Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Quality

Hearing of the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials, along with the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality. As you all know, we will have members coming in and out of the hearing today as they are also attending other committee assignments. Welcome, everyone, to this Joint Hearing.

Today's oversight hearing is the third since the creation of the Board of Environmental Safety through the enactment of SB 158-2021. This bill established the Board of Environmental Safety to provide transparency and oversight of the Department of Toxic Substances Control. It also included significant funding and additional positions for the department.

A full two years has passed since the funding was appropriated, and we will hopefully have a good conversation about how that's all come together as of now. There have been some issues raised in terms of the progress that's being made or perhaps the slowness of the progress, and that probably will be part of the conversation today.

We're looking forward as a Legislature to talk about the resources that were allocated, the resources that perhaps may be mentioned are necessary to move forward. Nonetheless, looking forward to a very robust discussion with all of you. To the folks who will be presenting, we will allow for those presentations and then open it up for questions and answers.

With that, I'll ask if there are any other members here who would like to make any opening remarks before we ask the presenters to come forward. Seeing none, please join us up here and welcome again.

I think so. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair Garcia, members. Thank you for dedicating time for this hearing. I'll address many of the questions that were raised in the Committee report through my comments, so they are quite lengthy, and I apologize in advance. And please bear with me also because I'm not in full voice today.

As I said last year, this annual hearing gives us an opportunity to reflect on where we've been, where we are, and where we're going. It's been another year of tremendous movement for the department, and we've staffed up with the resources that the department so long lacked.

The benefits are apparent throughout DTSC in our permit decisions, our enforcement work, our ability to engage with communities, and the pace of progress on our safer consumer products program and our development of a hazardous waste management plan for the state.

All that to say, DTSC is transforming into an organization that strategically and proactively addresses the problems that are facing California, including climate change, housing and transit friendly growth and environmental injustices, and even the circular economy.

DTSC has evolved into an organization that delivers on the promise of its mission, and the underlying tenets of the reform, which may have appeared aspirational at the time, are becoming a reality. Those principles were transparency, accountability and fiscal stability. This progress has been driven by a strong, unified and dedicated leadership team.

Whether our deputies have a strong background in public health, or the law, or communications and outreach, they share a deeply embedded sense and commitment to public service. Some of the members of our executive team have served from just prior to the reform period and helped shape the policies that went into reform.

Others wanted to contribute to implementing the reform and were willing to sign on to the challenges of that implementation. And more recently, some folks have joined our leadership team because they see a new DTSC and they want to be a part of that new DTSC.

So just two weeks ago, we swore in Robin Christensen as the Deputy Director for the Safer Consumer Products Program, and we do work together as a team to maintain focus on our mission and provide the leadership necessary to build on what's working and to tackle what's not.

The biggest challenge facing the department is the shortfall in revenue generation from the generation and handling fee. As you well know, there are multiple reasons for the underlying for the shortfall, overuse of exemptions, misunderstandings about the payment requirements, lax compliance, and our team is now implementing several solutions around those around those particular issues to close that gap.

And happy to talk about those later. But we definitely want to take some steps to be more consistent in the use of the statutory exemptions. That's one area that we're focusing on and that's important to ensure equitable distribution of costs among the fee payers.

So we appreciate the board's attention to our generation and handling fee, as well as the Legislature's support for the path forward, and we'll continue to provide updates to you on that work. DTSC is really entering a new phase of organizational maturity.

We've put the talent, the policies and the practices in place to address problems that have long dogged the department. It's a department that manages its resources well and measures its outcomes. Our permitting program is perhaps the most visible example of our maturation.

There are now only two facilities that are operating on permits that were expired more than five years ago for which we haven't already proposed a permit decision.

The first is the Rochem facility, and that's a facility where there were numerous challenges to the violation scoring procedure, and those challenges have now been resolved and we can move forward with the permit decision, likely in October.

The other facility is the button Willow hazardous wasteland landfill, and once the Kern County CEQA process is complete, we can then move forward with our permit decision and we don't see any impediments to moving that forward.

Three of the proposed permit decisions do warrant mention here because of long standing interest on these facilities and because they're vast improvements over the old permits, the Ecobat lead acid battery recycling facility, fibrotec, and the Kettleman Hills Hazardous Waste Landfill. The draft permits we've proposed are strong, and they make maximum use of DTSC's regulatory authority.

They were designed to address community concerns and ensure safe operations. Importantly, proposed financial assurances and enforcement measures are very robust. Equally important is the manner in which we worked with the communities near these facilities to understand their concerns before we issued the permits.

We engaged early, and we will continue that engagement in order to develop final permit decisions that are protective and responsive to community concerns. I'd like to discuss three areas of DTSC that reflect our maturation and to give you an understanding of where we are today.

I'll speak about enforcement processes across DTSC's programs, where we are with the Safer Consumer Products Program and our community engagement efforts. I'll start by highlighting our enforcement work to illustrate DTSC's evolution. The enforcement mission states it best.

It calls for us to achieve a unified, comprehensive, effective, and equitable enforcement program that partners with communities and the regulated industries to achieve and sustain full compliance. The enforcement strategic plan cuts across all three DTSC core programs. Standing alone, these core programs have different enforcement tools and varying levels of resources.

Coordination across the program ensures a consistent, unified approach to enforcement. Again, permitting really exemplifies our enforcement mindset. We put enforceability front and center in the Ecobat and Kettleman permits. The permit conditions are very clear, so the facility knows what's expected of them.

Our inspectors have what they need to go out and inspect and to figure out whether or not the facility is in compliance. And then we use our considerable enforcement authority. If, in fact they are not in compliance, we've improved inspector training, inspector documentation and inspector report turnaround times. The improvements are evident in the violation scoring procedure scores.

VSP is proving to be a great tool for us, for our enforcement toolbox. As we've enforced violations more rigorously and consistently, we're seeing better compliance, especially with regard to class one violations. And as a result, VSP scores are actually trending downward.

This means fewer uncontrolled releases and safer operations, with fewer impacts to the people who live near these facilities. We will take what we've learned in the past several years, implementing VSP, and apply it as we move forward with rulemaking later this year to revise the VSP rubric.

Before I move on, I'd like to just highlight a couple of enforcement cases. The first would be Chiquita Canyon Landfill in Castaic. Many of you are aware that there is a chemical reaction very deep in that landfill.

It's causing noxious odors, and it's also generating great amounts of liquid, which we call leachate, some of which must be pumped out of the landfill and managed as hazardous waste. A massive problem, and the communities are highly impacted.

DTSC has been particularly focused on the leachate management at the landfill to ensure that the facility is responding appropriately and with urgency. Our team has worked closely with the network of partner agencies overseeing the landfill. Thus far, we've issued two summaries of violations, and we continue to investigate the landfill's activities.

In response to those SOVs, Chiquita is no longer sending hazardous leachate to non-hazardous waste facilities. A DTSC investigation of land fuels resulted in charges for three defendants for illegal transportation and treatment of hazardous waste.

Three defendants are alleged to have collected contaminated waste from fuel scrapyards and sold it as new fuel to gas stations around the state for at least a decade. Most of the gas stations that receive this waste, this contaminated fuel, are in communities that are already historically suffering from environmental injustices.

And what that means is that unaware consumers bought this waste thinking that it was new fuel and put it into their vehicles. DTSC worked with the Attorney General's Office to bring criminal charges against three of the executives

Based on legislative activity over the past year, I know you share our concern about ensuring that metal shredders around the state operate safely, especially because, again, so many of those facilities are located in vulnerable communities. In the absence of a comprehensive regulatory framework for metal shredders, we're relying on strong enforcement to ensure their safe operation.

This year, DTSC inspected seven, conducted seven inspections at six, and this is only so far this year, six of the nine metal shredders in the state. Coming out of those inspections, we issued 18 class one violations. Those are the most serious violations, one class two violation, and 10 minor violations.

The class one violations include things like illegal treatment of hazardous waste, illegal storage of hazardous waste, and failure to operate the facility in a manner that would control the possibility of a fire or releases of hazardous waste.

In April, DTSC and the Attorney General issued a cease and desist order to Sims Metals in Redwood City to require them to address their continued offsite releases. All of this points to why DTSC must maintain our focus on metal shredders.

Although less visible, our enforcement authority for cleanups is an important tool to make sure that cleanups move forward and that responsible parties meet their obligations. In the case of the Ecobat facility, we are requiring soil sampling and possibly subsequent cleanup under an enforceable corrective action consent agreement.

So while the permit is of course, important, the ability to hold Ecobat accountable for offsite releases comes through our cleanup order authority. Our safer consumer products is ramping up its compliance and enforcement activities. We've tested, for instance, the pile and backing of about 200 carpets and rugs.

Fortunately, we found that only one company was out of compliance initially and it's stopping sales within California. Compliance work has also been conducted for methylene chloride and nail products. So as you can see, our enforcement work cuts across all of the programs within the department. Leaving enforcement I want to talk about safer consumer products.

I know you're interested in that program, and I hope you've had a chance to look at the fact sheet that we provided or perhaps the 10 year accomplishments report that we published last fall. In the early years of implementing SCP, we simply didn't have the resources to implement each of the four steps of the regulations.

We didn't have enough staff to manage more than a couple of regulations packages a year or to evaluate alternatives analyses, and we didn't have any compliance enforcement staff. Now, with the full staff brought on in the last two years, all that has changed.

The program has invested time and energy in training staff, and they're now contributing to our implementation of all of the elements of the regulations. So I'd like to give you a broad overview of the activity in safer consumer products. Right now, we're accepting public comment on three different proposed priority products.

We've identified problematic chemicals in artificial turf, nail products and personal care and cleaning products. And there are numerous other product chemical combinations being evaluated with the expectation that over the next two years we may adopt as many as nine priority products. SCPs first regulatory response is under development for spray polyurethane foam containing unreacted MDI.

Our proposal would require that users receive safety training before they use that product. And the regulatory response would also require industry to collectively put in a pot $8 million for a green chemistry innovation fund for research to find and develop safer alternatives to spray foam with MDI. And we're doing that work.

