Senate Standing Committee on Environmental Quality

It is April 2, 2025. It's nice to see everybody in the room today. We do not have a quorum, so we will begin as a Subcommitee. But we do have our first author, so I'm happy to see him. Senator Becker. So we will go with item number one here, which is SB 285, and invite Senator Becker to come up.

You may begin.

Alright, thank you, Madam Chair and Members. California's established goals for reaching net zero greenhouse gases by 2045, and in the bill that we all voted on, that path is 85% direct emissions reductions, and then the rest will be made up through carbon dioxide removal. So that's in our scoping plan.

That's represented as 75 million metric tons of CO2 removed per year by 2045. And right now we've got very little that we're moving in a measured way in any given year. So we have a lot of work to do. And one of the big questions will be what should count as CDR?

Current law has only very vague definitions of what should count as carbon dioxide removal. And the requirements that do exist focus too narrowly on geologic sequestration without including many other valid pathways of carbon dioxide removal. So this bill addresses this lack of clarity.

It sets the goalposts for what we can count in the state as the state starts to incentivize carbon dioxide removal and starts to track our progress towards net zero. And I think it's important that we do this now.

We set the requirements now before carbon dioxide removal really starts to scale up, so everyone will know what will be required and can invest in solutions that will meet those criteria's. So this bill does that in two ways. First of all, it establishes guardrails to prevent us from incentivizing pathways that create new problems.

For example, it affirms that any carbon removal that wants to be credited in California must adhere to the community protections that were part of SB 905. It also allows only the use of waste biomass as a feedstock for engineered carbon removal pathways. So we don't support processes that will displace food production, for example, or lead to deforestation.

Secondly, the bill sets minimum standards for how long carbon must be stored in order to be seen as a durable solution, and that durability is essential. Carbon climate change is a problem because we have too much CO2 in the the atmosphere, and we are going to be paying companies to remove some of that CO2 to fix the problem.

So we don't want our waste, you know, we don't pay our waste disposal companies to temporarily take away our garbage and then bring it back. Right. We pay them to take it away and make sure it's their safe disposal permanently. And the same should be true for when we pay people to remove carbon.

It doesn't do us any good. If that's only we pay them and remove for 5 years or even 20 years. After that, the excess CO2 will be back in the atmosphere and somebody's going to have to remove it and we'll have to pay somebody to do that.

So this bill aims to prevent that problem by requiring minimal durability standards equivalent to the hundred years of responsibility for monitoring and replacing losses that was established in 905 for global carbon sequestration.

I just do want to say a number of people have raised concerns about whether the durability requirements limit the role of nature based carbon removal and force the state to rely only on new and newer technologies. Just to be really clear, that's not what the bill does.

Nature based solutions are clearly included in the definition of carbon removal in this bill and the bill provides multiple ways in which nature based removals can qualify. This bill is not trying to box out nature based solutions. In fact supports all different types of carbon removal equally while holding them all to a common set of standards.

I understand there are some stakeholders still have concerns about this and I look forward to continuing to working with them.

Lastly, just important to point out that some people raise concerns that the original version of the bill might limit what carb could count as offsets in cap and trade or what would be allowed in voluntary markets to meet private net zero or meet private net zero pledges.

The amendments we made last week make it very clear the bill is not restricting any of those things. It's simply setting standards for what can be counted as the state starts tracking its own progress to net zero. With that I'd like to introd-

Dr. Aidan Preston will be our witness who until recently worked the DOA on their program for federal procurement state standards for carbon removal.

Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify today in support of SB 285, a critical piece of legislation that will establish integral quality standard for carbon removal in California. I'm Aidan Preston.

Until a few weeks ago I worked as a carbon removal advisor at the United States Department of Energy helping to establish quality thresholds for carbon dioxide removal as part of the DOE's program for the federal procurement of carbon removal credits. Today I'm a scientist at Milky Wire.

It's an industry leading climate action organization dedicated to funding impactful climate projects, including carbon removal activities. There is clear scientific consensus, including from the IPCC, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and domestic experts at Lawrence Livermore National Lab, that carbon removal is absolutely necessary to meet the states and world's net zero targets.

While reducing emissions is essential, we must also remove excess carbon from the atmosphere to prevent catastrophic climate impacts. There are many different ways to remove and store carbon, ranging the spectrum from natural to more technological engineered solutions.

So these examples can include afforestation projects, wetland restoration, soil, soil carbon storage, biomass with carbon removal and storage, and then direct ocean capture, direct air capture. Each of these approaches is climate positive and should be funded as vital components of a sound climate strategy.

And we need clear standards to define those removal activities that can be allowed to compensate for carbon emissions. And from a scientific perspective, durability is essential. Once emitted, a carbon dioxide molecule can remain in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.

If a California polluter offsets their emissions with a carbon removal that isn't stored for the same length of time, then after the reversal occurs, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide will not decrease. If the removal is reversed and the carbons re emitted, then the emissions were never truly abated, they were just delayed.

California won't be able to meet its net zero target that way. Allowing polluters to offset carbon emissions with removals that have shorter storage duration than the time the carbon dioxide spends in the atmosphere is effectively allowing polluters to defraud the California taxpayer.

SB 285 ensures that this kind of shortfall is prevented by requiring that removals meet appropriate durability standards. I want to recognize that SB 285 is not prescriptive or one size fits all in the standards that it sets for carbon removal.

In it enables all approaches to carbon removal as long as they meet the pathway neutral durability standards to credibly offset a ton of emitted carbon. To me, this is common sense legislation.

In the future, as California considers how best to scale up carbon removals as part of its broader net zero strategy, this bill will provide clear guidelines for the standards that all solutions must meet. By passing SB 285, California will set a national precedent for high integrity carbon accounting and increased certainty in the carbon removal industry.

I urge the committee to support SB 285 and help ensure that California remains a leader in climate action with rigorous, effective and durable carbon removal policies. Thank you for your time, your attention, and the opportunity to speak today.

Well, thank you very much. Do you have any other witnesses no.

No.

Okay. Are there any witnesses in the room who would like to express, express support?

I'm Diz Swift, League of Women Voters. Strong support.

Good afternoon, my name is Dan Jacobson with AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles in support. Thank you.

Thank you. And do we have any lead opposition witnesses who would like. Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead, ma'am. Yes.

Megan Shumway with Climate Action California in support.

Okay, great.

Are you in opposition? Okay, great. Welcome.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Alfredo Redondo and I'm here on behalf of Conservation International, which currently has a stance of opposition. As you might infer, the- the priority for organizations like Conservation International is, is the promotion and utilization of nature based solutions to help us achieve our climate targets.

We don't disagree with the author that the bill isn't intended to block out nature based solutions. We know that there is a role and we see it in the bill. Where the disagreement comes, it comes down to, is really the details of it all and how do we ensure.

I- I actually really appreciate the committee's analysis raising very important questions of how do we find that Goldilocks zone to make sure that we're not making things too difficult, which in effect may have an impact on limiting nature based solutions utilization, but also not too permissive where we're allowing for actions that I think everybody would agree aren't enough, they aren't providing the- the right safeguards.

So we have been having really good conversations with the authors staff, which we appreciate the amendments that have been taken by the author so far to clarify the scope, to make clear, for example, that we're not implicating the voluntary carbon market or cap and trade itself within this legislation.

And so the three main things that we're still working with the author on are language, clarifying whether we're taking a systemic approach to durability versus a sectoral approach, clarifying language that nature based solutions aren't subject to the SB 905 geologic sequestration definition, and then clarifying language on the two phase or the horizontal stacking mechanism, since- since essentially none of that exists today.

So this is a very novel approach and we want to get it right. But as we mentioned, we look forward to the continuing conversation with the author. It's been very productive thus far and hopefully get to a position where we can remove opposition.

Great. Well, thank you very much. Are there any, is there anyone in the room who would like to express opposition?

Good morning, Chair and Members. Charles Watson, on behalf of a New Climate in opposition. Echo Alfredo's comments. Appreciate the amendments to date and continuing to work with the author to address our concerns on the nature based solutions. Thank you.

Okay, great. Thank you. Anybody else in the room wishing to express opposition? Okay, seeing none. We'll bring it back to the members. Looking at the members to see if there are any questions or statements. Oh, would you like to express opposition? Okay. Or support? Okay, great.

Good morning Chair. Martin Radosevich on behalf of Heirloom Carbon Technologies, in support. Thank you.

Okay. Of course.

Jon Kendrick on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in opposition as currently constructed. Thank you.

Okay, one more call. Opposition or support? Come forward.

Noah Melroy on behalf of Ceres in opposition. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Okay, one more.

Rocky Rushing representing AltaSea at the Port of Los Angeles in support.

You want me to wait longer? We have people coming across the busy hallway to come express their opposition and support. So we'll give another second to make sure people can make it run the gauntlet like Frogger across the road. Okay, seeing none. No more. I will bring it back. I do not see any questions or comments.

So I'll just express some of my support here and also support for nature based solutions. So that is, you know, obviously something we should be leaning into for every reason. And we don't want to constrain that in ways that would be inappropriate or would lead to outcomes that would destroy nature.

But I think it's also important, I appreciate what the author's doing, Senator Becker here, establishing definitions so that we're using forms of carbon sequestration that have substant substantially similar durations. And you know, it's readily obvious how the example of basically just delaying the carbon emission can happen. And so I appreciate what the author is doing here.

And also it just really lays the groundwork for success, actually ultimately true success when it comes to reducing our emissions. And I think the committee consultant report actually said it really well with and I'll just read two sentences from there.

So basically not imposing such thresholds could lead to a reliance on lower cost, less reliable CDR and carbon accounting, which may not be as effective as it appears. Doing so could set California up for a Pyrrhic victory where we meet our carbon neutrality goals on paper while in reality still contributing significantly to to atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations.

I think that really summarizes it. So this is really important work and I appreciate the author and continuing to work on how to thread the needle with the nature based solutions is important. So with that I'm very much supportive and when it comes time, we'll come back to a vote.

Oh, but I'd like to ask the author to close.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. I think you summarized it really well. I thought the analysis summarized it well too. Of course we're strongly supportive nature based solutions and we believe there's a very, very important role to play.

And I'm glad that this bill is forcing these conversations so we can really set standards, have the difficult conversations to figure out what that right balance is, what that right solution is, because we do want to encourage them and we want to make sure we have standards and we have a durability standard and we're really solving the problem.

So I appreciate that. I appreciate all the comments. We've already- appreciate my team has worked, you know, been working very closely with a lot of different groups and look forward to continuing that. And thank you for your words and look forward to support when the time comes.

Yes, great. Thank you very much. So I did ask for Senator Caballero to come over and so I'm going to call on her next and then we'll go to Senator Grayson and then after that we're going to go to Senator Menjivar. So that will be SB 684 after. Yes, go ahead, Senator Caballero.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, for the opportunity, opportunity to present SB404, which would establish a new statutory framework to ensure comprehensive and safe regulation of metal shredding facilities in California. Metal shredding facilities recycle millions of end of life vehicles, household appliances and other metallic items produced annually in California.

