Assembly Standing Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials

Good afternoon everyone. We're convening as the Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee. Sergeants, please call absent Members. And I saw a couple, so hopefully they are on their way for a quorum. Let me just quickly cover the Committee's policies for testimony in today's hearing.

Primary witnesses and support must be those accompanying the author or who otherwise have registered a support position with the Committee. Primary witnesses in opposition must have their opposition registered with the Committee as well. All of their support and opposition can be stated at the standing mic.

When called upon to simply state name, affiliation and position. Each primary witness will have two minutes to give their testimony. I also want to note that we are accepting written testimony through the position letter portal on the Committee's website.

Senate Bill 561 has been pulled from today's hearing by the author. Therefore, we will hear four measures today, all fairly meaty as well. Again, we are waiting to establish a quorum, which hopefully will happen soon, but we will commence as a Subcommitee.

I note the presence of one of our esteemed authors, Senator Caballero. If you could please come forward with your Bill, SB 404 dealing with metal shredding facilities. Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, for the opportunity to present SB 404. First, let me thank the Committee for its work and I will be accepting the Committee amendments today. SB404 establishes a new regulatory framework to ensure complex, 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 rapidly overwhelm all available landfill capacity, creating a massive accumulation of damaged and abandoned cars, appliances, and other items and pose a threat to public safety.

Recycling these materials provides valuable resources for metal manufacturing. For instance, during the LA fires, one facility was responsible for taking hundreds of burned vehicles from the city, transforming them into useful new 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. 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 materials 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 of 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.

SB 404 will ensure comprehensive oversight and enforcement under DTS 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 permit, and the facilities must meet certain operational and performance standards to do so, which include implementing fire prevention strategies, emergency response protocols, and stormwater management requirements.

The Bill specifically establishes 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, or CEQA, review process.

This Bill gives DTSC robust enforcement authority to ensure these standards are met, including the authority to shut down a facility that poses an imminent and substantial danger to public health and the environment. The Bill authorizes DTSC to collect fees in order to cover administrative and enforcement costs.

I'm proud to say that a variety of stakeholders support this new regulatory program. And I recognize there are thoughtful stakeholders who think the regulatory program in this Bill should be stronger and others who think the program should be less burdensome. I've been working with all of the stakeholders to strike the right balance.

So let me just say that in an effort to address the concern raised by the environmental groups, I made a number of amendments. The analysis does a really excellent job of outlining those. In addition to some of the comments that have come forward, we're still working on that.

SB404 will ensure that California has the robust regulatory process and remains a sustainable leader in reducing, reusing and recycling by fostering the recycling of scrap metal.

With me here today to testify and support is Margaret Rosegay with the California Metal Recyclers Coalition and Scott Wetch with several trade organizations, the California State Association of Electrical Workers, Coalition of Utility Employees, California State Pipe Trades Council, and the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers.

Thank you, Senator. If we could pause for one second, we will establish a quorum.

[ROLL CALL]

Great. First witness.

Thank you Senator. Good afternoon Chair Connolly and Members of the Committee. My name is Meg Rosegay. I'm with the law firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, and I represent the California Metal Recyclers Coalition, which is sponsoring SB 404.

I've worked closely with the metal recycling industry for over 40 years and can personally attest to to the transformative changes that have been made by these facilities over these years. Metal recycling and the metal shredding facilities in particular, constitute the most successful example of recycling in the US economy.

Over 70% of new steel products are made from recycled metal derived from metal shredding facilities. In fact, Pacific Steel Group is building the first new steel mill in California in 50 years. This project has the support of Governor Newsom and will use 100% recycled steel feedstock produced by California shredders.

Over the past 10 years, however, the metal shredding industry has operated in a state of legal and regulatory uncertainty that puts these businesses at serious risk.

This uncertainty affects large and small facilities alike and has ripple effects throughout the supply chain, including many small family owned minority businesses that collect and sell scrap metal to these facilities.

SB 404 would clarify the laws that apply to metal shredding facilities by creating a clear and balanced regulatory program based on two guiding principles. First, the need to operate in a manner that protects the environment and surrounding communities. And second, recognition of the economic realities of the global metals commodities market in which these facilities operate.

With SB404, California will maintain its place in the forefront of environmental protection while fostering metal shredded metal shredding industry's critical role in the circular economy. The Bill sets a high but achievable bar for metal shredding facilities in California consistent with the state's environmental policies and goals.

Without SB 404, California could lose a critical sector of the economy that protects our communities and open spaces from being overwhelmed by millions of tons of scrap metal that is generated every year in the state.

