilities or projects of community wide significance.

Unfortunately, some cities and counties have limited staff and resources, and forming these districts require duplicative processes and are cumbersome to initiate. SB 1140 will reform EIFD and CRD law to streamline and create efficiencies in the formation process and expand the types of projects these tools can finance. SB 1140 will reduce the mandatory meetings from four to two.

It broadens the alternative mailing and notification methods to incorporate all EIFD formation meetings, annual reports, and potential amendments, and it eliminates the mandates for the Public Financing Authority to publish meeting notices in newspapers. Instead, it enables the forming agency to electronically submit its resolution of intention to establish the district to other taxing entities, eliminating the need for mailing. Furthermore, it removes a requirement to mail annual report notices via first class mail.

SB 1140 expands the type of projects that EIFDs and CRDs can finance to include projects that improve air quality. With me to testify and answer any questions is Ashley Swearengen, CEO, president of the Central Valley Community Foundation, and Gurbax Sahota ACE, president, and CEO of California Association for Local Economic Development and executive director of California Academy for Economic Development.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, Committee Members, and staff. My name is Gurbax Sahota and I'm the president and CEO of the California Association for Local Economic Development. The Senator did a great job explaining the details of the bill and the need for it. We represent over 800 economic development professionals that are working hard to create economic opportunity for Californians every day. And that includes nearly 300 jurisdictions. As EIFDs have become more and more popular as a tool for consideration to fund infrastructure in particular, what we found is that the formation process is both cumbersome and complex and costly for these jurisdictions. And part of that is because you had several pieces of law that were bundled together to create that formation process early on.

We're really grateful for the Senator's leadership in this space because we think that doing this streamlining, while maintaining a robust transparency piece to it as well, will allow more jurisdictions to be able to take advantage of this tool and hopefully move their economy forward as well.

Okay, thank you. Let's go to anyone who wants to win in support of the bill. Any supporters? Okay. Opposition? Okay. We're going to support your bill. I will take a motion when it's available, when we have more people. But I have great confidence that this bill will be moving along. So thank you, Senator. I assume you respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Yes, sir.

Great. Okay. Thank you. All right, let's now hear from Senator Limon, who's here. Oh, okay. Do you want to do a quick, Laird's a really quick one? Okay. All right. We'll do you real quick, John. Let's go real fast, John. Is that okay? Yeah. Okay. All right. And you know, this is a no opposition.

Senate Bill 1440 requires the Water Board to report to the Legislature on efforts made to regulate stormwater. Former mayor Eric Garcia thought stormwater would be a great water source for Los Angeles. There's first flush that is done to look at the pollution in the first runoff after rains. And people are told that Santa Monica Bay and other places not to swim within hundreds of feet of outfalls when this happened.

And there are places painted in all our coastal districts that say flows to oceans so people won't dump motor oil and other things in it. There are reports required by the Clean Water Act and they have fallen off greatly. The percent is down. What this bill does is require the Water Board and others to report to the Legislature on the status of these reports, to make them actually be filed.

And it does different pollutants, and it gives us the public policy tools to decide if we need to take further action. It would actually require annual reports to the Legislature as a leverage to get these reports filed. There's no opposition. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone who wants to come to the mic, either side, we will entertain a motion when we have more Members here.

Well, I would like to close, and I would like to close by thanking Senator Limon to let me go in front of her.

Excellent. Thank you, Senator. All right, thank you very much. Let's now ask Senator Limon to come up and present. She's got two bills, SB 1304 and 1433.

All right, so I'm going to start with 1433, if that's okay.

Sure.

All right, thank you, Chair and Senators. The California Energy Commission has projected we will need about 52,000 megawatts of energy storage capacity by 2045 to meet electricity demand. To reach this goal, we would need a variety of types of energy storage, large and small, across the state. The state also has nearly 39,000 idle oil wells. This bill would create a pilot program to study the use of gravity wells and how this technology can be used, can use idle wells to create more energy storage.

This bill will allow the permitting of gravity wells with appropriate testing and reporting afterwards, to determine the impacts of this new technology. With me today, I have Pete Montgomery representing Renewell Energy, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote when the time is right.

Hi, there. You may proceed.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. My name is Pete Montgomery. I'm here today representing Renewell Energy. We're the sponsor of SB 1433. The enactment of SB 1433 could facilitate a new technology capable of helping the state with two critical issues. Our ambitious renewable energy goals necessitate a dramatic increase in energy storage capacity.

And at the same time, the state has one of the highest numbers of idle wells in the country, all 35,000 of which need to be remediated in order to prevent additional negative impacts on the environment. Unfortunately, without significant changes to the current idle well management system, today's idle wells could become tomorrow's orphan wells, which is a significant worse reality.

Conversion of an idle well into a gravity based energy storage well provides a two in one solution by repurposing the idle wells into gravity based energy, sealing off with a 100 foot cement plug the hydrocarbon reservoir, and cleaning up the well in the process. When a company like Renewell transforms an idle well, it does so with unparalleled environmental protections. Every well we convert will feature best in class environmental monitoring.

With continuous methane sensors and mechanical integrity monitoring, we're able to detect system issues that might impact air or water in real time and long before a scheduled pressure test. We can also do this with the same hardhat wearing workforce that maintains the oil and gas industry today, inviting them into the clean energy transition with zero retraining. The pilot program established in SB 1433 gives companies like Renewell a clear regulatory framework in which to operate. Without it, the regulatory barriers to innovate are too difficult to overcome.

The pilot program also allows the technology to prove commercially, get feedback from stakeholders, and establish proper channels for reporting. We appreciate Senator Limon's willingness to work with us on this concept and for her longstanding leadership on the issue's vital wells. On behalf of Renewell, I ask the Committee to support SB 1433. Thank you.

I reiterate your praise for the Senator, for her leadership in this issue for quite some time. Okay, other folks who want. You can stay. You can stay. It's nice there, right? Any additional folks who want to weigh in in support of the bill or raise anyone in opposition? Yeah. Okay. Come on. You know what? Why don't you move to the middle seat, and then you can move to the middle seat. Yep. And then. Perfect. Great. Great. And we can have a discussion. Thank you. Hi there.

Mr. Chairman and Members, Paul Deiro, representing the Western States Petroleum Association. First and foremost, we have no objection to the pilot program at all and believe it needs statutory authority. We have specific problems with two sections of the bill, 3106.1 and section 3200.5, which we believe would effectively be limiting what we can do with our wells. Oftentimes we have temperature control wells. We'll use them as temperature control wells, water wells, et cetera, storing hydrogen, etcetera. We are working with the author on this disagreement. We are meeting with her staff and Committee staff later today. But today we oppose the bill because of the inclusion of those two sections.

And those are primarily natural resources jurisdictional issues, right?

Perhaps, yes.

Obviously, it's entirely within your responsibility to oppose here. So I just wanted to make sure I clarified. Okay, thank you. Thank you. And it was in Natural Resources. I remember that discussion. I'm sure it will continue as the bill moves along, but do appreciate your input and anyone else who wants to raise concerns about the bill? Okay. I'm certainly going to be supporting it today, as I did in Natural Resources. But I know you're going to continue conversations as the bill proceeds and would love to give you the opportunity to close.

Thanks. And I just also want to say that NRDC, EDF, and a number of environmental justice groups are also in support of the bill.

Okay.

And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Fantastic. Fantastic. All right, we'll accept a motion later when we have more, folks. Okay. All right, let's go to item seven. This is SB 1304. Senator Limon.

All right. Sorry, I was looking for my witness in support, but I will start with SB 1304. SB 1304 is a bill that is coming from an incident that, or from a number of issues that have happened in the district and where we have seen that there could be use of expanding and thinking about a public process for input for water aquifers. And so water aquifers.

And this is a bill that would not necessarily create a new process or program, but it would apply CEQA to the review process for some of the oil well, some of the aquifers that are near oil wells that could potentially someday be impacted. So we'd like to create a program. We'd like to create a process that would include the ability for the public to give testimony and weigh into this any potential projects or concerns that they may have. And I don't see my witness here in support, but, yeah.

All right. Let's let anyone who wants to come to the microphone just to kind of express their support for the bill.

Cody Phillips with California Coast Keeper Reliance in support.

Okay, thank you.

Lucia Muñoz on behalf of California Environmental Voters in support.

Okay. All right. Now, we had a lead opposition letter from ISPA, right, on this?

I want to first and foremost apologize. We cross signals within our office and the Committee. It's probably our fault we didn't get a letter in. We were in the Natural Resources Committee Analysis.

Okay.

So, and I'll be relatively short. The Committee analysis is very good, and I'd like to read from it because it explains what an aquifer exemption actually is. The subsurface of any given location may be composed of multiple layers of varying geology with different properties. While some layers may be conducive to groundwater flow, others are not. For example, in some locations, near surface layers may contain drinking water and deeper layer isolated, impermeable layers from USDW, maybe hydrocarbon bearing.

What an aquifer exemption is, oftentimes the well will travel through an aquifer where there is drinking water, and that's about 300ft from the surface. The aquifer exemption that we apply for, which is approved by both CalGEM, the Water Board, and Federal EPA, those, that's like a mile down where the aquifer is hydrocarbon bearing. So what we do when we bring up the oil, we also bring up nine parts water that's been down there for centuries, which is not drinking water.

The process that CalGEM and the Water Board and EPA have is a very deliberate process. And I would say that having EPA approve these aquifer exemptions is a clear indication that there is no drinking water. We have worked with the Water Board since the audit at CalGEM for the last 10 years. The Water Board will not even allow an aquifer exemption if there's potential beneficial use, which goes a long way.

So the only when the proponents and the author say there is a potential for migration of fluid, when we inject the fluid into the well, there would have to be a well failure in the layer of where there's an aquifer in drinking water. And that is extremely rare. I'm unaware of any times that's happening. So we're talking about an aquifer without usable drinking water that commingles with the hydrocarbons that we separate out at the end of the process. We believe this is a step a bit too far. We believe the existing process is sufficient, inadequate, and therefore we oppose the bill.

