Assembly Standing Committee on Natural Resources

Welcome to the Assembly Natural Resources Committee Hearing. While we wait for a quorum, we're going to start as a Subcommittee. We've got 18 measures on the agenda today. Please note, AB 2208: Zbur and AB 3183: Alvarez have been pulled by the authors. AB 2212: Lowenthal has been pulled by the Committee. The following five measures are proposed for consent.

We'll deal with that later, but it's Item Four: AB 2298: Hart, Item Nine: AB 2522: Wendy Carrillo, Item Ten: AB 2600: Calderon, Item 13: AB 2731: Wendy Carrillo, Item 16: AB 2958: Calderon. This leaves 13 bills to present, and I see Majority Leader Aguiar-Curry is here. Would you like to come on down? You can begin when you're ready.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. First, I'd like to thank the Committee staff for all their work on this Bill. I will be accepting the Committee's amendments and appreciate the changes that helped tighten the language to avoid unintended consequences. Members the issue of organic waste, including ag waste and forest biomass, is one I've been working on since I came to the Capitol in 2016. I live in Winters, a small town 40 miles from here that is surrounded by agriculture.

As I drive around my district, I see fruit and nut trees being pulled up, piled, and burned because there's nowhere for this waste to go. Communities like the rural areas in my district have been struggling to find ways to divert their organic waste from our landfills. We need to put the waste to beneficial, climate-friendly use, and rural communities need reliable energy supplies, so converting organic waste to energy makes sense for energy reliability, too, not just emissions reduction and waste reduction.

The goal of this Bill is to help provide certainty to communities and projects as they look for ways to deal with organic waste. First, this Bill codifies a definition of pyrolysis. This does not change how pyrolysis is permitted or regulated, but it helps communities and companies know what projects count as pyrologist projects. Second, this Bill allows communities to get procurement credit for projects that use exclusively sourced, separated organic waste to generate biomethane and hydrogen.

This is important for communities that need more options for meeting their SB 1383 goals. At the same time, communities need clean, firm power and alternative fuels for sectors that are hard to decarbonize. Finally, this Bill will ask CalRecycle to consider the life cycle effects of projects when it makes decisions on incentive funding. This is a Bill technology-neutral way of making sure that our waste disposal process are climate friendly.

This Bill will help reduce future emissions by helping divert organic waste from landfills, and it will help increase energy reliability and resiliency for those communities that need it the most. With me to testify in support of the Bill is Julia Levin, Executive Director of the Bioenergy Association of, California, and Evan Edgar of Edgar and Associates. Thank you for attending today.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members of the Committee, apologies for my voice. Julia Levin, as the majority leader, said, I'm the Executive Director of the Bioenergy Association of California. We have about 100 members in California, including many cities and counties, public agencies, public research institutions, tribal members, and nonprofit organizations, as well as private companies and utilities working to convert organic waste to energy. We are solely focused on organic waste, as is this legislation.

Rather than landfilling it or piling and burning it, we think they're far more beneficial uses. This Bill is a really important step, as the majority leader said, to provide additional pathways for diverted organic waste. SB 1383 requires that cities and counties divert 75% of all organic waste away from landfills by 2025, and we are nowhere near on track. And cities and counties need more options.

Many of them would like to convert their organic waste to renewable hydrogen or to pipeline biomethane in compliance with another program that was created by legislation SB 1440, which is now a pipeline biomethane procurement program at the PUC. But CalRecycle does not yet have clear pathways to do this. To be very clear, we are not trying to do anything to promote more burning. We actually aren't even trying to promote pyrolysis.

By putting it in definition, we're trying to clarify what is pyrolysis, which is treated as transformation and therefore doesn't qualify for landfill diversion versus gasification, which does qualify for landfill diversion and produces hydrogen or biomethane. In fact, pyrolysis doesn't even go to biomethane or hydrogen. It produces a liquid oil, which is not what we're trying to promote here. So, as the majority of the year said, we are just trying, trying to, to provide more options that are climate-friendly, that provide local benefits for air quality, and more.

And this is the most urgent thing we can do for the climate. Climate scientists globally are in agreement there's nothing more urgent than reducing methane. So we urge your aye vote on this Bill. Thank you.

Appreciate you. Two minutes, sir.

Thank you, Chair, Committee Members. Myy name is Evan Edgar. I'm an independent garbage man for the Garbage Haulers and Organic Composters of California. We are the companies in partnership with local government that takes all the SB 1383 organics and makes compost out of it. And plus I'm the engineer of the Bioenergy Association of California, where we work with local wastewater districts and local government on how to implement 1383 in the cost-effective fashion.

We've been making our own fuel out of organic waste for years, called renewable natural gas. We take food waste and green waste, and down in San Jose with ZWED and the Zanker folks were making carbon-negative fuel in South City. So for over 10 years, our industry has stepped up. And the garbage truck that picks up the organics makes renewable natural gas out of the same organics and it's highly successful. We put it right back into the garbage trucks.

Within 30 days, it's called the circular economy. Plus, I represent the California Compost Coalition, where a bunch of independent, organic, certified composters of California, we represent two-thirds of the market. We take a lot of green waste. They do carbon farming with Yolo Land and Cattle. We go out to the ranches. It's a great opportunity, but we can't compost the world. All that forest sector waste and the ag waste is too woody. It takes a carbon-nitrogen ratio to make a good compost.

So Sierra Club and other people say we're going to compost everything. We can't. We can't compost forest sector waste, we can't compost a lot of ag waste, but we can compost urban waste. And we do that. So we need more homes. And we've been working with your office for three years on trying to find what to do with all this biomass and what 2514 does is make a pathway for hydrogen using technologies.

About 12 years ago with Senator Laura, we got gasification count as biomass conversion. We make biochar 100% renewable. So the good biomap program for community-scale energy. So our industry has stepped up when it comes to LIDA waste and when it comes to all this biomass, we believe we can make hydrogen. The same way that we're making renewable natural gas with anaerobic digestion, we can make hydrogen with gasification and paralysis. Our industry, we feed hungry people first with edible food recovery.

We feed the grid with renewable power. We feed the tank with low carbon fuel, but we don't feed the grid. We don't fill up the landfill. So we're taking stuff out of the landfill that can't get composted and from the forest sector to make hydrogen. So this is truly the circular economy. One more time.

Can you wrap it up for me?

Yeah. Yeah. So PFAS is another build-up. Paralysis, it destroys PFAS and biosolids. So it's really a technological solution on behalf of the wastewater people to make hydrogen and destroy PFAS within the biomass, we urge your support today. Thank you.

I really appreciate you. Do we have any witnesses in the room would like to vocalize their support for this measure?

Thank you. Teresa Cooke. Ha ha. There we go. Good afternoon. Theresa Cook. On behalf of the California Hydrogen Coalition, California Hydrogen Business Council in strong support for this renewable hydrogen production technology. Thank you.

Thank you. Priscilla Quiroz here on behalf of the Solid Waste Association of North America Legislative Task Force, the California Chapter, in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Luis Sanchez. On behalf of the California Waste Haulers Council in support. Thank you.

Do we have any primary witnesses in opposition in the room? We got two minutes, unless, thank you so much. We'll do two minutes per witness, but a little bit of grace because I gave some to the, to the first folks and just want to make it clear we got a really long committee, we got a lot of folks and a lot of good legislation.

And so I don't want to be too tough on that two minutes, but just, just flagging it for you now. You can begin when you're ready.

Good afternoon, Assembly Member. Nik Lapis with Californians Against Waste. We're here respectfully in opposition to this Bill. At this time, we actually have an opposed unless amended position. However, we did want to express our gratitude to the author and her staff and to the Committee staff for putting a lot of time and effort into this Bill. It is a wonky, complicated issue that has a lot of nuance and very specific wording, can have dramatic impacts on interpretation.

And much of this has been argued over and litigated over for decades. And so it is very much appreciated that it's been given the time that it deserves by the author's staff and by the Committee. The proposed amendments go a long way towards addressing some of our concerns. But even as amended, the Bill still has a few glaring concerns left over.

Principally, we remain opposed to the inclusion of hydrogen as a procurement pathway, especially if it isn't limited to non-disposal technologies and store-separated SB 1383 feedstocks. While 1383 is often thought of as a methane avoidance measure to get stuff out of landfills, it's more than that. Most of the benefit of diverting organic waste actually comes from making a compost out of the finished product or a composted digestate.

When you apply that compost or composted digestate on natural working lands, you sequester carbon, you build healthier soils, you do all the amazing things that my friend Evan mentioned. However, when you make energy out of the same material through most waste energy technologies outside of anaerobic digestion, you destroy that resource in the process. So, yes, you avoid the landfill methane, but you do not end up with a finished compost that you can apply on agricultural lands.

And even within the context of energy and fuels, the Legislature has basically delineated waste energy into two different categories. We have the category of biomass conversion and anaerobic digestion, which handle very specific feedstocks. And they're very limited by the statute. They are eligible to count as recycling in California and to count as RPS eligible. Separately, we have other waste energy technologies that fall under the bucket of transformation. That includes transformation, EMSW conversion, pyrolysis, and these are all forms of disposal.

And the main differentiation between the two is the material that goes into it. When we're referring to specific clean agricultural biomass. Thank you. Sorry. We're referring to specific clean agricultural biomass as mentioned by Evan. That is allowable under the RPS, allowable under diversion accounting. If you're talking about mixed waste or plastic. It's not. And that's an important distinction that we'd like to see added to this Bill.

Thank you so much.

Okay, two final. That's okay.

We're coming up on three.

Leave it for Emily.

Before we get your testimony, Madam Secretary, I think we have a quorum. Can we call the roll real quick?

Yes. [Roll call]

You can begin.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Assembly Members. My name is Emily Garcia and I'm with NRDC. While NRDC appreciates the author's willingness to listen and to our concerns about AB 2514 and adopt amendments and improve the Bill, we regrettably remain opposed for the following reasons. First, AB 2514 would undermine the intent of SB 1383, part of which was to improve organics recycling. True organics recycling returns nutrients and carbon to soil via composting and other processes.

NRDC does not support using organics waste, especially source-separated organics waste, as feedstock to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen-produced organics waste should not count as recovered organics waste to meet their procurement requirements under SB 1383. Second, the proposed paralysis definition is at odds with the regulations of pyrolysis facilities under the Federal Clean Air Act.

The Bill suggests that pyrolysis processes is taking place in the absence of oxygen when the Clean Air Act regulation recognizes that pyrolysis facilities are types of incinerators where some combustion is needed as well as oxygen. Thank you.

Thank you. Any witnesses in the room in opposition?

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

Absolutely. We'll now return it to Committee Members. Mister Kalra. Oh, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry. Janet Cox for Climate Action in California, in opposition.

Good to see you, Janet.

I apologize, Mister Chairman, I missed the earlier support. David Quintana, on behalf of H Cycle and Green Hydrogen Coalition in support.

Thank you, sir.

Megan Shumway, citizen of Arden Arcade, Sacramento, in opposition.

Thank you. And with that, we'll turn it to Committee Members. Mister Kalra.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Thank you to Assembly Member Aguiar-Curry for bringing this forward and for the commentary on both sides of it. And to the gentleman you had mentioned that some things you'd like to see, although there was acknowledgement that some of the amendments already do improve the Bill to some extent, I appreciate the work of the Committee staff and the Committee Chair and the agreement from the author on some of those improvements, which I think clearly narrow some of the confines of the Bill.

But the mix recycling with. You mentioned the mixed recycling with plastics issue. Can you further define that amendment that you would like to see? Just curious about that.

Thank you. So we'd like to see three amendments, or at least three main amendments. The first is limiting the hydrogen to non-disposal technologies, which limits the feedstocks they're allowed to accept to just traditional biomass. So basically limiting it to facilities like biomass conversion facilities. The second is at this point we recommend taking out the definition of pyrolysis because it is a very thorny issue. It's being argued about under the federal Clean Air Act, so we recommend just striking it.

I don't believe the author has indicated that it has any specific impact on the statute here. And then finally, under the carbon life cycle analysis of carbon, we're concerned that there are some types of projects that might not come across as the most cost-effective per ton. Things like edible food recovery, rural composting, and anaerobic digestion, community composting. These small nonprofit or rural projects don't always come out ahead in a dollars per ton metric, but have a lot of other benefits.

Okay, so some, maybe some ways of clarifying or defining the benefits in some manner that takes into account some of those smaller actors that may not be able to compete if it's just a dollar kind of equation. Another thing that I think generally I'm hearing is that the opposition would like everything to be composted. It sounds like there may not be capacity to compost everything, but if there was some way to maximize composting as the first kind of option, right?

Like as you know, compost as much as you can, and whit that which you can't compost from opposition perspective, hopefully, it'd be a pure, purely organic, and then go through this process because I share some of the concerns. One of the things I think the output of the pyrolysis product is also emitted into the atmosphere.

And so one of the issues of where these are located is also a factor that we talk a lot about the environmental justice aspects of where these kinds of facilities are located. So I think that should be something that should at least be accounted for as well at this time, given some of the improvements with the amendments. And I know the author is someone that always is willing to continue to come back to the table.

I think the opposition does bring up some valid concerns and it looks like folks are at least are all talking to each other, which is a good thing. And so I'll support the Bill today to allow those conversations to continue and hopefully some of the other remaining issues can be worked out in addition to the ones that already have been.