Just think of the floods and fires that now ravaged the state on an all-too-frequent basis, leaving mass destruction in their wake. Without our metal shredders, there would be no place to process the burned or ruined cars and appliances, vastly increasing the cost and difficulty of cleaning up after these natural disasters.

The Coalition has worked closely with the author in addressing feedback from stakeholders and has supported many amendments to address concerns that have been raised.

We wish to emphasize that SB 404 does not create a one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, it would require DTSC to consider the size and nature of facilities in crafting permit conditions and when setting fees.

The Coalition will continue its collaborative approach and will work with the Senator to address the issues in the Committee's analysis and by other stakeholders. In summary, SB 404 provides enforceable standards that will both protect neighboring communities and and advance critical recycling in California.

The legal and regulatory certainty this Bill provides is essential for the future viability of this critical industry and the thousands of employees, businesses and communities that rely upon it. We urgent an aye vote and thank you for your consideration.

Thank you. Mr. Wedge.

Mr. Chairman and Members. Scott Wetch on behalf of the California Coalition of Utility Employees, the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers, the California State Pipe Trades Council and the State Association of Electrical Workers.

The theme for this legislative session obviously has been affordability. This apropos that this Bill is moving forward as far as it has this year. For the industries that I represent, this regulatory uncertainty has added an extreme level of cost.

As you can imagine, electrical contractors, plumbing contractors, utility contractors, sheet metal contractors, and our apprenticeship programs for that matter, dispose of and need to dispose of a tremendous amount of metal material.

You know, the costs to this industry that has because of this regulatory cloud that has been over the shredding industry has a real material effect on how we bid jobs and our operations.

You know, my clients have more often than not been on the opposite sides of the metal recycling industry when it comes to issues and disagreements regarding precious metal theft. But this is I think indicative of the work that the author has done.

I think this is basically demonstrative of the best that this legislative process has to offer that on such a difficult issue, this Bill has come so far that it really deserves to be passed.

It's not a perfect Bill, but this is a classic example where you can't allow perfect to be the enemy of the good. This moves the state forward. The fire community is satisfied. The Department. This is a elegant solution. And our industry urges an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there any other member of the public in the hearing room who would like to come forward in support?

[Inaudible]

Ryan Flanigan on behalf of the Recycled Materials Association West Coast Chapter in support.

[Inaudible]

Chair and Members, Natalie Rodgers on behalf of the Latino Caucus of California Counties and the Rincon Band of Luiseno Indians, and support.

Mr. Chair and Members, Kristin Olson-Cate here in support on behalf of Radius Recycling as well as Sims Recycling.

Good afternoon. Gavin McHugh on behalf of the State of California Auto Dismantlers Association. We support the Bill. Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Members, Robert Wachowski on behalf of Ecology Recycling Services of Colton, California.

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

Do we have anyone in opposition to the Bill? Please come forward and we'll start with primary. Yeah.

Hi. I'm William Mendonca. I'm the owner of Universal Service Recycling.

If you can get right up in that mic.

Ok. Universal Service Recycling in Stockton, California. I'm respectfully opposed to SB 404 as written unless it is amended. Little something. In the month of June, my company had 16,000 customers come through there. 16,000 families that that we've impacted.

SB 404 will definitely impact our operation. As currently written, it is a one-size-fits-all bill and we feel that the companies that chemically treat their waste should be regulated under SB 404. That is not what our company does. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Nicole Merino Tsui and I'm speaking today on behalf of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project and as a resident of West Oakland to express our opposition to SB 404 as written.

This Bill is a direct threat to neighboring communities like West Oakland, already overburdened by decades of environmental harm. Metal shredding facilities like Radius, formerly Schnitzer Steel, impact homes, schools and parks throughout Alameda County.

The prevailing winds carry toxic dust, metals and particulate matter directly to where people live, breathe and raise their children. Residents live with a constant risk of toxic emissions, heavy metal pollution and fires that release hazardous smoke into the air.

SB 404 does nothing to require the strong protections these communities deserve. Instead, it hands control over to the very industry responsible for the contamination.

It codifies the state's historic failure to define and regulate hazardous waste, allowing the toxic byproducts of shredding full of lead, cadmium and PCBs to be treated as if they're harmless. They are not.

This Bill strips local agencies of oversight, weakens DTSC's authority, and silences the public. In West Oakland and other historically disregarded communities, there would be no meaningful way to challenge permit decisions, no opportunity for public comment, and no way to hold polluters accountable.