All right, thank you. Other folks who want to raise concerns about the bill? Let's bring that to Committee. Senator, would you, so would you be willing to respond to some of that?

Yes, and I will have our lead witness here. Linda Krop from Environmental Defense Center, to just speak on his points.

Yeah, if you could maybe give us the argument being that you're, this is not, we're not talking about drinking water here. So is this an onerous or an unnecessary new layer of complexity that we're adding onto this process?

Thank you very much. Good morning. I'm Linda Krop, chief counsel with the Environmental Defense Center based in Santa Barbara, California. And we have direct experience with aquifer exemptions through the Cat Canyon proposed aquifer exemption in northern Santa Barbara county, southeast of Santa Maria. We are talking about drinking water. Cat Canyon is proposed for a massive expansion of oil development, 700 new wells. That requires an aquifer exemption from the state and from EPA.

This aquifer that would be subject to the exemption provides drinking water for 150,000 people, many of which don't have any other source of drinking water, particularly the communities of Los Alamos and Susquauac.

When we were advised by the state agency staff at CalGEM and State Water Board that there was no possible pathway for migration, which is a finding that has to be made by the state, we hired an expert who reviewed USGS well data for that area, and by examining the pressure and temperature logs, identified potential leaks, some in very close proximity to the aquifer. We provided that information to the US Environmental Protection Agency. We provided to the state agencies.

They said they would require a conduit analysis after the exemption was approved and before any individual wells were proposed. And we said, but you have to do that analysis now to make the finding that there are no conduits that's required by existing state law. So EPA required the state to conduct this conduit analysis. And out of 488 wells in the Cat Canyon Area, 291 or 60% were identified as potential conduits. And that doesn't even include all the wells that our expert found.

So this is a risk. Current state law already requires protection of drinking water. We want to make sure that there is an adequate analysis and public participation. The folks, those 150,000 people, they don't have an opportunity to participate. There was a hearing a few years ago, but there's no formal public hearing. There's no environmental review under either state or federal law. So we're talking about drinking water. If the drinking water gets contaminated, you can't clean it up. So it's really important.

That's why we want the State Water Board, the agency that's responsible for ensuring adequate and safe drinking water, to make the decision about whether an exemption is safe. And we want environmental review. We want an opportunity for these vulnerable communities in Cat Canyon. Those communities are already at risk for drinking in groundwater. We want them to have a say. We want a thorough analysis before the state sends an exemption to EPA. And I do have a sign on letter here by about 30 groups that I can provide to the Committee.

So that seems to be in direct contradiction.

An aquifer exemption approved by the state in EPA will never approve an exemption where there is potable drinking water that has a potential beneficial use or beneficial use. I think what the proponents might be referring to is when the well travels through the drinking water, and it's engineered where there's tremendous amount of casing to make sure there is no leakage of anything. I can't recall there even being one. Perhaps that's the potential path to contamination.

I don't understand it, but I will tell you, the aquifer exemptions that are being reviewed are being reviewed by the Water Board now. They have to concur. CalGEM has to do their comprehensive analysis. EPA ultimately has to approve it. And there has been no aquifer exemptions approved when there's been any drinking water of any potential beneficial use.

Can I just throw that back to you then and say, well, then, what's the big deal with having the Water Board make a submission if they're already having to go?

Well, they're already having, they're making a submission. What this bill would effectively do is, is bring in the CEQA process, which currently is not required by existing law. I will tell you that after CalGEM was audited by federal EPA 10 years ago, they established an MOA with the Water Board. Water Board does immense amount of preparation and analysis. And again, there has been no walker for exemptions approved in any location where there is drinking water at all.

Yeah. Senator Nguyen.

So one of the concerns you made, the proponent is that you want to make sure that the seconds to have this evaluation, to include this new evaluation, is to making sure that the public is included. Well, what I'm seeing here, though, is under existing law, CalGEM, one of the items, the conditions and circumstances they have to go through to make, you know, to grant this exemption has to include public consultation.

So CalGEM may engage in public consultation processes to gather input from stakeholders, including local communities, environment organization, et cetera. So is that not enough? I mean, or because it sounds like earlier your comment was like there wasn't any and that the community is not included, the 150,000 people. But under CalGEM, they do do that.

Thank you for the question. In this case, CalGEM held a public meeting. It's not a decision making hearing like we're used to. They held a public meeting when the aquifer exemption was first proposed. So people didn't have any information except for the proposal. That was several years ago. Since then, there's a lot more information. There's this new conduit analysis, and there's no opportunity for public comment.

The only reason we've been involved and hired an expert is because we're a public interest law firm and we happen to be paying attention. But most communities don't necessarily have that resource and certainly wouldn't have the notification. So. And we actually did request a hearing before the State Water Board, and we were denied because current state law doesn't require it. That's what gave us the idea that we needed to improve upon the law. It was improved in 2015, but the process still needs to be improved.

And I would just like to remind the Committee that in our case, the agency specifically said there were no potential conduits. They have found 291 because we brought this to EPA and we had to hire our own expert. And that 291 is not even complete, as the State Water Board staff says, because of the 488 wells that they looked at, those are only ones where they have active owners and operators.

But there's a lot of abandoned wells, so what happens is it's not the well that is drilled to inject the waste that we're concerned about. It's, you have this formation that, that waste gets injected into. Are there pathways, once that waste is in the formation, are there pathways for any contaminants to leak into the aquifer that's used for drinking water? And our expert said yes. The state agencies have said yes. They identified 291 potential wells that leak because they're so old.

That doesn't even account for faults and other fractures in the formation. So we want to make sure that we take a preventative approach. We need to protect drinking water. All we're asking for is for a more robust public process and protection of drinking water. And if there's no problem, then we will all know that.

And I'm not opposed to us double looking and making sure that drinking waters are safe. My only concern is, you know, I think we all crunch up in this building when it comes to CEQA, right? If you give CEQA more, it's like we're just, I mean, nothing is getting built and nothing's getting done in California because of CEQA. And so doing this adds on. You know what scares me? If you're adding on CEQA, a new CEQA process, then we're not gonna get any drinking water.

I mean, that's my concern. It's just, you know, I think if the concern is public notification and et cetera, we should then, as a legislative body, maybe bring it up to CalGEM and work with them on it. But to require a whole new process that already CalGEM is there. I mean, they don't give out exemption unless they're fully confident. And so it's just how many more layers do we need?

So I just want to be clear. So that part of this is where the public has the ability to weigh in through this entire process. So the current process is the public has the ability to weigh in when they say, we want to do a project, not when there's been investigation and a study that showed shows information on how to respond.

So as a member of a public, we would have a very, you know, as legislators, we would have a very different input on something that we read about in the paper versus in the legislative Committee when there's legislative analysis in process. So that's what we're trying to do for the public because that doesn't exist. What you're talking about when CalGEM does it is at the very beginning, not when there's been a series of information and analysis done that they allow for the public to weigh in.

As the author who actually created and, you know, authored the bill for what CalGEM is now, I can tell you very confidently that there are times that legislative fixes are needed in order to get CalGEM to do something differently. So I have a lot to say about that, and I do believe that legislatively that is a better process. This is not going to stop safe drinking water. This is going to ensure that current safe drinking water.

This is not about creating new water projects or new safe drinking water. This is going to ensure that existing drinking water isn't impacted by these wells. And so I think, as what has been stated, if everything is going well and there's full confidence by the industry that CalGEM is, you know, that the process that CalGEM has fully assures it, then there should be no problem, because this will be one more aspect.

I think the discrepancy we have seen is that we have a very specific example where the analysis that was given early, that there was no problem, is inconsistent with the analysis today. And so that is why we're bringing this forward, because we have already seen a discrepancy between the process that happened and what the position was of a state agency to what it is now. And that's what's referred to the 291 wells.

So this is why we're bringing it forward, because ultimately the public does not have the ability to weigh in once the process is in motion, only at the beginning. And that is a challenge and a fault because the public doesn't have the information to respond to.

All right. Thank you. Interesting. Appreciate the discussion we've had. We'll entertain a motion when we have more Members here, but I appreciate everyone's participation. Thank you. Yeah. All right. Thank you very much, Senator. We're waiting for Senator Padilla, who's apparently on his way.

Senator Nguyen wants to move item 10. That's Senator Laird's bill. And we can also go through votes if Stephanie hasn't voted. Stephanie. All right, so Senator Nguyen has moved item 10. That's SB 1440. Let's call the roll.

Okay, the motion is do pass and re-refer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Okay, let's lift calls so Senator Menjivar can add on. Okay, Senator Menjivar moves item number five, SB 1140.

Let's call the roll.

Motion is do pass. [Roll Call]

Okay, what else do we have to. We need a motion for item seven. That's SB 1304. Thank you, Senator Menjivar.

Let's call the roll on that.

Senators, I'm sorry, the motion is do pass and re-refer to the Committee on Appropriations, Senators Allen? [Roll Call]

Okay, let's go to item nine, SB 1433. Thank you, Senator. Let's call the roll on SB 1433, Limon.

Motion is do pass, and re-refer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll call]

Okay. What else do we need?

Menjivar's voted on. We got the consent calendar, too? Okay, apparently Senator Padilla is en route. Should be just a couple minutes.

That's it.

She's at the abortion press conference right now.

That's the only one?

Let's do this. Thank you, Senator. We're here now on item 11, SB 1165. Senator Padilla is going to. You want to start with 1165?

Mister Chairman, if that's alright.

Thank you.

It's like a Committee in search of a presenter.

Yes.

And of its Committee Members.

Just a moment. Mister Chairman, if I might.

You may proceed when ready.

Thank you, sir. Mister Chairman and Members, I'm happy to present SB 1165. I want to begin by thanking the Committee staff working for us and will be accepting Committee amendments. It's essentially a reintroduction of 619, which we ran last year with additional modification to specify that cost recovery would apply in the case of this transmission review and approval. As you well know, Cal ISO indicates that we need more than 7000 megawatts of new transmission capacity every year for the next decade to meet our energy demands.