Thank you, Mister Kalra. Vice Chair Flora.

Thank you Mister Chair. Appreciate the author bringing thi forward. And I know probably 7 miles from where I grew up, there's an incinerator in Stanislaus County. And for far too long we in this building we let perfect be the enemy of good. So I just want to say thank you for bringing us forward and would love to move the Bill.

Miss Pellerin.

Thank you. Thank you to the author as well for bringing this Bill forward. So I'm a little confused about the definition of pyrolysis as far as is, and there was a question raised in the analysis as well, whether it is the correct definition. And does it sort of lock us into changing technologies in the future? So if the author can address that question, that'd be great.

Thank you for the question. So just by way of background, I'm a former Commissioner from the California Energy Commission, and the Bill, when it was introduced, actually would have codified the definition used by the California Energy Commission for more than a decade, which is identical to the definition used by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is identical to the definition used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Committee requested to make some clarifying changes to that which the author accepted.

But this is the technically accepted definition across the country in state and federal agencies. So I don't think it's going to change. It's a technology like combustion, like gasification, that is well understood. Pyrolysis happens with very little to no oxygen at very high temperature. And every single one of those expert agencies defines it as being thermal decomposition. So that definition really isn't in flux, how it's used, what the feedstocks are.

And I think some of the concerns from the environmental community are justified because pyrolysis was developed originally to deal with plastic and other very toxic feedstocks. The profile of the emissions and the products is very different when you're talking about purely organic waste, which is what we are focused on here. And so there are a lot of concerns, and I share those concerns when you get to plastic and other municipal solid waste that go away when you're talking about pyrolysis of purely organic waste.

Mister Wood.

Thank you Mister Chair. A couple of questions. One of the things that came up here is I saw a reference to incentive funding or providing incentives to facilitate progress towards organic waste reduction targets. So can you describe those, what those incentives mean and what does that mean for rural, small rural operations versus larger entities who historically tend to gobble up lots of grants and funding? Do you understand where I'm going?

Yeah. So I'm gonna also let one of my sponsors speak on this. But I want you to remember I will always take care of my rural communities and I'll make sure that the incentivization is taken care of for them as well. So I just want to make sure this is one of those pieces that we'll make sure we clarify. Go ahead.

Thank you. Great question. I work at CalRecycle a lot and over the last year, they distributed $130 million of grant funding towards anaerobic digestion and composting. Great job. But over the last 15 years, they've never funded anything with bioenergy in a sense of gasification.

So this would allow a life cycle analysis with a carbon intensity and what we were showing at CalRecycle, they have what we call an article two finding that shows that the production of hydrogen using biomass material is equal or better than composting. And I represent the California Compost Coalition and we need all the tools in a tool belt for those other feedstocks that we can't compost, like woody biomass from the forest sector and from the.

So definitely we need more incentive funding and it should be based upon the lifecycle analysis and the carbon intensity. And we're carbon-negative and this project will be carbon-negative as well, making hydrogen out of biomass.

Could I also just add, I think there's a perception that this is an anti-compost move because compost emits a lot of methane and VOCs and actually is impossible to permit now in several air districts for that reason, this is not at all an anti-compost move. Even when you're talking about anaerobic digestion versus compost, you get the biggest greenhouse gas reductions if you do both. So this isn't an either-or.

What we're saying is CalRecycle has received hundreds of millions of dollars of greenhouse gas reduction Fund money. SB 1383 is a short-lived climate pollutant, methane, or carbon reduction Bill. And Cal Recycle has not included the amount of carbon reductions in its scoring criteria. We're not saying that should be the only criteria. We are definitely not saying what Nik is talking about. Nothing in the Bill says we're asking for a dollar-per-ton metric and that that should be the deciding factor.

We're just saying consider it among the things that you consider when you decide between projects, because there'll never be enough money. But I would hope we can all agree for a climate program, prioritizing the projects that maximize climate benefits, which is bioenergy plus compost or bioenergy plus biochar production, is how we get to the biggest benefits. Not either-or.

And just to follow up through the Chair. One, and just in general, unless something's changed dramatically, I know we can't compost everything. And my experience in my previous life when I was on a board of directors for waste management agency, citing new compost facilities is practically impossible in this state. And I see you nodding there. So I don't, you know, so we need flexibility. I fully supportive of what you want to do here. We need flexibility.

We need the ability, because we cannot cite enough facilities to process everything in the most beneficial way. So we have to be looking at alternatives. So anyway, thank you. Thank you very much. I'd love to be added as a co-author to your Bill if you'd have me. And happy to support you today.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Wood. Any other questions, comments? It's a full house today. Okay, Mister Patterson

Thank you very much. Mine and Heath's mics are working. I don't know if anybody else is. I can't hear anybody today, but I can always hear myself. There was a comment made from the opposition about how there are other solutions that are, I mean, paraphrasing, but more expensive, but have other benefits. And just yesterday I was looking through my garbage bill and in the next four years, it's supposed to go from $50 to $85.

The impacts of legislation, regulations coming through are having an impact. And we have to keep that in mind for the people that have to pay these bills. And when I look at this legislation, it's still accomplishing the goals. I'm not a scientist, but it's still accomplishing the goals that we set out to be, to have as a state as far as the environment's concerned, but it gives a little bit more flexibility.

So maybe when my constituents are looking at the bill in the next four years going up almost, you know, 40% more, 140% that they're thinking, okay, look, you know, maybe doesn't have to continue to go up so much. So I mean, we have to always take that into account. If we can accomplish our goals while also keeping prices lower for Californians, I think that's something we have to take into account. So, looking forward to supporting this.

Bring us home, Mister Muratsuchi.

Thank you. I apologize for missing. I was in the budget hearing and just came across the hall. Miss Majority Leader, I'm looking at the opposition letter of NRDC and I apologize I didn't get a chance to get back to you regarding my thoughts on the Bill. But first, a clarification. It's my understanding that this is just dealing with organic waste from landfills. It's not involving, it's not including the dairy biomethane.

No, no.

Okay. And there is a provision in the NRDC letter that talks about exempting counties with fewer than 70,000 residents. Was that addressed?

We took that out.

Okay.

Okay. All right. Thank you very much.

Absolutely. Ms. Aguiar-Curry, would you like to close?

I would like to close as soon as I find my close here. First of all, California is behind meeting its SB 1383 goals, and the status quo is creating harmful methane emissions. This bill does not change the way projects are permitted in California, and they will still have to go through a public CEQA process that addresses any impacts of the project.

This bill is important because it gives communities and projects more certainty about what credits the projects will qualify for before they invest significant time and resources for the project. I respectfully ask your aye vote to make sure that we consider how to use this waste in ways that benefit the environment, energy reliability, and our economy. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Majority Leader. It has been a process, and I appreciate your staff for engaging. I appreciate the fact that you and I have been able to engage. We've made great strides in making this a better bill, and I know you, and I don't think you're done, and neither is the legislative process. So we've got a motion by Mr. Flora. I think I heard a second by Mr. Wood. This bill has a do pass recommendation. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll?

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

Thank you.

That bill is out.

Great. Thank you very much, and again, thank you to your Committee staff. They were fabulous.

Absolutely. Mr. Lee, would you like to start with 2346?

Since we're on the topic of waste, why not? Thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues. First, I would like to accept the suggested amendments on page four of the committee analysis. And thank you for the committee staff for working with us on this bill. This bill provides local governments more flexibility to meet requirements for organic waste procurement under the SB 1383 structure to reduce climate pollutants caused by organic waste and landfills.

Among the points to improve implementation are allowing procurements through a direct service contract on a retroactive basis in addition to a prospective basis. In addition, this bill allows for the counting of compost procurement from additional sources and to count investments to build compost procurement capacity. The SB 1383 program is important for the state to reduce climate pollutants, and this bill helps to keep implementation moving forward. With me today are Timothy Burroughs, the executive director of Alameda StopWaste, and Xinci Tan, the organics program manager for Zero Waste Sonoma.

You can begin when you're ready.

Okay, thank you. I'm Timothy Burroughs. Stop Waste is a joint powers authority representing the 17 jurisdictions in Alameda County, and our mission is to keep waste out of the landfill. We have a 30-year history of helping to manage organic waste in our county and promoting the use of compost in the jurisdictions that we serve.

The SB 1383 procurement requirements were developed by the state to stimulate markets for the increase in compost that is anticipated to be available from the organics collection requirements within SB 1383. And, of course, we are supportive of organic waste diversion efforts advanced through SB 1383. But the targets, procurement targets for each city are quite high and they are quite rigid in what counts towards compliance.

So, for example, a city of 100,000 people would have to spread compost on about 250 sports fields every year, and the cost of doing that could run up to $1.0 million per year, 1.2 million. We've heard from composters that they do not expect to have enough compost to meet the existing market demand, plus the additional demand created by the 1383 procurement targets. And we know that jurisdictions are struggling to meet the procurement targets within SB 1383.

So AB 2346 is a result of over a year of discussions with a coalition of composters and several counties to identify a set of recommended solutions. The bill would add flexibility regarding what products count for compliance. It would also add more types of investments that can help cities comply, and it would make it easier, as Assemblymember Lee said, for a city to use direct service providers to procure products on their behalf. We want to thank Assemblymember Lee and his staff for all their leadership and their work on this measure. And we also want to thank Cal Recycle for their open dialogue with us on potential solutions to this issue. Thank you.

It was fantastic timing. Fantastic. When you're ready.

Thank you very much, Assembly members. My name is Xinci Tan and I lead countywide implementation of 1383 in Sonoma County. I am here on behalf of Zero Waste Sonoma. At JPA, that represents all 10 of our member jurisdictions in strong support of AB 2346. We have put many hours, staff hours, and a lot of money into trying to build a new facility and compost facility in Sonoma County. And we do a lot of investment and education for community composting and a lot of compost operations in Sonoma County.

And so with this bill, AB 2346, we can obtain procurement credit for all of our investments without competing with our local jurisdictions. I'm sorry, local farmers and ranchers for a limited supply of compost and without having to import compost from other counties. So we urge your aye votes on AB 2346. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any witnesses in opposition?

My name is Michael. I'm talking on behalf of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. We're a supporter if amended. Can I just get two sentences?

Sure.

Great. Thank you. So the community alliance with family farmers represents 8000 members, farmers up and down this state. And we generally like the member's bill. We want to support it, but we need the definition of on-farm compost to be changed because right now it precludes any material that's not produced on the farm. A lot of our farmers need supplemental material to make their on-farm compost. If this definition has changed, we believe we can support this bill, and we also think farmers can contribute a lot to the use and the making of compost. Thank you for your time.

Yeah. Anybody in the room who would like to express their support for this measure?

Good afternoon again. Nika Lapis of California Against Waste. We actually have a support in concept position just because the bill is still a work in progress. But we definitely appreciate the months of dialogue with the sponsors. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you.

Kayla Robinson on behalf of California Compost Coalition, aligning our comments with Californians Against Waste and also on behalf of Rethink Waste, in support. Thank you.

Melissa Sparks-Kranz with the League of California Cities, in support.

Gabriela Fasio, with Sierra Club California, in support.

Wilson, on behalf of the City and County of San Francisco, in support.

John Kennedy, Rural County Representatives of California, in support. Thank you.

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

Morris on behalf of Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, in support.

Michael Caprio, for Republic Services, here in support.

Natalia, with Crew Strategies on behalf of San Mateo County, in support.

Janet Cox, for Climate Action California, in support. Thank you.

Thanks so much. Anybody in the hearing room who would like to register their opposition? Seeing none, we'll now turn it to committee members. Mr. Wood.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a question to Sonoma waste, Zero Waste Sonoma. Where are you in your compost facility as far as construction and production?

Yeah. So our previous, as you might know, our previous compost facility in Sonoma County, Sonoma Compost, was shut down in 2015, and since then we have been outhauling to the neighboring counties. So we have been trying since 2015 to build a new facility. Multiple projects that have failed. The current one is very recent, like, still very new. So we have just hired a contractor, SES engineers to do environmental permitting and 30% engineering. But that's a three year contract that just started.

Thank you. And that's the point I really wanted to emphasize going back to the previous bill, siting, permitting, and building compost facilities is extremely difficult. This is an almost 10-year project when we're still three or four or five years potentially away from that. So as we move towards trying to take care of the goals, which are important, we need to factor pieces of information like this into legislation. So thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you, Mr. Wood. Any other comments? Miss Pellerin.

Just following up on the comment made by the Community Alliance of Family Farmers. So are you going to be able to look at that definition of the on-farm composting?

So we've been in conversations with different groups about different language going forward. So be something going forward.

Yeah, I mean, definitely. I'm sure they're experts on how to deal with that. So it might be some good, helpful information, but thank you.

Perfect. Any other questions, comments from committee? Mr. Lee, would you like to close?

Respectfully ask your aye vote.

Absolutely. This has a do pass record from the chair. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Eight votes, that bill is out. Before we go to your next bill since we have everybody here, can we run through the consent calendar real fast? Motion by Mr. Wood, second by Miss Pellerin.

[Roll Call]

Perfect. You can begin with 2503.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members. I'm presenting AB 2503. First, I want to say that I accept the Committee amendments referenced on page three of the Committee analysis. I also want to thank the Committee staff for working with us on this bill. AB 2503 will streamline delivery of train electrification projects. The State of California faces significant barriers in meeting its climate goals.