Unless recycled, these materials would rapidly overwhelm all available landfill capacity, creating a massive accumulation of damaged and abandoned cars, appliances and other items while posing a threat to public safety. Recycling these materials provides valuable resources for metal manufacturing.

For instance, during the recent LA fires, one facility was responsible for taking hundreds of burned vehicles from the city and county, transforming them into useful new product metal products.

Metal shredding facilities also allow us to recover uncommon materials that would otherwise need to be mined out of the natural environment, such as copper, aluminum and zinc, to name a few. They provide an essential service to reduce environmental waste and create a successful circular economy.

Yet, metal shredding can also pose concerns to surrounding communities due to the potential release of airborne material and the risk of fires. The current framework for hazardous waste does not include metal shredding facilities and therefore they are not regulated by DTSC and are not required to obtain a permit without a clear comprehensive regulatory framework.

DTSC on their own, has begun to regulate the industry using hazardous waste enforcement authority on a facility by facility basis. This has created an uncertain and inconsistent legal environment for the facilities that has resulted in litigation placing California's circular economy at risk.

SB404 will ensure comprehensive oversight and enforcement of metal shredding facilities under DTSC's authority, while recognizing the difference between these facilities and facilities that engage in the treatment, storage and disposal of solid and hazardous waste.

This bill will require both existing and new facilities to receive a DTSC permit, and the facilities must meet certain operational and performance standards to do so, which includes implementing fire prevention standards strategies, emergency response protocols, and stormwater management requirements.

The bill specifically establishes detailed standards required to be met to avoid the release of materials such as metal shredder aggregate and residue into the environment. Facilities must also undergo the California Environmental Quality Act review process as part of the permitting process.

The bill gives DTSC robust enforcement authority to ensure these standards are met, including the authority to shut down a metal shredding facility that poses an imminent and substantial danger to public health and the environment. It authorizes DTSC to collect fees from metal shredding facilities to cover administration and enforcement.

I'm proud to say that a variety of stakeholders support this new regulatory program to include the California Metal Recyclers Coalition, State Council of Laborers, the State Pipe Trades Council Association of Electrical Workers, Western States Sheet Metal Workers, the Rincon San Luiseño Band of Indians, the Auto Dismantlers Association, several waste management groups, and the California Professional Firefighters Association, among others.

However, I recognize that there are thoughtful stakeholders who are concerned about the regulatory program and feel it should be stronger, and others who think the regulatory program should be less burdensome on smaller business. It's my goal to work with all the stakeholders to strike the right balance.

Finally, the bill specifies that small shredders may use existing hazardous waste pathways for display disposal of metal shredder residue rather than the requirement in the bill. That's the small facilities and small business is important, so I will continue to work with the remaining metal recyclers to ensure the unique needs of their business are being met.

So some recent amendments in the bill are suggestions by environmental stakeholders, including public meeting requirements and clarifying that the bill does not limit a certified unified program agency's authorities, CUPA.

SB404 will ensure that California has a robust regulatory process for the metal shredding industry and will ensure that California remains a sustainability leader in reducing reuse and recycling by fostering the recycling of scrap metal into new metal products.

With me to testify and support is Bob Hoffman with The California Metal Recyclers Coalition and Scott Wetch with several trade associations and he can explain them himself. Thank you very much. Thank you. You may proceed.

Good morning Chair Blakespear and Members. I am Bob Hoffman. I'm here representing the California Metal Recyclers Coalition this morning. We're the sponsors of SB404. It's important to note that currently both large and small shredders alike are operating in a state of uncertainty that puts their businesses at serious risk.

SB404 would rectify this situation by creating a clear and balanced regulatory program. With SB404, California will maintain its place in the forefront of environmental protection while fostering the metal shredding industry's critical role in the circular economy for metal in the state.

Metal recycling and metal shredding in particular constitutes the most successful example of recycling in the US economy. Over 70% of new steel products are made from recycled metal produced by facilities like ours here in California. And as you may have heard recently, the Pacific Steel Group is building the first new steel mill in California in 50 years.

That mill will be dependent on feedstock from facilities like California's metal shredders. This bill is absolutely necessary to maintain a healthy, functioning metal industry. Without it, California could literally lose this critical sector, the economy that protects our businesses and communities from being buried in scrap metal.

Our industry's support of the cleanup that the Senator mentioned in Los Angeles is just a high profile example of the critical role that the industry plays.

Without our metal shredders, there would be be no place to process ruined or burned automobiles and appliances and metal waste, making it much harder and more expensive to clean up after a flood or a fire. SB404 does not create a one size fits all approach.

Rather, it would require DTSC to consider the size and the nature of facilities in crafting permit conditions and in setting fees. Going forward, as the senator noted, we intend to work with interested parties and DTSC to consider their input and to address the issues raised in the committee's analysis.

SB 404 will both protect neighboring communities and advance critical metal recycling in California. The bill is essential for the future viability of the industry and the thousands of employees, businesses and communities that rely upon it, especially after catastrophes like floods and wildfires.

So we urge an I vote and Meg Rosegay and I will stand by after the testimony to answer any technical questions that you might have.

Thank you for your testimony. And now we'll move to the second witness. Oh actually, he's the second witness. Yes.

Thank you. Madam Chair and Members, Scott Wetch, on behalf of the California State Association of Electrical Workers, the Coalition of California Utility Employees, the California State Pipe Trades Council, and the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers in support of SB404, I might mention that the contractor associations represented in all of those industries did not get their letters in on time, but are also in support.

Our members are engaged in construction related activities across the state that result in the production in the production of large quantities of materials that contain recoverable metals.

These materials include steel beams and other structural steel, sheet metal, galvanized and copper piping, plumbing ,fencing, metal cable rebar, electrical cable and wire, and mechanical equipment, tools, and many other metallic items. These materials are valuable and according to state law, cannot be disposed of in landfills if they contain metal that can be economically recovered.

In fact, the salvage value of the metal contained in construction debris as well as disposal costs are significant economic factors in a construction project. By any reasonable estimate, millions of tons of scrap metal are generated by the construction industry in the state every year and needs a place to go.

The state's metal shredding facilities provide this necessary and critical recycling infrastructure. These facilities safely and reliably recover and process variable metals from materials that would otherwise accumulate in high quantities, creating a logistical nightmare.

SB404 will ensure these essential facilities remain economically viable while at the same time operating within a regulatory frame framework that we believe is protective of human health and environment. I think this is illustrative of the fact that the California Professional Firefighters support the bill. SB 404 and the regulatory certainty that this, it will provide.

This critical industry is essential to the construction industry. Without SB404, the future of metal recyclers is unclear and the uncertainty poses a threat to the construction industry in which my union members rely. This is a long standing and complex policy issue. It's all the issues and wrinkles are not going to be resolved in the first committee hearing.

We would encourage the committee to vote this bill out so we can continue to work on this really critical bill to the construction industry. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Wetch. Do we have primary witnesses in opposition? Oh, I'm sorry. First we'll take other supporters. Yes. So other supporters. If you're a supporter and you'd like to come and express that, please do.

Hi Chairman, Eric Potashner with Radius Recycling. In support of the bill.

Jeff Farano, SA Recycling. We operate three metal shredders in California. We're in support of the bill.

Good morning. Richard Mandel Ecology Recycling Services in support of the bill.

Good Morning. Jeff Heitzn with Ecology Recycling Services. We have a shredder in Southern California and we are in support of this bill.

Thank you. If you could say your name, organization and your position, which is either support or oppose, that would be great.

Kristin Olson-Cate of California Strategies on behalf of Sims Recycling in Redwood City here in support.

Good morning. Katherine Brandenburg. Randy Perry is unable to be here. Asked me to lend his support for porac. Thank you.

Good morning. John Moffatt on behalf of Waste Management in support.

Ryan Flanigan on behalf of Recycled Materials Association, West Coast chapter in support.

Michael Caprio with Republic Services here in support.

Good morning. Lindsay Gullahorn with the Resource Recovery Coalition of California in support.

Good morning. Dawn Koepke on behalf of the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance in support.

Kehinde Ojeikere with Prime Strategies on behalf of Rincon Band of Luceno Indians and Latino Caucus of California Counties in strong support. Thank you.

Chairman Members. James Thuerwachter on behalf of the California State Council of Laborers in strong support. Thank you.

Gavin Mchugh on behalf of the State of California Auto Dismantlers Association. We're in support. Thank you.

Dylan Finley on behalf of Pacific Steel Group and support. Thank you.

Morning. Scott Andrews on behalf of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project. Opposed unless amended.

Thank you. And now lead opposition witnesses may come forward. If we have two, maybe we could make a little room. Yes. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Chris Micheli on behalf of the Athletics. Sorry to have my back to the author. We are opposed unless amended to this measure, as we were with last year's Senator Allen bill, also attempting to enact a similar regulatory scheme for metal shredders. We appreciate the engagement of the author and her staff and have offered a list conceptually of suggested modifications to the measure.

We will be providing a red line for suggested amendments. We have spent the last half a dozen years suing, frankly, DTSC and metal shredder that was close to our planned facility in West Oakland and working collaboratively, as you heard the last opposed unless amended witness indicate, with a number of environmental justice groups in the West Oakland area due to the environmental impacts, the harmful impacts that that shredding facility imposed upon citizens of West Oakland.

In that effort, we are concerned fundamentally that the bill provides too much regulatory self regulation with inadequate controls. Some of the things that we've highlighted, for example, allowing metal shredders to unilaterally make changes to their operations without providing either DTSC or the public with proper notice and the ability to comment, as well as allowing facilities to continue operating while a permit application is pending without any sort of time limitation in that regard.

So our fundamental concern is that particularly the regulated community... I'm sorry, not the regulated community. Some of the environmental justice communities around the state need to provide greater input to the final product. But we do look forward to working with the author, her staff, and the proponents of the bill in doing so as the bill moves along. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Robert Hall, and I'm President and CEO of Pacific Auto Recycling Center, a small metal shredding and recycling facility located in Lancaster, California. I'm respectfully in opposition to SB 404 unless it is amended.

I'm here today not only on behalf of my facility, but also representing other small shredders across California who would be similarly affected by this bill. As small shredders, we are essential to California's circular economy, purchasing, separating, and shredding metal materials to produce raw materials for manufacturing, conserving resources, and reducing environmental impact. SB 404 directly impacts our operations.

As currently written, it imposes a one size fits all. And I know it was said it was not, but the way it's currently written, we believe it is one size fits all permitting program that duplicates existing regulations without clear benefits to public health or the environment. In addition, the bill proposes to expand DTSC's regulatory authority beyond its current authority over waste into materials that are in process. Materials in process means material that is still has recyclable metals in it. It's not yet a waste.