And we're doing that important work, although, and we're doing other important work, although not necessarily strictly the regulations, and that is to advance the science and incentivize innovation. The green chemistry laws were crafted so that the decisions we make would be made on sound science. To that end, DTSC publishes regularly in the scientific literature.

A study we published last month was the first study ever to estimate the total amount total mass of PFAS contained in cosmetics sold in California. Based on the data from wastewater treatment plants around the San Francisco Bay, we estimate that cosmetics may account for at least 4% of the PFAS measured in wastewater.

This information helps us understand where we can take action against PFAS. Lastly, safer consumer products fourth priority product work plan is being finalized and it's the most ambitious yet. We are tackling some bigger product categories and the the number of products that will be generated from that plan is much greater than in the past.

The new authorities provided by SB 502 to strengthen the data call ins and to move more quickly to regulatory response will only accelerate our work. SCP has recently passed several other significant milestones related to candidate chemicals list, our evaluation of alternatives analyses and an incentive and recognition program for manufacturers of safer alternatives.

But in the interest of time, I'll stop there. Now I'd like to talk about our organizational the last area of our organizational maturity, which is perhaps the most important argument for where we are as a department, and that is our community engagement.

Since we were last before these committees, DTSC has continued to deepen our approach to community engagement. We're learning from the people who live near cleanup projects, near hazardous waste facilities or hazardous waste generators, and the result is that we are finding opportunities to communicate better, be more transparent, and most importantly, provide better environmental protection.

We're pursuing a culture that values stakeholder collaboration. We're using more community-friendly outreach tactics, and we're using extended public comment periods to allow community groups that only have limited resources more time, adequate time to participate in our processes.

Fundamentally, more staff are interacting with more community members, and the lines of communication have truly opened up a lot of our community engagement. Innovation has come as a result of the XI cleanup, and we've really transformed how we work with people in the neighborhoods surrounding that facility.

In the last year and a half, we've adopted a customer service-oriented mindset with more dynamic interactions at our workshops and our community meetings. We have bi-weekly working group meetings, and those are augmented by our regular public meetings of the XI Technologies Advisory group.

We launched a user-friendly website with content designed to inform and be more engaging. And we've now, just last week, opened office hours so that community members can come by or we can be out in the community and people can ask us questions in person.

We completely reimagined the contracting process for the residential contract, and we did that to be more responsive to community feedback on the working environment, tenant issues, and verification of completed work. In response to the community, a third-party monitor is now in place for the XI cleanup to observe the work and identify areas for improvement.

The monitor regularly reports findings to our executive team and will be presenting at public meetings. And soon we'll launch a text alert system to promote community events, work updates, and public comment periods. And we're going to be employing that at XI.

But these are tools that can be used all over the state, and although they're going to be used for the state, we've really used XI to jumpstart that kind of engagement.

We're in the last year of our appropriation for the exide residential facility cleanup, and by the end of the fiscal year we will have cleaned up nearly 6000 homes. The national priorities listing is moving forward and we're collaborating very closely with US EPA.

We're coordinating to ensure that there's a seamless transition as possible as the site moves through the superfund process. The staff report described the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, or council that was called for in SB 158. The EJAC will provide advice and consultation and recommendations to the director and to the board.

We spent time learning from the experiences of other agencies who have similar bodies, and we believe what we've learned there will result in a more effective council that can focus its attention on the most pressing issues. We plan to begin accepting applications in September so that panel membership can be finalized by November.

The board provided their review of the cleanup and vulnerable communities initiative, or CVCI. CVCI continues to engage with communities about the initiative our staff have had. Actually, we've made contact with over 2300 individuals through webinars or email communications or trainings, and we routinely send out an e-newsletter to communicate our progress.

Some of our programs, like the Discovery and Enforcement Program, also have regional webinars and work with local public health agencies to inform communities of site-specific activities. Our engagement is leading to a better understanding of how we can embed environmental justice into the CVCI program.

For instance, although local land use decisions really dictate the potential for gentrification and really drive it, DTSC now understands what we can do to actively consider the potential for gentrification as we make decisions about who to award grants to, so that is now considered in for project eligibility.

Recent funding cuts to CVCI require us to pivot, but our work does continue on this program. SB 673 was signed into law to improve this permitting process and increase community protection through stronger permit criteria. DTSC divided the regulations as a reminder into two tracks, and in 2019, DTSC implemented what we call track one.

The most notable factors or elements were the violation, scoring procedure and stronger financial assurance requirements, and there were all told there were seven. Five of the seven permit criteria were included in track one. DTSC is now currently working towards implementing the final two permit criteria in track two.

We're releasing three informational sheets to communicate our revised framework for track two. The informational sheets outline the goals of the framework and what our policy approach is. The first sheet was included in the materials provided to you, so hopefully you've had a chance to look at those.

The informational sheets are intended to explain the framework we've landed on so that as we begin rulemaking later this fiscal year, stakeholders will be prepared to comment on the proposed regulation.

Community is the why behind SB 673 so the first three of first of our three goals is centered around community engagement with those immediately impacted by the permitted facilities. That first sheet outlines our requirements.

New requirements for permittees to engage with communities. The new regulations will place community input and experience at the beginning of the permit process rather than at the end.

Community experience will no longer be an afterthought, and that's been a long standing frustration with DTSC, but instead that input will be taken into consideration before a facility can even be allowed to submit its application. We saw the value of earlier community input as we crafted our Kettleman and Ecobat decisions.

The other two fact sheets will center around community vulnerability and setbacks, and we expect to release those by the end of September. There are other examples of our working with communities, and I don't have time to enumerate them, but I'll mention one more, and that's in the wake of the Schnitzer fire radius recycling fire.

Last summer, Cal EPA and US EPA convened a rapid response task force with the 11 regulatory agencies participating in the response. The West Oakland Environmental indicators project has participated in those convenings, and they've actually played a very central role in shaping the response.

They've surveyed community members about their experience, they facilitated meetings, and they're looking for ways to pursue long-term solutions. US EPA and Cal EPA plan to model other task forces on the West Oakland example, and in May, the Board of Environmental Safety heard presentations from DTSC, the indicators project, and the facility itself.

And the dialogue across all parties was very promising as a model for looking for more solution oriented approaches. We continue to work closely with the board to provide them with the information they need to fully to fulfill their mandate. And as the board gets more established, its value is more obvious.

The forum the board provides for digging into DTSC projects and issues enables a wide range of interested parties to get a better understanding of DTSC. The BES challenges us and has provided valuable input for planning and execution of our department's work.

We've now been through a full cycle of establishing departmental priorities and the board evaluating our performance against those priorities. For each of our priorities, we provide metrics and deliverables against which the board can measure our progress.

We're partnering with the board to improve those metrics so that they can provide a transparent, effective means of capturing the performance of DTSC's program. Chair Rizzo will address metric development and her comments further. We expect the board to continue to push to make DTSC better. All told, DTSC just it feels different. It really does.

Public health is more central to our decision making. Engagement is the norm, and we, believe it or not, we do execute more consistently. We're braver, we're bolder about advancing policies that are more protective. And I'll put that's the sign of a much more mature organization.

The stability of the organization allows us to be more forward thinking, forward looking, proactive rather than reactive, and this couldn't come at a more important time. The department's work touches many of the most pressing environmental and social issues we're facing. DTSC can contribute to these challenges with the right strategies and focus.

First and foremost, many climate change interests must change. Impacts must be addressed by DTSC. As we speak, our environmental response staff have been mission-tasked to support the park fire recovery. In recent years, that response team has been called on to clear hazardous waste materials in the wake of the increasing number of floods and fires.

Sea level rise has the potential to impact cleanup sites and hazardous waste facilities throughout the state. So DTSC must ensure that the latest science regarding sea level rise is applied to our oversight of these sites. Safer consumer products has a role to play in finding solutions to climate problems.

For instance, eliminating toxic substances before they enter surface and drinking water so that we can recycle that water with confidence. And climate change is driving lithium extraction, which will generate hazardous waste. And it's imperative that we manage that waste properly.

A clean, just transition demands that Assemblymember Garcia, I know you're tracking this issue closely and facilitating conversations with operators, the county, and DTSC. Our hazardous waste management plan is being crafted with an eye toward the future.

This is the opportunity to consider what it will take for California to support a true circular economy where waste is recovered and re enters production rather than just being disposed of. The hazardous waste management report highlighted the need for new recycling facilities to manage emerging waste streams like lithium production or solar cells at the end of life.

Permitting regimes must support in state management of hazardous waste and encourage recycling. And SCP gives us California the means of controlling pollution at the source rather than after it's already entered the environment. Because of California's housing crisis, we need to support restoration of contaminated sites around the state that can revitalize communities and provide precious housing.

But as we do this, we must be forward thinking and look for opportunities to right wrongs of the past. DTSC does not want to perpetuate inequities, so we must look for opportunities to redress wrongs such as redlinings. Right, along with thinking about potential future impacts of gentrification.

We've learned how that can be done, and we're doing that through our environmental equitable communities revitalization grant program. And we think there's much to be learned and to build on. A healthy DTSC can help California lead environmentally and economically. And that's what we're going to be focused on moving forward.

I very much appreciate this opportunity to speak with you today about all that's going, going on in the Department. And I'll be happy to answer any questions after Chair Rizzo provides you her remarks. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I want to welcome the chair of the Senate Committee and colleagues. Unless there's a pressing question for Doctor Williams, we would like to proceed with the second presenter and then jump into questions. Is that fair? All right. Would you like to make any comments, Senator? All right, let's do that.

Thank you. My name is Jeanne Rizzo, and I have the honor of serving as the chair of the Board of Environmental Safety. And good afternoon, Chairs Allen Garcia, members, including my own, Damon Connolly. We've been spending quite a bit of time together lately in our county.

On behalf of the board of Environmental Safety colleagues, two of whom are with us today, I want to acknowledge Vice Chair Alexis Hacker and newly appointed member from the last time we were here, Ingrid Brostrom. And thank you for the opportunity to update you on the work of implementing 158.