According to the ARB's 2022 Scoping Plan, vehicles miles traveled--VMT reductions--will play an indispensable role in reducing overall transportation energy demand and achieving the state's climate, air quality, and equity goals. The report also emphasizes that a key strategy to achieve VMT reductions will require the state to invest in making public transit a viable alternative to driving by increasing affordability, reliability, coverage, service frequency, and consumer experience.

Electrification of locomotives will be an important part of the larger strategy to reduce transportation emissions and exists at the nexus of air quality and climate goals. Electrified trains are faster and would allow transit agencies to run trains more frequently. In addition, electrification of existing rail corridors will significantly reduce sources of air pollution that acutely affects frontline communities with pollutants such as nitric oxide, ozone, and other particulate matter.

At a time when the needs to electrify our rail lines have never been more clear, substantial barriers remain to deliver projects in timely fashion. As an example, Caltrain's long-awaited rail electrification project was delayed for years, in part due to litigation. AB 2503 will allow the state to scale up the decarbonization of its transportation system and reduce the cost of electrifying our rail system. With that, I'd like to introduce my lead witnesses in support: Marc Vukcevich for Streets For All, and Steve Roberts with the RailPAC.

Welcome, Streets For All.

Good morning, Chair and Members of the Committee. Marc Vukcevich from Streets For All. We're proud sponsors of this bill and our intent is really simple. You take existing diesel rail corridors, and if you want to move them to electric cleaner than diesel, you want to exempt that from CEQA.

This exemption would prohibit lengthy and often prohibitive environmental review and more importantly, the opportunity for bad faith litigation. Diesel trains have played a very important role in reducing the number of cars and trucks on the roads, and we're very supportive of their continued use, but we also need to confront the realities that their emissions from these trains are--present localized health concerns. Communities living near diesel rail corridors are exposed to higher levels of air pollutants, which are linked to respiratory illnesses and other issues.

Electrifying these diesel rail corridors is a direct action towards mitigating these health risks. Overhead electrification is better on all fronts than diesel trains. It's better for noise, it's better than for emissions, it's better for frequency and speed. Electrification isn't novel. It's being done for Caltrain, for California High-Speed Rail. It's done for most light rail in any of the major cities in our state, and it's been done for decades.

This policy shift will potentially benefit California's Amtrak lines, Metrolink, COASTER, the whole LOSSAN Rail Corridor in Southern California, Capitol Corridor. They stand to gain substantially from reliability, efficiency, and environmental benefits. The saga of what happened with Caltrain serves as a stark reminder. The town's--the author's then legal challenges against Caltrain electrification exemplifies how projected environmental reviews and litigation can dramatically inflate costs and timelines, too. So our goal is simple.

Exempt these diesel rail corridors from becoming electrified, the existing diesel rail corridors, while keeping the community outreach and benefit that is required of CEQA, and that's what we're doing within the SB 922 framework from Senator Wiener a few years ago, and that's also how we work with our EJ partners. I encourage your support for this bill, and thank you so much.

Thank you. Two minutes.

Thank you, Chair and Members of the Committee for this opportunity to address you on the importance of AB 2503. I'm the President of the all-volunteer Passenger Rail Rail Passenger Association of California and Nevada, and RailPAC recommends that the Committee support AB 2503. Overhand catenary electrification is the most efficient technology for zero-emissions rail. It's three times more efficient than hydrogen and one point times more efficient than battery-only. This reduces grid generating requirements, which is a key factor that needs to be considered in the overall electrification package. Overhead electrification not only eliminates local criteria pollution, but it substantially reduces noise.

Reduced pollution and noise are especially important for line side environmental justice communities. AB 2503 helps mitigate legal challenges that have delayed and increased the cost for the installation of overhead catenary electrification. Overhead catenary electrification is a mature, off-the-shelf technology and the worldwide choice for zero-electric emissions rail. If California is to meet its cleaner air goals, the elimination of barriers that slow or increase the cost of zero-emission initiatives is critical. AB 2503 would accomplish this, and I urge its passage. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there any folks here in the hearing room who would like to register their support for this bill?

Paul Dyson, 56-year veteran of the railroad industry, member of RailPAC and Californians for Electric Rail. Electrification is the world standard. Strongly support this bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. I'm Ian Monroe, here with East Bay for Everyone, in support.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Matt Robinson, on behalf of the California Transit Association. Just want to thank the author's office and sponsors for working with us. We hope to have an official support position soon.

Perfect. Do we have any primary opposition in the room? Come on down. You've got two minutes, sir.

Mr. Chair and Members, Pat Moran with Aaron Read and Associates, representing the California Association of Professional Scientists. We represent the 6,000 scientists who work for the state who do a lot of CEQA work. Laudable goal.

We like zero-emission vehicles or near zero-emission vehicles. We just think that exempting these projects from CEQA is the wrong direction. There are currently existing exemptions that we feel these projects can benefit from, whether it's the Wiener bill or whether it was the infrastructure streamlining package that was passed last year.

We just don't think exempting more and more projects from CEQA, whether it be the projects that are contained in this bill or in the many other bills that have been introduced this year, is the way to go. It's dying a death by a thousand cuts, and also we have to point out there are many species that have adapted to the impacted habitats around these areas, and if we're to understand if mitigation is needed, the only way we'll be able to understand that is if we do CEQA. So with that, we're opposed to the bill, and thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there any persons here in the hearing room who would like to register their opposition to this bill?

Gabriella with Sierra Club California in opposition unless amended. Thank you.

Committee Members, Kalra.

Thank you Mister chair. My understanding is that the Committee proposed an amendment that would limit exemption expansion to zero admission rail projects. Is that still something that's under conversation or something that was offered and accepted as a Committee amendment? That has been offered and offered and accepted. Okay, just want to know that. Thank you.

Just want to clarify. Yeah, that was the Committee amendments that were proposed and we accepted that.

Thank you.

Mister Wood.

I promise I don't have a question on every Bill, but I'm curious, are there from the rail folks here? Are there lower emission trains? Is there something in between all electric and the full diesel at this point? Yeah. Is there something, is there something, is there something.

I mean, we look at it as a transition technology in terms of mating a battery power locomotive with a diesel locomotive and then having stretches of cantenary where the grades are so effectively then you can keep the battery charged as you hit the steepest part of the grade. And we see that dealing with one of the big barriers to electrification historically was that you couldn't use it until you completed the whole thing.

But with discontinuance, combining discontinuous electrification and battery, you can do sections of the electrification and get benefits from it as you go and you slowly transition instead of two diesel units and one battery unit, then you go one diesel and two battery, and finally your battery with enough sections of like that, it gets recharged. So there is an intermediate.

So there is an intermediate. Do any of the amendments in the Bill make that, that intermediate piece harder to utilize?

No, this deals with the installation of the canary.

Okay. Okay, that was, that was. I just. Yeah, I'm recognizing that sometimes, like we've heard before, we're in pursuit of perfection where there's something good and there needs to be, there's obviously got to be a transition somewhere in the middle of that. So I just didn't want throw out the baby with the bathwater, so to speak, here on that. So thank you. Appreciate that.

Thank you, Mister Wood. Any other questions? Comments? Miss Friedman?

So I very much like what the Bill is trying to do, certainly, and we need to speed up the deployment of public transportation and certainly of switching to electrified public transportation.

I do have a question, though, about one scenario that does give me a little pause, which would be just if you have an existing right of way that's never actually been, let's say, a train before it exists somewhere in a forest, but it's never, it hasn't actually been used as rail that then could then, with the whole project, be CEQA exempt? Or is it more limited by a conversion of something that's currently being used?

So the current statute we're building off of limits, it's only urbanized areas, so the forest kind of situation wouldn't occur.

So it's only in urbanized areas. Okay, well, that I think is really helpful. Thank you.

Mister Maratsuchi.

Thank you. So, yeah, I also, you know, I've gone on my rant before about how slow it is to build electric rail service here in the United States. You and I traveled to Japan, where we saw one of the world's best train systems, and clearly they seem to be able to get it done a lot faster than we can here in the State of California. So I'd like to support anything that would help speed things up.

I do have a specific situation in my district where LA Metro is attempting. One of the proposals is to extend electric light rail along a right of way that would coexist with a diesel locomotive service. Would this Bill prevent a CEQA lawsuit for the extension of the electric light rail along an existing right of way that also is being used by diesel locomotive?

Yes, it would prevent it for the sake of the light rail electrification, and it would not prevent anything that had to do with litigation associated with the diesel locomotives.

What if the project involved slightly moving the diesel locomotive rail within the existing right of way, but still involving a movement of the diesel service?

I think we need to understand the specifics of the project better. But my answer from what I understand is that that would not be associated part of our Bill. We would not exempt that movement from CEQA. I don't think that would be associated with what we're doing in the text of the Bill. Yeah, I'll get back to you though Assemblymember.

Okay. Yeah, thank you.

Seeing no other comments from Committee Members. Mister Lee, would you like to close?

Right, just wanted to clarify for Committee Members, you know, of course we need to be meeting our green climate goals, and transit is one of the most effective ways to doing so.

You hear at nauseam in this statehouse from folks that just simply relying on the EV transition may leave a lot of people behind in getting there. Public transport is a proven, century old way to get people reliably to point a, to point b, and we have the technology to do it greenwise. This Bill specifically is about that upgrade of a older train that was much more likely to be polluting the local community and getting it to electrification.

This is about the catenaries so this Bill is specifically about the powering aspect of the, the wires that are right over the head when it comes to, say, changing the track or doing any of those things that does not apply to it. Existing public, existing statute already covers light rail. Our Bill does not cover light rail, just train in General, heavier passenger train.

So this Bill is about carefully making sure we can meet our goals while also not slowing down the process for frivolous things. Like something near my district when the Caltrains electrification project happened, which is from San Jose all the way to San Francisco, it was held up for things as silly as visual impacts or failing to study modern diesel options. And that results. And that delay results in real cost delays.

That costs us probably over $20 million of delays to effectively get people on the same track, but just in a cleaner, slightly faster way, too. So I urge your I vote on this very narrowly tailored provision to get our trains moving faster and get more people greener modes of transportation. Thank you.

Thank you. Mister Lee, did we have a motion?

Motion. Bill.

Motion by Miss Friedman, second by Mister Marisucci. This Bill enjoys a do pass from the chair. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll?

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

Thank you. Thank you. Miss Quirk-Silva with AB 3150.

We'll move from compost to fire, wildfire mitigation. Good afternoon, Mister chair and Members. First, I would like to begin by thanking your Committee staff for working with me on this Bill, and I accept the Committee amendments. Assembly Bill 3150 straightens the accuracy of California's fire hazard severity zones maps by allowing the state fire marshal to consider map revisions through a petition process.

These maps evaluate hazard based on the physical conditions that create a likelihood and expected fire behavior over a 30 to 50 year period without considering mitigation measures such as home hardening, defensible space, vegetation management, or fuel reduction efforts. AB 3150 is a good government measure that establishes a mechanism to update the fire hazard severity zone maps for 50 acres or more, similar to the process used for flood map revisions.

Updating and streamlining critical information and processes such as maps addressed in this Bill supports the state's governance goal of increasing housing stock and meeting affordable housing needs. AB 3150 not only promotes housing accessibility and affordability, but moves California toward a safer, more resilient future where everyone can live, work, and thrive with confidence and security. With me today to provide testimony and support and to answer any questions from the Committee is Mister Silvio Ferrari with the California Building Industry Association and sponsors of AB 3150.

Thank you so much. Two minutes. Good afternoon, Mister Chairman, Members Silvio Ferrari, on behalf of the California Building Industry Association here in strong support and proud to be sponsors of this measure. You know, we all know that we need more and more tools in our toolbox when it comes to preventing, preparing, and ultimately responding to wildfires.

And we think AB 3150 has a number of key features that will really allow us to do that as we move forward into a world that looks to be only having more and more catastrophic wildfires in the future.

But one of the key tenants and key provisions of this Bill that we think could be a real game changer in the future, when it comes to protecting communities, is this provision of the Bill that says, a petitioner could come to the state fire marshal, come to the state fire marshal and say, hey, I am looking at implementing this suite of mitigation measures, defenseful space, vegetation management, updates to Chapter 7A, local community plans, whatever they might be.

If I implement these measures, what is that going to do for my fire hazard severity zone designation? Do that upfront, get some feedback initially. So it could be a Homeowners Association, it could be a project developer, it could be a city or a town. It could be a suite of people that the state fire marshal can determine who those people should be. But then you can come and say, please run through your modeling. What will be the beneficial impact of doing these things?

Because right now, the way it is today, you're kind of just guessing without any real expertise coming from the lead agency to tell you, you know what, those are worthwhile mitigation measures to make to a community. So we think front loading those things and creating a process to do that is going to be very beneficial as we move forward into whatever the wildfire world is going to be like. So again, that is one of the real major components of this Bill. We would urge your aye vote and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room who would like to register their support for this measure?

Mr. Chair, Members. Madison Dwelley, on behalf of the Family Winemakers Academy of California in support.

Good afternoon, Chair, Members of the Committee. Adam Wrigley with the California Chamber of Commerce in support. Thank you.

And good afternoon, Members. Rob Spiegel, California Manufacturers and Technology Association in support.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members, Skyler Wonnacott, on behalf of the California Business Properties Association in support.