Unfortunately, our permitting system, which is currently exclusively vested with the CPUC, is not keeping up with demand. In fact, we're nowhere near being able to give regulatory approval to the vast infrastructure that's needed, not just to serve, but to meet our ghg reduction goals. The current permitting process on average can take over a decade with respect to general transmission projects, and delays here result in not only adverse environmental and public impacts, but higher construction costs.

They threaten, of course, our climate goals, as I indicated, and make it increasingly difficult to keep the lights on in the summer in California. SB 1165 seeks to expand the authority that was put forth in prior legislation that would allow IOUs, who are seeking to get transmission infrastructure approved, to opt in to the CEC review process, where they have a 208, 70 day constraint on CEQA review and would act as the lead agency for purposes of that application.

We already have that opportunity for the opt in system at the CEC process for interconnect projects and renewable energy connect projects specifically. The Bill does not change the scope of CEQA, nor is it a CEQA streamlining. One of the things the Administration made a strong commitment to last year was that they wanted to work to improve transmission permitting.

We've had a number of conversations with the Administration, we've had a number of conversations with the PUC, and frankly, other than verbal assurances, estolo. Excuse me, that means that's about all, and that should be unacceptable to all of us. So here we're going to continue running this proposed legislation to keep folks' feet to the fire. And here we are specifying that cost recovery is appropriate. With me today I have Kate Brandenburg with Sonoma Clean Power.

Thank you. Good morning. Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Senator Menjivar. My name is Kate Brandenburg, and I'm here on behalf of Sonoma Clean Power. I first want to start off by thanking Senator Padilla for introducing this thoughtful piece of legislation. Sonoma Clean Power is a community choice aggregator. That process, excuse me, procures electricity for the residents of Sonoma and Mendocino counties. We are proud to have made some of the fastest progress toward clean energy of any load serving entity in the nation.

A severe lack of transmission capacity is our number one barrier to California making further progress toward its climate and reliability goals. Six years ago, every power supply contract we signed got connected to the grid. Today, Cal ISO tells us less than 6% of the projects in their pipeline are getting connected because there isn't enough transmission.

Sonoma Cean Power is an off taker of the Mayacamas geothermal project at The Geysers, which will provide many of the same reliability attributes that we currently receive from gas plants in the LA Basin, but using clean energy. This is a project that has been cited, permitted, been through CEQA, everything. But it is sitting idle indefinitely due to the lack of transmission while we continue to use natural gas. We're in a situation where Texas is adding more clean energy than California.

This is an emergency, and we need to start treating it like one. If we do not start expanding our in state infrastructure, we are putting our climate goals at risk and threatening our grid reliability. We strongly support adding more options to get critical infrastructure built on time to meet our climate goals. And that is why we support SB 1165. Thank you very much. And we ask for your aye vote.

All right, thank you. Let's hear others who want to wait in support for the Bill, come to the mic and identify yourselves. Any opposition or folks who want to raise concerns about the Bill? All right, seeing none, we'll bring it back to the Committee. And any questions, thoughts from the Committee Members? Okay, when appropriate, Senator Menjivar moves. Any final comments or thoughts?

Thank you, Mister Chairman, Members. I would just respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay, great. Secretary, please call a roll. Menjivar moved SB 1165.

The motion is do pass as amended and re refer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll call]

Okay, 2-0. We will leave that open. Let's now go to item 12. That's 1178.

Yes, Mister Chairman. Thank you. I'm happy to present SB 1178 and happy to accept Committee amendments and thank your staff for their work. As you may be somewhat aware, I represent some of the state's highest rated areas that have the highest levels of pollution burden in some of the state's worst air and water quality. The Tijuana river watershed, located along the US-Mexico border, was recently named as one of the 10 most threatened and polluted waterways in the United States by American Rivers.

Just this past January, storm surge caused 14.5 billion, with a B, gallons of raw sewage and pollution to wash up on the banks of the river, as well as to overflow into the nearby coastal wetlands, one of the few remaining such ecosystems in Southern California. In addition, that dynamic also increases the spread of industrial contaminants and other materials that are definitely adverse to the public health and well being.

Both the United States and the Mexican governments have largely, frankly, failed to maintain and upgrade the critical treatment facilities needed to address increased flows, and as a result, every day millions of gallons of untreated sewage washes ashore in our community. And they are making some progress, but I will say it is way, way behind the curve.

Many health concerns are caused by sewage, and industrial runoff have forced, for example, the city of Imperial Beach, the southwestern most city in the United States and a few miles of California coastline in my district to be closed for over two years. I would just ask some of the Members and the Chair to think about imagining a coastal beach closure of that period of time anywhere else on the coast of California.

Tens of thousands of gallons of raw sewage are dumped every day in the river ends up in the ocean due to wave activity and bacteria actually can become aerosolized and move inland in the air column. This is not just an environmental disaster, it's a public health crisis. It threatens the water we drink and the air we breathe. I will add also to one study conducted by the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

We are learning more and more every month and every year about the impact of the stressors on the Tijuana river watershed, the river and the pollution transporter flows. Based on one of their studies, they attributed over 34,000 illnesses in 2017 alone to water quality, pollution and relative issues. There's constant finger pointing at every level of government.

But what is more galling here is that we have some multinational corporations that are licensed to do business in the State of California that are regulated by this state, that still pay tax in this state and have those obligations and are licensed to sell products in our state, who deliberately set up shop just a few feet south of the international border to evade stringent environmental standards and other standards.

SB 1178 builds off a longstanding water code that already exists in statute. Article four, division seven of the Water Code, signed by, believe it or not, Governor Ronald Reagan in 1969, that basically specifies that any qualified entity of the state, which includes any corporation, has an obligation to report discharges, even if they are outside the boundaries of the State of California, but that their discharges impact the State of California. This has been longstanding law.

This would, in this case, create the obligation for reporting on the part of covered entities and would set aside a fund and a series of assessments that would go to pay for mitigating the impacts of their discharges affecting California waterways in the event that they don't self select to mitigate that on their own.

So we'll be collecting data from businesses licensed here, we'll be quantifying the cost of the mitigation based on their contribution to the adverse impacts in the waterways, and we will have the ability to assess penalties for non compliance of this provision, up to a million, and require annual reporting thereafter. With me today, I have Cody Phillips with Coastkeeper and Jonathan Clay with the County of San Diego.

Good morning, Chair Allen and Members of the Committee. Cody Phillips with California Coastkeeper Alliance. California Coastkeeper Alliance represents water keepers throughout the state in pursuit of swimmable, fishable, and drinkable waters for all. It's really clear that trans-boundary flows from the Tijuana river watershed are a major water quality issue which greatly impact beaches, businesses, and the health of people living near the coast. And these polluted flows are the result of several factors.

Just to break it down a bit, there's lack of sewage infrastructure in Tijuana, a lack of funding at the United States IBWC South Bay plants, and also international corporations which pollute local waterways that feed into the watershed. This multi pronged and complex issue really requires creative solutions, and this Bill focuses on one important and often overlooked component of this pollution fiasco, which is the industrial waste bit.

Our San Diego Coastkeeper reviewed the South Bay treatment plant discharges and found that it had many toxic and hazardous chemicals found found in its wastewater, including PCBs, pesticides, DDTs, toxaphene, and many other, all at levels thousands of times above the permitted discharge limits. The South Bay treatment plant is not designed to treat or remove these chemicals from the waste stream. Even when they are diverted to the plant, they just pass right through.

IBWC is on the record saying they can only treat organic contaminants. So even if the plant were to comply with all of its bacteria discharges, it's unlikely that it can treat these industrial waste chemicals. And industrial facilities in Tijuana are not required to pre treat their industrial wastewater prior to discharging it directly into the sewer system, which is why these chemicals are so prevalent.

And as noted, many large us corporations in Tijuana avoid stricter environmental regulations and really benefit from this whole pollution fiasco by just not dealing with their wastewater. These companies really should be required to report at minimum what substances are in their discharge and really should internalize the costs of this pollution, of mitigating this pollution before it enters Tijuana watershed, before it enters United States waters, before it contaminates the entire region. This should not be something that is just passed on. This should be a cost of doing business.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mister Chair and Committee Members. Jonathan Clay here on behalf of the County of San Diego in support. I'll also note my other client. Port of San Diego is a supporter of this measure as well. These two local governments, as well as most every local government in San Diego County has spent decades trying to deal with this issue. I spent my entire career here in Sacramento working on this.

I'm literally second generation in my family to work on this issue with my mom having actually worked on the original binational sewage treatment plant. It's like kind of indentured servitude of dealing with this issue. And yet here we are 30 plus years later, still don't have a solution. Federal government is finally stepping forward with money, but we still have number of issues of we don't know what kind of waste.

In addition to everything the Coastkeeper identified, we have radioactive material that's showing up in this, likely from biomedical waste. So trying to get at what Senator Padilla is trying to do here with this Bill in terms of collecting data, being able to understand a lot of these are US companies that have operations here in the US, set up facilities.

The one you're probably most familiar with has been the long history of battery recycling facilities that you have US companies that collect the batteries, they take them down there. CalMatters did a great article just in end of 2023 talking about this. We've had battery fires as recently as January of this year. I started my career working environmental issues, working for environmental nonprofit. 1991, a US company had taken batteries recycled from California to Mexico and left a huge environmental disaster down there.

The ground burned for weeks and weeks. It was right next to the community's dairy. These are all within the watershed of the Tijuana river valley. But on that case, and this goes back to 1991, then Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti successfully sued and one a judgment against that California based company utilizing the provisions of both California law and NAFTA to be able to get that settlement. So there is precedence for being able to enforce these things.