As I said, it's an honor to serve on this committee and cap my career as a nurse, environmental health Executive, and a music producer. You can ignore that part. Okay.

The history of SB 158 that created the board has many authors, all of whom recognized that for California to be the leader in environmental health and justice, there was more and better work to do.

But the story of the board is rooted in the people's Senate, the independent review panel, exhaustive legislative efforts, and support from the governor and all of you on these committees. And it continues with the lived experience of communities.

We seek their wisdom every day as Director Williams, who have immense regard and respect for said transparency and deep engagement with the leadership of DTSC and all stakeholders invested in the reform of this Department. That's the cornerstone of our mission and our collective mission.

Working together, we work with vulnerable communities whose lives are impacted by the historic toxic legacy that burdens our state. We prioritize, therefore, tours of sites, meetings with community members, environmental justice advocates up and down the state. That's what we do. We travel, we tour facilities. We meet with representatives of regulated businesses as well.

And we believe they bear significant responsibility for protecting our citizens and providing the financial resources in the form of fees necessary for DTSC to fulfill its mandates. We seek not only compliance, but innovation from them and from all of us.

So while we gather again today in the relative safety of this hearing room, I can say that your investment is making a difference. It's difference. In the two years since I've been here. I see it. I feel it. We hear it from the community.

But we must acknowledge that there remains much suffering in this great state with disproportionate and devastating and urgent cumulative impacts on those without the power to control and protect their own fate. So our work, and the work of the entire department, relies on your continued support and potentially your expanded support as we dive into more issues.

We sent a number of addendums for your nighttime reading, a list of all of our board members and staff. And what's interesting is our board, as we were selected, have diverse experience and expertise. That's what we considered when we made subcommittee assignments.

It allows for deep work between meetings so we can respect our Bagley Keene obligations, but also get some work done in between. It allows for that deep work, and it's augmented and supported by our staff, some of whom are with us today with our executive officer, Swati Sharma.

Our formal subcommittees include fee setting, performance metrics, permit appeals, environmental justice, hazardous waste management, 673, cleanup and vulnerable communities, SSFL, exide ombuds, liaisons to the Department of Defense. So as you can see, we're busy in between those public meetings that I know you're all watching anyway.

So there's a list of all of our board meetings also that were provided to you. We average 150 attendees and depending on where we hold the meeting, a lot of community engagement. When we're in Sacramento, less and more on Zoom, when we're out in the field, more in public, but we average 150.

And I think that's important to acknowledge that open hybrid meetings make a difference. They're translated, everything is ADA accessible in advance, and so we think that's important.

So SB 158, there's two reports in there, board's evaluation of DTSC based on priorities, and also our analysis of the cleanup and vulnerable communities, as well as, for your reference, our fee process that we're right in the middle of.

I'll provide an overview of some of these key priorities that the board is focused on this year, and then I'll dig in more to hazardous waste management plan and fee setting process, two things that I know you have particular interest in.

We provided the committee with the board's first formal evaluation of DTSC, which was based on board approved DTSC priorities that were presented by Doctor Williams in an open meeting and amended after board and community input.

Bear in mind that we're in continuous communication with the Director, her deputies and her staff for each of the programs, and that's through Subcommitee work. So we were very familiar with their teams and how they work, and then we work with them.

The evaluation was also shared during a public board meeting and the public comments to the evaluation were attached. And I think a group sent you their version of that.

So the evaluation covers DTSC's progress in issuing more up to date and protective hazardous waste facility permits, as well as the administration of the CVCI grants program to fund the cleanup of contaminated sites.

It notes, and we all note here, the delays in establishing the Environmental Justice Advisory Council envisioned in 158 and adopting the last set of requirements for 673 community engagement regarding specific sites. So the board is engaged in high profile on site and community meetings.

We're engaged with Hexide, Santa Susana Field Lab, Buttonwillow Fiberteche, and we recently hosted a very meaningful site related hearing at our board meeting with, and I think they're here today, West Oakland Environmental Indicators project. I know Ms. Margaret is sitting there, those community leaders, and we also said we don't want to just hear from the community.

We invited Radius Recycling to come with their perspective and also DTSC to talk about the management potential for metal shredders. And I just want to quote Ms. Margaret at the end when I asked her how it went, she said this is the first time that we have all been in the same room together.

And so I think that speaks to the value of that kind of a convening where we can do things here, we can do things there. But when everybody gets together, it really opened up a key question. How do they get alerted when there's an emergency?

And so our team, basically the ombuds function, we are trying to get nixel for them, right? How do they get alerts, text alerts, if there's a fire or something that happens at the facility? We haven't been successful yet, but that's the kind of thing where you get down to what is meaningful in real time.

So we're very pleased with that. The board received and heard appeals on two hazardous waste facility permits, both in Southern California. Excuse me. This was the first time that a hazardous waste facility permit appeal was heard in a public setting.

The public had access to the materials and most importantly to the arguments put forth by all the parties to the appeal, as well as the board's deliberation and votes.

This page wants to get lost because the first appeal for the eco battery recycling facility in the City of Industry was heard and decided with a very significant level of public comment.

At what turned into an eight hour hearing, the board decided in favor of the appellant Clean Air Coalition of North Whittier and Avocado Heights, represented by Earth Justice.

That decision to deny a temporary authorization which was in advance of the permit that Doctor Williams referenced, this was a temporary authorization for a piece of equipment, was challenged by the facility and is now in litigation. And as per 158, we are represented by the AG's office in that litigation.

The second appeal, by lighting resource facility in Ontario challenging multiple requirements in their own permit, was heard and decided by the board and is notable for the fact that the facility and DTSC had a willingness to re examine some of the permit conditions and resolve some of their differences in advance of our board hearing and subsequently have resolved all others.

So we think that was a very effective tool to have the open meeting. We closely tracked DTSC's progress on issuing draft and final hazardous waste permit facility decisions, and we anticipate, we hope not. But we anticipate appeals in 2025 with the aggressive calendar that DTSC has. And again, they'll all be public. They'll all be at public hearings.

So SB 158 established a three year period for DTSC to address the backlog of their expired permits. And while that July 2021 was when SB 158 was enacted, this full board was not in place until February of 22.

Just as a reminder, our calendars are not all comported, but they will report probably at the October meeting that report that you might have seen in July. Performance metrics we have a subcommittee on metrics that assess the structure and process in accordance with the 158 requirements.

The subcommittee has commenced a program by program approach, starting with the hazardous waste management program, using a scoring rubric rubric to assess existing goals and key indicators. The assessment will be based on relevance, accuracy, reliability and coverage.

The metrics subcommittee compiled existing key goals, benchmarks and objectives as provided by DTSC in its strategic plan and described in the director's priorities. They also reviewed recommendations from prior stakeholder analyses reports, ones that I referenced in the beginning of my report.

And they're now keenly focused on hosting workshops later this year, leading to a board vote on performance metrics within 2025. You heard a bit from Doctor Williams on the cleanup and vulnerable communities CVCI, where our mantra is we need more, not less, of that. I get to say that right.

The board prepared an annual cleanup and vulnerable communities initiative analysis, which is in your packet. This is the board's first such analysis prepared for this legislature, and it describes the history of CVCI and everything that's happened since its passage. And a copy of the report, as I said, is in your packet.

We conducted the analysis of the expenditure of funds allocated for CVCI and evaluated the public health benefits that these cleanups have created in communities. It represents an historic investment in disadvantaged communities in California, entrusting DTSC with General Fund dollars. We know there's a cut in that. We want to keep it front and center going forward.

This is such an important and valuable program. The largest amount of funding was allocated to DTSC's Office of Brownfields to administer a grant program known as ECRG Equitable Community Revitalization grants. During the first three years of that initiative, DTSC awarded a total of $126 million to 89 grantees in two rounds of funding.

Grant funds have been used by cities, counties, nonprofits, tribal entities for 32 specific cleanup activities, 37 site specific investigations, 14 community wide assessments.

The second largest component of CVCI, as Doctor Williams also mentioned, is the Discovery and Enforcement program, which DTSC has used to focus on the investigation and cleanup of former and current dry cleaner sites that may be contaminated and probably are based on the analysis with Percival. So these are important, ongoing, there are thousands of them.

And so going forward, we have a lot of cleanup to do. The hazardous waste management plan, which we're all excited about, has presented their comprehensive report. So the hazardous waste management report was due to us and was presented in November 2023 at a public hearing.

A public board hearing the program team meets with our subcommittee often and always. They held multiple stakeholder workshops and reports at nearly they report back at nearly every board meeting.

This report is a critical foundation for developing the plan, which will address the financial incentives for waste reduction, exploration of innovative waste reduction methodology, treatment and disposal technologies, and the advancement of policy intervention. Recommendations the report details the types and quantities of hazardous waste generated within the state, as well as the methods used for transportation and disposal.

The report emphasizes the disproportionate impact of hazardous waste on Low income and communities of color. It highlights the impending capacity constraint and challenges that California's hazardous waste infrastructure presents to implementing the plan.

The report identifies critical data gaps, including environmental and health impact of various types of waste and the effectiveness of treatment and disposal methods currently in use or misused.

As you heard from Doctor Williams in her report, the board subcommittee on the plan provided recommendations to and are collaborating with the team, the DTSC team, on their progress, including the feasibility of inclusion of recommendations that we've made and that we've been in discussion.

Data gaps and fidelity we have board subcommittee member if you don't talk about data and fidelity, you're not getting the job done. So we really believe that improving the states haz waste data by addressing data gaps and then harmonizing the technology solutions to ensure it a complete picture.

You can know what the data is, you have to know what the technology solution potential is and that may require that we consider landfill studies, what's in our landfills enforcement significantly improve compliance rates, starting with serial violators and coordinate with the DTSC enforcement division, which you've already heard is happening.

Develop source reduction efforts for high volume hazardous waste that pose the greatest harm and again consider cohesion with the Safer Consumer Products program that prioritize investigation of alternatives and market moving programs for categories that have been identified in the report.