Good afternoon, Natalie Boust. On behalf of the California Business Roundtable in support.

Beautiful. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Wonderful. Any persons in the hearing room who would like to register their opposition? Well done, Miss Quirk-Silva. Any comments by Committee, Mister Wood?

Surprise, surprise. First of all, I just want to say thank you, Miss Quirk-Silva, for bringing this forward. This is actually consistent with other efforts in the fire mitigation space, moving more responsibilities and opportunities towards the state fire marshal.

So happy to see this one as well and would love to be added as a co author, if you'll have me. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Wood. Any other comments from Committee Members? We've got a motion by Mr. Flora. Do we have a second? Miss Pellerin, Miss Quirk-Silva, would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for nay vote.

Wonderful. This. Enjoy. This is smart. Thank you for bringing this to us. It enjoys a do pass record from the chair. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll?

The motion is do pass as amended to emergency management Committee. Bryan.

Aye.

Brian aye. Flora.

Aye.

Flora aye. Connelly.

Connolly aye. Friedman.

Aye.

Aye.

Friedman aye. Hoover. Cholera. Muratsuchi. Patterson.

Aye.

Patterson aye. Pellerin.

Aye.

Pellerin aye. Wicks. Wood.

Aye.

Wood aye.

That has seven votes. Thank you.

Thank you Members.

My brother from Compton, Senator Mike Gibson. Would you like to come? Compton, Carson, Willowbrook, North Long beach.

You know it.

You can begin when you're ready.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Mister Chairman and Members. First time presenting before this Committee with the new chair being here, so thank you very much. It's an honor to be here and present. Assembly Bill 2465 this Bill aimed to prioritize and provide financial assistance to socially disadvantaged groups by incentivizing existing organizations to diversify diversify their governing body. Mister Chairman and Members, by empowering diverse led organizations, AB 2465 aim to integrate them into California's climate and green infrastructure workforce.

There are evidence funding different between diverse led organization and those that are not. Currently, there are significant funding disparities between diverse led organizations and others. For instance, black and brown nonprofit leaders receiving only about 4% of the philanthropic funding in the United States, despite comparing to approximately 10% of nonprofit leadership nationwide. According to the bridge span analysis, the unrestricted net assets of black led organizations are 76% smaller than the counterparts and and their average percentage of revenue was less than half.

This inequity is this inequities is concerning as we look at funding and how it correlates to trust. Diverse led organizations face challenges such as fewer staff, smaller budgets and less funding, leading to them being red lines at terms indicated severe underfunding and lack of support.

Assembly Bill 2465 proposed three policy changes to enhance equity in state governmental led or governmental grants made for performing for performing environmental injustice, agricultural, urban forestry, land acquisitions and watersheds improving with sunset date of January 1, 2031. 1st, state agencies would be mandated to award preference points to nonprofit organizations, with the majority of those board Members coming from disadvantaged communities.

Two, state agencies would be barred from penalizing social disadvantaged organizations that lack matching funds for grant requests and three, socially disadvantaged organizations historically underrepresented if certain industries would not be, would not require, now, would be required to demonstrate, would not, excuse me, require a demonstration of completion, equal projects by state agencies.

Mister Chairman and Members with me to provide supporting testimony on Assembly Bill 2465 is April Bird from the conservation Strategy group and also Darryl Lucien with Executive Director of the California African American Water Education foundation in support of Assembly Bill 2465.

Thank you chair Members Darrell Lucian here representing the California African American Water Education foundation as well as 40 acre conservation League as sponsors. Also thankful to be here addressing who I believe might be the first African American chair of the Assembly. Natural Resources Committee Members. This Bill is really an implementation of a resolution that you all supported last year. House Resolution 32, which prioritized, requested that a couple of state agencies, Cal EPA, California Natural Resources Agency, support increasing the number of grants to socially disadvantaged organizations.

We got the definition of socially disadvantaged organizations by really leaning into the Farmer Equity act of 2017, which was authored by the assemblymember Aguiar Currie. And so effectively, what we're hoping to do is to standardize to some extent what the state is already doing. The state is already awarding different types of points for engagement in disadvantaged communities, awarding certain types of points for engaging with tribal communities and others.

We're really just sort of compiling some of these existing practices that are present in some programs but not in all, and sort of standardizing that across the board. The resolution last year, HR 32 did receive strong bipartisan support. This Bill has been crafted on a limited basis, sort of as a pilot program to apply to a set of urban and rural programs.

And I guess I would just conclude with this that we're hoping that a Bill like this will increase the ability of stakeholders who are working out in the community right now to bring more of the neighborhood to nature, as well as more of nature to the neighborhood. And respectfully ask for your I vote.

Mister chair Members, my name is April Bird with the Conservation Strategy Group on behalf of outward Bound Adventures, or OBA, in support of AB 2465. Established in 1962, OBA is the oldest nonprofit in the country dedicated to connecting youth and communities of college of the outdoors. OBA operates various outdoor learning programs throughout the state, but predominantly in Los Angeles region and south Los Angeles, northwest Pasadena and out east to San Bernardino.

Their programs provide opportunities for all ages to engage in meaningful nature based education and leadership development, as well as training and apprenticeship programs designed to change the lives of diverse youth and provide pathways to successful careers in the conservation field. AB 2465 promotes greater inclusion, consideration and most importantly, investments in communities OBA serves and who will greatly benefit from the commitments laid out in the Bill. We appreciate Assemblymember Gipson's leadership in authoring AB 2465 and respectfully ask for your I vote.

Thank you so much. Any witnesses in the hearing room who would like to register? Any persons who would like to register their support for this Bill? Seeing none. Any primary witnesses in opposition to this measure? Seeing none. Any persons in the room who would like to register their opposition for this Bill? Seeing none. Turn it to Committee comments. Mister Wood, just clarifying. Mister Gipson, you're accepting the Committee amendments?

Yes.

Okay. Thank you so much. Got a motion by Mister Flora, a second by Miss Pelerin. Mister Gipson, would you like to close?

Thank you very much Mister Chairman and Members. And thank you for moving the Bill. Again, we talk about disadvantaged communities and we think that this is a small step in the right direction that I think that can lead to generational changes taking place in our communities. Respectfully, I ask for an I vote.

Thank you Mister Gipson, I know your intentions behind this Bill and I want to thank you for coming before the Committee. And Mister Lucien, I've checked with Lawrence and we don't believe there has been another black chair of this Committee. So appreciate you pointing that out. A lot of us know what disadvantaged communities look like from places like Mister Wood represents to places that you and I and others represent. And so thank you for doing this work. This Bill enjoys a do pass record from the chair matter secretary, can we call the roll?

The motion is do pass as amended to water Parks and Wildlife Committee. [Roll Call].

Thank you. Has six votes that Bill is out.

Thank you very much.

Miss Addis, would you like to present.

Well, thank you, chair. I want to thank also my staff, Natural Resources staff, and the advocates that are here today. I'm here to present AB 3233 the Local Environmental Choice and Safety Act. This Bill, if enacted, will finally allow local communities the decision-making ability to protect the health of residents, the safety of their environment, and the value of their local property against the harmful effects of oil and gas production. This is especially important as California works to meet our clean energy goals.

We all know it's indisputable that oil and gas production harm nearby communities. This includes increased risks of asthma, of preterm births, of cancer, and cardiac disease. And this happens especially in low-income communities and communities of color. It's also increased risks of earthquakes, oil spills, and air pollution, as well as depreciation of property values and decreased residential investment. Because of these harms, cities and counties are trying to protect their residents by saying no to oil and gas productions.

Communities such as Monterey County, San Benito County, the City of Los Angeles, the County of Alameda, and Culver City have introduced ordinances and passed local measures to reduce or eliminate oil and gas operations. And despite, unfortunately, despite these popular local measures, the California Supreme Court ruled last fall that due to state law, communities cannot make such decisions. So it's time for us to act. It's time to allow local communities to be active participants in protecting their communities and in meeting California's climate goals.

So AB 3233 does three things. It will clarify local government's authority to limit or prohibit oil and gas operations, methods, and locations within their jurisdiction. It will establish that if a local entity does this, the owners or operators will plug abandoned and decommissioned wells. And it also importantly requires CalGEM to minimize harm from oil and gas operation activities and revises the stated purpose of the Division of Oil and Gas to include preserving California's air, water, environment, natural resources and advancing the state's climate goals.

So I've got two witnesses here today. Hollin Kretzmamn, Senior Attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity from the Climate Law Institute, and Doctor Laura Solorio, President of Project Monterey County. Protect Monterey County. Excuse me.

Thank you, Assembly Member, two minutes each.

Thank you, Assembly Member. Good afternoon, Chair Bryan and Committee Members. Hollin Kretzmanm for the Center for Biological Diversity. I'm an attorney with more than a decade of experience with California's oil and gas laws. I'm here for the center in support and sponsor of AB 3233, Local Environmental Choice and Safety Act, a Bill that would preserve the ability of local cities and counties to use their local authority to protect their residents from oil and gas pollution.

It's common sense that local governments ought to be able to decide whether and under what conditions polluting activities take place in their neighborhoods after due consideration from hearing from their constituents, considering the environmental and health risks. That's the way it's always been in California. These local laws affect all variety of industries, including oil and gas. These have been on the books for decades, and they can span from straight-up bands to minimum setback distances to ordinances that encourage further production.

But last year, the California Supreme Court invalidated parts of Monterey's local oil and gas ordinance. And even though it was a narrow ruling based on an outdated 1961 provision of state oil and gas code, the oil industry has used that ruling to sow confusion among cities and counties looking to pass ordinances at the local level.

The industry's threats and intimidation have resulted in a chilling effect so that cities and counties are looking for more clarity in state law to understand what the scope of local authority is. AB 3233 would put an end to this confusion by updating the public resources code to make it crystal clear that local governments do have the authority to protect their residents from oil and gas development and specifying that this can include certain techniques like fracking, wastewater disposal, et cetera.

It would also confirm that the state's oil and gas regulators' responsibility is to prioritize our health and safety and not the profits of the oil industry. So with that, we urge you to support AB 3233, and I'll turn it over to Doctor Salorio.

Good afternoon, Chair Bryan and Committee Members. My name is Doctor Lauda Salorio. I live in Salinas, California, where I've worked and raised a family for almost 40 years. I was also born and raised in the nearby San Benito County. I am an internal medicine physician and practice at the county hospital and health department.

I was part of a group of local residents called Protect Monterey County that proposed Measure Z, a 2016 ballot initiative to restrict some of the worst kinds of oil activity threatening our county's health, environment, and climate. I supported Measure Z because, as a doctor, I understand the health threats posed by oil and gas drilling in our communities. Protect Monterey County's all-volunteer group managed to collect enough signatures to propose these local ordinances to end new drilling, wastewater disposal, and fracking.

We spent months making our case to voters that we needed better environmental protections to protect our water supply and to stop oil and gas expansion. Despite the oil industry spending over $5 million to defeat the initiative, Measure Z passed overwhelmingly. The voters that day spoke loud and clear at the ballot box. But what should have been a landmark achievement for health and environmental protection was upended by an immediate barrage of oil industry lawsuits.

Our local community group defended Measure Z in court and even against an army of industry lawyers. We won on many legal grounds, but the California Supreme Court ruled against the measure on one key issue, saying that our ordinance was preempted by an archaic provision of the public resources code enacted in the 1960s. That's why we need AB 3233. It would clarify state law so that cities and counties feel empowered to make these decisions at the local level.

This Bill is not only about environmental protection, it's about supporting democracy by putting the power in the hands of the people most affected by decisions around oil and gas. I ask you to support AB 3233. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there any persons in the hearing room who would like to register their support for this measure?

Christina Scaringe, I've been asked to register support for the Climate Center, Next Generation California, Sunflower Alliance, Climate First Replacing Oil and Gas, Oil and Gas Action Network, Elected Officials to Protect America, Code Blue, Queers for Climate, and Central California Environmental Justice Network. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Kim Stone of Stone Advocacy on behalf of consumer watchdog in support.

Good afternoon. Emily Garcia with NRDC in support.

Gabriella Facio at Sierra Club California in strong support.

Katie McCammon on behalf of 350 Sacramento, support. And also support from Fossil-Free California, Indivisible California Green Team, 350 Southland Alliance, 350 South Bay Los Angeles, 350 Bay Area Action, 350 San Diego, and Humboldt Coalition for Clean Energy.

Megan Shumway in support from California Climate, Climate Action California, and Climate Reality Project California Coalition.

Janet Cox, Megan just spoke for me. Thank you very much.

William Pevec, on behalf of Climate Health Now, a coalition of about 1000 California health professionals, in support.

Lou Flores, 350 Contra Costa Action, also 350 Bay Area Action in support. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Mark Fenstermaker for Earth Justice in support.

Fatima Iqbal-Zubair with California Environmental Voters in support.

Alfred Tu, as an individual in support. Thank you.

Rebecca Marcus representing the Center for Food Safety in support.

Good afternoon. Emma Silber with Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, and the STAND LA Coalition, Stand Together Against Neighborhood Drilling Los Angeles, in support. As well as in support Communities for a Better Environment, Redeemer Community Partnership, Climate Health Now, and San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Augustine Cabrera, on behalf of Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education, or SCOPE, in support.