It's just, it's usually very egregious cases that come forward that then get the attention. But from the County of San Diego's perspective, having this data, having funding one of the other big issues, even though the Federal Government's- I'll wrap up here- providing hundreds of millions of dollars, we still will likely have ongoing costs of millions of dollars for just annual O and M for running these facilities. Thank you very much.

Folks who want to weigh in support for the Bill or express their support?

Lucia Muñoz on behalf of California Environmental Voters in support.

Thank you. All right, opposition. Concerns about the Bill. Maybe we can give one of these seats to the opposition witness. You want to move into the middle so she can come over to the side? Hi there.

Hi. Good morning, Chair and Members. I'm Brenda Bass with the California Chamber of Commerce, and we are in respectful opposed, unless amended position on SB 1178. We share the author's interest in addressing the pollution crisis at the California-Mexico border in the Tijuana river, and we've supported state and federal efforts to adequately fund treatment and cleanup of the river in the past.

We unfortunately disagree that this Bill is the appropriate way to address this crisis, and we appreciate the Committee's thoughtful analysis and recommended amendments. Even as amended, we remain concerned that the Bill faces serious legal and practical challenges, and we like to see improvement in these conditions and not just create a net of litigation. Our first concern is with the jurisdiction and constitutionality here.

This Bill goes beyond reporting and into the physical control of activities that are outside of both the state border and the international border, and it relies on what is, in my estimation, a largely untested legacy provision in the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, which I think will invite a lot of legal challenge. On the practical side, the state and regional water board permitting depends on extensive monitoring and modeling to determine both water quality standards and appropriate discharge amounts for permittees.

We're concerned that they don't have the necessary access to facilities that are located in another country to allow them to do their job properly. And they also have extensive other duties, including updating water quality control plans, setting standards for new constituents, writing updated permits for existing permittees, and enforcement of water quality standards and permit conditions throughout the state, where their efforts should really be focused.

So, just to sum it up, we'd really like to see the Bill focus on meaningful ways to improve the water quality situation in the Tijuana river. That is not going to just create a lot of dispute and uncertainty in implementation. Thank you.

Thank you. Other folks who want to raise concerns about the Bill or express opposition?

Margie Lie, Samson Advisors, on behalf of the California League of Food Producers. Respectfully opposed unless amended.

All right. Well, we'll bring it back to Committee. This is certainly a work in progress. There were a lot of issues that were raised by the analysis. Certainly we recognize that the Senator is trying to address some very serious cross border pollution challenges that I certainly don't know as well as he does. But I've gotten a chance to see myself. I appreciate the acceptance of the amendments. There's a couple of key concerns, especially revolving duplicative requirements for in state entities.

So that's been addressed now with the Committee amends. But I know this has got a ways to go and serious waterboard costs associated. So that's going to be a lot of the work underway, I think, but I'm certainly comfortable voting for it today. But I know there'll be a lot more work underway here. Anyway, questions or other thoughts or comments from Senator Menjivar?

Yeah, Senator, I'm not sure if I missed this. I know the analysis asked about the rationale for 2500 and gave the example that smaller entities with less employees sometimes emit more. So can you walk me through that?

I think that generally, first, we have a provision under existing California law that makes no qualification or addresses the question of international boundaries. So we're starting from the assumption that anybody can apply if they're licensed to do business here regardless of where they're cited. That would include Mexico as much as Arizona. In terms of starting there, the assumption is the example that's occurring just south of the border by corporations on the production side tend to be larger and have larger mass and larger output.

So to your point, however, and to the Committee analysis point, that's something that we can continue looking at and working on if things move forward to think about the net impact, not just the employee workforce. But we wanted to start somewhere because, again, to be frank and to expand beyond your question, some of these areas are untested. There's a lot of law, as the Chairman well knows, about adjacent nuisances. There's even some international law around that.

If there is a situation in California that demands we test that and that we try to utilize every possible tool to deal with the multitude of impacts in this region, this should be one of them, I would respectfully submit.

But again, I hope I answered your question as far as how we started out with that assessment, just simply that a lot of those that are active there, and I want to be careful not to go into other territories that are prejudicial to some folks or someone might claim it by naming company names. But I will tell you, it's not easy. It's easy to find.

And they tend to be larger entities that are, at least in the instant case, right on site, right in the region, and located there with the express purpose of trying to avoid environmental standards that are impacting the San Diego region and California waterways.

And then how do you anticipate you'd be able to control, and you talked about, you know, impacting California from outside. How would you be able to control that or capture data on that?

Well, the requirement would be if you're licensed and you would have to do reporting based on that licensure. You've been doing business in California, but you're producing impacts 10 feet south of the border, but you're still doing business here and have obligations under California law. You have to report what your discharge is in this scenario. That's what the Bill.

So would Arizona and so would Nevada.

No, this is specific here. Technically, yes, and it would. But that already exists. That already exists. That's correct. And so the Board already has the authority to collect that data and to enforce reporting. And again, I would refer you to article four under title VII of the California Water Code, which was signed into law by Governor Reagan in 1969. So we already have that authority, is the answer.

Mister chair, can I turn to the. You said that that's not currently the case. I saw you shake your head. I don't know if there was to that or...

Yeah, I would guess I would. I'm not sure that that provision that allows you to go access folks that are outside of the state has ever been used. That's what I'm saying. Like, it's on the books, but I don't know that we've ever actually used it. And I do agree. This is not limited to the international border.

It would also include other cross border rivers, such as the Klamath River along the Oregon border, the Colorado River, which goes through many states and then into California, and then the Tahoe Basin.

Okay.

All right. Thank you. That was an issue we spent some time on, too. Anyway, any other further comments or questions. You want to close, Senator?

Thank you, Mister Chairman. I would just end by saying it's probably high time we did start enforcing some of the statutes we've had on the books for this long, particularly when we're dealing with the acute impacts to communities of color and underinvested communities that are being, you know, overwhelmed with multiple impacts to their ecosystem, environment, and public health. So if we haven't enforced it before, maybe it's high time we did. And with that, I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. We can accept a motion now, or we can wait till other folks come. All right. Senator Menjivar has moved the Bill. Secretary, please call the roll on SB 1178.

The motion is do pass as amended and re refer to the Committee on Revenue and Taxation. [Roll call]

All right, thank you. So that brings us now to item 13. That's SB 1208. 1208. Senator Padilla, you may present.

Thank you very much, Mister Chairman. I'm pleased to present SB 1208, which would basically prohibit the issuance of a waste discharge permit for new landfills located in the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, or in any tributaries thereof. There is precedent for this in statute already where there are exemptions and prohibitions on the issuance of a discharge permit under certain circumstances. Why should we do this? Well, you heard part of it in my presentation on 1178 just a few minutes ago.

But if you'll indulge me, Mister Chairman, I might just recite some of this. This part of the State of California, in the binational region in the most southern corner of California, is home to some of the highest ratings and concentrations of environmental burden in the United States.

It has some of the worst air quality based on industrial emissions and the cross boundary flows of biological hazards that we now understand are not just putting bacterium into the air column that is carried far further inland than we ever knew based on Scripps studies, but also other materials and pathogens and hazardous materials as a result of industrial uses. American Rivers, as I said earlier, just designated this as one of the most stressed and polluted waterways in the United States.

This area of California is intensely overburdened with numerous adverse environmental land uses that are directly impacting the public health. It has some of the poorest air quality because of the burning of hazardous materials just a few miles south of the border. It has some of the largest inappropriate, co located land uses from shipyards and wrecking yards, the naval base, in part, that is there. As I indicated in my earlier presentation, any impacts to the river watershed are directly linked.

We are becoming more and more aware of to the air quality, water quality, and environmental and public health hazards that are being experienced. I cited the study by Scripps with regard to the illnesses linked directly just to the water cross border flows in Imperial Beach alone. Beaches in this part of the state have been closed for two years straight.

There is a unique confluence of severe environmental impacts that are directly related to poor air quality, poor health outcomes, poor water quality on a scale and scope unseen in any other part of the state. It is unique in the state.

I would also add, I think it's important for the Chair and the Committee to know, that there is a long and troubling legacy of adverse environmental land uses being dumped, excuse the pun, on my district and this community where I grew up, which is largely a working class, working poor community of color. This has been done for over a century.

I'm talking about rendering plants, auto wrecking and disposal yards, gas fired power plants on the bay front, diesel fueled peaker plants, junkyards, the existence of a large capacity landfill, gunpowder production plants on the waterfront, and so on. The purpose of the Bill in seeking a prohibition on the issuance of a permit that would affect the Tijuana River Watershed is based upon these circumstances.

The record is more than filled with studies and statistics and facts that show that this part of California is incredibly and uniquely overburdened by these adverse environmental impacts to the community. I also want to address a couple things. There have been assertions in the course of working with stakeholders and others on this Bill about the distance of a proposed landfill and the border region between that and the Tijuana River being something like 17 miles away from any uses, being far from any sensitive receptors.

That is absolutely incorrect. It's only a mile and a half north of the actual Tijuana River, south of the international border. It is clearly proposed to be sited in the Tijuana River Watershed. It is only a few miles to some of the most recent development, residential and otherwise, and schools and other public spaces located in the southern boundaries of the City of Chula Vista and even to the west in the City of San Diego.

I will also point, and the Committee has a packet- you should- that was handed out with respect to assertions that this Bill is unnecessary and proffer because there needs to be quality environmental review and that the regional water board could review the impacts required that they be mitigated and all would be well.

The problem with that is with respect to a countywide ballot measure that was put before the voters in 2014, Measure A, and which this Committee considered in 2011, by the way, and I'll get back to that in my close, basically gutted and circumvented any participation by any elected representatives and by the County Board of Supervisors in the County of San Diego. So we have a proposal for a substantial new landfill.

Now it would be two within mere miles of one another, with a substantial capacity to extend this kind of a use in the Tijuana River Watershed for up to a century that has been brought about by virtue of a zoning amendment put before the voters who thought they were voting on a recycling plant, but really were voting on a landfill, and didn't realize that they were basically eliminating any role by the publicly elected County Board of Supervisors or any of their representatives.