Our industry is already subject to extensive oversight from the Department of Toxic Substance Control, which regulates our waste as hazardous waste. And we comply with water quality, air quality, and local permitting and inspection requirements. These rules ensure our operations are safe and sustainable. Yet SB 404 overlooks this, adding unnecessary costs that could devastate otherwise compliant businesses.

For small shredders like ours, these burdens could force many of us to shut down, shrinking California's recycling capacity and weakening the circular economy. To address this, we proposed amendments to the author's office to focus the bill on DTSC's Waste Management Authority to create two pathways.

One, facilities that containerize residue and ship it to approved hazardous waste sites should be recognized as fully regulated, or two, facilities chemically treating residue on site to render it non-hazardous for landfill disposal could face additional oversight under SB 404.

These changes would focus regulations where they're needed, sparing businesses already meeting high standards and avoiding classifying materials in process as waste. And I think that's a very important distinction to make. I respectfully urge you to encourage the author to adopt these amendments, ensuring SB 404 is fair and effective for all small shredders.

Thank you for your time and your support in protecting California's recycling industry. And I do want to thank the author because I do believe that there has been a lot of work that's gone into this and a lot of thought that's gone into this, but details really matter. We're creating a law here, and if we're not really careful in the words we choose and how we construct this law, this is going to follow us for decades and potentially create other problems in the process of solving this one.

Well, thank you very much. And anybody else in opposition, please state your name, organization, and your position.

Madam Chair and Members. Silvio Ferrari on behalf of Cargill Incorporated. We're actually opposed unless amended. I just want to say Cargill operates and owns the salt pond. 12,000 acres next to a metal recycler has been receiving this hazardous waste for some time. We just think...

Sir, this is not the opportunity for additional... Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Brenda Bass with KP Public Affairs here on behalf of Kramer Metals and Universal Service Recycling, both in respectful opposed unless amended. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Sofia Rafikova with the Coalition for Clean Air. Opposed unless amended. Thank you.

Good morning. Esther Portillo on behalf of the Natural Resource Defense Council, NRDC, opposed unless amended.

Thank you. Anybody else in support or opposition trying to make their way to the Committee room? Okay, well, thank you. First, I'd like to just make a few comments, and then I'll go to the Members for any questions or comments. So I would like to thank you, Senator Caballero, for taking this on because, as this hearing has shown, this certainly is not for the faint of heart. So it is, this bill is a work in progress.

And, and I'll say that I'm generally not a fan of doing a work in progress and passing it through the Committee because I do believe the Committee process is where things should be worked out. But if this, the reality is we're in April, we're the second day of April, and we are not at the end.

So this isn't headed from here to the Governor's desk. And if it were, I don't think I would be supporting it because a lot of bills, a lot of details still need to be worked out in the bill. But because we are here in April, and given your long track record of tackling thorny issues like this, I certainly want to give you the time and the room that you need to come up with a solution for, you know, two with two main points.

So that provides metal shredders with regulatory certainty, and that provides the public and the communities that house those metal shredders with the highest level of environmental protection possible. So having both of those two goals in mind as North Stars.

So I intend and hope my Committee and know my Committee will be involved with this bill if it does leave Committee today. And I hope that you'll continue to involve my Committee staff as the negotiations progress and as some of those open issues begin to get addressed. So with that, I'll hand it over to anybody else on the Committee who'd like to ask a question. Senator Menjivar.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator, I'm more focused on the latter point, the second point that our Chair brought up, because my district actually houses a lot of metal shredding facilities. But I know the importance of these facilities because we're trying to divert as much items, materials as possible away from our landfills. I get it. They're necessary.

But what I see in my district is a lack of enforcement, a lack of these facilities being good neighbors. These are facilities that are surrounded by parks, by homes, and when you drive along these streets, there is... I call it The Zahra Desert in my district because it's so polluted on our streets of Sun Valley and Pacoima. So this is very, I'm very sensitive to these issues because my constituents bring these issues up day in and day out. Now, I want them to exist.

They do bring jobs to my district. It's a way of people to make a livable wage. I know that they are responsible for a lot of the unions that one of your supporters mentioned. But I do, you know, we've talked about this, Senator, that I for myself to further to support this bill, moving after, moving after the Committee, I need to see some more regulations.

That one, puts a cap on the stockpiles that are mentioned in the language that has no cap right now. That you can have them outside of an enclosure for up to 10 days. If they were up to me, everything every kind of recycling center would have would be enclosed. I don't want to see any stockpiles.

In fact, I call stockpiles in my district my high rises because they're higher than any building in my district. And these are for aggregate. These are for metal shredding facilities. So it's important for me for these stockpiles to be capped so they're not seen, especially during weathers like this week where it's windy.

I want to make sure that there is public notices and hearing requirements, you know, especially dealing with what we're dealing with the fires. A lot of communities were not giving a heads up when different types of materials were being brought to their community and they were an afterthought.

Some people do build or come open a business in these communities and don't live in the communities, so they're not fully invested in seeing some of this change. My rant is almost over, Senator. I apologize. And then another thing I want to make sure that we see is the ability to not restrict us forever.

If I'm understanding correctly that there's no, there's going to be no room to improve or readjust these regulations in the future. We know putting handcuffs on certain kind of regulations could hinder us in the future. So those are the main points you may wish to address, but I know you're going to be working on them in the future. But I do reserve my right to further support this bill after.

Senator, I appreciate that. Madam Chair, if I could respond. Really appreciate the sensitivity in your community and know that we're not done and what we're trying to do is set up... Right now, there is, there's no regulation. That's the bottom line is that there's no...

No, let me back up and say there's no regulation on the toxicity other than through water and some of the other agencies that look at different things. You're talking about things that are affecting the neighborhood. This bill will help to address some of that because we'll have some certainty in how those stockpiles are treated, what's safe and what isn't safe.

We have asked the Fire Marshal to give us data on to help us determine some of the issues that you're concerned about in terms of air that will, that potentially could help us in terms of air quality and also the stockpiling that you're talking about. So more to come on that.

And I will commit to continue to work with staff and with the Chair of this Committee and with yourself as well, to make sure that whatever the framework is, because we don't do the regulation necessarily, it's up to DTSC. But we can tell them what we want them to be, to look at and who has primary regulatory oversight over those issues.

Is it the local Air Board or is it the DTSC as part of their regulatory framework? So I commit to you that we're not done. We've had a lot of conversations. But as you've heard, on the one hand, the small metal shredders want to be, they want different rules than the big metal shredders.

And we're working on some of the detail, how would that happen. And then the environmental community wants higher standards. So it's a delicate dance between the two. And if we can't get it done, we can't get it done. But I want to feel like we, you know, this is something that everybody understands the importance.

Thank you. Any other comments? Okay. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Okay. Thank you. We'll put this on call for later.

Thank you. All right, next we have Senator Grayson. I apologize for making you wait, Senator Grayson, on SB328. And if there are support witnesses, why don't they both come up now? One or both come up now and then we will replace them with the opposition witness witnesses, if there are any. Yes. You're welcome to start when ready.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. I would like to begin first of all by thanking the Committee for their work on this bill and by accepting the Committee's proposed amendments.

Do you want to wait one second until we can get the doors closed? And also just apologize. Senator Grayson. So also just for the planning purposes the next bill that we will take will be Senator Menjivar's SB684. In recognition of the large number of people who have come for that.

We would like to let you go on with your day after you participate in this hearing. So we're going to be skipping forward to that one. So if everybody could get themselves ready for that after Senator Grayson's bill. Okay, so we have two support witnesses. Is. Is that right here? Okay, great. So.

And it's a quieter room, so we will turn it back to you, Senator Grayson.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to Members. I once again want to state that I thank the Committee staff for their good work on this bill and accept their Committee amendments as proposed.

I look forward to continuing to work with the Committee on this Issue and keep them informed as we move forward with the bill as well.

If it was to move, if it is to move out of Committee today, SB 328 is really a necessary bill that would help prevent significant cost increases for housing developers who have remediated contaminated soil and returned land back to its productive use. In 2022, the Legislature passed SB158.

It was a budget trailer bill that had the goal of stabilizing the budget for the Department of Toxic Substance Control, we know as DTSC. In order to achieve this, AB158 made changes to one of the major fees that are paid to DTSC when remediating a site. Before SB158, DTSC had a tiered model.

It was a fee that ranged depending on the project, and the fees were also capped at $100,000 for most housing projects projects. However, this model was replaced with a fixed price per ton model of $46.20 per ton.

These changes to the hazardous waste generation generation fee or generator fee have had significant impacts on development and have increased costs for several essential housing projects and projects that provide community development. This fee significantly increased the cost for removal mediating contaminated soil in urban infill sites or in situations where developers encountered naturally occurring toxic materials.

For instance, a housing project in San Francisco saw their fees rise from $100,000 to $800,000. The increased fee has made several projects actually get to the point where it doesn't even pencil out. So California is already struggling with these rising costs, already struggling with fees. And this is one area that exasperates that.

To help provide relief and reduce costs for these important and essential projects, SB328 would establish a cap on the hazardous waste generator fee at $100,000. Specific to housing, nonprofit and park and open Space projects and 250,000 for master development projects.

This this cap would only apply to those who did not create the contamination and this Bill would also place timelines on DTSC for responding to post entitlement permits. And at the time California is facing increased development costs.

We must do everything that we can to make it more favorable, at least a more favorable environment that allows us to build housing that's affordable. So builders are repurposing the land for productive use so they shouldn't be the ones penalized, especially if what they're doing is remediating pollution rather than causing it.

And SB328 would provide much needed relief at a time where costs are constantly increasing. And with that, through the Chair, I will have two witnesses self introduce.

Yes, go ahead. Thank you.

Good morning Madam Chair and Members. My name is Ali Zaperman and I'm the advocacy and policy manager for the Housing Action Coalition or HAC for short. HAC is a Member supported statewide organization that advocates for building more infill homes at all levels of affordability. Our Members span across the building industry.

HAC is proud to co sponsor SB328, which would cap the generation handling fee charged by the Department of Toxic Substance Control, or DTSC, for certain housing, nonprofit, park and open space projects that are not the original polluters.

328 is particularly relevant for fire recovery efforts where those responsible for rebuilding are not the original polluters and should not be responsible for an uncapped generation and handling fee. In 2021, the Legislature passed SB158, a bill that restructured DTSC and changed the way the department assesses fees to monitor the remediation of contaminated soil.

This change resulted in significant cost increases for developments including, for example, an affordable housing project, a food bank, and a UC student housing project. The impact was especially acute on infill projects, which often face the most contamination and the fewest options for changing the project's design.

To be clear, these projects have in the have in the past paid for the remediation of any soil they excavated and they would still pay for it. Under this bill. The generation handling fee is simply for DTSC to monitor and verify that the cleanup is being done.

While we understand that DTSC has significant budgetary challenges, we do not think it is good policy to solve those challenges on the backs of projects that are taking contaminated land and converting it to productive beneficial use.