Hello. Good afternoon. Ana Gonzalez, representing the Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, also known as CCAEJ, in full support.

Thank you so much. Do I see a couple primary witnesses in opposition there? A couple minutes apiece.

Thank you very much Mister Chair and Members. Paul Deiro, representing the Western States Petroleum Association. As what the author and proponents have said, in 2023, the California Supreme Court held that state law, and in particular Section 3106 of the Public Resources Code, preempts any contradictory ban or limitation imposed by a local authority on the methods of oil and gas production in its jurisdiction.

The Bill would circumvent the recent Supreme Court case and replace the comprehensive, longstanding state law with a patchwork of local ordinances that may ban or limit oil and gas production in the State of California. We believe this Bill has the potential to expose these local jurisdictions to significant legal liability. A local ordinance that results in facial or de facto prohibition may result in an unconstitutional violation of the takings clause under the U.S. Constitution.

In addition, local governments would then be on the hook to have to pay for the facilities that the local government predetermines to close or limit. We believe in legally produced oil in California, and believe that this will have a heavy impact on the production and more reliance on foreign crude oil. For those reasons, we ask for a no vote.

Mister Chairman, Members Theo Pahos, representing the California Independent Petroleum Association. California's association representing mostly smaller oil producers.

I'd just like to associate my comments with the comments of Mister Diero. Not much more to add here, just a couple of points maybe to make. And then one is, we haven't had fracking in the State of California since 2021. They're working on finalizing rules to prohibit fracking forever. So I don't think we'll see any of that, certainly in our lifetimes.

Secondly, I just wonder if the author would be interested in an amendment that suggests that if there are local jurisdictions that want oil production, that we would allow those jurisdictions to exercise that authority, absent a denial from from CalGEM. There are areas that are supportive of oil production. Their communities depend upon it. We have been starved of new oil permits. There has not been a lot of production around the state, and I think our workforce has seen the effects of that.

And some of these communities are really hurting. So for those reasons, we also oppose the Bill. Thank you.

Any persons in the hearing room who would like to register their opposition? Seeing none. We'll turn it back to Committee Members. Mister Patterson?

Sorry, I thought you were going to Assembly Member Wood first. So, just to clarify, this would allow cities or local jurisdictions to shut down existing production that's already existing.

Well, under current law, cities and counties already have the authority to make those decisions at the local level, whether it's bans, whether it's phase outs. What AB 3233 would do narrowly is to affirm that this local decision-making authority applies to a broad range of tools that local governments use, whether that's bans, including restrictions on specific kinds of methods of extraction, whether that's fracking or high-pressure steam injection and that sort of thing.

Okay, if you don't mind. I mean, right now we have, we're talking all sorts of committees, whether it's housing or, I mean, it's hard to get some jurisdictions to approve, you know, a house for a person to live. It wouldn't surprise me at all if a group of activists, you know, people are pressuring their city councils to decide, you know, issues that impact state.

And so I submit that we should probably, this is one of the few things I'd like to not give, do more authority to 500 different local agencies to do. And so I have a lot of concerns with kind of what would transpire as a result of giving this authority to that many jurisdictions and exactly what that would look like.

Well, if you'll allow me to respond, you know, California has a long history of having these decisions made at the local level. And so whether it's Kern County or Los Angeles, these local ordinances have been on the books for decades. The only thing that's changed is that last year, the California Supreme Court invalidated part of Monterey County's oil and gas ordinances. And that's led to a lot of confusion at the local level about what's allowed and what's not.

And so this Bill is aimed at making clarification in the law and to restore the status quo for allowing local governments to make those decisions. And it's surprising that WSPA is here opposing it, because the oil industry has been one of the main proponents of a local oil and gas ordinance in Kern County. So when it suits their needs, they're not opposed to having local governments take that control.

Paul Diero, again, representing the Western States Petroleum Association, we, in fact, believe that there are mineral rights that are owned by operators and some individuals, which the legal impact of this, we believe would potentially result in a takings. And because you're limiting and prohibiting the production of oil and natural gas, you're not promoting or you're not allowing the production of it, which is a big distinction.

Appreciate that. And that was a, that was a courtesy. That was love there. We don't often let witnesses hold their own conversation.

Thank you.

Not through the Chair, but recognizing Mister Flora.

Now, Mister Diero, I always want you to address that. And I think you did. So appreciate that. Thank you.

Any other questions from Committee Members? Comments, concerns? Miss Addis, would you like to close?

I just want to thank the Chair, the Committee's staff's time, my staff's time. Our advocates, who especially have put a lot of time and energy into making sure that local communities have what they need to be safe, to be healthy, and to protect local property values. And so respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. I think this is a thoughtful Bill. Confusion has been created and I know my local jurisdictions, Los Angeles, Culver City, the County of Los Angeles, are all actually looking forward to this Bill moving forward, as am I. It has a do pass reco. from the Chair. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll? Oh, do we have a motion? Miss Friedman. Second by Miss Pellerin.

The motion is do pass to Utilities and Energy Committees. [Roll call]

We'll leave it open for absent Members.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Addis.

Thank you, Committee.

Mister Joe Patterson. How you feeling?

Oh. I just have to read my notes.

Oh yeah, you know, you're good to go. Read the notes quick though, because the record might change.

Oh. Good, good. Quick.

Start with 2639.

We're gonna start with the other one, 2787.

Perfect.

Move the Bill.

Well, thank you, Mister Chair and Members. I can. I'm good to go?

Yes, sir.

Perfect. I'll cut back my 20 minutes of remarks. I'm here to present AB 2787 which would permit for a temporary time, the suspension of solar requirements when rebuilding homes that were destroyed or damaged as a result of a natural disaster such as a fire. The exemption is very limited. I believe this Committee's heard a similar bill before, and it's only done when the Governor proclaims a State of Emergency.

As you know, in 2021, the Governor proclaimed a State of Emergency after the Caldor Fire, which destroyed 221,000 acres and 782 homes. Right after I was elected, I had the opportunity to tour Grizzly Flats, which was devastated by the fire. And Supervisor Turnboo took me there. I saw people living in trailers shoveling snow off the burn scar, and they're trying to make a decision on whether or not they should rebuild or what exactly they should do. Trust me when I say this.

$25,000 to build solar onto a house where people do not have solar is 100% impediment to rebuilding. I'm a huge fan of solar, by the way. I have it on my house. And now I realize the vast majority of people in California have insurance that also includes code upgrade coverage. And so this bill doesn't help people that have those code coverage already upgrade coverage on their policy. I also want to mention something about the fair plan real quick.

In 2019, we had roughly 8,100 households covered by the Fair Plan in my district. Now, in 2023, we have 41,000 people covered by the Fair Plan. And the Fair Plan has 10% upgrade coverage for code compliance upgrade. And when you're talking about entire house destroyed, that might be many years over. You have to upgrade your electrical, you have to upgrade all sorts of things. And that 10% coverage really won't go very far, especially to cover solar system that costs about $25,000.

So today I have with me my good friend and El Dorado County Supervisor, George Turnboo, who represents Grizzly Flats. And he's really led the charge in El Dorado County, assisting not only Grizzly Flats residents, but the entire community who has suffered losses as a result of Caldor fire and other fires as well. And I'll turn it over to you, sir.

Okay. Thank you, Chair. Thank you the Committee for listening to me today. My name is George Turnboo. I'm 8th generation of El Dorado County and I'm currently the District Two supervisor representing El Dorado County in the town of Grizzly Flats, which was lost during the Caldor Fire. Speaking in support of AB 2787. Many homes lost in Grizzly Flats were older homes built before solar was ever required.

The Caldor Fire survivors were not provided any individual assistance and did not qualify for federal funding through the Recover California program, such as other counties as Butte, Shasta, Siskiyou, and the Plumas County. El Dorado County received none and were denied. Residents that have been able to rebuild have to rebuild smaller homes due to being underinsured and the rising cost of materials, including solar, that California requires on new homes.

Some residents have not been able to rebuild all because the increased costs of materials, including new solar costs that were not covered by insurance. Supporting AB 2787 will provide relief to the survivors of the Caldor Fire. The costly burden on the Caldor Fire survivors trying to rebuild their lives is not worth the minimal benefit of solar technology provides them in a very high snow and forest region.

Please support Caldor Fire survivors by supporting AB 2787 and I encourage everyone from this Committee to visit Grizzly Flats and ask the questions to the residents and listen to their concerns as they start with the rebuild process. Thank you for your concerns, and thank you today for listening to me.

Thank you so much, sir. Are there any people here in the hearing room who would like to register their support for this measure? Seeing none. Seeing. Seeing none. Any primary witnesses in opposition to this matter?

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Kim Stone and Stone Advocacy on behalf of the California Solar and Storage Association in very respectful--we have an opposed unless amended position. Understand the very sympathetic plight that some of these folks are in, but we don't exempt them from other building code upgrade requirements. And our suggested amendment to the bill would be that if they were able to access funding that covered the costs of their solar panels, then that requirement would still apply. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Miss Stone. Any persons in the room who would like to register their opposition to this measure? Seeing none, I'll turn it to Committee Members. Mr. Patterson, would you like to close?

Thank you for the consideration. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, sir. Strangely, this measure has a do pass recommendation.

I was confused too.

No. Great work. Thank you for working with the Committee team and staff. We have a motion? Mr. Flora. Do we have a second? Mr. Wood. Third, Ms. Pellerin. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll?

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

That bill is out.

Thank you.

Yes, sir. And now 2639.

Thank you very much. Yes. All right. Hello again. Thank you. Long time, no see. First of all, I want to thank the Committee and staff, and especially Paige, for working with me on this legislation. As you know, we heard this bill here, or not this bill, but we heard a more, you know, version I'd like to see initially pass out. But the work we put into this Committee to help with timber operations, you know, I think we came up with a good solution here.

So, as you know, I represent both placer and El Dorado counties. They've been home to some of the largest wildfires in the state's history, including one we just heard about. California has agreed with the Federal Government to collectively treat 1 million acres per year by 2025 forest land. But unfortunately, as you know, we've fallen short of that. The reviews routinely take one to two years, as I had in Committee, for just very small brush clearing operations. Good news.

There is already an existing process in state law to help agencies or commercial projects clear some do some forest management. And so AB 2639 will expedite some of this desperately needed work, and it'll include what's called timber operations, public agencies doing timber operations. The legislation will maintain important environmental and tribal reviews, but also allow the choice between CEQA and forest practice rules.

Today, the test find support, and the sponsor I have with me is Andy Feco, who's the General manager of the Pleasure County Water agency. They've done a lot of work with helping to manage the forest around their water resources to ensure that when and if, unfortunately, there is a fire, that a lot of the ashes and the things like that don't actually clog our critical water supply. And so with that, I'll turn it over to him.

Thank you, Assemblymember Patterson, and thank you, chair Bryan and the Committee for having me today. Yeah. PCWA is a proud sponser of AB 2639. We believe it will help address the state's wildfire crisis, promote ecologically sound forest management, and most importantly, maybe in our areas, community protection. In our work on things like the French Meadows Forest Management project, one of our key objectives in that project was to explore ways that we can expedite environmental review while still protecting the ecosystems that we all cherish.

And while there are CEQA and EPA exemptions in place, in many instances, they do not cover the work that we desire to do as communities. In addition to doing work ourselves on these forest projects, we also Fund work through a grant program that we administer for communities that surround our watersheds. And most importantly, those grants are often taken advantage of by folks like resource management districts, resource conservation districts, city fire departments, community fire associations.

These are very small operators, and for them to start with a clean sheet of paper to do a CEQA review, I guarantee you would eat up all of the funding that we have available to them and wouldn't get those projects done on the ground. This Bill simply suggests that using existing practices, forest practice rules that are available to commercial timber operators, and extending that cookbook, if you will, as an alternative to those communities.

We think we can get land projects faster and cheaper and get those communities in a place where hopefully we can get our way out of this insurance crisis that's plaguing all of rural California in particular, but also in places like surrounding the Los Angeles basin. So we think that this Bill does three things, reduces wildfire risk and wildfire intensity, and helps protect communities. We think it helps restore forested watersheds, and most importantly, maybe is we maintain environmental standards while ensuring more projects can move forward. Happy to answer any questions, respectfully ask for your I vote today. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Any persons here in the hearing room who would like to register their support for this measure? Seeing none. Any primary witnesses in opposition? Seeing none. Any persons who would like to register their opposition? Seeing none. We'll now turn it back to Committee Members. Motion by Mister Wood. Second by Mister Flora.

Quick question. What amendments were taken?

And I'm taking those. Yes, yes, the amendments. Okay, here we go. They were relatively minor, but it had to do with talking about what's non commercial and commercial maintenance of Timberlands. And then also the public funds. The public funds pieces. It was pretty important because we want to make sure these are mostly public projects and things like that. So of course we happy to share them with you. But we accepted the Committee's amendments.

Yes, thank you. I think what's really. Well, again, appreciate the work, Mr. Chair and the Committee. I think what's really important about this bill, while, as you know, I'd be open to taking CEQA exemptions for these sorts of things. What we were able to do is find an avenue of an existing practice without, you know, doing another CEQA exemption.

And I think that that's really great work and how we can come together and find a way to keep our forests well managed with an existing process that's already out there. And so I really appreciate the time and effort that everybody's put into this, and I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Mr. Patterson. I think you worked incredibly hard, your team as well, our team as well, to find the sweet spot we were talking about some months ago, and so happy to put a do pass reco on this bill. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll?