I will also note that given Measure A, and given what the opponents of my legislation will assert, this would be the only landfill in California history that would ever have been permitted under these circumstances and under this scheme. I don't think that should be acceptable to anyone.

So again, Mister Chairman and Members, the reason we should prohibit a discharge permit and treat this in the context of what's occurring here is because of the very unique nature and the extreme nature of the environmental impacts being placed on this community that would be typically an intolerable in any other part of the state.

And so we justify directing that the Water Board can't issue a discharge permit for certain types of prior land uses, and the state has done so for the very reason that there are exigent circumstances on the ground. That's exactly what this Bill proposes to do, because there are more than exigent circumstances on the ground. And I would submit that it's wholly appropriate. One last note, Mister Chairman. I'll come back to it in my close. I find it ironic.

In 2011, the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality considered a Bill identical to mine except in one respect. It concerned a Gregory Canyon Landfill in a wealthy, homogenous portion of northern San Diego County. It was proposed by former Senator Juan Vargas. It was co authored by my predecessor, Senator Ben Hueso.

That Bill sought to disallow the issuance of a discharge permit from the Water Board in the case of that landfill in North County because it was adjacent to tribal lands and because it impacted a sensitive river watershed. The Committee analysis, this Committee analysis, and I'll quote in my close, took that process to task for exactly the same reasons I just articulated to you in this Committee about Measure A and this landfill site.

The only difference, Mister Chairman, here, is that the landfill proposed in my district, in the international boundary in the Tijuana River Watershed, would have greater environmental impacts, longer lasting environmental impacts, and has a capacity exponentially greater than the landfill in North County. And I think that's important information for this Committee to have. It is appropriate in this case, because of what has occurred in my community for almost a century, that this Bill be supported and move forward.

And at the end of my close, I will again respectfully ask for an aye vote. And with me today, I do have some witnesses. I have Lisa Ross, who's the chair of San Diego Sierra Club, and Stephanie Peck, founder of Protect Otay Foothills.

Good morning, and thank you for the opportunity to speak in favor of SB 1208 on behalf of Sierra Club California's half million members and supporters. My name is Lisa Ross. I'm chair of the Sierra Club San Diego chapter, the oldest and largest environmental organization in San Diego and Imperial counties.

As has been well publicized, documented, and talked about this morning here, including recent reports by the nonprofit American Rivers and San Diego State University, the pollution in the Tijuana River has had significant negative health impacts on vulnerable groups in neighboring communities, which have been of great concern to the Sierra Club. A new landfill proposed by private developers in the Tijuana River Watershed along the US-Mexican border will not only exacerbate an intolerable situation for communities and ecosystems already overburdened with water, soil, and air pollution.

A further concern to us is that the site is on land at the base of Otay Mountain and west of the Otay Mountain wilderness, home to numerous endangered, threatened, and sensitive species, including the golden eagle, that will be severely disrupted by grading and excavation. When residents considered the proposed landfill project over a decade ago, it was believed that landfill capacity was desperately needed. Studies now show that San Diego County has more than 30 years of capacity remaining in existing landfills.

Constructing a new landfill on this site is unnecessary and will have significant negative environmental, ecological, public health, and community impacts to the East Otay Mesa region. For these reasons, we at Sierra Club support SB 1208, which will prohibit the regional water board from issuing a waste discharge permit for a new landfill in the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve or within an area that is tributary to the Tijuana River. Thank you very much again.

Yes, ma'am.

Good morning, Chairman Allen and Members of the Committee. My name is Stephanie Peck, and I launched Protect Otay Foothills, a broad coalition of elected officials, environmental and community organizations, and residents extremely concerned about the potential impacts of citing a landfill in the Tijuana River Watershed. We strongly support SB 1208. Protect Otay foothills includes chair of the San Diego Board of Supervisors, Nora Vargas, President of the San Diego City Council, Sean Elo-Rivera, mayor of Imperial Beach, Paloma Aguirre.

More than two dozen organizations, including Sierra Club, Surfrider Foundation, San Diego Coastkeeper Climate Action Campaign, among other elected officials, stakeholders and residents. The proposed landfill is clearly in the Tijuana River Watershed and tributary system, a river system experiencing an unprecedented environmental, public health, and environmental justice cross border pollution crisis. We know that everything in a watershed flows downstream, and surface and groundwater that leaves the landfill site will flow into the river system and end up at the ocean.

Despite best efforts, we know this occurs, and it is how contaminants, toxins, and pollutants flow from upper watershed sources and are carried downstream. San Diego County does not need a new landfill. The county's 2022 five year review report clearly demonstrates disposal capacity for the region, including for construction debris, to at least 2053. It is counter to state climate action policy to risk the harmful impacts of a landfill if and when it is not absolutely necessary.

The way in which this private, non municipal landfill was approved 14 years ago has consequential implications for the CEQA process, for project review by local elected officials, and for the opportunity for community and stakeholder input. The environmental impact report will not be reviewed and certified by an elected body. Additionally, what would have been another opportunity for our elected Board of Supervisors to review the project and issue conditions, the required major use permit for any other project, was circumvented by the ballot measure.

Much has changed in the 14 years since the ballot measure was voted on. We know a new landfill is not needed for almost three decades, at least. In 2010, the cross border pollution crisis in the Tijuana River hadn't reached the crisis level it has now. We must be flexible to meet climate action goals and adapt to the changing circumstances. The Legislative Council has determined- I'll wrap up- SB 1208 is a legal pathway to exercise this flexibility.

There are no reasons to risk the environmental, ecological, and public health impacts of an unnecessary landfill in this location. Thank you for the opportunity to address the Committee today.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, other folks who want to come to the mic and express support for the Bill?

Good morning. Nika Lapis with Californians Against Waste. Just one sentence. Landfills are about as impactful as land use exists, and it's totally inappropriate for a ballot measure to take that authority away from the jurisdiction that should be deciding land use policy. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, anyone else? Okay, let's go to opposition. So we'll ask the two witnesses to take a seat. Opposition has asked, they want to stick within the total timeframe, but they want to have three speakers, which is fine with me, as long as you guys stick with the timeframe. We did give the last folks five minutes, so yeah. All right, Senator.

Thank you, Mister Chairman, Committee Members. First of all, I have to express my shock that in the first time in all my years here in the Legislature, I've never really seen a Bill that seeks to overturn a fair election and to deny the voters the right to decide how to manage resources in their county. That is a first.

And really, in the case of what's going on in our country right now with election denial and election interference, it really shocks me to see a Bill that is taken up and that is given consideration that really does that. This Bill does absolutely nothing to help the Tijuana River Valley. It will set San Diego County back 30 years in its effort to recycle, divert, and process waste in the county and to comply with state laws.

And these are laws that are created, the state requiring counties to perform certain duties and to provide these resources for the people of their county. The proponents of this Bill have absolutely no scientific, empirical, or practical evidence to demonstrate that East Otay II will contaminate the Tijuana River Valley. They have not at all reviewed the IR for the project or even looked into how the project will operate. Their assertion that Otay II will harm the environment is 100% conjecture and a ruse.

This Bill is entirely about something else. The process to site this facility began in 1990 with a study by the county to identify suitable sites. This site was selected after 20 years of community participation and discussion. There were various other sites that were proposed that went to the ballot that were not approved by the voters. This project was approved by the voters. The site was zoned in the process.

There's several hundred acres set aside around the project, and this project was put on the ballot where it received 85% of a county wide vote. The three landfills currently in operation in San Diego County were set to close decades ago. Their sites were sited pre CEQA and this idea that because it's a mile away from a river, that it could impact them, just consider that all three of these sites are adjacent to a major river.

One, Sycamore Canyon, is right next to San Diego River, which is a conservancy, which is next to an archaeological site with Native American remains. There's an old ancient dam that is an archaeological site. It's next to Mission Bay Park. This river discharges into Mission Bay and San Diego beaches. Miramar was set to close also. And what ends up happening because there's no alternative site. These sites that have no liner underneath to stop seepage into the water table because that technology didn't exist when they were sited.

So you have these landfills that were sited in the sixties that are antiquated, overburdened, that are, become mountains of methane leaking problems to the neighborhood because they were initially sited far away from residential. All of them are adjacent to residential, not a mile away, not 2 miles away, immediately adjacent.

And in fact, in Chula Vista, which this site could, if this site does not pass, it could ultimately lead to extending those sites to become larger mountains and larger impacts to the San Diego River, San Clemente Creek, and Otay River Valley. Chula Vista is located on Otay River Valley, which is a park. My Senator, Senator Padilla, which I respect very much, when he was on the council, approved housing around that landfill.

If those landfills are so harmful, why would you build several thousand units around those landfills? And that's what happened in Chula Vista. Now, this Bill is for some reason, the second issue. Why would you deny a project from even going through the permitting process? Why would you deny a project from even presenting its CEQA document?

I understand introducing a Bill that will further regulate or take further steps to protect the Tijuana River Valley and the surrounding neighborhoods, but to actually introduce a Bill that will completely stop a project is unprecedented. I've never seen that before in state history. What is this about? Is this about the Tijuana River Valley? Or is this about keeping the existing landfills in San Diego County open? These counties were set to close. They're leaking methane. They should have closed decades ago.

They were never designed to be this full of trash. Currently, the projections that estimate the San Diego has 30 years of land space available is purely speculative. The state and San Diego County have fallen behind their diversion goals, and thousands of new housing units will continue to be developed year after year, which will change those estimates. Currently, this site is the only alternative San Diego has to meet its future needs. This project that will be built, it will be state of the art.

It will have a liner to present seepage into the environment. It'll have contours that will prevent water from going into the watershed. It will be engineered to prevent methane emissions. It will be a site that will be used to handle recycling, process recycling, and actually create and help the state meet its diversion goals. There is no need to have such a heavy handed Bill that will completely annihilate a project. There's no reason.