We also know that we have to invest in R and D to provide alternate ways to manage hazardous waste and ensure that the state is up to date and ideally in the forefront of generating and instituting innovative approaches. California has to lead. I mean, we know that.

And so we encourage, we really look to that ultimate plan for that. The plan will consider and report to the board areas that would benefit from programmatic or policy recommendations. I want to give an example of progress that has been revealed just by going through the process.

DTSE exploring the two largest categories of hazardous waste, contaminated soil and used oil. It's reviewing new technology and brought to an open board hearing a presentation on supercritical fluid extraction method. That was really exciting.

I know that might not seem exciting in this context, but it was fascinating to hear and everyone was saying there are new methods that really could be considered to deal with the waste on site shaping stakeholder engagement for the plan. So remember, the plan is due to the board in March of next year.

We will then hold public hearings, take any revision recommendations before the plan is finally approved. So the plan will be presented in March. The last exciting piece of my report is on fee steading.

There is a detailed memo in your Packet 158 established the following responsibilities for the board set fees annually generation and handling fee, facility fee and environmental fee conduct an analysis of the fee structure and consider adjustments to ensure reasonable distribution of fees among the businesses that contribute to the need for management of hazardous waste.

Two elimination of gaps in resourcing for the board and for DTSC. So our budgets basically and meet the mandates and achieve measurable performance. So we have to have that. We have to have enough fees to cover the mandates and the appropriations.

So the board sets rates and uses its emergency rulemaking authority to adopt the rates for the fiscal year. And we do that October 1, that's after the fiscal year has started.

So that creates its own little calendar challenge for some of the facility payers who don't like hearing in October what they're going to be paying for the fiscal year in July.

Now, the board did not adjust fees in our first full year of operation for the 23-24 fiscal year as reporting indicated then that sufficient revenue would be collected. As we all know, that did not materialize and a significant deficit occurred, revealing a structural problem for us to resolve and requiring loans to DTSC.

So the board subcommittee spent the better part of a year working with DTSCs Division of Financial Planning to unpack the reasons for the continued shortfalls from evaluating the CDTFA contract to enforcement to just better understanding it. Transparency with fee payers continues to be critical in this effort to unpack the root causes. So we've met with them.

We've met with the fee payer groups. What is the problem? Why are the fees laid or not collected? And some of the issues uncovered included incomplete accounting for the actual tonnage of waste subject to the payment, accidental or not, lack of generator awareness of when the dues are expected. How can we fix that?

Inadequate penalties to drive compliance. If the penalty is 10%, if you're six months or two years late, that's money you get to keep in your circulation. So escalating penalties is really important. And then exemptions, some incorrectly applied by the generators themselves, were they self exempt? Exempting legislature and the governor.

The administration also might give exemptions for other priorities. That has an impact on DTSC. They still have the work to do. So how do we account for that? The other fee payers don't want to pay for the exempted fee payers. They don't want their rates up because decisions have been made about exemptions.

So that's something we really have to address openly. And also enforcement, which you've heard already now, is on warp speed. The enforcement team is on it. So the actions that have already been taken to correct some of these issues are enhancing the contract with CDTFA so that we can harmonize reporting.

That there can be those excuses or reasons that are given won't be valid once you have that harmonization of reporting. Engagement with fee payers has been critical. We have one on one meetings. We've had seven public workshops and board meeting presentations on fees. And August 15 we'll present, be presenting the what's in your package at a workshop.

So the board called upon the DTSC financial team to prepare those three scenarios for our consideration.

So our subcommittee meth evaluated and said, give us three scenarios, something that will give us a 5% reserve, a seven and a half percent reserve, or the cap reserve of 10, so that we can see how that would change the fee rates and we can present that at a workshop and ultimately make a decision.

We want not only to cover, but to begin building the reserves that we are mandated to have. We're supposed to have reserves. We didn't have any reserves, so that's a really important piece of it. What is the minimum increase in fees for solvency and prudent reserves? And then you'll see two progressive options going up to the cap.

The subcommittee will finalize its recommendations after we hear from stakeholders at a workshop on the 15th. So again, adequate revenue has to come in for the appropriated budget. Enhanced administration and collection of the fees account for technical adjustments that are made annually for salary increases in COLA, which we didn't do last year either.

So we have that to do. Prudent reserves within the cap and then begin to talk about the loan. There's still one loan on the books. So generally speaking, I would summarize to say future forward is truly the mantra of the day.

The coming year for both the board and for the Director and for where promised reforms are becoming a reality. There'll be a hazardous waste management plan. There'll be an analysis of the fee structure that talks about correcting structural deficits so that going forward we're not here talking about deficits again.

We'll hear additional hazardous waste permit appeals, hopefully fewer of them. As the permit appeal process becomes tighter, we'll adopt performance metrics. We'll contribute in the standing up and participating in the EJAC. We'll continue to find ways to meet with communities and try to do it in more affordable venues.

It's really hard to find venues that you can have an open hybrid meeting where they'll let you use their Wi Fi and their cameras. That's something that is an infrastructure issue, but it really keeps us out of some geographical locations and that's been troublesome.

We want to deepen our meaningful and essential engagement with all stakeholders and then again conduct another analysis of CVCI. So in closing, I want to acknowledge the contributors to our work, the community advocates who generated the momentum for the reform, along with the regulated industries who also wanted the reform and greater clarity. And we've met with them.

We've gone to CEEB and CICC. We've heard from them at every board meeting. Director Williams and the leadership of DTSC embraced it. Cal EPA provides invaluable support, and all of you, the legislation and the Legislature and Administration, hold us accountable. So the board of environmental safety team and I thank you for your deep commitment.

Thank you very much to both of you. I'm going to ask our senators to see if they have any questions. Would you like to ask any questions, please?

Thank you very much. And thank you for allowing me to go early. And I want to thank both of you for the work. I could tell I'm not on the ground. I can tell everything. But certainly the way that you describe it, the way things are going is making a big difference.

And I appreciate the tour that I got to go on in the exide properties and there's a difference between seeing it up front and walking through the properties and all the details that have to be taken into consideration. That's very different from hearing a report. I'm appreciative of that.

I just want to dig in on the one piece that I've been the most involved with, and that's the SB 673. And, you know, in light of, and in the spirit of the way that you describe the reforms moving forward, this is certainly one piece that needs to be finished.

And since the bill passed in 2015, we still don't have the community impacts piece finished. And in 2021, the department acknowledged or that it planned to update the VSP regulations. I had a bill on that seeking changes, but the department acknowledged it needed changes and we still don't have that.

So that's one piece is where is the department in meeting that deadline? And the second question is about the VSP, the DTSC and reevaluating the VSP. And when can we expect this process to take place?

And I say that again in the spirit of your own presentation today, is that I'm not here to jam anybody or say what.

The heck's going on and then walk out. But I do believe we need much more detail as far as not just we're going to get there, you know, in six months or a year, whatever, but how do you plan on getting there? What does it take to make this happen?

If I can start with the violation scoring procedure, I think that's actually in very good shape. We're writing the actual rule to begin rulemaking. Obviously, rulemaking obviously requires a lot of review and getting the details right, but there are no fundamental obstacles to moving forward with a revised regulation for the violation scoring procedure.

So I do think that we'll move forward this calendar year. I don't, again, no significant obstacles with respect to the community vulnerability piece, which we all acknowledge has taken much longer than anybody certainly would have hoped. We actually have done a couple of things in the permit decision. So I'm going to talk about the Kettleman permit decision.

One of the things, we have an agreement with community groups associated with the Kettleman signatories, and part of that agreement was that we take, even with or without SB 673 regulations, we would take community vulnerability into account.

So what we did was we evaluated the multiple burdens that that community experiences, Kettleman City in particular, associated with the facility, not associated with the facility. And we did that. We started with Cal Enviro screen, and then we dug a little deeper and said, where are the impacts? Where are they coming from?

And then we looked at those impacts and said, what can we do in the permit to take into account those impacts? And we did. We, for instance, the facility will move toward electrification on site and that, you know, for trucking, that happens.

So we found some opportunities to mitigate some of those potential impacts that are leading to the community vulnerability. That was a good model for us. We learned a tremendous amount doing that Cal Enviro screen report, engaging with the community and figuring out how to tie that to permit decisions.

The other thing that came out of that was actually cross agency engagement. So when we went to present that Calamviro screen report to the community, we had us EPA come, we had other agencies that were in attendance, Department of Pesticide Regulation, et cetera, because we're not able to address every single impact that that community feels.

It was very successful in terms of bringing a whole of government approach to the point where we found out from the community that one of their biggest problems was potholes and lack of sidewalks.

And so in our next public meeting that was actually focused on the permit, the Department of Public Work showed up and they actually, you know, engaged with the community to talk about solving those problems. So all that to say, it was in some ways, it was a trial run for what we anticipate in the SB 673 regulations.

Again, the biggest thing being the engaging the community earlier. So, you know, just because Cal enviroscreen spits out a score, it doesn't mean that that's what the community actually experiences. What? We may learn different things when we talk to the community. So we'll be publishing those three informational sheets by the end of September. We'll have conversation.

We are drafting the rule now. Again, this rule is perhaps more complicated than the VSP rule, but it will be done by the end of the fiscal year. Thank you, Mister chair.

Senator, questions?

Yeah, thank you very much. A number of issues I wanted to bring up, and I apologize for the late start. We were both at the Judiciary Committee that went over a couple things I wanted to ask you, Miss Rizzo. You were talking about the hazardous waste management plan. I appreciated all that you were speaking to.

It's obviously an area that I've been spending a little bit of time on of late. You know, we've introduced a Bill relating to trying to create an extended producer responsibility system for household hazardous waste. We're likely going to be pulling it back to give it some more time.

Industry has been spending a lot of time really talking a lot about this plan that you're coming up with, and I think seeing that, that's a, one of the reasons why we need to delay moving forward on the Bill. So I guess, what do you really see changing with regards to the status quo with the plan?