We believe that incorporated increasing the fee will have significant unintended consequences, many contrary to the important state priorities such as pushing housing development away from infill and toward greenfield sites, increasing ecosystem impacts and leading to longer commutes, causing developers to remediate less soil, either changing projects to leave soil in place, capping it, or shifting it to one side of a parcel, and finally decreasing the revenue for DTSC as developers change their projects to remediate less soil and avoid additional costs.

In fact, the DTSC recently released 2025 Draft Hazardous Waste Management Plan. They've made the following recommendation. DTSC should determine if increasing fees on certain waste streams could result in negative overall impact on human health and the environment.

SB328 will address what we believe to be the most egregious impacts of of the fee by capping the generation and handling fee for housing nonprofit parks projects at $100,000.

We believe that this change strikes the right balance between allowing DTSC to cover the cost of their work and also allowing important projects that benefit the community to move forward with certainty and reasonable costs.

For these reasons, the Housing Action Coalition is proud to co sponsor this important piece of legislation and respectfully request your aye vote and Committee today. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Good morning Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Rhiannon Baylor and I'm COO at UC Law San Francisco, formerly UC Hastings, which is a public independent law school. I'm here today in support of SB328, a bill to provide certainty for housing projects.

Since the previous witness covered the history and intent of the bill, I'm going to provide a practice practical example of something that we experienced.

In August of 2023, UC Law opened a mixed use housing building that provides 656 housing units not only for our own students and professionals, but also for students and professionals from other UCs including UCSF, UC Davis, as well as University of the Pacific De Goni School USF

It's an idea called the Academic Village where essentially we are sharing our campus with multiple institutions of higher education. Over 50% of our students identify as people of color and over 80% of our entering class receives merit based scholarships and need based grants.

Site preparation for this housing project resulted in the disposal of approximately 89 tons of hazardous waste in 2020 and 2,400 tons in 2021. For 2021 we paid $105,000 fee fee.

For 2022 we received a bill for approximately the same amount which we protested at first believing that it was an erroneous double billing, but in the end paid the new 2022 fee totaling 120,000 for the same 2021 waste that we had already assessed and paid, as well as penalties and interest.

From the time that we were protesting what we thought was a double billing $21,000 for a total total of over $240,000. This new fee passed weeks before we ceased generating and there was no way we could have planned for it.

While the project itself was privately financed, most of our student body receives aid and of course every resident pays rent, meaning some of these costs are indeed borne by taxpayer dollars. We appreciate the vital role that DTSC plays and we understand the challenges the state is facing.

However, the imposition of this incident increased fee to make up for budget shortfalls has placed an unreasonable burden on us as a public University, building housing, particularly in the expensive real estate and construction market of San Francisco.

So we believe that SB328 can provide a win win for the state by ensuring of course that the contaminated soil is cleaned up, but also providing certainty during very uncertain times to allow public interest projects to move forward.

Thank you. Thank you very much. If there's anybody else in the room who is in support, please come forward and state your name, organization and position.

Good morning. Chair Members Katherine Charles on behalf of The Bay Area Council and SPUR as. Proud co sponsors and support. Thank you. Anybody else coming in?

Welcome. Good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Jordan Panana Carbaja, on behalf of California Yimby and Abundant Housing LA in support. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Okay, Nobody else in support. We will invite up any opposition witnesses who would like to speak. Don't see any. Okay. Anybody in the room or nearby who'd like to come over and express opposition? We're announcing it into the hallway. All right, here they come. No, not sure. Okay. Okay. Something else. All right. Well, there appear to be no opposition witnesses, so I'll bring it back to the Members and see if anybody would like to make any comments. All right.

This does seem like it addresses a problem and I appreciate you working on it and also taking the Committee amendments that allow for cost of living increases as the consumer price index goes up, that that would go up. I think that's a. The truth is we should be doing that across the board on many, many fees. So with that, I'll turn it back to the author If you would like to make a close.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote when it's appropriate.

Okay, well, thank you very much. We will keep it on call. And next we'll go to Senator Menjivar. We are jumping forward on the agenda to item number 13, which is SB 684, Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act of 2025.

So if Senator Menjivar would like to invite up her two primary witnesses, they may come forward and we will turn it over to you, Senator Menjivar.

Thank you, Madam Chair, colleagues, I want to start with a quote that I loved that the committee put in the analysis. We face an unavoidably radical future. We either continue with rising emissions and reap the radical repercussions of severe climate change, or we acknowledge that we no longer have a choice and pursue radical emission reductions.

No longer is there a non radical option. Well, I'm definitely not bringing you a non radical option. And SB 684 is the second time I come in front of this committee to bring forward the Polluter's Pay. Last year when I presented this, there was no law of its kind across the country.

Since then, New York have passed their own Superfund laws and through end this year, there are several other states that are looking to do the exact same thing those two states have done. After experiencing one of the worst fires in our state's history. What better time to introduce the Polluter Pay Superfund legislation.

That devastation alone will cause property damage of close to $60 billion. And if you incorporate all other types of damages can reach upwards of $250 billion. Who pays for that? You pay for that. I pay for that.

But who doesn't pay for that are the entities that make these disasters on a more frequent manner and in a more devastating manner. The 2023-24 budget alone included $52.3 billion over six years to address the impacts of climate change.

These are real costs to California taxpayers that when balancing the budget, we have to take cuts out of other areas to fund these kind of programs. And our taxpayers have paid enough, they cannot continue to foot the bill while super polluters make record profits year after year.

It's the time to hold super polluters accountable and have them pay for their fair share. And when I say super polluters, like the committee analysis states, it's a relatively small number of entities in the world. We have 133 global entities. Of those, only 26 are in the United States.

Of the 26, it will be a relatively small number that will be impacted by my bill because you have to emit 1 billion metric tons of CO2 to qualify as a super polluter. SB 684 specifically will require the first ever comprehensive statewide study to quantify climate damages to the state through 2045.

And this can easily be done because the data exists of who our top polluters are. They're going to identify parties who emitted that 1 billion metric tons of CO2 between the covered periods of 1990 and 2024. And why did we choose those numbers?

Because it was then, when it was publicly known that they were emitting into our atmosphere. And finally, they're going to assess a compensatory fee for damages on each responsible party that is proportional to the share of the total emissions during the covered period.

Their generated fees from this fund will go towards projects and programs supporting climate resilience, mitigation, infrastructure and support communities, offsetting the burden on our tax on taxpayers. It is also going to help with workers while addressing the affordability crisis. And it's all possible.

Scientists can attribute climate and the connections to this emissions and the damages to our state. Things like extreme heat waves, the atmospheric rivers we had, the increased wildfire, the intensified drought and the rise in sea level are all connected to the emissions in our air.

I'm not saying there are the reasons for these disasters, but science and models have shown us that they are increasing our frequency and the strength of these disasters. Madam Chair, I'd now like to turn over to two individuals who would testify on behalf of SB 684 I'm going to butcher their name so maybe they can introduce themselves. Maya?

Good morning. Maya Golden-Krasner, Deputy Director and Senior Attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute, supporting SB 684. Also Altadena Strong luckily my home survived, though my kids former school and synagogue did not.

My experience fleeing with my family that night still displaced three months on, my community devastated have made clear that California is not ready for the climate that fossil fuels have created. We face a hostile federal government that's playing games with environmental, climate and disaster response.

California taxpayers and governments can't afford to shoulder the escalating climate risks and costs alone.

With escalating insurance, housing, utility and health expenses and budgets stretched to the brink, this bill requires the relatively small number of the largest multinational fossil fuel corporations overwhelmingly responsible for climate devastation, who are lining their shareholders pockets with record profits to pay a small portion of those profits to invest in our communities and our businesses and workers threatened by the climate crisis.

Fossil fuel lobbyists are trotting out the same tired, empty scare tactics they've tossed out for over 70 years when there's some attempt at climate action. We provided you and are happy to discuss the mounds of case law and data supporting the strong legal, economic and scientific basis for this bill.

Courts have repeatedly upheld federal and California laws that require polluters to remedy pollution harms as a legitimate legislative purpose, even when the product was legal, beneficial and used by others. UC Berkeley and Nobel Prize winning economists have explained the bill will not increase gas prices.

SB 684 is an opportunity to invest in California, insulate the budget and relieve the burden on taxpayers, protect against climate disasters, create thousands of jobs building resilient communities, protect air and water, and transition to a clean energy future. We need you to vote yes on this common sense and necessary legislation.

Thank you to the Chair and the Committee.

Members and staff. Mitch Steiger with CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals proud to support this bill today. For all the reasons stated so well by the author and previous witness, but also with two additional reasons more specific to the education setting.

One being that our members are up close and personal with the harm created by this industry every day. The evidence is pretty clear that exposure to all of the toxic material that's created by burning fossil fuels exacerbates or likely even causes respiratory disease in children.

And so as we see more and more students come in with asthma and similar conditions, we know what's causing a big part of that and this bill pays some attention to that moves us in the right direction. There are also some pretty clear neurocognitive effects that are caused neurocognitive harm that's caused by burning fossil fuels.

And speaking of neurocognitive harm, the climate change that is exacerbated by burning fossil fuels creates extreme heat events, worsens extreme heat events. And the evidence is pretty clear that every degree above 75 degrees, that it is, your ability to learn, your ability to remember, starts to go down.

And so what this bill does is look at all of that harm, try to quantify it, and then try to target some of that revenue towards where it can help mitigate some of that harm.

The second reason that we're paying attention to this is that we strongly believe that the labor movement is about more than just the wages, benefits and working conditions of our members.

We strongly believe that it's our responsibility to have workers come together, use our collective power to fight any kind of harm that comes into our communities, especially serious harm. And harm doesn't get much more serious than that caused by this industry.

We would also really argue that, and this is something that we hear a lot from our Climate Justice Committee, that even the best union contract on the planet doesn't matter much if you don't have a planet to live on. And this industry is rendering our planet uninhabitable as fast as they possibly can.

And while this bill doesn't necessarily solve that problem, what it does do is create a lot of the revenue that can be used to mitigate the effects to allow us to be more safe in the schools, to allow our members to do their jobs better and allow us to keep going while we do whatever we can to transition to a more just and safe economy.

And with that, we urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Now we will invite up opposition and. Oh, I'm sorry, let's do the me toos first. Yes. So anybody who is in support, please come to the microphone and state just your name, the organization you represent and if you are supporting or opposing so your position and you can move forward and begin.

Yes. Hi, my name is Rob Ha. I also live in Altadena. Now I have a list here of organizations that are all in support and I will read those. Climate action California, 350 Humboldt, 350 Sacramento, Santa Cruz Climate Action Network, the Glendale Environmental Coalition and Mothers Out Front California.

Thank you.

Good morning. Kathy Schaeffer, Climate Reality Project California Coalition in support. Thank you.

Amy Costa with Full Moon Strategies. On behalf of Californians for a Safe and Healthy California. In support.

Eric Wiesenthal. I'm a constituent of Senator Angelique Ashby who took so much money from the oil industry.