If this is about the Tijuana River Valley, there are ways to protect the Tijuana River with every development. Why kill it? Why would you set the county back 30 years? Why wouldn't you accept to help the county comply with state law? Why would you deny the results of a legal election? Why would you vote to delete one third of the county?

We're gonna ask you to wrap up.

Okay. This watershed extends into one third of San Diego County. That cannot be part of the the solution. And why would you expose the State of California to costly litigation that could cost the state hundreds of millions of dollars? We have David Wick representing National Enterprises.

Why don't you introduce the two so they'll be here for technical support? Because you've taken up all the time. But please do introduce them so we know who's here, so we can ask questions of them.

David Wick is with National Enterprises. And we have Jacob Russell.

Professional engineer. And I've been with the project since its inception, really.

And he's been preparing the CEQA document. Helping prepare the CEQA document.

Okay. Okay, great. So that's helpful to have you both here for technical support. Other people who want to raise opposition or concerns. Just to add an affiliation name. Okay, let me just. Lots going on here. Let me. Obviously, two very different visions presented this morning. Senator Hueso, you just were talking about how this is an overturning of the will of the voters. We've heard from the other side that folks were confused. Folks were voting for it because it was being represented as a pro-recycling thing.

And that they weren't aware that they were authorizing a landfill as part of the measure. So there's a very deep conflict about the nature of this measure. I'm not from San Diego. I wasn't there. But how do you answer? You're saying this is overturning the will of voters. But you heard a very clear. You've heard a very different interpretation from the supporters of the Bill.

Well, first of all, there's no evidence of that. They can't provide a shred of evidence that voters were either misled or they did not know what they were voting on. This was, this election conformed with state law. It was conducted by the county. Everyone had their right to participate in the argument process. There was definitely lots of exchange publicly about this project. There was lots of history. This project had been in review for years prior to it going to the ballot.

So there was community outreach at the time. And so it's really difficult to really go into the minds of all the voters in a County of 3 million people. And try to second guess whether they knew how they were voting or not. But one thing I can tell you that that election is part of our system of government. You can argue that through the legislative process, not every Member fully understands what they're voting on. Right.? And maybe they vote on bills and we're fully informed.

Why do they decide to go to a ballot measure as opposed to go through the normal decision making processes? Why was the ballot measure chosen as the mechanism here?

Sure. I personally went, Chairman Allen. Is I personally went to groups around San Diego County, especially an emphasis on South County, because this recycling and landfill facility is for South County. And so this ballot measure that we elected to put on the ballot is. We felt that was the easiest way to inform the public, as to the landfill situation in the County of San Diego at that time, as one of the witnesses.

But you could have gotten approved through the county, right?

We could have gone that route. But these routes were available to us. We got the number of signatures to put it on the ballot, and we went around to all the constituents to educate them. The only reason that the lay of the land has changed, as the previous witness said, is in support of the Bill, is that landfill elevations have increased. That is the environmental mess to allow landfills to become mountains of trash. So let's assume you're correct that you get to 2053.

Then what are you going to do? So it's taken us 20 plus years and we still don't have a solid waste permit because we're still going through the CEQA process. Let the process finish. Let the science work versus politics. And I love to have our engineer answer any questions that will be technical in nature.

Because one of the questions raised to me last night at the City Council in Chula Vista was, Mr. Wick, how can you assure that there will be no leakage from this landfill into the Tijuana watershed? And our engineer can answer that question.

They can. I mean, because that is, that's been a constant concern of the proponents, is we just can't see any more discharge. The Senator and I had a whole conversation about it. So I mean, you feel, where is the State of technology with regards to like a leak-free, discharge-free landfill? Why don't you come, you can come to the microphone up here.

Yeah, I've been 26 years in environmental containment design. Basically focusing on composting facilities, landfills, closures. The majority of the landfills in this state, and actually the world are all historic landfills that were done pre-regulation. Therefore, they don't have liner systems like he was saying. So those are the landfills you hear the horror stories about. Brand-new landfills don't really exist very often.

So we've basically developed a design that has a redundant systems, is in accordance with all of the environmental federal, state, local regulations that assures that all of the contaminants that would be within the waste, that would leach you out of the waste, will be collected and then be able to be treated. And that applies not only to the landfill, but also to the facility around it. The stormwater collection, the recycling center, the composting facilities, all of that potential contaminants will be captured and then treated appropriately.

100 percent?

100 percent. And there's a monitoring. So in addition, there's a monitoring system that's installed all the way around the facility that would detect any kind of issues that could come to the facility.

How are you held accountable if that does not prove to be the case?

That comes through the regulating agencies, right? And then you go into corrective action and those kind of issues. So.

Senator Hueso, Senator Padilla brought up an earlier Bill that, quite frankly, I wasn't aware of. I don't know that it was this Committee. Of course, it was long before any of us were here. Though you were here, it sounds like you co-authored this Bill. Can you give us, can you give us some context as to what's going on with that, this Bargas Bill on another North County landfill?

Yeah. First of all, that Bill didn't seek to, it seek to further regulate because it was found that that site was near some archaeological remains nearby, that in which the tribe did not. And many tribes in California do not want to disclose the site of archaeological remains. They are on file only with the Federal Government. They are not public because they're afraid that people will exploit them and dig them up and look for artifacts. So that facility was next to some archaeological remains.

And the law that was added wasn't intended to kill the project, simply provide further regulation. That project eventually went on the ballot and the voters turned it down. So one thing is, and since then, the law has changed. Now there are laws that have been added to CEQA that protect Native American archaeological sites and other historic structures. That has changed in the time I've been in the Legislature. But this project, however, was particularly chosen because it's not near to any of those sites.

It's not near to housing, it's not near to anything that could provide any significant problem to people living in the community. And unlike the current landfills in San Diego, several hundred acres around the site have been set aside to make sure that there is no further development or that people don't move in or that any other development isn't approved that is adjacent to the site.

So the difference is that this will be one of the most advanced facilities in our county's and state history, and it will be the best way to handle recycling and waste for San Diego County. While we don't have to continue to expand projects that don't have a liner, that are adjacent to rivers, that are adjacent to where people live, and it's time for San Diego to modernize.

Okay, I've got more things, but I took up too much time already. So why don't we go to, let's open up to the Committee for discussion. How about.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. I want to push back a little bit, Senator Hueso, because it's safe to assume that I don't think any voter would vote for a landfill. I think that's safe to assume. And I, Mr. Chair, I don't think you have any landfills in your district. I don't think so.

You actually.

Okay, maybe. I have landfills in my district that always are always contaminating the surrounding community. And even with the liners, they're up to date. They're constantly contaminating the communities. And if we knew that there was no impact of landfills, then we wouldn't have what we currently have in this state where the concentration of them are in communities that look like you and they look like me. Right?

They're always concentrating there because we know for a fact that if we put it in Beverly Hills, it won't happen. Or we attempt to put it in there, it won't happen because there are impacts. So I want to make sure that we all know that there are going to be impacts regardless of. I mean, there is data to show that. So I've been talking to the Senator on this a lot and it reminds me a lot of my community, of my district.

So for this issue, I'm very protective to ensure that not a further ounce of contamination is being concentrated in this area. I do have a lot of questions to the author of this, that I hope he will continue working on this. But I do agree with him in saying that we shouldn't add anything that's further going to add contamination.

I read the cow IPA response that the author sent to us that there is capacity until 2053, that we have approximately 15 more years to look at. And because of all the work we're doing on diverting ways to other ways and composting as well, that maybe that capacity will even last longer because it'll be diminished.

I'm saddened for the people of Imperial Beach, who don't have access to the ocean for the past two years because of contamination, because of how close it is, because the TJ River goes into it. I know this is within approximately 10 miles of the TJ River, but we can assume that it will go into there. So that's my comments on that. Now to you, Senator.

What would you say though, to the opposition that's saying that if Sycamore were to expand, it would further concentrate that landfill in that community and further disenfranchise that community, potentially?

Mr. Chairman and Senator, it's a red herring argument because though the San Diego County Regional solid waste plan looks at overall regional capacity, but it also looks at regional dynamics. We know, because of many of the things you just cited, that incrementally, year by year, the demand for landfill space is going to incrementally reduce, extending the useful life of even some existing capacity. It's why those circumstances are substantial and that they have changed. And again, thank you for referencing the secretary's letter.

Part of the argument here, and I find it interesting, is that there's a capacity crisis, that this is a recycling facility. Let me just correct the record. The title summary, if you read it, that were before the voters and were analyzed by county council at that time, clearly state and emphasize that this is a recycling facility with a little bit of landfill sprinkled in.

But if you look at the application that is before the Army Corps of Engineers, 95% plus of an over 300-acre site is dedicated to class three waste disposal landfill with a little bit of maybe some kind of recycle, something sprinkled in. And I also want to correct the record, and I'll do again in my close, there was no voter approval or entitlement of any project or any landfill. Let's be clear about that.

It was just solely a zone change to allow the possibility, and also the language in the measure that the voters adopted was very clear that any application after the fact, after the zoning change, would have to go through a process, an abbreviated one. And I'll come back to that and answer the question as to why go to the ballot.

But to answer your question, Senator, this is a lack of this landfill being given a discharge permit because of the numerous adverse and inappropriate environmental impacts it would make to the watershed has absolutely nothing to do with exacerbating capacities or concentrations elsewhere in the system.

Secretary Yana Garcia's letter to you, Mr. Chairman, and the Committee, makes very clear that not only does the county's regional solid waste update, as recent as last year, make it clear that we have sufficient capacity through 2053, but also maybe through 2060.

The secretary of EPA, in the letter before you, has clarified that that is in fact the case, and that incremental extension of that capacity may well happen because of many of the good policies that we've instituted in this state about diversion and composting and other things. And the goal being, to your point, Senator, to ultimately really reduce complete demand for this type of, type of land use, because we know now the tremendously negative impacts that they have on surrounding communities and public health.