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

Leave the roll open, but that bill is out. Mr. Speaker, pro tem.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Remember, I do have comments on this particular bill. Just for the record.

We welcome them.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members. I'd like to thank the Committee staff for their efforts on this bill, and I'll be accepting the Committee amendments. SB 1383 established a statewide framework focused on redirecting organic waste sent to landfills, which reduces the amount of methane released into the atmosphere.

While this framework can readily be adapted to dense urban communities, it's become increasingly clear that more flexibility is needed for rural communities to address implementation challenges, including increased local benefits and avoid costly rate increases for rural residents. AB 2902 extends the rural exemption for organic waste collection and procurement by counties with a population under 70,000 people for an additional 10 years, but maintains the requirement for those counties to participate in the Edible Food Recovery program.

The bill also provides an organic waste compliance pathway for 12 smaller counties that contain more than 70,000 residents and generate less than 200,000 tons of solid waste annually by allowing those counties to submit alternative organic waste management plans to CalRecycle for approval. Additional provisions in AB 2902 continue the use of organics for local animal feed practices, promote carbon farming, and adjust procurement targets to exclude populations covered by exemptions and facilitate the development of smaller scale community composting programs.

California is not a one size fits all state with many regional differences to consider. This bill is about striking a balance, providing our rural communities with the flexibility needed to contribute to our climate goals and achieve SB 1383's organic waste diversion objectives. Here to testify in support is John Kennedy with Rural County Representatives of California, the sponsor of the bill.

Good afternoon, John Kennedy with RCRC. We're pleased to be here today to sponsor AB 2902. Assembly Member Wood provided a really wonderful summary of the main points of the bill. You know, in practice, our jurisdictions have found that CalRecycle's regs really don't afford locals or CalRecycle flexibility to adapt to some of those hard to manage situations that we find ourselves in. So the heart of AB 2902 is to provide increased flexibility for both the state and for locals to adapt to those situations.

The rural exemption is 600,000 people statewide, 1.5% of the state's population. In addition, the bill provides a glide path for Lake, San Benito, and Tehama counties to come into compliance with their 1083 once they exceed the 70,000 population limit. Tries to keep the benefits of edible food recovery programs local and provide CalRecycle with a little bit of flexibility in avoiding adverse bear-human interactions in the future.

So we've been having really good, productive conversations with other stakeholders with CalRecycle and look forward to continuing those conversations, finding ways to make 1383 work and make sure that all locals are able to divert organic waste and contribute to the state's overarching goals so strongly urge your support for AB 2902 today. Thank you.

Perfect. Any persons in the hearing room who would like to register their support for this measure?

Good afternoon again. Nick Lapis of Californians Against Waste. We also have a support in concept on this bill. We have a couple outstanding concerns with two of the provisions, but the sponsor has been talking to us for months and we're sure we'll get there. Thank you.

Beautiful.

Kayla Robinson on behalf of the California Compost Coalition, also a support in concept and look forward to continued conversations with the author and sponsor. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Priscilla Kudos here on behalf of Stop Waste and Solid Waste Association of North America Legislative Task Force in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Melissa Sparks-Kranz with the League of California Cities in support. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Clifton Wilson on behalf of the counties of Del Norte, Nevada, and Humboldt in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Clifton.

Janet Cox for Climate Action California in support. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Michael Caprio with Republic Services here in support.

Thank you so much. Do we have any primary witnesses in opposition?

Michael Jarrett. I'm a support if amended. If I could just give two sentences.

An actual two sentences on this one.

All right. I'm with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, and we like the intent of this bill, but we would like On Farm Composting to be a pathway for rural communities. We think it can really contribute. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room who would like to register their opposition to this bill? Saying none, we'll now turn it back to Committee Members. Questions, comments, concerns? Do we have a motion? Moved by Mr. Flora, second by Ms. Pellerin. Just confirming. Mr. Wood, you did accept the amendments?

I did. In the second sentence.

Absolutely. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, sir. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll? This bill has a do pass recommendation from the Chair.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members.

Thank you, sir.

Two minutes. Oh, yeah. So many hostile amendments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Assuming you're going to start with AB 2716?

That sounds wonderful.

Perfect. Ready when you are.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues. It's good to be with you this afternoon. AB 2716 is a community-minded measure. In California, we have 2.7 million people who live within the proximity of an oil well, many who live less than a mile away.

We've tried to address this many times here in the State Legislature, including establishing the health setback zones a few years ago with SB 1137 because studies showed us that people who lived within 3,200 feet of these oil wells, they die sooner. Children have higher rates of birth defects, there are higher rates of heart condition, higher rates of asthma, and I'll say it again, they die sooner.

What we've come to know in recent years is that many of those wells that are operating within that proximity are also not producing any meaningful oil. The industry has a standard that they refer to as stripper wells. That's any well that's producing less than 15 barrels of oil a day. I think a stripper well is an appropriate name because it's stripping the community of their life expectancy. It's stripping children of their ability to breathe.

It's stripping the land of the natural beauty and resources that make up vibrant communities. Even more frustrating is the average in California for wells in this zone is not even 15 barrels. It's less than five barrels per day. Essentially, what we are doing is we're killing communities and we're not even extracting a meaningful amount of oil to impact the conditions of their lives.

The industry itself would acknowledge that whether an oil well is doing 3,000 barrels a day--which would be considered an average in good oil well--or doing three barrels a day, the environmental impact is the same on the surrounding communities. That is the essence of this bill.

If you were going to drill right next to my grandmother's house, if you were going to drill right next to where my kids play, if you were going to drill right next to where we eat and sleep, then at least extract enough oil to have a meaningful impact on my gas prices. That's not what's happening right now. So we've introduced a measure to finally shift the cost from the communities that have been paying for it with their lives for decades.

If you have been doing less than 15 barrels for more than two years in the health setback zone, and instead of cleaning it up, you would rather continue to operate that well, we would like to establish a 10,000 dollar per day penalty so that those resources can go to those communities who have been subsidizing this extraction with their lives. With me to testify, I have Jamie Court from Consumer Watchdog, and Agustin from SCOPE.

Thank you very much. First witness. Two minutes apiece, please.

Good afternoon, Members of the Committee. My name is Agustin Cabrera. I'm here on behalf of Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education. We do grassroots base building in South Central LA. Thank you to Assembly Member Bryan for inviting us and for introducing this very important bill. First, want to start off with South LA, a little bit more about the community I'm here to represent. We are a cultural hub, a place of resiliency, strength, and hope, home for many Black, brown, and indigenous people.

But unfortunately, South LA is home to the largest urban drilling site in the country, and our communities are constantly reminded that big oil companies consider communities on the front lines of oil drilling sites to be sacrifice zones. Oil operators see our communities as acceptable casualties in the pursuit of profit, with no regard for our community survival. Oil drilling is harming the health of South LA residents.

We experience the cumulative impacts of multiple polluting sites sources in the neighborhood, including these very oil sites that we're talking about here today. Health impacts from oil drilling are most acutely felt by low-income communities of color. 74 percent of residents living within 1,500 feet of active LA City oil wells are people of color. 42 percent live 200 percent below the federal poverty line, and 56 percent are renters.

SCOPE members and South LA residents living near these sites have been burdened with throat and nasal irritation, eye burning, respiratory harm, psychological stress, and high cancer mortality. Health impacts are not only from active oil wells, but also idle wells which leak benzene, methane, and other toxic chemicals into the air and soil. Frontline communities have been calling for the closure of oil drilling sites and public health regulations to protect them and their families.

Oil operators should be fined for their low producing wells which do not provide any economic benefit and only negatively impact the harm and the lives of frontline communities. We are in full support of 2716, which is important to protect frontline communities from life-threatening air quality. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Next witness, please.

Jamie Court, Consumer Watchdog. I just want to give you an idea of the proportional relationship between what's being produced in the setback zone. We figured out that the average oil well in the setback zone produces 2.1 barrels of oil a day. 2.1 barrels of oil a day. There are 42 gallons in a barrel of oil. That's like less than 150 dollars a day in economic benefit. That's not enough to fill up four Ford F-150s. And that's what's being produced on average.

We know that 83 percent of the wells in the setback zone are producing less than 15 barrels a day. 83 percent. And the average production for productive oil and gas well in the United States of America: between 100 barrels and 3,200 barrels a day. That's according to the Energy Information Administration. That's what a productive well does. And a well that's considered a good production range produces between 1,000 and 3,000 barrels. And in the setback zone, the most sensitive areas, we're seeing wells producing two barrels a day.

So we are--and that's 36 percent less, by the way, than the wells statewide which produce on average 3.1 barrels a day. Californians run out of oil, and the oil drillers do not want to plug these wells because it can cost up to 100,000 dollars or more to plug the wells. So they keep them running on empty and meanwhile, they're poisoning the communities.

We are in total support of this bill to incentivize the drillers to either clean up or get out because when they're running these oil wells on so little production, there is no economic benefit to the society, to the consumer, and there is great health risk to the community. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any other witness in support of AB 2716? Name and organization, please.

Hi. Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity, in support. I've also been asked to note support from the Climate Center. Thank you.

Thank you.

Gabriela Facio with Sierra Club California, in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Janet Cox for Climate Action California, support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Megan Shumway from Climate Reality Project, California Coalition, in support.

Thank you.

Katie McCammon, 350 Sacramento, support. Thanks.

William Pevec, Climate Health Now, in support.

Thank you.

Fatima Iqbal-Zubair, California Environmental Voters, in strong support.

Lou Flores, 350 Contra Costa Action, 350 Bay Area Action, in support of the bill, and can I say two sentences?

Thank you.

No, sir. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Alfred Twu, as an individual, strong support. Thank you.

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

Ana Gonzalez, Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice, in support.

Hi. Nicholas Gardner Serna with the Sunrise Movement Los Angeles, in strong support.

Emma Silber with Physicians for Social Responsibility, in support, as well as support from Redeemer Community Partnership. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. I've been asked to read support from a number of organizations that aren't here: 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations, 350 Bay Area Action, 350 Cornejo San Fernando Valley, 350 South Bay Los Angeles, 350 Ventura County Climate Hub, Breast Cancer Action, California Nurses for Environmental Health and Justice, Central California Environmental Justice Network, Citizens' Climate Lobby Santa Cruz Chapter.

Climate First: Replacing Oil and Gas, Climate Hawks Vote, Climate Health Now, Climate Reality Project, San Francisco Policy Action, Climate Reality Project Los Angeles Chapter, Climate Reality Project San Fernando Valley, Consumers for Auto Reliability and Safety, Elders Climate Action Northern California Chapter, Elders Climate Action Southern California Chapter, Elected Officials to Protect America, Code Blue, Environmental Working Group, Extinction Rebellion San Francisco Bay Area, Food and Water Watch, Fossil Fury California.

FracTracker Alliance, Friends of the Earth, Glendale Environmental Coalition, Greenpeace USA, Indivisible California Green Team, Indivisible Marin, Manhattan Beach Huddle, Oil and Gas Action Network, Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, Physicians for Social Responsibility Sacramento, Presente.org, Resource Renewal Institute, RootsAction.org, San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, San Francisco Baykeeper, San Francisco Climate Emergency Coalition.

San Joaquin Valley Democratic Club, San Diego 350, Santa Barbara Standing Rock Coalition, Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, Sierra Club California, SoCal 350 Climate Action, Stand.earth, Sunflower Alliance, Sustainable Mill Valley, The Climate Center, Transformative Wealth Management, and the West LA Democratic Club.

Was that it?

Yeah.

Okay, cool. Love it. Anyone else--can't imagine--in opposition? Or support, sorry. Opposition, come on up please.

Mr. Chair and Mr. Chair, Paul Deiro, representing the Western States Petroleum Association, here in opposition to the bill. First and foremost, I think the premise that any oil and gas well increases asthma rates, birth rates, life expectancies for people living near an oil well is untrue. Whether it is allowing low producing wells or high producing wells, there is no recognized study that has concluded that oil and gas facilities impacts any of the previously mentioned health issues.

In fact, a 2015 California Council for Science and Technology study concluded that there is no data to support showing the adverse impacts from oil and gas facilities. All are regulated by CalGEM, and if any of those oil wells as mentioned in the presentation were causing that level of harm, those would be shut down. We are regulated every day, and the wells are tested, and those wells would be shut down. Low producing wells are a valuable asset of the mineral right holders and operators.

Again, similar to Assembly Member Addis's bill, this potentially could result in a takings legal issue, according to the U.S. Constitution. Restricting in state production will continue to increase California's dependence on foreign crude. 75 percent of the state's demand for crude is imported via a tanker off the California shores. There is a cost to transport that crude to California of five to six dollars a barrel if you're importing crude. If you are getting crude in-state, which is only 25 percent of the crude, the cost is a dollar a barrel and it's transported by pipeline.

We'll ask you to wrap up your thought, sir.

I appreciate the passion of the Chairman, but I would respectfully ask for an opposed position.

Thank you so much. Next witness. Two minutes, please.

Yeah, Mr. Chairman, Members, Theo Pahos, representing the California Independent Petroleum Association. As it relates to the studies, there's been a number of studies that have been done, and we have an in-depth criteria of all of those studies, and we can point out that only except a couple of these studies actually took emission readings from oil-producing facilities in these areas. If this was the health hazard that it is stated to be, we'd have people in the workforce dropping left and right, and that's just not the case.