Let me start with that, and then I've got a couple of follow up questions.

Sure. Well, from where we're sitting, read the report, and read it three times. The report is hundreds of pages of incredible data, and it would be good to go through that and pull out the things that speak to what you're looking for.

So first you start with the report, which really gives you all the issues that you then are your menu for what would go into the plan. Where are the. What do we not know? Right.

So part of what, every time they'd come with the report discussion to a board meeting and people ask questions or they report to us, or the community asks questions, they go back. So the final report is incredibly comprehensive. I mean, it's a deep, deep dive, that report. Then what are the priorities for the plan?

And we have two Subcommitee Members working with them on that and with very interested and enthused community Members who have priorities, the debate of our waste in state, out of state. Right. That's a worthy conversation. How do you keep it in state? How do you classify the waste?

Is all waste, that is hazardous waste require a button willow or Kettleman or a transport out of state. The out of state transporters want us to keep doing it. The in state, you know, there's a capacity issue. That's infrastructure, right. Is there enough space for it?

How do you then, on the other hand, how do we reduce the amount of that kind of waste in production? So the plan will include ways to do that, the innovation and the technology. And I think you can speak to this better than I can. For sure. The innovation and technology for on site in situ remediation. Right.

There's so much digging hall, right. Contaminated soil requires, and then it drives through communities in diesel trucks that create potholes. And you know that when we were out at Buttonwillow and Kettleman, that's what they're talking about, right.

The community is like, the trucks are going by all day, whether they're going to Chevron or they're going to button Willow or Kettleman, they're carrying this soil and there's plenty of room in there for violations of that, for maybe not dropping it off in the correct site. How do we enforce the proper disposal?

And what technologies do we have to invest in getting expert panels together on new technologies, creating some kind of incentive for people to come up with technologies that would allow the remediation? I mean, look at Santa Susana field lab.

They're talking about how many truckloads a day for how many years if you dig and haul that whole mountainous, something like 95 for 15 years.

That's right.

Really? Well, the community doesn't want the trucks, but we also don't want the contaminated soil getting into the water table or coming down the hill from a fire or from storms. So how do you manage to that? These are real historic legacy problems without the innovation to come up with something better.

So I would say there's an investment. My opinion, my recommend, you have to invest in innovation, in some new technologies to change this. And that's not built in. That's not built in right now. That's aspirational. We talk about it, but then we don't actually execute on innovation. So that's why I led with.

I think that's an important piece of the work. I don't know if that helps.

Well, can I zero in a little bit more specifically on household house or just waste because there's so much to house or just waste challenges. One of the things we've been running into is clarity for consumers with regards to what constitutes household hazardous waste. One thing we found is that the criteria here in the state's very vague.

It leaves many consumers unsure of how to handle the material. So I'd love to learn more about what's happening in that particular space in the household hazard.

Yeah.

Household hazardous race and consumer education and producer responsibility associated with information for consumers as they grapple with how to dispose of this stuff.

Well, I'm not sure I'm going to give you the most satisfactory answer, but I will just tell you this. Recently, our executives got together, and our hazardous waste team came to us with a sheet of different products and said, is it hazardous waste? And I don't think anybody got all the answers right.

Right.

It's really complicated, and you're putting your finger on something that's very important, which is if we don't want this stuff ending up in the landfill inappropriately, then are we doing everything that we should be doing?

And I have to say, you raise a very interesting point that I don't think we've given enough attention, and the hazardous waste management plan may give us the opportunity to zoom in on the problem statement that you've articulated. And in terms of producer responsibility, I think we haven't.

Obviously, the Legislature has really dug into extended producer responsibility, especially this year. There are opportunities for that. It's such a big task because there are so many different forms of household hazardous waste, for instance. But I think there's something there, if we can find the sweet spot that could help us tackle this problem better.

But I think we have to stay in, in conversation about that. But on our end, I think it's a good idea for us to take back what else could we be doing in terms of consumer education or what else could we be doing just to think about, do we have opportunities to push producer responsibility, whether.

Any municipality will have a different set of rules, different color bins, different things that are allowed or not allowed. Right. So you move from this county to that county or this, you know, it's inconsistent. Not everybody, and not everybody then does it. So there's companies like, I don't know where we get business innovation on this.

I just saw a new company called Ridwell. Okay. So they'll, you just throw everything in a box and they'll figure out where it's supposed to go for you, because the presumption is that we're not going to do it. We're not individuals, businesses are not going to separate all their consumer waste in a way that is appropriate.

Well, those, is there a business model here somewhere? Is there business innovation that could be brought to bear on this in some way? I don't know.

Yeah, well, I mean, that's kind of the core concept behind extended produce responsibility. So is to actually the folks who have most control over the products. That's right. Who also know both their product and their consumer base, the best are the best placed to consider circularity and end use as they're working on design and consumer education.

And yet we don't give them any of that responsibility. We put it all in the hands of municipalities and consumers, and then we're surprised when nobody knows what to do and how to handle it and we end up contaminating our entire system.

I mean, so much household hazardous waste is actually ending up in our regular recycling streams and making it harder for those items to get recycled properly because there's hazardous waste in some of the packaging for HHW.

So now with SB 54, we dealt with some of the conformity issues that you're talking about, know, different jurisdictions taking different things we're working on. We're having that same problem with normal recycling. And so we're trying to now create uniformity and conformity statewide with regards to plastics.

I think we want to extend that same concept to household hazardous waste. There's, you know, and when we're in good conversations, there's just been a lot of pushback, partly because people are worried about all the work associated with, with getting 54 off the ground.

But there's a lot of folks have been turning to the plan as a reason to wait, and that's been brought up over and over again, actually. So whether you like it or not, the plan's got, been given a lot of pressure. Well, thank you for that.

And of course, I'm coming to realize, I mean, you're dealing, when I asked you about the plan, you wanted to talk about digging hall, which is an enormously important issue.

We just were talking about exide, and we all know some of the challenges we've had without a state, all those issues, but that's one of so many different issues, and household hazardous waste happens to be one.

And a lot of people have been putting a lot of pressure on the plan with regards to household hazardous waste and the desire to wait on, trying to push for a more comprehensive extended producer responsibility model on household hazardous waste, which I think would help to address a lot of the core concerns.

When you talk about a business. I love Ridwell. Good business model. We've heard things related to them, though. There's challenges with the haulers, a lot of those franchise contracts. That's a whole nother conversation we've heard in this Committee, the EQ Committee, at least extensively.

But in the end of the day, this is such a massive challenge, it's not going to be solved by do good. Are companies that come up with relying upon kind of individual goodwill?

We really need to, as we've done with other industries, especially with the plastics industry, with SB 54, say to the producers, you've got a really critical role here in helping us craft a system that's going to lead to proper disposal and hopefully some degree of safe circularity associated with your products.

And so I just want to kind of thank you, mention that and make sure that we're in good kind of productive dialogue, because the voice of DTSC and also, and also your board chair, Rizzo, is going to be important contributors to that discussion.

Thank you. Yeah, I get it.

The only thing I'll add is one of the things the report pointed out was the reduction in the number of permitted facilities in the state.

And part of what that means is there are fewer facilities doing treatment, and that means fewer facilities that might be able to recover some of the materials that show up in household hazardous waste and other waste streams. And so I think the plan will speak to that.

And it's nice to have extended producer responsibility, but it's more likely to take off if there's already a facility that recovers solvents or otherwise manages the kinds of materials we're talking about.

100%. Though, of course, the extent of pure responsibility also creates the imperative for investment and scaling of those operations.

Exactly.

And as you say, a lot of those operations do exist in a piecemeal form. They're just right now there's a. It's nowhere near as comprehensive to deal with the amount of contaminated material that's out there.

So that's one challenge, and I appreciate your attention to this issue going forward, because we're going to be working with stakeholders through the course of the fall.

I see a couple of my friends here, actually, who we're going to be working closely with to try to come up with a good plan, and we've already got a framework in place, but that work's gonna continue and certainly very much invite your engagement.

Another Bill I've been working on that I'm sure you and I know some other folks in the audience are aware of, and it's mentioned in the background are metal shredding. I think we've heard about the enforcement efforts underway to better manage the metal shredders that we have here in the state.

We've heard from industry that some provisions of the hazardous waste statute simply don't apply to metal shredders. They're recycling a commodity. We have a Bill that we introduced to attempt to take a stab at creating a framework to regulate these facilities that currently claim to be unregulable.

I mean, at least not subject to regulate to the household hazardous waste regulation, perhaps appropriately, by the way. I don't know. It's an important circular industry. The flip side is it's not a regular commodity. We know there's real pollution associated and there's environmental justice impacts, and we've been in deep conversations about all those impacts recently.

But I think we also recognize that the status quo is not working either with regards to the shredders and pretending otherwise. I think it would be a massive mistake.

So I'd love to just kind of get a sense from the two of you about maybe some insights as to some of the challenges that the department's been facing as it seeks to regulate these facilities beyond the enforcement actions and whether current inadequacies in the law or conflicts over interpretation of the current law are getting in the way of our ability to adequately ensure both environmental and public health associated with these facilities.

So you touched on a lot of the different really critical things with respect to metal shredders. First and foremost, it is an industry that does a very important service for California. I think California has some obligations to make sure we have these kinds of industries in state to be responsible for the waste that we generate.

And so we want them, you know, we want to give them a path to be able to operate. That's, we are committed to that. That said, the number of problems they've had have persisted for years. So we have used very strong enforcement.

But one reason we've had to rely on enforcement is because of, for instance, litigation when we try to put regulatory regimes in place.

And so the fact that, you know, you've taken up some legislation, it does give us an opportunity perhaps to get it right, to figure out, well, what doesn't apply and what isn't necessary in order to get these, make sure that these facilities operate safely, which part of the hazardous waste control laws actually don't apply?

Because we have had conversations for years with the industry saying, tell us what doesn't apply.