Senator Padilla, you spoke a little bit as to why potentially you think they went to the ballot. And I want to make sure this is correct in how I read this. I read the analysis that this Committee wrote on this similar Bill about 10, 15 almost 15 years ago, and it spoke on this ordinance. And if I understand correctly, this Committee analysis said that the proposed amendment to the county zoning ordinance would designate the site as a by-right use.

The developers would therefore not be subject to the county's major use permit process, and they would limit the ability to impose requirements related to infrastructure improvements, environment mitigation, and operation practices. That's what this Committee deemed would be the impact of this very issue. And I agree with that. But my question to you, Senator Perilla, is why do you believe that the Regional Water Board is not capable of vetting this project thoroughly?

Mr. Chairman, Senator, it's related to the point you just made. The answer to the question, why go to the ballot? Is because you can circumvent public input. You can circumvent the Board of Supervisors. You can circumvent meaningful and contextual evaluation of the project's environmental impacts.

As the Committee analysis points out that you just quoted, this Committee's consultant at the time clearly pointed out the problems with measure A, and this particular landfill process. Because it basically, unlike any other proposed landfill in California history, completely and totally segregates out the people's elected representatives. Not one Member of the County Board of Supervisors, you know who the lead agency person who approves the CEQA review under the current situation because of measure A is?

It's the Director of the Department of Environmental Health at the County of San Diego, who, by the way, doesn't do CEQA lead agency stuff. And it's not the county Board of Supervisors and it's not the typical CEQA. So I find it rich to argue out of one side of the mouth that we want the process to go forward and we want review of the environmental impacts.

But meanwhile, we took the 2.0 Master Playbook approach that we saw in North County over a decade and a half ago. We've seen this movie before to basically shorten and undermine the quality and context of the environmental review and to preclude any involvement by the people's elected representatives. I find that rich, you can't have it both ways.

And to answer your question, that's why they went to the ballot is because they knew that when the public began to continue to understand the impacts to the community of this and the fact that it isn't necessary and there isn't demand and there is sufficient capacity. There's no way in hell they would support it.

And so, you know, my argument here again gets back to the fundamental purpose of the Bill, and that is there are circumstances under California law where we say, don't issue a discharge permit because there are really exigent circumstances. And Mr. Chairman and Members, if this situation occurring in my district on the border is not an exigent circumstance and a poster child for environmental justice, I don't know what the heck is. But why? Why would we add even one additional environmental burden or stress on this watershed?

Senator Dahle.

But what you have today is landfills that aren't lined.

No, the Otay Landfill has been consistently in compliance with the number of upgrades over the years because they have to by existing law. And let me go to the point that was made earlier about the non-existent impacts of modern landfills. And let me just cite a recent study from the National Center for Biotech Information, the National Library of Medicine, and the National Institutes of Health as recently as the end of last year that squarely evaluated the environmental pollution and health effects associated with waste landfilling.

And I quote, "It is revealed that landfilling is associated with various environmental pollution problems, namely underground water pollution due to contained in the waste, air pollution due to suspension of particles, odor pollution from the deposition of municipal solid waste, and even marine pollution from any potential runoffs. Further health impacts may occur through the pollution of the underground water and emission of gases leading to carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects on exposed populations living within the vicinity."

This address is from some of the best in the scientific community, the impacts of any landfill, even with modern mitigation methods, and that's the point of the Bill, it is not appropriate to have any more impacts burden this watershed.

So back to my original question. So the landfills you have today, they don't have a liner. They are lined with clay or something that's not visqueen or some sort of. I worked in a gold mine in California, open pit gold mine that had liners, zero discharge because we use cyanide and we had zero discharge. And we got a permit. They permitted the mine and they, with the California Water Board, which is what's going to happen in this case.

But my question is, I think, it's critical to look. Yes, is there some impacts? There's always impacts. But can they be mitigated? And what do you have now versus what are you going to get in the future. And, you know, we all talk about not having landfills, and we talked about a reduction 25 years ago, and we still have landfills.

So what you have now is an unlined, or actually more than one, I think, right, unlined next to the Tijuana River, which everybody seems to talk about, which is a border. And it also has pollution coming from the other side, which we have no control over. So I just want to make sure I'm clear on the fact that the facility that would be built would be lined with the detection system and would probably have zero ability to go in the ground and they can capture.

That's critical, I think, to this conversation. Go ahead.

Well, in response, and I have to add this because it's very important to this discussion because we're talking about environmental justice, right? And we're talking about the environment and we're talking about people's health. Two and a half years, the City of Chula Vista, which is adjacent to the Chula Vista landfill, produced over 1,000 new housing units around the landfill. This landfill in Chula Vista is not lined. It was not designed for methane capture. Back then, they weren't thinking about methane emissions or methane capture.

They weren't thinking about putting a liner. And if you know that when you build a home and you build a cement foundation, it has to have enough cement and rebar to sustain the structure. And when clay is the only thing separating all this trash from the water, and you put an enormous, you can line the top if you want, but you continue to put weight on that, you know it's going to eventually break through that clay.

And this Bill is putting San Diego in a position where it will have no other alternative to cite future waste processing facilities. And we will stay with what we have and continue to add to that and put our watersheds, the San Diego River, San Clemente Creek, Otay River, into jeopardy. And the people who were sighted there who were once promised that these landfills were closed are going to see future extensions because they will have no other alternative. There will be no other alternative.

And again, to answer your question, this project decided far from where anyone lives. So it's not an environmental justice issue. Nobody lives near there. Nobody will ever live near there. And it will be lined, it will be designed for methane capture. And eventually, if San Diego ever goes to 100% recycled recovery rate, it will be a place where that recycling will be successfully processed because it will be designed to do exactly just that.

Mr. Chairman, as the author and the Senator representing this area now, dear respect to my old friend Ben, to answer your question, it's irrelevant. With all due respect, Senator Dahle, because the point is not how not mitigated the old landfill is, and it may have a few years left. The question is, do you burden the same area with the confluence of impacts that's happening there with another landfill that brings any impacts and may extend that land use in the wrong location for a century?

That's the question, and that's the reason for the Bill.

Okay. So first of all, on the question of environmental review, there's a robust environmental review that the Water Board would engage in. On the question of the local entity. I absolutely understand and respect the fact that the local supervisor is supportive of your Bill, but I would say if the board as a collective were to take a position on the board, that would certainly be very meaningful to me.

I guess the challenge I'm having with this Bill is the fact that we're sort of the reason Water Board has a job to do to assess and require projects to mitigate water quality impacts, which is ultimately at the heart of all the claims and cross-claims that are being made today. And they've got the expertise and authority in this manner, not us. We offered to. Let's start by saying it's my understanding.

I mean, I've read a bit about this now that they've go through this very extensive project-specific process at the Water Board specifying construction and containment liners, leech, you know, leachate collection and removal, subsurface barriers, drainage controls, and then, of course, most importantly, water quality monitoring. It's a nearly two-year-long process, I think, from, you know, from application to approval.

And then, of course, there's a CEQA process also evolving, which, as we know, involves a really extensive public engagement, you know, too much, according to Scott Wiener for downtown San Francisco. So, you know, and then, of course, after all of that, the Water Board can vote to deny water discharge requirements if it determines that they're not protective of water quality. So that's a robust process.

And I guess, you know, we submitted to the author an offer to say, look, if you want to have a conversation about, you know, heightened standards for review at the Water Board, that's a discussion that we're happy to have given all of the unique challenges of the region. And I just want to stay for the record. I mean. Right. Obviously, that was not accepted by the author, which it's absolutely his right.

And we'll see where this all goes. I do want to say for the record that if, you know, that I continue to be open and willing to work with the author on negotiating what those heightened standards might look like, because from my perspective, this really comes down ultimately to the waterboard process. We've heard a lot of concerns about the unique nature of this watershed and the impacts that a project like this might have on the watershed, and yet it's ultimately the Water Board that's supposed to.

They've got the expertise, they've got the skill set to really go through this process. And if you want to talk shop about requiring some additional findings as part of the approval process, I'm really open to that conversation. So, that's where I stand. I mean, it really kind of comes down ultimately to the, you know, and it's entirely possible that the rest of the Committee is happy to move forward without that amendment being taken. I will say if, you know. If the way that we have crafted the amendment, you know, with regards to the findings of the Water Board, if the concern is with that, I wanted to state for the record and to you that I'm happy to engage in more negotiation on that point. So, that's where I am. I know you know that. I mean, we've talked about this a bit too, but I want to reemphasize it now depending on where this all goes.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I don't know if I'm able to close or at what point you want to do that.

Sure, absolutely.

I thank the Chairman. I'm always happy to continue dialogue. I think, you know, to be clear, clear for the record, to correct the record, we have accepted some of the Committee amendments.

You have, the quarry amendment.

We made that clear at the beginning. So thank you, sir. I will also say that it was not prepared the way that was drafted was to basically give a backdoor to getting part of the problem with this process. And again, I'll refer you to the Committee analysis from 2011, which I thought pretty much hit it on the head.

That Committee analysis was critical of this approach on this site in Southern San Diego County on measure A. But it looked at it in the context of the Gregory Canyon Proposal, which was a facility with 33.4 million ton capacity. And here we are looking at a facility with over 180 million ton capacity in situ in a place that has exponentially more environmentally adverse dynamics happening in it and to it than the site in North County.

And the point again is California has statute that says the Water Board shall not issue because of certain conditions. And the point of this Bill is that these conditions on the ground, the evidence of which is mountainous, about the unique and converging and multiple adverse environmental impacts on this community, a community of color that has a history of having adverse environmental land uses shoved down its throat, this is a case in my.

In all due respect, that the state should add to that set of exemptions and prohibit that. It's, you know, not to be. Maybe I'm showing my age, but I don't think we'd need a whole lot more environmental review that we're not going to add another straw on, you know, Love Canal.

I mean, there are cases where there are communities that are overwhelmed with adverse environmental uses that are not just unjust from a social, economic, or political standpoint, but are unhealthy and are always directed at the people with the least economic and political power to fight back. And I lived with it my whole life, and I listed them off.