This is the opportunity to say your name, the organization you represent and if you support or oppose. And please say the organization you represent. But not all organizations that support the bill. So just the organization you are representing. Thank you. Go ahead.

Liz Walsh. Me.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Darrell O'Sullivan and I'm a constituent of Senate District 6. And I strongly support this bill.

Thank you.

Hello. Nancy Tierney in Senate District 13. I'm with Third Act. Strongly support.

Thank you.

I'm Cynthia Shallet and I'm representing Indivisible California State Strong. And it's 60 chapters up and down the state.

Good morning, Chair. I've been asked to note support for a couple of organizations. Did I hear you say that was alright?

Yes.

Alright. Climate First: Replacing Oil and Gas CFROG, Climate Hawks Vote, SanDiego350, Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action, Better APC, Business for Good San Diego, B Local San Diego, Fervor and Zeal PBC, Elected Officials to Protect America, Sunrise Movement, Los Angeles Youth Fee Oil, Voters of Tomorrow California, Friends Committee on Legislation of California. Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Ariella Granett. I live in District 7. I am here on behalf of the Stop OAK Airport Expansion Coalition. Strongly in support. I'm also a member of 350 East Bay. Thank you for supporting.

Good morning. Yvette Carlo, concerned citizen in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Daniel Barad. On behalf of Union of Concerned Scientists in support.

Good morning. My name is Greg Spooner. I represent Scientists Rebellion West and I rise in support.

My name is Mary Anne Morgan, and I'm representing the Third Act San Francisco Bay Area, and personally as a grandmother. Strong support.

Good morning. Dave Shukla, Long Beach Alliance for Clean Energy, strong support.

Katherine Keeney on behalf of our one and only precious Earth and our grandchildren who cannot yet speak in support.

Pat Ferris, Third Act, representing frontline communities impacted by fossil fuel induced climate chaos. Support.

Sandy Kuman, as a grandmother, in support.

Sally Callahan, XR Sacramento, Fridays for Future Auburn, strong support.

Penny Leff with Third Act representing climate chaos in support.

Mary Anne Fenstermaker on behalf of Mother Earth to mitigate habitat loss in strong support.

Maureen Stubblefield, climate activist, in strong support.

Raylene Farris, Third Act, in strong support.

Megan Shumway, retired public health nurse and member of Climate Health Now and Climate Action California and Sacramento 350 in support.

Karen Jacques, 350 Sacramento and Climate Action California, in very strong support.

Good morning. Mari Lopez with the California Nurses Association in support.

Madam Chair and Members, Bryce Docherty on behalf of the American Academy of Pediatrics California in support.

Carol Kizer, I'm part of Compassion Elk Grove, 350 Sacramento, and representing the California Chapter of Let Out a Seed Movement in support. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Rod Fujita. I'm a scientist with UC Santa Cruz, and as a scientist and a parent, I rise in support of the bill. Thank you.

Alex Leumer on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife in support.

Nicole Ghio with Food and Water Watch, representing our over 300,000 members in the State of California, strongly in support of the bill.

Sofia Rafikova with the Coalition for Clean Air in support.

Heather MacLeod from Oakland, California, representing Youthpower Climate Action as the adult advisor in strong support.

Good morning. My name is Laura Leonelli. I represent Third Act Sacramento, and I'm strongly in support.

Mark Schlosberg with Food and Water Watch and also with Dayenu, a Jewish call for Climate Action, a national organization with groups all across the State of California, in strong support.

Morning. Eric Lerner, ACCE, Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment, strong support. Thank you.

Good morning. Isabel Penman representing Food and Water Watch and also Aquarian Minyan in strong support of the bill.

Hello. Leah Redwood with Extinction Rebellion San Francisco Bay Area in strong support.

Hi. I'm Dr. Alyssa Guhn, and I am a scientist at the UC Davis Health Center. And I'm here because I'm tired of doing research showing how bad pollution is, and I'm hoping that maybe we can start doing something about it because it is a public health crisis. Thank you. And I'm here in support.

Good morning. Zoe Jonick with 350 Bay Area Action in strong support.

Hello. Brooke Balthaser with Climate First: Replacing Oil and Gas in strong support. Thank you.

Hello. Theo LeQuesne with the Center for Biological Diversity in strong support. I also have a few names of organizations who have asked me to read their names on their behalf. Better APC, Business for Good San Diego, B Local San Diego, Fervor and Zeal PBC, B School Consulting LLC, California Green New Deal Coalition, Los Angeles Faith and Ecology Network, Interfaith Solidarity Network, FracTracker Alliance, Climate Organizing Hub, Environmental Defense Center, Climate Reality Project Orange County, Conejo Climate Coalition, 350 Southland Legislative Alliance, and 350 Bay South Bay Los Angeles. Thank you. In strong support.

Gabriela Facio with Sierra Club California in strong support.

Good morning. Esther Portillo with the Natural Resource Defense Council, NRDC, in support.

Good morning. My name is Anushka Kalyan. I'm a high school senior from the Sacramento area. I'm with 350 Sacramento, and I strongly support.

Good morning. Joan Cardellino with Indivisible East Bay in strong support.

Genevieve Diane Colborn, I'm from Davis, California with Third Act in strong support.

Ruth Holton-Hodson, Sacramento Third Act, in strong support. Thank you.

Hello. Ann Barts with Third Act Northern and Southern California in strong support.

I'm Linda Hayward, Third Act Sacramento, living in the district of Senator Ashby.

Fatima Iqbal-Zubair with California Environmental Voters as a proud co-sponsor - this is our top priority bill - in strong support. Thank you.

Julie Twichell with 1000 Grandmothers for Future Generations, now 2000 strong. We're in strong support.

Quinn Eide with Fossil Free California in strong support.

Good morning. Eric Fonstein with Fossil Free California in strong support. Thank you.

Hi. I'm Valerie Love here on behalf of Greenpeace USA in strong support. Thank you.

Simon Hyatt, California Working Families Party, strong support.

Hi. Janaki Anagha, resident here of Sacramento, California in strong support.

Hi. Alondra Santiago from Pixley, California strongly support.

Neil Sinopa from the oil capital of California, Kern County, in strong support.

Abraham Mendoza on behalf of the Community Water Center in support, as well as St. Joseph of Orange and the Immaculate Heart Community Environmental Commission.

Sydney Fang on behalf of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders for Civic Empowerment, AAPI FORCE, in strong support.

Good morning. Saa'un Bell with Power California Action. We represent over 20,000 young Californians in inland and rural California in strong support.

Good morning. Divyansh Agrawal representing the Junior Philanthropists Foundation, and I'm in strong support.

Good morning. Tomas Castro with Climate Action Campaign in strong support.

Good morning. David Martinez with Climate Action Campaign in strong support.

Hi, my name is Daniel McKeegan, I'm from Greenpeace USA. I'm in strong support of this bill. Thank you.

Good morning. Dr. Goli Sahba with Sacramento Climate Coalition as well as Third Act Sacramento in strong support. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Sara Shor. I'm here on behalf of the Make Polluters Pay national campaign here in strong support.

Hi there. I'm Ashlyn Zentner, Board President of 350 Sacramento, and we are in strong support.

Good afternoon. Mimi Spreadbury, I'm representing California Indivisible. We strongly support this bill. Thank you so much. It's a sponsored bill of ours.

Hello. I'm Patricia Price, a concerned citizen of Davis, California and with Scientist Rebellion Turtle Island West in strong support.

Erica Parker with Californians Against Waste in support.

Allison Hilliard with the Climate Center in strong support. Thank you.

Noah Melroy on behalf of Ceres, Seventh Generation, and all the businesses listed on the letter from the California Businesses for Climate Justice in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Kim Stone, Stone Advocacy, on behalf of Consumer Watchdog in support.

Jason Feifel voicing support for American Lung Association, Human Impact Partners, Climate Health Now, California Nurses for Environmental Health and Justice, Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility, and Dr. Bronner's, the California based soap company. Thank you.

Kara Corsingera. I am a constituent of Fair Oaks, California and for the Make Polluters Pay campaign in strong support. Thank you.

Ilonka Zlatar with Oil and Gas Action Network in strong support.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Marissa Hagerman with TrattenPrice Consulting on behalf of Pacific Environments. Strong support.

Good morning. Raquel Mason with the California Environmental Justice Alliance. Also asking to register support for SCOPE Los Angeles, the Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Communities for a Better Environment, and the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment. Thank you.

Morning. Faith Conley with Weideman Group on behalf of NextGen California in support.

Good morning. Denise Berger with Third Act Bay Area in support. Thank you.

Okay, well, thank you to everyone who came in support. We appreciate your participation, and thank you for helping manage people coming in and out of the other room. We really appreciate the work. So now we'll bring forward the opposition. And first we'll establish a quorum. So we'll quickly call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Okay, thank you. We have a quorum, which means we can now vote. So with that, we will turn it over to the opposition witnesses. Welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Keith Dunn here on behalf of the State Building Construction Trades Council. Before I get started, I just wanted to mention that we did hand out to you a recent state study just released this week from USC Marshall School of Business that talks about the great affordability gap that exists here in California.

So with that, I'd like to again state I'm here on behalf of the State Building Construction Trades Council to oppose SB 684. Every day, over 40 million Californians get up and go to work, school, or just the grocery store. And due to a lack of, a historic lack of investment in public transportation for the vast majority of that 40 million, that means they have to get in their car and drive. California's legal refineries play a critical role in providing some of our energy and fuel for our economy.

SB 684 would impose additional excessive regulatory constraints on these essential businesses, driving up operating costs and discouraging future investment. We've already seen one refinery close in just the last year. California's working families will pay the price.

Higher costs lead to increased energy prices, food prices, adding financial strain on working class families who are already struggling with California's high cost of living. Additionally, the ripple effects will be felt across industries that depend upon affordable fuel and materials, including manufacturing, logistics, and yes, even public transportation.

SB 684 is yet another example of legislation that places the financial burden on those who can afford it the least. If implemented, this bill will increase the cost for everyday essentials. Rising costs for energy will directly translate into higher prices for food, goods and services, and housing, further squeezing middle and lower class families.

Many of our members who you will hear from later today, already struggle to afford housing close to their jobs. Adding more economic pressure through job loss and increased costs will force more and more of them to live further and further from their job sites and even drive some of them out of California to find affordable living conditions.

This depletes our workforce and ultimately weakens our economy. California has long been a leader in environmental policy with the Cap and Trade Program, which I hope someday we're going to rename Cap and Invest, a program serving as a model for reducing emissions while maintaining economic balance.

SB 684 threatens to destabilize this carefully calibrated system. By imposing additional restrictions and unpredictable costs with negligible environmental improvements, heavily regulated industries will be discouraged to participate in the Cap and Trade Program and push their businesses, jobs, environmental benefits out to other states.