And it's only until it's taken until very recently for them to get very specific with us about why they're so different than other operations, because for us, we can go down the line and find an awful lot of the hazardous waste control law that definitely applies to those facilities. But we recognize the value of the facility.

We recognize they do have unique challenges. And if there's a path forward on the legislative front that works and is protective and doesn't undermine our authority and doesn't contradict some of the reforms we've put in place over the past couple years, then we're getting somewhere. Then there's real potential there.

Well, and I think the other thing you're up against is these metal shredders. There are land use issues, right. Leases. So they're, if they're hazardous waste, some of them can't be where they are because of whatever the agreements are about their location. And that's come up.

We've heard that from them that they, you know, they would be restricted if they were labeled hazardous waste facility, then they wouldn't. And I don't know which ones those are. But that's been one of the arguments that has been put forth.

I don't know how you resolve that, but that's something to tackle and to, because it isn't all hazardous waste, but there's hazards. So how do you know? I think that's an issue, or that's one of the things that they have argued.

Okay, again, an area where I think we're going to be engaging in a lot of further work because we really are trying to find, I think, you know, it's one of these politically or legislatively thankless tasks. But really, I think it's an area that we've identified that really requires some serious work.

We need it. We need a solution here.

Yeah. Yes, I'm in strong agreement with you on that. So the question is, how do we land the details? As always, it's difficult. Obviously, significant EJ component to that conversation. I heard your conversation with Senator Rosso.

Just would love to maybe hear you go a little deeper on your plans to build trust and meaningful engagement with effective, effectively with historically overburdened communities. Just in General. Can you maybe reflect on. We kind of walked into a very challenging situation with regards to the shredders in West Oakland. Obviously, there's a situation in exhibit.

There's so many of these cases around the state, sadly. And of course, DTSC is at the front lines of this very difficult conversation, especially as we oftentimes are facing conflicts of, I think the shredder situation is a good example of kind of a broader societal need, a greater circularity for this, for metals, which are highly recyclable.

And, you know, for God's sakes, much better environmentally in many respects than doubling down on plastics or other types of less environmentally friendly products. And yet there's a lot of environmental impact associated with both the collection, the smelting, the breaking down, and the recycling of metal.

That needs to be kind of considered as we're, as we're doing this work. We'd love some of your thoughts philosophically on the challenges and plans associated with meaningful engagement with a lot of our frontline communities.

Yeah, well, the first thing is just showing up and starting the conversation and not showing up once and going away. And it's starting to happen more and more. So we had this exide working group, and that's now turned into a model that we're going to apply to the ECOBAT facility and the communities around ECOBAT.

We are part of the regulatory agencies overseeing the cleanup at Hunters Point.

There was a very big shift in the way that engagement takes place in the past year and a half and so much more regular communication with the community, much more cross government engagement, so that it's not just the US EPA showing up, it's actually us EPA and the Water Board and DTSC and everybody else who needs to be there.

So it's case by case. But what we need to do is that now we need to start institutionalizing this. We've had enough success with some of these approaches that we have to start building them in. The challenge with building some of these processes in.

Is it, of course, takes more time and then, you know, does that, is that going to delay a cleanup for a developer that has a strict timeline? I don't know, is that going, you know, is that going to delay a permit decision because we took more time to understand the community concerns?

Well, that's one reason why the SB 673 community vulnerability regs can help, because it drives that in the beginning of the process so that the rest of the process can, can move forward.

So I'm trying to think of the other cases we have, but it really, there's a pretty long list of places where the engagement has shifted in terms of how we're, you know, our ability to pick up the phone and know who it is in the community to talk to or for them to reach out to us.

And we just, we just have to continue that and make it the norm. Continue to make it the norm. But again, you know, that's all very nice on a case by case basis.

But I do think there are opportunities to create actual policies and actual expectations for our staff and our teams to be out there in community and to engage.

Can I just follow on that 1st? 1 second. In terms of we haven't conducted policy related, specific agenda items where we're talking about an open meeting or a segment of a board hearing, where we hear from community on an issue, we hear from industry, we hear.

I mean, we don't hear from government at our meetings, but we're talking about getting that information.

You are government in our meetings. No, I know, I know.

But I mean. Okay, you're right. I am government. Thank you. Then I guess it's happening. But in terms of proposed legislation, we've stayed away from that when something is in process. So how can we work together better and utilize the opportunities that we create as a board for some of these discussions, some of this input?

So I'm very open to that.

I think having come from a policy shop, you know, breast cancer prevention partners, they probably, they've probably hounded you for the last 20 years, but it's why we have green chemistry and safer consumer products, because we, those discussions have to happen between the representatives of those that are harmed and those that can help fix it.

So maybe we need to figure out a way to do that.

Yeah, well, I mean, I appreciate that very much and I. Look, that's part of why we have this built in annual conversation reflective of how crazy the Legislature is. Maybe this isn't the right time of year to do it, but here we only have the two chairs, we got two full committees, and everyone's running around.

I was literally quadruple booked at this moment. So there's that problem we're so focused on passing.

I was just talking to a colleague of mine who's terming out who is just on the way here, actually, we were saying she's being lauded for all this wonderful work, and yet she's finding that some of the things that she passed aren't even actually being implemented.

So we're so focused on trying to pass bills because we have so many. We're not always so focused on oversight and having these kinds of conversations where we can really do the deep dive work associated with the legislation that we worked so hard on in the first place.

Maybe we should reduce the number of bills we all introduce. I think it makes everyone's lives easier. They're very happy about that. No, but seriously, I think it's a problem. I think we're more of a Bill factory than an oversight operation. And yet, and that actually takes away from the value of the legislation that we do pass.

So it's even in our, it's our own interest to have better oversight so as to make sure that the bills that we do pass are meaningful. Now there's areas where it's really hard to pass bills and that's products. Green chemistry. I've been doing some work in this space, so this is my final question.

I know I've asked a lot and then I'm done. And then thankfully Eddie and I are the only ones here.

So the Committee hearing is limited in time, but can you just talk a little bit more about some of the challenges you've been finding in expanding the number of priority products that are reviewed and specifically how resources are allocated. So we had resources allocated two years ago.

How are they going to be utilized to build out this program we keep seeing in our committees? ETSM is the same. Just all these one off bans on certain chemicals industry comes in and says there's no comprehensive approach. This is all one off.

And then they have a point when they say, look, well, where's the Department on this? We're supposed to have this comprehensive green chemistry program that hasn't led to a single ban or any recommended. So there was funding to finally try to address this.

We're not seeing much progress, at least from our end, but maybe a lot of work's happening on your end. I'd love to hear more about it. And that's it. And after that, yeah.

Yeah. I understand the continued frustration at what's perceived as the slow pace of the program. I don't know if any of you have ever gone on the website. The SCP homepage has a timeline and that timeline lists every single thing they're working on.

Whether that's adding a chemical to the chemicals, to the candidate chemicals list, whether that's evaluating alternatives, analyses, everything is there. And that timeline is a little bit overwhelming. It's overwhelming because there actually is so much going on in the program. The program tends to be a very systematic program.

They're very methodical and so they made a decision and I think it was the right decision. We're going to focus on hiring. And what that means is the people who would normally be cranking out more products are going to be hiring people, training them up, onboarding them and getting them ready to do the work.

So we're through with all of that. The program is essentially fully staffed. And they are. I mean, I've had presentations in the last two weeks from new staff Members who I never saw before. And they're incredible. I mean, they're just so talented and capable and they are moving.

They have honestly, they're probably annoyed with me because I've been not moving. Some of this is honestly on me, just kind of trying to keep their, their work moving, but it is moving. And I do think you're going to see in the next six months, it'll appear different.

I mean, as it is right now, again, we're in public comment on three different priority products at the same time, which has never happened. Again, the ability to move faster to regulatory response, all of that's going to make a difference.

So it's, you know, I hate to sit here and say, trust me, but part of this is really, there's, there's good visibility. I mean, you will get more visibility into what's happening in the program. That said, of course the program is never going to do a hundred products a year.

And given the magnitude of the problem, you know, there, there is, there needs to be room for other solutions. It is not the solution to everything. It is intended to drive a paradigm shift so that manufacturers actually think about their ingredients, which I gotta say, it still astounds me that people say they can't control their supply chains.

It's an ingredient that's in your product. Who else is going to control your supply chain if you don't control it? So these are the kinds of things that we come up against with manufacturers that they need to be addressing. So safer consumer products needs to continue to put the pressure on manufacturers to be thinking in different ways.

I do think the impact of the program extends well beyond the number of products. There was a congressional hearing two weeks ago on the issues around tires and tire ingredients, and they referenced safer consumer products work repeatedly in that hearing.

So the impact of the program is being felt, and it may be not felt in the ways that people expected it to be, but it is, it's moving. And again, you'll see, for instance, like on the six ppds and tires, that was our first really robust alternatives analysis process. We received 17 alternatives analyses.

You know, some of them were done as part of a consortium, and the program evaluated those alternatives analyses in the 60, within the 60 days that they were given. There was no, they didn't. They hit that deadline. They got back to the manufacturers with the notices of insufficiency of their alternatives analyses.

They kept the program moving on the pace that it was expected to move. So the capacity is there, and again, you'll start to see that become more visible.

Good. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. Good questions. And I have a couple follow ups to some of the questions. I'll begin by thanking you for the work that you're doing on behalf of a group of legislators. Senator, Member Pilar, who is very grateful to your response to the problem in her district.

That affects all of us when it's all said and done, and that's the Chiquita canyon problem. I also appreciate the work that you're doing as it pertains to really working with industries in our region, as it pertains to lithium recovery.

And although it's an area of a lot of unknowns, of many firsts, you're doing the job of being very careful, methodical, and keeping in mind the impacts, because there will be impacts. And although we have said it could be the cleanest, greenest technologies to recover lithium, there will be other implications there.

You mentioned trucks earlier and waste produced, and I know you're working very closely with many stakeholders on that. But to build on some of the questions, and I'll start with the consumer products. In 2022, funding was given to the Department. It was expected that a handful of products would be analyzed comprehensively and ultimately some type of direction.