Secondly, since over the past ten years or so, there's been quite a bit of policy development, much of it coming after this--out of this Committee, about idle and abandoned wells. Abandoned wells are really the problem. Idle wells--we have a very robust idle well management program. This industry in the past two years has plugged almost 12,000 wells. Those wells are now out of the inventory.

We're going to continue to plug in and abandon wells, but we have to be able to produce in order to have the revenue to plug in and abandon these wells so they don't become the liability of the state. So if we act too quickly of taking assets out of production, you actually fulfill what would be a self-fulfilling prophecy, where you eradicate the industry, and there's no one there left to abandon the wells that remain. So we would advise that a more cautious transition, and we don't believe this bill fulfills that goal. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in opposition? Seeing none, bring it back to Committee Members. Any questions from the Committee? Seeing none, Mr. Chair, would you like to close?

Sure. I love my brother Theo. I'm just trying to--I don't believe he intentionally meant to say that if we phase out the industry, there will be no one left to abandon the wells. That's part of the other problem.

There were two studies that were linked to SB 1137 that directly talked about the health impacts of oil drilling near homes, if it's not already intuitive for you, but also in 2021, a scientific panel was convened by CalGEM. They concluded, and I quote, 'the totality of epidemiological evidence provides a high level of certainty that exposure to oil and gas development causes a significant increased risk of poor birth outcomes.'

The panel also found a high level of certainty that living near oil and gas development is associated with poor respiratory outcomes. This is very well-documented, and it is understandable why communities who live in proximity to oil fields--admittedly, I am one of those, the largest urban oil field in the country and our state is in my district: the Inglewood Baldwin Hills Oil Field--and it's right next to peoples' homes.

And the average amount of barrels of oil that they're extracting within the health setback zone is less than three barrels a day, but the health exposure and the environmental impact is the same as if they had been acquiring 3,000 barrels a day. The problem is the cost of cleaning it up is not a cost that they want to pay.

They would rather abandon those wells or they would rather let them keep pumping, producing very little oil and knowing the impact of those who are living around it. We have to change this paradigm. We have to change this cost calculation. We have to shift the cost away from Black, brown, poor communities who are struggling to breathe and put the cost back on the polluters who have been doing this damage with disregard for those who are living nearby. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's going to get remarkably uncomfortable if you don't accept your Committee's amendments, though.

I accept the amendments.

Thank you very much. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

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

The bill has six votes. We'll leave it on call.

The support list for my next measure is as long as the last one. So we're going to jump back to Mr. Berman. AB 2083.

Thank you, Chair Bryan, for letting me sneak in here in between your very good measures. Appreciate the motion and the second. Industrial emissions are the second largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California. While the state continues to be a leader in transitioning from combustion to zero emission technologies in the electricity and transportation sectors, industrial emissions have largely remained unaddressed. AB 2083 is a key first step for Californians to modernize industrial manufacturing and plan for how the industrial sector will reduce its greenhouse gas emissions.

This bill would task the California Energy Commission with developing a report on the key strategies the industrial manufacturing sector can undertake to cut its emissions in line with California's existing carbon neutrality requirements. If we do not start planning now, we risk a disorderly, expensive, and last minute effort to reduce industrial emissions. This report will provide critical information for the state to continue its efforts to meet our climate goals.

I respectfully ask for your I vote, and with me today are the bill sponsors, Mark Fenstermaker on behalf of Earth Justice, and Kayla Robinson on behalf of industrious Labs.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon. I'm Mark Fenstermaker, here on behalf of Earth Justice, a proud cosponsor of AB 2083. California's industrial sector is a critical component of the state's economy. But many industrial processes rely on the combustion of fossil fuels, emitting criteria pollutants and reducing air quality. The industrial sector also represents 23% of our greenhouse gas emissions thanks to Mr. Muratsuchi's AB 1279, the state has set a goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2045 with an 85% emission reduction target.

Reducing emissions from the manufacturing sector is going to be a key component in achieving these goals, and AB 2083 is going to assess industry's potential to do so. AB 2083 is not setting a new emissions reduction target for the industrial sector. Again, it is simply assessing how industry can reduce emissions in line with the requirements of AB 1279. We need to assess the energy infrastructure that's going to be critical to tackling the emissions from industrial sources and facilitating this transition.

And we've seen a model in how we've approached decarbonizing our buildings with Assembly Member Friedman's AB 3232, which tasked the CEC to analyze how buildings could decarbonize according to the 2030 goals. AB 2083 is following that model for industry by using the 2045 models as the guide. We want manufacturing to stay and thrive in our carbon neutral future. And that is why we're working with Mr. Berman on this bill. We thank him for authoring AB 2083 and respectfully ask for your aye vote today.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Kayla Robinson on behalf of Industrious Labs, an organization leading efforts to decarbonize the global industrial sector by 2045. Currently, California is a leader in industrial manufacturing. Critically, we have a host of industries like food manufacturing, apparel production, paper, glass and more. Despite the important role that this sector plays for California's economy, the state does not have a plan on how to strategically deploy zero emission technologies in line with our climate goals.

Having a plan developed by the California Energy Commission to supplement some of the early analysis done by the state's scoping plan will be critical to offer an energy and technology forward report on how to decarbonize this sector. From industrial heat pumps to electric ovens and thermostorage, this report can help lay out the many zero emission technologies that exist today to eliminate low hanging fruit emissions in industrial manufacturing.

Furthermore, for industrial processes that were previously thought to be hard to decarbonize, this report can help identify currently available opportunities and strategies to overcome barriers across this multifaceted sector. Creating an assessment for how the state can modernize industrial manufacturing processes will ultimately strengthen California's industries globally, creating new opportunities for our workforce, and better position the state for sustained economic growth in the sector.

Without a strategic approach to decarbonizing the state's industrial sector created through AB 2083, we'll miss this opportunity to thoughtfully transition to a more efficient and resilient carbon neutral economy by 2045. For those reasons, respectively, urge your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Are there any persons here in the hearing room who would like to register their support for this measure?

Gabriela Facio, Sierra Club California in strong support.

Janet Cox for Climate Action California in support. Thank you.

Sophia Rafikova with the Coalition for Clean Air in support

Emily with NRDC in support.

Thank you so much. Are there any primary witnesses in opposition to this measure? Afternoon. Yes, sir.

Good afternoon. Good evening, Members. Rob Spiegel, California Manufacturers and Technology Association in opposition to this particular bill. We also opposed last year Assembly Bill 841. The reasons for our opposition to 2083 are pretty simple. There's clearly a disagreement between our membership and what the bill is proposing to do.

Upon adoption and completion of the various assessment, it would actually create an 85% reduction level by the year 2045 for California's industrial sector. That is setting a new emission reduction target for the state. We believe as well that 2083 is duplicative of the other climate emission reporting documentation that's out there.

Specifically the 2022 Scoping Plan Update, which provides kind of a holistic assessment of the entire sector in line with Californian's carbon neutrality goal encapsulated in AB 1279 from Mr. Muratsuchi last year or a couple years ago. The problem with the report is that it provides too stringent of a requirement and a narrow technological evaluation of what currently exists on the market today. It doesn't provide the necessary flexibilities that industry is going to require.

And the manufacturing industry or the industrial industries in California are some of the most diverse on the planet. Even though we may make a similar product like a beverage or a food product, the various considerations to how that product is ultimately designed, ultimately constructed, will vary across the manufacturers of even those similar type of products. There's variation according to the procedures and processes.

And with that, we don't believe that 2083 provides the necessary flexibilities there to encourage the innovations that are still required for manufacturers and the industry to be able to adapt to the changes that are going to be required in order to reach the goal of carbon neutrality by 2045. We appreciate the consideration that the bill provides. We appreciate the acknowledgement that our sector is an economic engine. We provide about $340 billion to the state's economy and employ about 1.3 million Californians.

But as designed, this bill does not provide the needed flexibility that is required for manufacturers or industry to be able to comply. We do understand those considerations, but we must respectfully oppose this bill. Thank you Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much. Any persons here in the hearing room who would like to register their opposition?

Mr. Chair and Members. Beth Olhasso, on behalf of the California Poultry Federation and the Agricultural Energy Consumers Association, for the same reasons as CMTA, we are in opposition. I think we had a letter turned in. We're not in the analysis. We weren't just coming in here hot, so just wanted to make sure it was noted we were in there. So thank you.

Margie Lie, Samson Advisors on behalf of the California League of Food Producers, align our comments with CMTA.

The letter was late, but we definitely shared it around nonetheless. Turn it back to Committee Members. Any questions? Comments? Concerns? Seeing none. Mr. Berman. Mr. Flora?

Yeah, this is hard because at first glance I do support this bill, but then the opposition that came in is opposition that I have a tremendous amount of respect for.

And so it honestly kind of threw a lot of us on our side in a little bit of turmoil, I'm not exactly sure, but I am going to support the bill today and I think that there's conversations that continue to be had and I think there's some of the opposition's concerns can and probably should be addressed.

And I just want to encourage the author to do that because, yeah, it does seem relatively like a good bill, but I just want to make sure that we do address some of the concerns the opposition. Thank you.

Absolutely. Ms. Friedman.

Well, I want to thank the author for bringing this forward. Having a clear roadmap developed as to how to reduce emissions in some of our most emissions heavy sectors is critically important and that's really what this bill does at the end of the day. I'd be very proud if you would consider adding me as a co-author to the measure. I'm happy to support today.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Muratsuchi.

Thank you. I also would appreciate it if you would add me as a co-author. Wonderful bill. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Do we have a motion? Motion by Mr. Muratsuchi, second by Ms. Friedman. Would you like to close, Mr. Berman?

Thank you very much for the conversation. Appreciate the concerns that were raised. You know, we'll definitely, haven't had a chance to have conversations yet with the opposition, so want to look forward to doing that. I think we have a disagreement on what we think the bill has drafted does, but obviously want to address any sort of unintended drafting issues that might exist. My guess is that at the end of the day we're not going to end up totally in the same place.

But, but I think that some of the concerns that you raise are valid and we want to make sure that the bill doesn't do more than what I'm intending for it to do. So with that respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you sir. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll? That's a do pass from the Chair.

The motion is do pass to Utilities and Energy. [Roll Call]

Mr. Muratsuchi, would you like to go? 3192.

All right, thank you very much Mister chair, if I may proceed. I'm here to present Assembly Bill 3192. And first of all, I want to thank your wonderful staff for working our magic on this bill. I will be accepting the committee amendments to move this bill forward as some of you may recall this was a bill that was presented last year by Assembly Member Friedman. And the purpose of this bill remains the same, that is, to protect sensitive coastal ecosystems.

By requiring major coastal resorts to conduct an audit of their environmental practices, major coastal resorts can have an outsized impact on the environment. I actually grew up on an island where I've seen beaches and the ocean, the ecosystem, the fish, just disappearing from a lot of the excessive use of fertilizers and pesticides and so forth on the, the marine life top surrounding these major resorts.

And so this bill, I wanted to make sure that we addressed some of the concerns that were raised in Ms Friedman's bill last year, while at the same time making sure that we're not compromising on the mission not only of protecting sensitive coastal ecosystems, but also making sure that that resort employees have whistleblower protection so that if and when they do see any violations of the provisions on this bill, that they would have the workplace protections to be able to raise complaints as appropriate.

I would like to turn it over to Amy Hines Shaikh, representing Unite Here Local 11, representing hotel resort workers as well as Nicholas Gardner Serna with the Sunrise Movement of Los Angeles.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon, honorable Chair Bryan and committee members. My name is Amy Hines Shaikh, co founder and partner at Wildcat Consulting, representing Unite Here Local 11. Unite Here Local 11 represents over 32,000 hotel and food service workers in Southern California and is the sponsor of AB 3192. We would like to recognize committee staff for their hard work preparing the committee analysis for AB 3192 and working with us on amendments.

The bill improves the enforcement rules that major coastal resorts are already supposed to follow by moving enforcement from a complaint based system to an audit based system. The bill also reduces the use of synthetic pesticides and single use plastics in such close proximity to sensitive coastal habitats. One of the six major coastal resorts that would be covered by this bill is the Terranea and Rancho Palace Verdes.

Terranea workers were very concerned to observe plumbing problems and foul odors coming from the plumbing and what appeared to be inappropriate washing of grills used to cook outside, among other disturbing practices. We have provided you with a report issued by Unite here Local 11, Sunrise Movement, Los Angeles and California environmental voters titled "How Green is the Terranea?"

The report finds that the 10 year average of fecal coliform levels found in samples at the monitoring site closest to the pterina was on 174% and 270% higher than the averages found at the two next closest sampling sites, Al Bologna Cove and Portuguese Bend, respectively. In 20163 employees at the Shore hotel in Santa Monica alleged that management of the Shore hotel illegally terminated them.

All three of these employees had testified at the California Coastal Commission about issues at the hotel in the months preceding their termination. Because hospitality workers are one group that is most likely to witness environmental problems at a major coastal resort, AB 3192 includes important protections for whistleblowers. We are proud to stand with Assemblymember Muratsuchi as the author of the bill, and we respectfully request and aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you, honorable chair and members. My name is Niko Gardner Serna and I am the chapter coordinator of the Sunrise Movement Los Angeles. In April of last year, I co authored a report titled "How Green is the Terranea?" With Unite Here, Local 11 and California environmental voters. The findings in this report show the deep need for AB 3192 by Assemblymember Muratsuchi California's coast is the site of some of the world's most treasured and sensitive habitats, yet portions of the coast are occupied by large golf resorts.