Rather than imposing additional penalties, we urge the Legislature to consider and support policies that encourage environmental and economic stability, such as incentivizing clean construction technologies, strengthening workforce development programs, renewing our Cap and Trade, and I'm going to say again, cap and invest program and investing in infrastructure by encouraging P3 and other public funds to go towards our infrastructure programs.

Energy production in California is changing, and the men and women of the construction trades play a huge role in delivering clean, renewable energy. But we aren't at 100% yet and we won't be for a long time. With current situation the world is in, it is imperative that California be allowed to continue to produce some of our energy in our state.

We urge this Committee to stand with our members and the 40 million Californians who just want to go to work, take their kids to school, and still be able to afford food to put on the table. With that, we respectfully ask for your no vote on SB 684. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Dunn. And we'll go to the second opposition witness.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair Blakespear and Members of the Committee. My name is Jon Kendrick, here on behalf of California Chamber of Commerce. We oppose SB 684 as a cost driver, which is our new term for job killer. I want to touch on a point that you hit just a moment ago about the harmful uncertainty that SB 684 creates for the business community. By retroactively punishing decades old lawful emissions that largely occurred outside of the state, we disincentivized businesses from actually coming to California to do business because of the jurisdictional hook.

If enacted, businesses have to assume that their future lawful activities, whether they occur inside California or outside of California, could become someday retroactively punished by the State of California. This sends the message that even strict adherence to the state's compliance programs are not enough to avoid retroactive liability.

Most of these companies have been paying into Cap and Trade for over a decade now. This signals that California's legal and regulatory environment is unpredictable, unstable, and punitive. We don't want to undermine our economic competitiveness. We don't want to deter investment in California. You also touched on affordability. I really appreciate that.

Because if we look at this from an affordability perspective, SB 684 will increase energy prices. That increases prices on everything. Fuel, electricity, transportation, goods, services, the things that we need for everyday life. For vulnerable populations and communities already financially strained, these higher costs diminish economic well being and financial stability.

You know, I look at this, too, from the perspective of, I heard the author talk about the need to fund climate action. We already have a program that's doing that. It's very successful. It's called Cap and Trade. Over the last decade plus, it's raised more than nearly $30 billion for climate investments.

At the same time, it has actually reduced in state emissions. We should focus on reauthorizing that program that works well, rather than retroactively punishing decades old lawful activities that occurred outside the State of California for the most part. This is a legally flawed bill. The attempt to regulate extraterritorial conduct places significant burdens on interstate commerce.

It's also a retroactive approach that's fundamentally unfair. No business operating in California in 1990 could have possibly known that 35 years down the road we would be retroactively punishing them for their legal activity. It violates substantive and procedural due process. It raises significant questions of federal preemption violations of the Taking Clause. On the whole, it is a fundamentally flawed, economically detrimental, and legally dubious bill. We urge this Committee to reject SB 684. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kendrick. And now we will take those wishing to express their opposition. So please come forward to the microphone. This is up. Okay. And we have one supporter.

Hi. Sorry. I took a phone call and I didn't realize how quickly this process moves. I am in support. My name is Elias Wells. I'm a district 7 or 14 Assembly.

Thank you, sir.

350.org Yeah. And you guys are not F students. And you know what's going on. Thank you very much.

Okay. Thank you, sir. So please state your name, the organization you represent, and whether you are opposed or have a different position. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Erica Valentine. I represent UA Local 393. Plumbers, pipefitters, steam fitters, and HVACR technicians. 3100 members in Santa Clara and San Benito counties. I strongly oppose it and I stand with the building trades.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Matt Cremins, here on behalf of the California Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers. Here today in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Mike Hartley, California State Pipe Trades Council. We're here in opposition.

Leah Barros on behalf of the Independent Energy Producers Association with an opposed unless amended position.

Good morning. Suliman Basir, CEO of the Afghan American Business Alliance. I strongly oppose on behalf of the Afghan American Business Alliance. Thank you.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Alexander Kim, representing the Asian Business Association of Orange County, Asian Business Association of Inland Empire, the Asian Food Trade Association, Asians In Energy, and the Coalition of Filipino American Chambers of Commerce. We respectfully oppose this bill. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members, Bob Giroux on behalf of the Painters and Allied Trades in respectful opposition.

Madam Chair and Members, Oracio Gonzalez on behalf of California's Business Roundtable in opposition.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Chris Micheli on behalf of the Civil Justice Association of California in respectful opposition.

Good morning. Cedric Farmer, I am the Executive Director at Urban Recovery Los Angeles, and we stand in opposition to this bill. Thank you.

Good morning. John Rector with Operating Engineers Local 3, representing 40,000 members. We stand in opposition.

Good morning. Jeff Hunerlach with the Humboldt Del Norte Building and Construction Trades and the Operating Engineers here in Fairfield. We stand with in solidarity with the State Building Trades in opposition of this bill. Thanks.

Good morning. Kerry Lighter with the Operating Engineers. We stand against this bill with the Building Trades. Thank you.

Martin Rodriguez, Ironworkers Local 433, President, Tri-County Building and Construction Trades. We firmly oppose this bill. I represent 5700 hardworking men and women and iron workers, as well as 12,500 hardworking men and women along the Central Coast. This bill does nothing for working people. It's a misguided attempt to punish an industry that our whole economy is based off of. Fertilizer for our farms... Opposed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Skyler Wonnacott on be behalf of the California Business Properties Association and our members BOMA California and NAIOP California, in opposition.

Morning. Thomas Kohlenberg, Operating Engineers Local 3. We strongly oppose this.

Russ Stefanich, Operating Engineers Local 3. We oppose this.

Good morning. My name is Raquel Valencia, and I'm an iron worker out of Local 378, here to stand in opposition.

Good morning, Chair and Committee. My name is Rachel Shoemake. I'm with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers out of Local 302 in Contra Costa County, representing over 1300 members. Strongly opposed.

Good morning. My name is Estella Kessler and I'm with Central Valley Latino Elected Officials and we oppose.

Good morning. My name is Doug Kessler. I'm Executive Director of Si Se Puede Central Valley, and we oppose.

Good morning. Gema Gonzalez with the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Michael Saragosa on behalf of Latin Business Association in opposition.

Good morning. Roberto Arnold with the Multicultural Business Alliance, and we're in opposition.

Good morning. Brandon Knapp representing Bay Area Council in opposition.

Morning, Members. Dr. Ruben Guerra, Chair of the Latin Business Association, and we're in opposition.

Good morning. Jesse Greer with the Operating Engineers Local 3, and I stand in opposition.

Good morning. Jesse Thayne, Operating Engineers Local 3, stand in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Martin Ludlow with Groundswell for Housing and Water Justice, and we stand in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Cheyenne Overton from Los Angeles, and we stand with Groundswell and we oppose this bill. Thank you.

Good morning. Jessica Guerrero with Groundswell for Housing and Water Justice and I stand in opposition.

Good morning. Scott Beale, business agent for Local 467, San Mateo County plumbers HVAC, and San Mateo County Building Trades. Strongly opposed. Thank you.

Good morning. Rennae Ross, Local 549 Boilermakers and Chairperson of our Women's Company, and we strongly oppose.

Good morning. Tanya Lowe, boilermaker out of Local 549, strongly opposed.

Good morning. Catherine Barr, Local 549, strongly opposed.

Good morning. Gregory Everett, Local 549 Boilermakers. I strongly oppose.

Dion Simoni, Local 549 Boilermaker, opposed.

Good morning. Jeffrey Kovard, 549 Local Boilermaker. I strongly oppose.

Good morning. Daniel Santana, I'm an apprentice out of Local 549 Boilermakers. I strongly oppose.

Jack Yanos on behalf of the California Fuels and Convenience Alliance, respectfully opposed.

Good morning. Jose Martinez, Local 378, apprentice, first period. I oppose this bill. Thank you.

Good morning. David Meyer, Local 378, Oakland Ironworkers, opposed. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Ricardo, ironworker, oppostion.

Good morning, everybody. I'm Francisco Yanez from Local 378. I oppose.

Good morning. Tobias Wolken with the California Taxpayers Association in opposition.

Good morning. Martin Vindiola on behalf of the California State Association of Electrical Workers and the California State Pipe Trades Council in opposition. Thank you.

Morning. My name is Vincent Michael Unga. I'm with the Local 378 Ironworkers, and I strongly oppose.

Margie Lie on behalf of the California League of Food Producers in respectful opposition.

Good morning. Sarah Polo Moo, California Retailers Association, opposed.

Randy Pollack on behalf of the American Chemistry Council in opposition.

Pablo Villagrana with Ironworkers Local 155 out of Fresno. We oppose.

Julian Fonseca, union ironworker, Local 155, Fresno, California. We oppose.

Brian Aponte, Ironworkers Local 155. I oppose.

Dawn Koepke on behalf of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association in opposition.

Joe Burnett, business agent for Ironworkers Local 155, Fresno, Bakersfield. I oppose.

Manny Enriquez with the Bricklayer Union and Allied Craftworkers. We oppose.

Dave Tafoya with the Bricklayers Allied Craftworkers, and we oppose. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. Roberto Zepeda, ironworker, Local 378, strongly opposed.

Good morning. Jerry Horner, Ironworkers 378, strongly opposed.

Good morning. Jose Villegas from Local 378, ironworker. I strongly oppose.

Ira Martinez, 378, strongly opposed.

William Miller, Local 378 Ironworkers, I strongly opposed.

Joshua Hunley, 118 Ironworker, opposition.

Good morning. Mitch Ponce, Ironworkers Local 433, Los Angeles. President of the LA Orange County Building Trades. We strongly oppose.

Aloha. Mitchell Bechtel on behalf of the District Council of Ironworkers in opposition. Thanks.

Matt Broad here on behalf of the Teamsters in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. James Thuerwachter with the California State Council of Laborers in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Brenda Quintana on behalf of the Hispanic 100, strongly opposed. Thank you.

Good morning, everyone. My name is Andrew Farfan and I am an ironworker out of 378, Oakland, California, and I oppose this bill. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members. Mike West, also at the State Building Trades, in opposition. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members, Paul Deiro representing the Western States Petroleum Association. Strong oppose.

Okay. Do we have anybody else coming in the back? No. Okay. All right. Well, thank you to everyone who spoke in opposition and everyone who spoke in support. We will bring it back to the Members to see if there are any questions or comments. Yes, Vice Chair.

I don't have any questions, but I do have some comments. To say that this bill will not raise gas prices is not only absurd, it's downright irresponsible and the definition of gaslighting. This will raise gas prices. And my district is a super commuter district. And maybe you can't empathize with that.

But we travel hundreds of miles every day, spending hours on the road. We sacrifice time with our families, we miss school events, we miss kids games because we can afford, we live where we can afford. And on top of that, we already pay astronomical prices for gas.

People in my district are paying $600-800 just to get to work. That doesn't include utilities, groceries, which all go up when the price of energy and gas goes up. Let's be clear though here. Government is who makes the most on a gallon of gas, more than $1.60 in taxes and fees.