We've gotten one, and you've talked a little bit through the questions from the Senator and what some of the challenges were.

What could the Legislature expect as it pertains to an annual basis, how many of these products will you be able to analyze list, because the pressures are on the Legislature here as it pertains to legislation being introduced consistently.

We have scientists sitting on one another's opposite sides telling us that one side is correct, the other one's science is flawed.

And shy of saying we're going to put a moratorium on these types of bills because there is a lot of consumer concern as it pertains to the protection of the public health and well being of our consumers, the pressure is put on us to move quicker. Right.

With a piece of legislation, and I can think of several bills that have come through this Committee this year dealing with that particular situation. So what would be your kind of goals and objectives, as it pertains to, on an annual basis, how many products we'd be able to be listed after your comprehensive analysis?

I do think, you know that 2022 timeline, if you take us, we're pushed that all out. I would expect, for instance, five products this year. I don't think that's going to be too much of a challenge this fiscal year. And then I think you'll start to see the ramp up to 10 in the following fiscal year.

So I do think the pace of the work is going to pick up significantly. The other thing I do, and I do think that moving forward, that's about the pace you'll see between 5 and 10 products a year. It's hard to move more regulations packages than that. It's hard to manage.

If we have a product that has 100 manufacturers that have to report to us and we have to look at 100 alternatives, analyses, that's a lot. And so we have some constraints with managing the workflow for the entire four steps of the regulation.

I do think that the Legislature, there is an opportunity for us when a product pops up, call us. The food packaging, the pfas in food packaging Bill was, we thought that was very good legislation.

And part of the reason for that was because there was a conversation with us about what we had learned about those chemicals in those products and what we where we, because sometimes we know that chemical is not in that product and the Legislature might not know.

We have a case of that this year where one of you know, there was some proposed legislation and we know that that's not actually a problem in that particular product.

So we encourage some conversation around, you know, when something pops up and people think there's action to be taken, see if we have any information, see if it's something we've researched, see if we can provide some technical support.

Because as, again, we know that you don't have the staff that we have and the scientists we have, and we research a number of things that we don't pursue. And so we may have information about something that is not that visible because we decided not to pursue it.

We are going to be making those things more visible as we move forward.

Thank you. Connected to one of the comments that our co chair here made earlier is we're passing these bills, and I've heard often the reference to the orphan code and the enforcement challenges.

You know, we really would, I think, benefit tremendously from your participation in these conversations so that we're not just focused on the passing of a Bill. And then I. Yeah, what, right. Because of the lack of enforcement. But so thank you for, and if.

I could say we're motivated about that because we get phone calls from manufacturers who say, who's going to help me make sure I'm complying? And we have to say we don't have the authority. And so the industry actually would like a little bit more certainty about where these things reside.

Question in regards to engagement, a lot has been discussed and how you have gone about. Want to go about. The EJ Advisory Committee has taken quite a bit of time to get up and going.

You, I think you mentioned in your comments, September date, unless I'm mixing up comments, but can you elaborate on what have been some of the challenges of establishing environmental justice Advisory Committee? Because I, you know, I think that plays a critical role in the community participation that you're trying to achieve overall.

Yeah, I think, you know, if we, between the time that the EJAC was put into SB 158 and now the Air Resources Board obviously had their EJAC and learned a lot about what it takes to implement their eJAC.

And quite frankly, there's some legal things that were unanticipated for that ejac that we wanted to make sure we took care of, conflict of interest things, making sure that all of those ducks were in a row. And that actually took a little longer than we wanted to go through some of those details.

I think really being thoughtful about what is this AJAC going to do. And so, for instance, at 1.0 we had a framework that perhaps put too many administrative responsibilities on the EJAC, and that's not what the EJAC is there for.

We need the EJAC to be deliberating and focusing on the issues and not necessarily doing too much of the kind of administrative work that we decided we can front load and we can take care of some of those things offline. So all of that to say that there's just been a lot of just thoughtful work.

And then, of course, we, we've worked very closely with the, with the board Subcommitee, the environmental justice Subcommitee. And, of course, you know how legislation is. Once it's in legislation, people have different interpretations. Making sure that we get on the same page about what the expectations are for the council has been very important. And we're there.

I think we're there now, and I think things will move forward.

Thank you. I think it's an important message to send to those who are watching, those who are here when we talk about a genuine effort to have full community engagement and participation specifically on this specific topic. Right. The Advisory Committee plays a critical role. I want to talk a little bit about funding.

When SB 158 was passed, you were also given the opportunity to work off of a certain amount of money, given the budget circumstances. We seem to be pulling back on that. What are the impacts that you can display for us here to have a better sense of what we can expect given those changes of funding.

Although you all do have some authority to raise certain fees, give us an outlook in terms of what to expect.

Thank you for that. We don't rely on General funds except for CVCI, and that cut will get through next year without feeling it too harshly because there's still some money there for that program. That cut is significant and long term, we hope the state is in better shape to be able to keep that going.

There are programs that are funded for a short amount of time that we, that, you know and I that really you can speak to more specifically. But the fees, our intent is to meet the appropriation with our fees.

So from the board's perspective, there's a lot of mandates for this board with, we came back and did some budget change, proposals to elevate positions because the positions that were in our budget weren't going to take care of the level of expertise that you expect, that we expect from our staff team.

The hold is going to have an impact on us next year. The hiring freeze is going to have a tremendous impact on the board. I can speak to that. I don't know the impact that you're going to feel on vacancies.

So anytime that happens, we don't have General funds, so we're going to raise fees appropriate to the appropriation. And beyond that, we don't have the authority to add something to it. Whatever you appropriate is what we have to live with.

So if you want us to do more and you appropriate more, then the fees will have to be higher. That's that cycle. And then the other piece is the one General Fund, which is the CVCI.

So I would only, excuse me, I would only say we did get a loan this year to augment the shortfall, to close the gap in the generation and handling fees. So we're not feeling impacts necessarily this year.

And so it's a question of, you know, as we put in place the stricter requirements on exemptions and more compliance measures for getting people to pay their fees and as the board raises their fees, can we close that gap so that we're not impacting our levels of.

Service and can we pay back the loan in three years? Can we take that $40 million and pay it back without harming the production of the, you know, of the Department and not allowing the board then to really evaluate what else can we contribute with what we have and what is reasonable to ask you for.

I think I mentioned last year there was discussion and a request for me to come back and talk about ombuds. The SB 158 referred to it as a whole program. Right. As a major operation.

Well, that can't be accomplished with one staff Member at a certain level, if you want a full on onboards program, then that has to be funded differently. So those kinds of things which we're not bringing forth to you now under the circumstances. But you're asking me long term.

I'm saying those are the kinds of things that we might be coming back and talking with you about when things are in better shape for the state.

Thank you so much. I don't have any other questions, but just simply to say thank you for being here. Thank you for the insightful information. We touched on, maybe the tip of the iceberg in terms of what our high level priority discussions, you know, these hearings, allow us to do so. Right.

And I think it would be important for us to, even if not in this type of formal setting, have a conversation maybe more than once a year. Right. About these particular topics. So thank you so much again for us, it was important that we have this hearing, especially at this critical time.

I'll now open it up for public comments and see if there are any individuals in the room who would like to make a few comments. Please, your name, your affiliation, and please try to keep your comments brief as we are on a hard stop in this room in a few minutes. So thank you.

And while people are coming up, I'll just say thank you. Thank you for the time, the attention, and we would also appreciate being continuing staying in conversation. Thank you again.

Our orgs all represent environmental justice communities throughout the state, and we interact with DTSC and the Board of Environmental Safety on several issues, including permitting, cleanups, and much more. We're very grateful to have this opportunity to provide feedback, and we look forward to continue to working with your agencies to protect our communities.

We did submit a letter to the Board of Environmental Safety regarding the evaluation for this legislative hearing, and we've determined that DTSC should improve in the following three categories, among many others that are outlined in that letter, including environmental justice, public engagement and enforcement, and permitting. First, regarding community engagement and enforcement against polluters and violations.

You know, we see oftentimes that many community members from environmental justice communities are unaware how to report violations, and there is a lack of trust sometimes with DTSC in whether concerns are going to be addressed.

I do want to address something that was mentioned at this meeting that although we appreciate that there have been additional opportunities to engage with the public, communities require more than just open meetings, that when they're being told the same thing over and over again, there needs to be opportunities to provide transparent feedback and answers back to the questions that are given to to the community.

Additionally, that would make it to be much more proactive community involvement and a better moment for communication between our respective communities. We've also expressed concerns before about the delayed implementation of SB 673, which would aim to manage cumulative impacts in permitting.

And we really urge DTSC to engage further with the community to get this process moving at a much faster pace than what we have seen, as this is going to be crucial for our communities as they are currently dealing with many cumulative impacts from hazardous waste facilities in their neighborhoods.

We also further encourage DTSC to work more with communities about the Environmental Justice Advisory Council framework. We have not received many updates since we received that framework and had the initial opportunity to comment in September I believe, and you know, the reasons that were given today are something that I have not heard before.

So, being able to provide more updates on that would be truly appreciated, especially to the community members, not just to the legislative, the legislators here today. And lastly, among many other things in this letter, we know that environmental justice communities face a disproportionate amount of pollution, especially from hazardous facilities.

So, we ask that DTSC really prioritize a statewide hazardous waste management plan in order to really hone in on the reduction of hazardous waste and holding the polluters financially responsible in order to really make sure that we reduce that toxic waste in our communities.

This is helpful for cleanups, permitting, and as we've seen in the communities in Los Angeles, with Exide, the Santa Susana field labs, and some cleanups in Kern, County, being able to manage or reduce that hazardous waste and preventing any of those issues in the first place is imperative.

For these reasons and the other ones further outlined in the letter that we submitted, we strongly urge DTSC to foster more community engagement, include more transparency measures and accountability to protect our health and the environment. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon. Dawn Kapke with Mchugh Koepke Padron on behalf of a number of clients with interest on DTSC Board of Environmental Safety issues starting on a couple of key things, I first want to just recognize the department under the director's leadership with she and her team, as well as Chair Rizzo and the board, they've been very responsive and engaged as part working with a number of stakeholders and certainly the regulated communities.