Why in God's name, if you have a letter from the secretary of the EPA and the county's own waste solid waste plan saying, we have plenty of capacity, right, this is not necessary, and there's a mountain of evidence about the impacts of even modern landfills. Why in God's name would we force that on a community under the flag of a ballot measure? The people approved it. Baloney. Let me correct the record. The people did not approve a landfill.

They did not vote for approving or entitling a landfill. They did not vote to approve a project. They voted for a zoning change. And the language in what they voted on makes it very clear that that still has to be subject to scrutiny.

But a new kind of scrutiny, one that doesn't involve anyone's elected representatives, one that totally negates the county Board of Supervisors, one that leaves a waterboard determination to faceless unelected bureaucrats in a back room that unless you're an environmental activist, you don't even know the meeting's happening. And it happens every day to communities like mine. And my community's had about enough. And I think that this is more than unjust. The evidence is piled high, and this is. There's a reason they went to the ballot.

I understand people want to make money off their land, and I'm all for it, but the costs to my community have been high, and they continue to be high, and it's not just, and it's not right. And I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

So Senator Menjavar has moved. Okay. Now, just to clarify, the author has agreed to accept the Committee Amendment in comment six, but not the Committee Amendment in comment five.

Correct, on the technical amendments with regard to the query. And if I might, with your indulgence, Mr. Chairman, the Committee Members have a right to know, just to correct the record and add some information they may not know. There were a number of significant organizational letters of support and local leaders and elected letters of support that were filed timely with the Committee.

One was filed in error as an opposition letter and then immediately corrected within seconds with the Committee that it's actually in support. But just for the record, they didn't make all, make it into the analysis.

And I want to just put on the record that the letters and organizations support of this Bill were from the National Resource Defense Council, NRDC, from Sierra Club California, from the office of the San Diego City Council President Sean Elo Rivera, Councilmember Jennifer Campbell, Councilmember Marni Von Wilmer, the Chair of the County Board of Supervisors, Nora Vargas, Mayor Paloma Aguirre of the City of Imperial Beach, Mayor Ron Morrison from the City of National City, and Deputy Mayor Alonso Gonzalez from the City of Chula Vista.

I appreciate you allowing me to read that into the record, all those organizations and individuals are in support.

Question from Senator Skinner.

We get these pieces of equipment, and we have, in addition to the analysis, there's a tab that we can hit that lists support letters that have come in. And there are a number of organizations like Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others that are in the tab that show letters of support have come in but aren't referenced in the analysis.

And the only other thing I was going to say is that the analysis does list organizations, but then it says 129 individuals. So it could leave one to the impression that those are the only organizations. And since the analysis is often what is used when something goes to the floor, when we get a Bill. If this were to move to the floor, I'd appreciate if the analysis is updated to reflect the organizations.

Oh, yeah. I mean, we've got a, there's a noon Wednesday deadline that, for the Committee hearings and their timestamp. That being said, of course, anything that's come in since then, you know, will be added to whatever future analysis is produced. Including the floor analysis. Absolutely.

Okay. I just wanted to ensure that, because.

As long as it's done by the floor.

I first saw this and then I hit the other tab. There were quite a few more.

As you know, I mean, everyone who's been a Chair here knows that this is a constant challenge here.

Just appreciate that.

Yeah. Okay. Secretary, please call the role.

SB-1208. The motion is do-pass as amended and rerefer to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Okay. We're going to hold it open for future.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Members.

Thank you, Senator. And let's see where the votes go, and we'll discuss further.

All right, why don't you proceed when you're ready.

File order 14, SB 941. Is that the order?

Yes.

Okay, great.

941 is the first.

Perfect. Okay, wonderful. 941 directs our Air Resources Board to, in their next regularly scheduled update to the AB 32 scoping plan. It asks them to include industrial decarbonization in that scoping plan. So it's just, the bill is really just to kind of give a little nudge to ARB to make sure they give attention to industrial decarbonization when they do that update. And the reason is that industrial emissions currently represent about 22% of California's emissions.

And as we are successfully reducing the emissions from transportation and other sectors, the industrial emissions portion will grow just because there is not necessarily so much less that we've done. But there's a lot of factors that have affected industrial emissions that so far they haven't quite fallen under many of the tools that we've been using to decarbonize. And there are genuine solutions available now to much of our industrial emissions that weren't available in the past.

So being able to vet those, having CARB analyze them and include them in the scoping plan will help us achieve that. And right now, unless we do so, we will have at a very difficult time to achieve our goal of carbon neutrality by 2045. So basically, the bill allows CARB, within that scheduled scoping update, to identify and evaluate existing zero emission alternatives to industrial processes, identify emerging technologies, and identify those industrial practices for which there are no currently available zero-emission alternatives.

With that, I'd like to turn over to my witness, Lauren Kubiak from the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Good afternoon, Chair Allen and Committee Members. My name is Lauren Kubiak, and I'm a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council NRDC. California's industrial sector is made up of food and beverage manufacturers, cement and gas plants, and more. It is the state's second-largest contributor to climate change after transportation, making up 22% of California's greenhouse gas emissions. Industrial emissions come from burning fossil fuels to generate Low and high-temperature heat, as well as chemical processes like calcination.

This share of emissions is likely to go up as emissions from other sectors with more focused decarbonization efforts to decline. Long considered hard to abate, industrial emissions have been largely ignored. But addressing industrial sector emissions is crucial to achieving our net zero emission targets. There are ample opportunities to do so now through existing technologies, including heat pumps, electric heaters, and boilers, as well as thermal storage that can charge with renewable electricity during the day and discharge clean industrial heat on an as needed consistent basis.

The Air Resources Board's previous scoping plans have included limited information on industrial decarbonization pathways, including a more robust assessment of zero carbon industrial technologies that can be deployed today. While developing a plan on how to develop and deploy earlier stage technologies is crucial to ensuring that California's industrial sector decarbonizes along with the rest of the economy. SB 941 would do just that. Thank you for your consideration.

All right, anyone else who wants to voice support for the bill, this is SB 941. No? Okay. Opposition? Concerns folks want to make? All right, let's bring it back to the Committee for comments, questions? Motion moved by Senator Menjivar. You may close.

Thank you. I appreciate your aye vote.

All right, secretary, please call the roll.

SB 941. The motion is do pass, and we refer to the Committee on Appropriations. Senators Allen? Allen, aye. Dahle? Gonzalez? Hurtado? Menjivar? Menjivar, aye. Nguyen? Nguyen, aye. Skinner? Skinner, aye.

All right, thank you. Let's now go to SB 1073.

Great. Thank you, Chair and members. In our discussion of industrial emissions, which we just - one of those key industrial emissions is from cement and concrete production. And it's very difficult to decarbonize cement and concrete because not only do you have the emissions from the power or the energy used to heat the kilns, you also have just the process, what they call releases process emissions. So there's emissions just from the limestone and you're trying to remove...I'm going to blow my chemicals.

But anyway, it's the very process of heating the limestone, and the emissions from that limestone are high in carbon. So we've done a lot of things so far. We've moved on trying to approve, or at least have some pilots on, doing carbon capture at cement. We've done a variety of things, but right now, there are a number of companies and researchers that are developing new low-carbon concretes and cement.

And while they're only beginning to be commercially available, if we send the right kind of market signal, then we may encourage the development of those products and the financing of those products so that they can then become economically viable and compete with other concrete and cement products. So that's the purpose of the bill. The purpose of the bill is to allow our agencies to engage in advance procurement agreements to enter into context for the future purchase of low-carbon cement and concrete.

Now, this is done very commonly on the federal level, and it's the way to send a signal to emerging technologies: "ook, there's a market for you, and this is the kind of stuff we want to buy if it's commercially available in the future." Advance procurement agreements do not require the state to then purchase that if at the time comes and the product does not meet the specifications that we need or is at a cost that doesn't compete, then the state does not have to buy it.

But by doing these advanced procurement agreements, we're sending that signal that we would like to see the development and the availability of low-carbon cement and concrete products. Now, it's interesting. We did a very similar thing back in 2010 when we passed the bill around utility-grade battery storage. At the point that we passed that bill, there was no utility-grade battery storage online anywhere in California, and there were very few producers of it today.

Since that bill passed and California told the world we want utility-grade battery storage, we are now the world's leader in online battery storage, and we already have in capacity. In terms of the battery storage that we have already installed, it is equivalent to four Diablo power plants. So in that period of time, in that 14 years, that's we've achieved. So, this bill is trying to do a similar thing. We hope it works. We can't guarantee it. That's why it's permissive.

And with that, I would like to have Lauren again testify from Natural Resources Defense Council, and I have Connor Woodrich from the Decarbonized Cement and Concrete Alliance.

Hello again, Chair Allen and committee members. My name is Lauren Kubiak. I'm a senior scientist at NRDC, and I'm speaking in my capacity, is a co-sponsor of SB 1073 and a strong supporter. SB 1073 authorizes state agencies to enter forward contracts to purchase low-carbon cement and concrete products up to 10 years in advance.

Clarifying such authority will remove a key barrier to unlocking decarbonization of California's cement sector, which is critical to achieving California's net zero greenhouse gas emission targets for its economy and cement sector. Cement, which is the binding ingredient in concrete, is the building block of modern infrastructure and accounts for nearly 8% of all global greenhouse gas emissions. Here in California, cement production is the second largest industrial source of emissions.

California has enacted legislation, including SB 596, requiring all cement used in California to be net zero emission by 2045. Complimentary policies, including ensuring that the state can purchase low-emission cement and concrete, will be required to meet this goal. The US Department of Energy and its commercial liftoff report for cement decarbonization have identified advanced procurement models as a tool necessary to scale ultra-low-emissions cement and concrete.

SB 1073 clarifies that this is a tool that California State agencies can deploy in alignment with the state's cement decarbonization efforts and climate targets at large. We greatly appreciate your aye vote on this important issue.