And that's not Big Oil, that's government. And yet, instead of addressing the real reason gas prices are so high, this is only going to make it worse. We can't afford EVs in my district. The cost of infrastructure or the cost of buying those EVs or even the time. Working people are hurting and this, this is going to punish them even more. Thank you.

Can I respond?

You may respond, yes.

And if I can, Madam Chair, can I respond to that and just to some of the opposition's thing? First, I'd like to say that this Committee is going to see other bills regarding CEQA streamlining for housing and infrastructure. And the parties opposing those to make housing affordable are the same parties right now that are talking about affordability.

So it's a little contradictory to me to hear someone say they're opposing this because it's not going to make things cheaper, but when we're looking to streamline to make housing cheaper, they also oppose that. Do want to make that point.

Senator from Santa Clarita, I know your district very, very well and I'm never going to contradict when you mentioned about the commuters because a lot of your district constituents drive to my district to work in my district and I know that is to be a fact that they're always commuting and spending a lot of time on the 14 Freeway and the 5 Freeway.

But I do want to point that the report that is in front of you and the opponents mentioned was written by an individual that is a paid consultant for the Saudi government, which is the largest oil producers. So I feel like this report is completely biased when you're a paid consultant to a country that produces oil.

Again, that's we, we might not be able to agree on the validity of the report, but there is bias implied when you have a different hat that you wear as the, as the writer of this, of this report. And this bill doesn't add any regulatory constraints.

Business as is, continue doing what you're doing, continue emitting, and hopefully with conversations with cap and trade, you can address that. But my bill is not looking to address emissions whatsoever. And there is legal groundwork.

And I know this isn't the Committee that's going to focus on the legal groundwork, but there is legal groundwork, precedent, because here in California, in fact, we do have a fund that was created for previous damages of lead poisoning that still exists today because of damages that happened in the past and to be able to offset that moving forward.

The reason why we chose 1990 is because that's when it was, and I'd like to turn to my expert on this at the UN of 1990 date. I'll come back to it. That's when it was publicly known that they were polluting. The financial burden. I wrote this down. The quote that the opposition said the financial burden on those who can't afford it the least.

My bill is putting the financial burden on people like on the analysis notes of Chevron, who makes 20, who in 2023 made a $21.3 billion profit. ExxonMobil, who made a $36 billion profit. The financial burden are on those entities. The financial burden is not on the regular Californian.

And even the analysis points to, and it's not a clear direction the analysis said, but it does point to that there is, you can, there is a case that there's no direct correlation to increasing of gas prices because this is not addressing all producers.

You're going to have competition because not all entities are going to be assessed this fine. And I'd like to quote, because of competition between market players and unequal retroactive cost burdens on responsive parties, it would be much less straightforward to pass cost cost onto the consumers compared to programs like Cap and Trade or the LCFS. It's not a direct correlation because not everyone is going to be impacted.

Would it be possible for me also to address?

Okay, we're going to keep it to the Senators, so we'll have further comments here. And if you'd like to ask a specific question to one of the witnesses, you may.

Yeah. Am I recognized?

Yes, you're recognized.

Yeah. I'd like to ask the opposition here to speak to a little bit of what the author said because, while I think there's some good intention here, there's a lot of facts that are not lining up. If you would.

Thank you. And through the Chair, with respect to the Senator, the fact of the matter is that California today has the highest gas prices. I don't care who you ask to do the study. You can go and just drive to a gas station. The other fact of the matter is that the men and women of the building trades, we call it drive until you qualify for a mortgage. Often that means your district, often that means the San, the Inland Empire, where they do come down into the Senator's district to work.

The fact of the matter is that these prices do impact our individuals. We have the highest housing prices. We have the highest gas prices. The comment that we don't support efforts to streamline and improve the cost, the affordability index, I don't agree with. We, you know, there's a series of bills that have been introduced this year.

There's bills that the Building Trades have sponsored to try and address affordability. There's going to be 10, 15, 20 of them that come through this Committee this year. We'll see what they do and how that works. But what I can tell you is it is a fact that, that our members are suffering.

It is a fact that our members just want to go to work. It is a fact that they spend a disproportionate share of their income driving to work because you can't pack your tools on a bus, you can't pack your tools on a train. The fact of the matter is we don't have those services that get to those job sites. And the fact of the matter is that this bill will impact the affordability of working families who want to put food on the table, who want to continue to live in this great state.

More and more they're being driven out because they can't afford to live here. The jobs are going to go. We've had a refinery close. And I think it's disingenuous to suggest that this doesn't have an impact on everyday working Californians. And with respect to the Senator, and I appreciate the question, thank you.

Do you mind if I just give an additional piece on that?

I will also, I will call on the supporter. Yeah. Thank you. Want to keep order around here. Yes, go ahead.

Appreciate that, Chair. So you also need to think about this too in terms of the overall cost of doing business. Right. So this scheme which imposes retroactive penalties for decades old long conduct will make businesses view California as a riskier place to do business and invest. And when things are more risky, the price of doing that actually goes up as well. So it's not just the immediate impact on the dollars per gallon of gasoline, but it is making California a riskier place for somebody to choose to invest in. So thank you.

Okay. Thank you. And then let's go to the support witness. Yes.

Yeah. Hi. Thank you. So we've given you letters and reports from economists who have explained why the cost won't be passed down. These include Berkeley economists, economists from across the political spectrum and a Nobel Prize winning economist explaining that the cost won't be passed down.

One reason is because this is a one time recompense for past emissions, not an ongoing regulatory requirement intended to reduce emissions going forward. There are also very few retail gas stations in that would also be responsible parties. And there are also competition from unbranded gas stations that would keep prices contained.

In addition, as the Senate EQ analysis stated, nothing is forcing the fossil fuel companies to raise prices. In terms of this being a job killer. As the World Economic Forum has shown, the climate crisis is the real job killer. And it's really interesting to me and kind of sad that the Building Trades stand against this bill because they stand to benefit more than anyone. And as we cited in our sponsor letter, two thirds of the jobs generated directly by energy efficiency investments in California are in traditional building and construction trades.

And these sorts of investments also have huge multipliers. They're building jobs in California. It would spur economic development, support workers on the front lines of the climate crisis, and help small businesses and communities recover and protect against climate harms. And one more thing on the costs

These are, they're raising hypothetical increases but ignoring the known monumental costs of inaction in the trillions of dollars, according to the Senate EQ analysis and the World Meteorological Association. These costs are already hitting all of us. The LA fires alone cost upwards of $275 billion. That's just one event. And meanwhile, my neighbors in Altadena can't afford to rebuild.

And if they do, they may not be able to afford insurance, if they can at all. Some have no choice but to leave. This bill can help the Californians rebuild their lives. This bill can actually help Californians save money. Just one example. They can fund energy efficiency in homes, schools, and businesses.

It can help with rebuilding with solar and microgrids in instead of adding in gas, which can make rebuilding cheaper. Or it can take the cost of undergrounding power lines off of rate payers, which they're already paying for. In all of these ways it will save people money on utility costs. But the longer we wait, the worse the financial burden on Californians will be. The faster we act, the more we can save.

Okay, thank you. Yes, Vice Chair.

So Mr. Dunn, can you verify or the author that there's actually nothing in this bill that will prohibit costs from being passed on, one. Two, can you respond since the Building Trades were invoked in the witnesses or the...

Thank you. I will let the author speak to the pass alongs. What I will tell you is that the building construction trade members, many of whom you heard from, don't need ivory tower academics to tell us that this is not going to impact us.

Get up at 4:00, drive to our jobs with us, try and buy fuel to get to that job. Look at the cost of eggs, produce. Everything in this state is going up. So we don't need an academic from an ivory tower telling us don't worry about it, it doesn't hurt you.

We're out there doing it every single day. The costs are getting further and further from us. We are living further and further from the job sites. There's not public transportation. Housing is too expensive. So the notion somehow that the ivory tower academic is going to tell the Building Trades not to worry about it, quite frankly, insults me. So thank you for that opportunity. The other question I would pass to the author to address.

Senators, we can't have it both ways. Are we going to invoke ivory tower in one position and not the other one? The opposition, their first comment was invoking an ivory tower professor from USC as their proof that policy increases prices and not businesses. So I'd like to respectfully ask that we stick to one position on that. The second is, Senator, there is no nothing, there is nothing in my bill that says specifically you cannot, you're prohibited from passing down costs to consumers. That doesn't exist in my bill.

However, the way the bill is written, and since it's only going to affect certain entities and not other entities, there is an assumption that is created that because of competition, one entity wouldn't want to increase their prices so much if across the street Valero has price gases that are lower because they're not impacted by this bill. So competition is assumed that will keep prices stagnant, if you will, because not everyone's going to be impacted.

Well, we'll respectfully disagree on that. But I'll just add to your, as a closing here is that the California Department of Energy on their website has a breakdown of taxes, of the cost, of the regulatory costs that come down and how that adds up to our daily price of gasoline. So there is California data that supports the other reports that we were just that were in question. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. Any other comments? Yes, Senator Gonzalez.

Yes, I just would, first and foremost, I'm just coming in sort of towards the tail end. So my apologies. It's been a crazy day. But I first and foremost want to thank the author for this bill. I know it's these bills are never easy. They're always very difficult.

You know, in a time like this where we've had major catastrophes with our climate, in a time when folks like back in Southeast Los Angeles and in Long Beach in my district are suffering the consequences of the worst air pollution in the whole nation, on top of the devastation that they're seeing with extraordinary climate events, we know that the impacts are in the billions.

We can say this time and time and time again. We're asking for an assessment on the total damages here. And my communities, like many others, whether you're In a Republican or Democratic community, you deserve to know what the impacts are and you deserve to have investment that is clean energy investment. In fact, I have a lot of Building Trades clean energy jobs that are coming back to Long beach and Southeast Los Angeles. They want those jobs too. We can have both. It's important to have both.

And I don't think that making this bill or bills like this or the stakeholders a villain and then somehow saying that gas prices are automatically going to go up when it has no correlation is just not fair. And it's really not the correct and right information. It's, quite frankly, I feel, misinformation. So I want to thank you, Senator Menjivar, for bringing this forward. It's really. I know these.

Again, I can't tell you how much it pains me to kind of see the strife with this, but how it makes me feel so very proud that you're willing to take this on, especially in an environment at the federal level that has been so divisive. Because I know you want jobs, I know you believe in clean energy, but we also need to know the truth. What are the damages? So with that, I ask for an aye vote on your behalf too. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Well, it's obvious from the hearing today that this is a very heated topic. And having the Building Trades in the Chamber of Commerce. Exactly. Having the Building Trades in the Chamber of Commerce sitting in the same opposition table isn't something you always see. So I also recognize that. But I think in some ways I do.

I perceive that there can be a talking past each other where there's not a focus on what actually are we going to do to solve a particular problem. So I think, to me, the recognition that it is going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars to deal with climate change and the question is, who pays for that?