So, we appreciate that engagement, responsiveness indeed. On a couple of specific issues for the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, CCEEB, on the topic of fees, certainly we've been very engaged, both with the department, with the board, as well as CDTFA, as part of not only working through some of those changes through the budget process this year, but certainly as part of the enactment of SB 158.

We still continue to be concerned just about kind of the long term associated with fees and just the tension associated with the interest in reducing hazardous waste generation. And yet in reducing hazardous waste generation means a reduction in fees impacting the department's budget.

There is clearly a need for kind of a broader, more detailed conversation about funding for the department over the long term, we would argue not just solely on the backs of fees. Additionally foresee with regard to site mitigation and cleanup, we are hearing more and more from our members about concerns about some of the timelines associated with some of those project reviews, closures, what have you.

So, we certainly have had some conversations with the department, but look forward to digging in a little bit more deeply, hopefully this fall on some of those activities.

For the California Manufacturers and Technology Association and Chemical Industry Council of California relative to the Safer Consumer Products program, both CMTA and CICC have been deeply engaged in the Safer Consumer Products program since its enactment in legislation. They were at the table helping to negotiate those.

And I in particular have been involved as part of going back to the development of those regulations and ever since, we would just kind of highlight that certainly, we remain engaged. And just as part of our conversations with the department, just really want to encourage the Legislature to be mindful. This is a very deliberative process.

It was never built to be a fast process to get to outcomes. And additionally, we've had a lot of conversations about how to demonstrate success with the program.

Much of the success that I think the state and just generally consumers are seeing is not quite as tangible in terms of metrics because of the work the department's doing in the program. It's pushing changes in the market with consumer products, with ingredients, long before they're actually getting to regulation. Just really think that that's important to notw.

And then finally, Chair Allen, just with regard to your household hazardous waste discussion, certainly, as we've committed to you, we are certainly prepared to sit at the table this fall to work through that and look forward to working with DTSC on that topic as well. So, thank you.

Thank you, Dawn. Yes, ma'am.

Well, good afternoon. I'm Miss Margaret Gordon. Hello. Senator Allen.

Hi there.

We have seen each other on Zoom. Now get to see each other in person. I'm here to ask about suspending the bill until we have a more formal, formal engagement with regulatory people, community people, environmental justice, the scientists, the researchers, all in one place to understand why this bill has not been collectively engaging all of us at one time. That's number one.

Number two, we do need to be, have set a date and time for that, for us to be in all in one room to do problem-solving, do a process for solutions. As of right now, we have not had that. We have not had that process at all. Nothing.

Just back-and-forth meetings and Zoom and telephone calls. We need to have something more actual and actual for us to be more engaging around this process. And lastly, I would like to see that the rapid response task force report reviewed and see what's in it that will support making changes around the metal shredding process.

Three fires in five years in one community. That's too much. That's what happened to West Oakland. Three fires. I live less than a mile from the site. I visit the site, and it still needs some mitigation. The ship that brings in, that brings in or take out the feedstock is not electrified. It doesn't plug into the docks.

The crane that they're using is still a diesel crane. We have no idea what kind of those trucks that bring in the feedstock. We don't even know if those trucks are registered under carbon barrier quality. We do know.

I do know from being there when they start spraying down some of the shredding materials and gave off steam, that was a chemical smell that came off of that.

So, there's lots of, lots of reasons to slow down this bill and be able to talk about more about protecting the community at large who is surrounded, such as West Oakland by a port, three freeways, a post office distribution center, a rail that runs 18 hours a day, BART runs 18 hours a day on one street, trucks 24/7, no enforcement.

No enforcement of any kind after five and before 5:00 a.m. There's a lot to be done, as I have learned, that represents cumulative impacts to West Oakland. And I think that that should be lifted up in all our communities that we have multiple levels of impacts. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Larry Sweetser, Sweetser and Associates. On behalf of the Rural County Representatives of California RCRC, 40 rural counties in California, cover quite a bit of the state. We definitely support the proper management of hazardous waste.

We did provide comments on the hazardous waste management plan, and rural counties are interested in hazardous waste management for a number of reasons. First off, many of our agencies and businesses generate hazardous waste. We're subject to the regulations and we have very few large industries, mostly agriculture, but we also have a lot of small businesses.

Most of our businesses are small businesses, so they have the same rules they have to apply with less resources. They do have some exemptions. Secondly, a lot of our agencies have local enforcement ability through the hazardous waste, the CUPAs. We also have LEAs for solid waste so that we're involved in the enforcement side as well.

Thirdly, we deal with a lot of abandoned waste. So, if you've been to the rural areas, we have a lot of forests, we have a lot of desert, we have a lot of open space. They're ripe for people to leave hazardous waste there illegally disposed of.

It's a lot of, it's due to the cost for proper disposal as well as lack of options locally for that material. Fourthly, also deal with illegal disposal in the solid waste streams. We operate a number of landfills and transfer stations in the rural area that get impacted by people illegally dumping hazardous waste into the garbage.

And we have to manage that. And we do. Results in worker safety issues, environmental threats. We also have fires. We have lithium battery fires, just like they do in urban areas that we have to deal with. And lastly, and my favorite topic, because I spent almost 40 years of this dealing, is household hazardous waste as Senator Allen talked about.

We've been working with your staff. I've been working with those programs throughout the state, and those programs are essential in California. They are required to be sponsored by our local governments. So, our cities and our counties sponsor these programs, so they have responsibility for it. They have very little control over generation.

They're stuck with the management of this and subsidizing the cost. So, in terms of that, we did, we do have to subsidize that. It gets pretty expensive. Many products that we manage cost more to get rid of than they do to buy, and that's a problem.

We've also been involved with legislation. RCRC sponsored AB 2481 a couple of years ago, and we worked cooperatively with the department. We got that through. There was no opposition to the bill. And one of the main things that did was streamlined the regulatory process for jurisdictions handling household hazardous waste.

We were able to streamline the requirements for transport between sites by getting rid of some regulations and saved tens of thousands of dollars for jurisdictions on management, of having to pay federal fees that we no longer have to pay. We're also heavily involved in retaining the fee exemptions.

I know fee funding is a big issue for the department, but we feel household hazardous waste programs, used oil, solid waste facilities, deserve those exemptions because we don't have the control. We're stuck with the problem. We have to manage it at subsidized cost, and that's why we justify those exemptions.

Those exemptions stayed in the bill, all except for non-certified oil centers, which we're still trying to work with the department. I mean, getting those because those are very important in our rural areas, because they're not certified centers. We also are working to reduce some of the duplication and overlap.

CalRecycle has an annual report we have to do on household hazardous waste. The department has a report they want us to do. Different timelines, same information, two different agencies. We should be able to streamline that. We also support producer responsibility. We've had the benefit of handling paint through the stewardship programs. E-waste batteries is coming.

We've also been a big supporter on 1143, Senator Allen's bill, working on that, on how on some household hazardous waste. We've also been working on SB 1066, on marine flares. Those are all things that impact our jurisdictions. We're also concerned with emerging waste streams.

Solar panels are a big problem that we're trying to deal with that should have a lot simpler solution than it does now. We're also struggling with how to deal with vape pens, which is another issue we want to talk to the department about. We have a lot of that issue in our rural county.

I almost bought my new prop. I bought a vape pen that has a built-in video game you can play. Wrong messaging there. So, in regards to the report, we did comment on it. There's a lot of good things in there. I commend the department for putting that together.

There's a lot of things we still want to fix in there. Waste streams have changed over time with hazardous waste. We have differing ones we have to deal with soil. Used oil is a big portion. We deal a lot of the used oil from the collection side. Diversion and recycling of hazardous waste is increasing.

We still have a lot more to do with that. Stewardship programs are ongoing, but at the end of the day, most of the hazardous waste we're collecting gets shipped out of state, which is kind of ironic. We have all these regulations on these are hazardous, but we have to ship it out of the state to deal with.

There should be better ways to manage that in-state. There are some proposals to deal with that, particularly like with solar panels. We would like to see some ways to handle it in-state. It makes it cheaper and better for us to be handling it.

So, we look forward to working with the Legislature, the board, and the departments, and especially in the household hazardous waste and used oil arena. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'll keep this really short. I know everybody wants to go home. My name is Scott Andrews. I am a technical advisor to the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, also known as WOEIP. WOEIP is not a legislative organization, a policy organization.

So, we've been kind of thrown into this like kind of trial by fire into the bill factory as unpaid interns here. But we're learning a lot, and we apologize that we haven't learned all the rules yet. But what we know is that, as has been mentioned here today, drafting good legislation, good regulations, takes a long time.

And so, in particular to SB 1234, the metal shredders legislation. We just think that there needs to be more time for us to engage with the DTSC BES. The leadership of DTSC, others. Staff has been great.

Tina Andalina, Ben Allen's Chief of Staff has been amazing, but it's just been all done on such a rushed timeline that we think that we just need more time. There are a lot of great experts in this field. You know, both from the industry and from advocacy organizations who could really add a lot of the conversation.

It's just all going too quickly. So, that's all we're looking for here, a little more time to get things done right as opposed to get things done quickly. You know, we've been waiting 30 years for good regulations on this industry, so waiting another year is probably pretty reasonable.

So, thanks to everybody who's putting in all this hard work, though.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, I think that wraps up. Unless there's an additional comments or any comments you want to make to the comments. No? Okay. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you for this discussion.

You know, I've been chairing this committee for several years now, and I always walk out of this feeling like there's still a ton of different issues that we never get to deal with. And the sheer size of the just the background, let alone the materials you provided with us with, shows us underscores that point.

But do appreciate you coming in. I think there's several areas of follow-up for us to do some work on, both on the Assembly side and the Senate side. And with that, I'll adjourn the hearing and look forward to robust further discussion. Thank you.

Thank you.