A sprawling hotel and golf course complex, the Terranea resort is located along an environmentally sensitive stretch of the Pacific Ocean and prominently markets itself as eco friendly. It claims that, quote since its inception, the Terranea has remained committed to minimizing its environmental footprint by integrating transparent, eco friendly practices throughout the resort, including, but not limited to, those that protect open space, improve wildlife habitats, and enhance local water quality, and calls itself a model for green and eco friendly resort development.

Our report shows a completely different side of the Terranea, suggesting its public claims of environmental benefits and priorities may be overstated. It appears that the Terranea's claims regarding its efforts to improve wildlife habitats may be undermined by a disturbing record of raccoons and other mammals being trapped at the resort by commercial trappers. The resort and golf course's operation have also coincided with a drop in the estimated population of a sensitive bird species, the coastal cactus wren.

Data obtained through public through public records requests, indicates that between 2017 and 2021, the Terranea used 43 different types of pesticides, herbicides, and plant growth regulators, including one whose safety data sheet states that the chemical is very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects. Terranea workers have previously reported that plastic bottles used by guests in banquet events and other recyclable items, as well as food waste, have been discarded with the resort's ordinary garbage.

It is for these reasons, and many more, that we respectfully request your aye vote on AB 3192.

Any witnesses? Primary witnesses in or, I'm sorry, anybody in the hearing room who would like to register their support. I see y'all moving.

Thank you for the support to go.

Hello, I'm Alfred Tu as an individual in support. Thank you.

Thank you, Alfred. Any primary witnesses in opposition?

Good afternoon, M. Chair and members. Skyler Wonnacott, on behalf of the California Business Properties Associate.

I got you, Scott.

Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. Adam Regele with the California Chamber of Commerce in respectful opposition. AB 3192 is actually a carbon copy verbatim of legislation last year which we opposed and this committee voted down. It advances numerous policies applicable only to California's coastal resorts under the guise of environmental protection, and I say guise because these policies are duplicative or in conflict with existing environmental laws and regulations.

In other words, it's unclear what AB 3192 attempts to address that these existing laws and regulations fail to address. And I think it's noteworthy that if you look at the support of this bill, there's not really any major environmental groups that you would expect to be on a bill if it was advancing such required environmental laws and regulations that are apparently inadequate under water quality control plans under the Port of Cologne act.

What is 3192 addressing that those fail to address? Waste discharge permits under California statutory water rights laws and seminal safe drinking water laws. What does this bill advance that the national Pollutant discharge elimination system, or NPDS permits fail to address under the federal Clean Water Act? Why are we banning one of the most recyclable single use beverage containers under the bottle bill when that has literally, under SB 3403's most recent recyclability list? Cal recycle determines that to be one of the most recyclable products in California?

Why are we circumventing SB 54 as the agency is currently undergoing rulemaking to advance one of the most flagship EPR programs on single use packaging? Why are we going after pesticide regulation when it is one of the most highly regulated chemicals in California by both the US EPA and California Department of Pesticide Registration? Who this Bill is in direct contradiction with their integrated pest management plans.

All of this is to say is we don't find any need for this bill, and we are still struggling to find what the author's justification for advancing it is and in some level based on just who supports this bill.

In our view, it's perfectly ripe to talk about the labor provisions in this bill in a committee in which it's not going to labor because it was brought up by the support, which we don't think expanding whistleblower protection to job applicants makes any sense, and we don't think it makes sense to expand whistleblower protection, which is very robust and already protects an employee who goes in front of the Commission and talks about violations of law.

You don't need to expand it to talking to the media, which this bill does. And so there's a whole plethora of reasons that in two minutes, we cannot fully encompass. This bill should really be broken up into multiple bills. It's that onerous and that extensive and, in fact, that unnecessary, given all of the other environmental laws and regulations that this state is already regulated on top of coastal resorts. For all those reasons and more, we respectfully oppose. Thank you.

Yeah. Julee Malinowski Ball. On behalf of the California Hotel and Lodging Association. So CHLA represents, from the big brands down to the small bed and breakfasts, we represent most of the impacted resorts, resorts which are on the list. But that list is not a complete list. There's actually several other resorts out there that aren't on that list that are impacted by this bill. We are opposed to the measure. The hotel industry is a reputational, a reputational industry.

And California's coastal resorts have world class reputations for being the best. So we're questioning also why this bill is targeting facilities that actually have exemplary reputations. They're world class for a reason. So just some examples. Some use only 100% recycled water for their golf courses. Another is certified Audubon cooperative sanctuaries. So to reach that certification, you have to, you must, your golf course must demonstrate that they are maintaining a high degree of environmental quality in a number of areas, including chemical use reduction and safety.

Some maintain native plant nurseries, which grow foliage to repair wilderness and wildfires. Some employ full time sustainability teams and volunteer green teams with strong number of associates. Resorts also donate partially consumed, unusable toiletries left in guest rooms to homeless shelters. Others collaborate with nonprofit organizations to redistribute prepared food that would normally go to waste in hotels to food banks. So, in other words, the bill is targeting the best reputational resorts in the nation and the most eco conscious.

Also, you should know that California is host to numerous golf championships played at these resorts. So AT&T Pro Am, the Farmers Insurance Open, NC Division one, a golf championships in the next five. In the next 16 years, five US Open championships, three men, two women, will be scheduled at one of the impacted resorts.

If the courses are forced to use organic pesticides and fertilizers only, it is very likely that these tournaments will have to be moved elsewhere because the playing conditions simply will not be worthy of that tournament. There will be no tour worthy golf courses on California's coast and the impact would be immense. So just for example, the men's US Open in 2019 generated 175 million to the Monterey Peninsula. And this of course is not to affect the everyday golf user.

So in conclusion, we believe that these are the least likely resorts needing duplicative environmental oversight. And if the economic consequences are so damaging to local economies, then why is this bill before you? Obviously, it's no secret that this bill is being used as a tool to pressure one resort into unionizing his workforce and dragging all other coastal resorts into this fight. We think that the consequences of this bill are unacceptable and why we are asking for a no vote.

Are there any persons in the hearing room who would like to register their opposition to this measure who haven't already done so?

Emellia Zimani with the California Travel Association, in respectful opposition.

Skylar Wonnacott, on behalf of California Business Properties Association, in opposition.

Max Perry, on behalf of the Pest Control Operators of California, also in opposition.

Good evening. Nicole Quinonez, on behalf of the Household and Commercial Products Association, in opposition.

Kris Quigley, Plastics Industry Association, in opposition.

Good evening. Eloy Garcia for the International Bottled Water Association, in opposition.

Mr. Chair. Chris McKayley, on behalf of Niagara Bottling and respectful opposition.

Good evening, members. Rob Spiegel, California Manufacturers and Technology Association, in opposition.

Thank you Rob.

Mr. Chair and members, Annalee Augustine, on behalf of Consumer Brands Association and the American Beverage Association, respectfully opposed unless amended.

Hi, Natalie Boust, on behalf of the California Business Roundtable, in opposition.

We'll now turn it to committee members. Questions, comments, concerns? Yes, please, Mr. Vice Chair.

Thank you. Mr. Chair. Thank you. With all due respect to my colleague, I want to appreciate the opposition's honesty, because this is not my first year on this committee. And when you hear legislation that is very, very pointed at a particular resort and then we try to fluff it up with other things, but the real intent, in my opinion, is really to go after Terranea.

And I don't know how many times the supporters said Terranea, but it's sad to me. And if you talk to the superintendents that work on our golf courses every single day, they are hands down some of the best environmentalists out there, because they know that if they do something that hurts that property, they're going to lose what they have created. It is their babies. They care and spend so much time and talk about trapping. We trap all the time and relocate animals everywhere.

It's not a terrible thing when a raccoon, or whatever it may be, is digging up your greens or your fairways. This is a common practice. So I would just encourage this bill. And we did hear this exact same bill last year and it didn't go forward. But it is sad to me that we do continue to go after one resort and to go after that one resort, we bring in a lot of other things. So I respectfully ask for no vote on this bill.

Mr. Patterson.

Yeah, thanks. You know, I'd like to concur with the Vice Chair's position on this. I think that, you know, the author, you know, wrote a bill that's much more broad than Terranea and I respect, you know, obviously his position on that, but not really knowing much about the situation. I just happened to Google, you know, the proponents and Terranea there.

A lot of articles come up and I do find it unfortunate that we're going to make statewide policy change potentially over what seems like an ongoing feud which really should be played out, you know, at the local level. And so, you know, I just believe we should, you know, allow that process to happen. Sounds like it's been trying to happen for many, many years.

But, but we have, this might have the impact of affecting all of these other resorts throughout the state when really they're an innocent bystander in this dispute. And so with that, I can't support this bill.

Mister Hoover.

Thank you Mr. Chair.

If I may ask the opposition, what are the economic kind of consequences, I guess, of legislation like this, when you look at, you know, the dollars of economic activity that come from golf courses that could be harmed by this legislation, is there a way to quantify that or a ballpark figure that we, that we can identify?

Yeah, I mean, anecdotally, we know that the US Open in 2019 brought $175 million to the Monterey Peninsula. So obviously that's a big one. And that doesn't really take into account the everyday golf usage. When you have a, you know, a world class golf course, you know, that attracts people from all over the world to come play. So it's monumental and frankly catastrophic for some regions.

Thank you. So I guess just my only question for the author, respectfully, would be, I guess, how are we. How would you respond to the concerns doing about the actual economic activity that could go away as a result of this bill? And ultimately even given the support and sponsor of this bill, how is this helpful for the workers?

If we lose millions of dollars in economic activity? How does that actually help the workers in these communities? Yeah, thank you for the question. So, you know, I was just, first of all, I was just double checking the bill language. You know, nowhere in the bill does it mention Terranea. The bill defines major coastal resorts as a resort or hotel that has 300 or more rooms, includes or operates a golf course on the premises, and is located in whole or in part on the coastal zone.

So this is not targeting, you know, one hotel. Let me make that clear. But if it did, you know, the Terranea happens to be in my district and I. The last thing that I would want would be to close down a major employer that. Yeah, I know. In fact, I just came off of a Zoom meeting with the City of Rancho Palos Verdes.

I know that the City of Rancho Palos Verdes gets a significant amount of their, their revenues from the city operate from the hotel operations. And so, you know, I'm not trying to shut down the terranea. I just want the terranea to respect its workers and to protect the beautiful coastline environment that, you know, I go swimming and surfing just a few miles from the Terrania.

And so, you know, I, at the same time, I, like, I started off saying I've seen how major developments that use a, you know, enormous amount of pesticides and chemicals to keep, to maintain those, those gulf greens, you know, can and does have on sensitive marine ecosystems. And so, you know, I want hotels like the terranea to continue. I wanted to continue with not only respecting its workers, but respecting the marine ecosystem.

I would add that, especially with the amendments that this committee has proposed and that I've accepted, this is not a carbon copy of last year's bill. In fact, I would. I would say that the opposition's comments appear to be a carbon copy of their opposition last year. I did not support last year's Bill. I did not support last year's Bill because I shared some of the concerns that were raised in this hearing.

But now I do believe, for example, I did meet with the Gulf Superintendents Association. I believe that was their name. They talked to me about the nematodes that apparently eat the putting greens. He shared with me one thing that stuck in my mind. He said that if we don't have some of these pesticides that we're going to be putting on dirt. Well, I don't do much golfing, but I know that you're not supposed to be putting on dirt.

We took that amendment that allows for non organic fertilizers to be used on putting greens. And so that's just one example of how, you know, we. I'm proud to put my name on this Bill. You know, I think to say that there's no major environmental groups in support of this Bill is an insult to the California environment voters and to the sunrise movement. I would respectfully disagree with the opposition's comments.

This is in fact, a significant measure to attempt to protect sensitive marine ecosystems surrounding these major coastal resorts that maintain. I mean, just imagine the amount of chemicals and fertilizers that you have to use in order to operate a golf course right next to our beautiful coastline. That is why these resorts should be held to a higher standard. Higher standard than what provides an existing law to specifically address this intensive land use practices involved with major coastal results operating golf courses on our beautiful coast.

Mr. Muratsuchi, can we use that as your closer question by Ms. Pellerin.

I just have a little bit of concern over the workload for the Coastal Commission, what this bill is mandating. So can you talk a little bit about that? And have you heard from the Coastal Commission on whether they can manage these new requirements that they're going to have?

Yes. Thank you for the question. That was one of my concerns last year where we heard from the Coastal Commission about how they don't have the staffing and the resources to be able to conduct these audits. And so one of the amendments that was taken was to take the auditing responsibilities away from the COSA Commission staff and to require the resorts to hire an Auditor approved from a list of approved auditors put out by the Coastal Commission.

And that was, that amendment was taken to specifically address the concerns raised by the Coastal Commission last year.

Okay, and I have one more question. This applies, based on the analysis, this applies to six resorts in California?

I believe so, yes.

And not included in that is Pebble Beach. And that's because it's not a 300 bed resort that also operates.