Should we have a few major fossil fuels companies who are making billions of dollars in contribute more or should we have taxpayers do it? Should we not do it and have all of the populace and all of the animal and plant life and all of the tremendous harms that come? Should we just externalize those costs and not do what we need to do? I mean, to me it seems like that's really what this is getting at.

And I recognize that cap and trade and low carbon fuel standards and another bill coming to this Committee from another Senator about litigation against fossil fuel companies that cause climate change are all in the same space of trying to reckon with how do we allocate the cost, assign responsibility, put ourselves on a path to both stop climate change on one side, but then also to just deal with the consequences that we already see and we know we will see.

And the reality of 275 billion of damages to rebuild from the fires in LA, that cost alone, I know that really influenced the author in deciding to do this bill again. And this bill came through this Committee last year and I was not on the Committee, but it passed through the Committee and there were certain amendments that were requested that have been, that are in this bill now. So we don't have requested Committee amendments as it moves forward.

I know there are things that remain outstanding like definition of combustion and some other things that you'll deal with in the Judiciary Committee if it passes through this Committee. But I recognize that this is a big deal and a big lift and ambitious and ultimately we need to face this clear eyed and to tackle it.

And I think we can retreat to our corners and repeat the mantras that we have and the values that we have, but recognizing that we need to have multiple values at the same time. We need to have jobs, we need people to be protected, we need costs to be reasonable so people can afford their life.

But where we are at this moment is just unacceptable to maintain as the status quo. And so I do support the bill. I'm eager for us to have real conversations about this and to try to chart the path forward so that we can have the economy that works for everybody and we can also save our planet.

So I appreciate what the Majority Leader said and that you move this bill. And so I'll look around and see if anyone else wants to make any comments and then I'll go to you for closing and then we'll vote. So any other comments? Okay, I'll go back to you for close.

Madam Chair, you described it so beautifully that this is a balance that we're trying to make here. I firmly 100% stand with job protection. And nowhere do I want to see addressing one injustice and creating another injustice when we have individuals on disability, unemployment because they lost their jobs.

In fact, I've been having conversations because we had Building Trades come to my office and lobby that we refund and put more money into the California Displaced Oil and Gas Worker Pilot Program, a fund that exists to help with the transition of people who work in the fossil fuel industry into energy efficient jobs, clean energy jobs. I am having conversations to look at our fund to fund programs like this because we don't have any General Fund to look into programs like that.

This fund can help really mobilize and come to fruition the transition part that is in all this conversation. Because the transition part is not just a fancy term, a smooth transition or what have you. But I want to make sure there is allocation for it. I am going to be taking amendments just for myself and you. Maybe not amendments requested by the opposition because maybe they can never get to that point where they'll be able to support it.

But I myself am committing to the Committee and my colleagues in the Senate that I will continue working on this getting to a place that is more digestible, but maybe not super digestible. I am proud to see other states that are pushing this forward. It's necessary. Californians no longer want to foot 100% of the bill. We should be held responsible for for some of it. But we should also share that responsibility for entities that have played a part in these disasters. With that, respectfully asking for an aye vote.

Okay, thank you very much. And we have a motion from Senator Gonzalez.

Okay. SB 684, the motion is do pass to Judiciary. [Roll Call]

Senator Padilla, did you want to vote on this bill now or would you like it to come back around? Okay, Senator Padilla's voting aye. Okay, it's four to three, and we will keep it on call. Thank you very much. Okay, we see Senator Allen, that's great. Thank you for coming. Good timing.

And you have four bills in a row here. Are you prepared for all of them? We will start with SB501, and that is, I invite the witnesses in support, if there are any, to come up and sit with him at the table. Yes. And, Senator Allen, you may proceed when ready.

Thank you. Yeah, the sergeants wanted to do Senator Menjivar's Bill first because of the big crowds in the hallways. All right, so this bill has to do with Household Hazardous Waste, and it would establish an extended producer responsibility program for specified household hazardous waste products.

So thousands of everyday household products are classified as Household Hazardous Waste because they're seen to pose threats to human health, animals, environment, if improperly managed at the end of life. Lots of these products are ubiquitous in our homes, and they're perfectly safe if inert on a shelf.

But partly as a result, we don't know how much toxicity we have in our own homes. Again, safe if properly stored, very unsafe when it goes up in flames, as we unfortunately saw in the case of the wildfires in Los Angeles, and certainly unsafe at the end of life if not disposed of properly.

So, obviously, sometimes the products can be intuitively dangerous. Any product that might have acid or mercury or asbestos so folks are more inclined to take care of those more carefully. But even things like adhesive or cleaning agents can sometimes have toxicity that needs to be properly disposed of afterwards.

And, you know, one of the problems, of course, is even if a person knows that a product is toxic and can't simply just be tossed in the trash, many communities don't have a convenience system for safely collecting the waste, as local facilities may be located far away or limited open hours due to budgetary pressures.

I know there's a bunch of things we just kind of set aside. And I know friends who just say they've literally seen my little pile in the corner and say, why don't you just throw it out? Well, it's all toxic. What am I going to do with it?

All this stuff ends up in the waste stream, and next thing you know, it's creating more pollution and problems. So we also know that collection and disposal costs have been increasing. Cities and counties have been raising rates to cover the cost or have to reduce services for the inconvenience to local residents.

And so we're trying to address this broader problem by requiring producers of specific hazardous consumer products to form a producer responsibility organization that will be tasked with enhancing accessibility and fully funding the safe collection, transportation and disposal of this waste.

The bill also requires robust education and outreach to ensure consumers know which products are hazardous and how to handle them properly. And it will most-really importantly, and this is a concept that came behind SB54, we seek to encourage product redesign to reduce waste generation and hazard level through financial incentives and the funding of the program.

Under the current system, of course, producers simply don't consider, or they don't have to consider end of life costs when formulating their products. Those costs don't appear on their balance sheets. Those costs, of course, are borne by all of us, our constituents, our residents.

So by getting the producers involved and covering the cost of safely disposing of the harmful products that they're putting out in the market, and of course, making money on producers will finally have some skin in the game. So it's a continuation of work that we did on this topic last year.

We're happy to accept all the Committee amendments which add clarity to the covered products list, great coordination with the SB54 program, needs assessment to be completed by the PRO, and giving the Department of Toxic Substance Control flexibility for interim or additional targets.

Also, I just want to say that I'm committed to continuing to engage with the impacted stakeholders on this bill to find a solution that ensures that we make progress in reducing improper disposal, reducing the generation of hazardous waste in the first place, and ensuring safe, convenient, proper management of the waste that is generated.

I want to just say how much I appreciate the collaboration and effort of the creative solutions that industry stakeholders have proven willing to engage in. We were barreling ahead with this bill and we actually delayed it last year because we wanted to give some more opportunities for real creative discussion with industry.

And we look forward to continued conversation this year. So I have with me today Heidi Sanborn from the National Stewardship Action Council, and I think John Kennedy may be lurking in the back. I saw him earlier with the Rural County Representatives of California to speak in support of the bill.

Thank you very much, Senator Allen, Members, Chair, and thank you for the committee staff for the thoughtful recommendations. I'm Heidi Sanborn, the Executive Director of the National Stewardship Action Council, a nonprofit that advocates for a responsible circular economy and one of the nation's foremost experts in extended producer responsibility, otherwise known as EPR.

We are proud to co sponsor SB501 along with the Regional Council of Rural Counties and the Resource Recovery Coalition of California. SB501 will require the producers of household hazardous waste to fund the convenient collection system for the most toxic products sold into the marketplace.

I've been working on EPR since 2006 as a consultant when I delivered a report to the then Waste Management Board. It shows my age on the End of Life Framework to analyzing Household Hazardous Waste Policy approaches I analyzed over 70 programs worldwide and came to this conclusion that we needed to address household products first through producer responsibility.

But that's not what we did. In 2009, Assemblymember Chesbro introduced AB283, which would have created a California Stewardship Act and established a framework for EPR for household hazardous waste.

Unfortunately, AB283 failed to pass and the legislature subsequently pursued a product by product approach that has resulted in a patchwork of policies and programs passing on everything from organics and packaging first. And then we had mercury thermostats, carpet paint, mattresses, medicines, needles, batteries and of course again packaging. But again, the order was wrong.

We didn't do household hazardous waste first. What's happening is the hazardous stuff is ending up in the recycling and the organics and now both are more expensive to manage. In 2020, I was appointed to the California Statewide Commission on Recycling Markets and Curbside Recycling and was elected chair by the 16 fellow commissioners.

We developed over 34 policy recommendations for the legislature that had unanimous votes amongst this diverse stakeholder group. But the first recommendation we could agree on was Household Hazardous Waste EPR was necessary for California.

The commission's report and the final report said that swift legislative action is needed to clearly extend producer responsibilities for the End of Life management for products that are hazardous or have been implicated in causing fires. And I don't know if you've heard this, but we are now the fourth most deadly industry in the nation.

We moved up from seventh according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and we are having fires in everything that we do. I mean from the trucks to the landfills to the recycling facilities. I predict we will not be insurable in the next few years as an industry if we do not get this unit under control.

And in February of 2024, we participated in a tour that included the visit to the Cow Waste Recovery Facility in the City of Galt where they only accept the curbside blue bins for processing and sorting. And in the back of the facility we noticed there was a hazardous waste facility.

And I said, why do you have a hazardous waste facility and a blue bin MRF? And they said because we pull 183,000 pounds of household hazardous waste just last year off that one sort line.

And that all came out of so called clean, clean packaging recycling materials, which means diazinon containers and everything else are ending up in the clean recyclable packaging that's going to be made into our next packaging products. This is especially concerning because these toxic products again can contaminate the food grade materials.

So we need an End of Life plan for these products. I really hope this is the year and we're open to working with stakeholders as the Senator said. So we ask for your leadership and appreciate your support for this bill. Thank you.

Good morning, John Kennedy with the Rural County Representatives of California. Thank you for allowing us to be here today. We're pleased to be a co sponsor for this bill. We represent smaller counties, 40 smaller counties ranging in size from Alpine County with about 1,100 residents to Sonoma with about 500,000.

As local governments were responsible for solid waste management. One of the core responsibilities also includes managing household hazardous waste from our residential, from residents and also from small businesses. We have 185 facilities throughout the state supplemented by curbside collection of household hazardous waste on call household hazardous waste collection in some areas.

We generally try to provide free HHW drop off at our centers to residents and this is to keep costs low for residents or to have no costs at all so we can avoid the risk of illegal dumping or improper disposal.

We often find HHW dumped along the side of the road and in other places like in MRFs and places we don't want to see them. HHW includes pesticides, pool chemicals, compressed gas cylinders, batteries, vapes, cleaners.

So many things end up in our HHW facilities and these products can be very very, very expensive for us to manage and dispose of at the end of their useful lives.

Many times some of these products have to be trucked halfway across the country for proper disposal because we don't have facilities anywhere near us to manage some of these things. Disposal costs can sometimes reach or exceed the cost for the consumer to purchase a product at the point of sale.