DTSC has an existing program and regulations that apply to hazardous waste sites. If more is needed for metal shredders, add to what already exists with DTSC's current framework.

This new untested program cannot be expected to keep communities safe. Your efforts are better spent making the current DTSC approach stronger. We know what happens when industry is left to regulate itself. Our neighborhoods become environmental dumping grounds.

These are not industrial wastelands. They are communities full of families, voters and children who deserve clean air, safe soil and protection under the law. Please reject SB 404 and stand with those who have carried the weight of California's pollution for far too long. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other Members of the public in opposition to the Bill, please come up to the mic.

Good afternoon. Lucy Salcedo Carter with the Alameda County Office of Education in opposition.

Mr. Chair, Chris Micheli on behalf of Oakland Athletics Group in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon Chair and Members. Sasha Horwitz with the Los Angeles Unified School District. Opposed.

Chair and Members, Jael Dantas with Full Moon Strategies on behalf of Alameda County. We do appreciate all the conversations with the author's office, but today we got to remain our opposition. Thank you.

Amanda Bloom representing the California Association of Environmental Health Administrators as well as the CUPA Forum Board. We are in opposition unless amended. Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Members. Chris Bauer, on behalf of Clean- Harvard's Environmental Services. We have an opposed unless amended position on the Bill and the current version of the Bill. Look forward to having continued conversation with the author's office. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Tim Taylor with the National Federation of Independent Business and on behalf of the Coalition for Small and Disabled Veteran Businesses, the California Black Chamber of Commerce, the Valley Industry of Commerce Association and United Chambers of the San Fernando Valley in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Emely Garcia on behalf of NRDC, Natural Resources Defense Council, in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Brenda Bass on behalf of the Pacific Auto Recycling Center in opposition unless amended. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Alexis Williams. I've been in the recycling metal industry for 30 years and I oppose SB 404 unless it is amended because I want to continue to keep doing honest and essential work. Thank you.

Good afternoon. William Mendonca with Universal Service Recycling. I oppose SB 404 unless it is amended because we are keeping our streets clean of litter. Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. Meg Snyder with Axiom Advisors here today on behalf of Cargill with an opposed unless amended position. We've shared our concerns with the author and Committee and look forward to future conversations. Thank you.

Ron Kramer, Kramer Metals. We've been in business 75 years in the San Fernando Valley and we oppose SB 404 unless it is amended. Thank you.

Hello. My name is Joseph Mendonca and I'm one of the primaries and owners of Universal Service Recycling. We've been in this industry for 30 years and I oppose SB 404 unless it is amended to keep our small business that's responsible and doing things the way we do. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Michael Mendonca, working for Universal Service Recycling for 11 years. And I oppose SB 404 unless it is amended to protect the business that supports my family. Thanks.

Hello. My Name is Joseph Mendonca Jr. I worked at Universal Service Recycling for 8 years. I oppose SB 404 unless it is amended because with gas at $5 a gallon, our jobbers can no longer afford to drive to us and will need to drive to the mega shredders. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Denise Macmillan. I work for Universal Service Recycling. I have been in the industry for 29 years. I oppose SB 404 unless it's amended to protect employers like mine from unfair regulations. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Tien Chao. Here on behalf of the Del Amo Action Committee, California Safe Schools, California Communities Against Toxics, Comite Civico del Valle, Action Now, Clean Air Coalition of North Whittier and Avocado Heights, Comite Pro Uno, Philippine Action Group for the Environment, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Lincoln Heights Community Coalition, Green Action for Health and Environmental Justice, and Earth Justice in opposition to SB 404 and in support of West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone else? Not seeing any. I'm going to bring it back to Members and see if there's any questions or comments. Assemblymember.

Yes. Why is this industry so important?

That's a great question. I've learned more about metal shredding than I ever thought I'd know.

And I think we tend to forget what's made of metal in our daily lives until you go to one of these facilities and you realize how much we utilize it and then how much we throw it away afterwards.

All of the fencing that's used around sites that is made of metal, right? It's chain link fences, everything in our house that's a large utility, refrigerators, dryers, washers, that's metal. The cars, the buses, the trains, the tracks, that's all made of metal.

And so when we no longer need those products, when they're damaged, like in either a flood or a fire, then they need to be recycled. And when they're at the end of their life - and we're getting to the end of life much quicker - I remember our washing machines used to last a long time and they just don't anymore. And so there's.

But the complexity of the job is that it's not just the metal in cars, it's also the insides, things that are plastic, things that are made of material, rubber. All of that has to be disaggregated, taken apart, and separated.

And then the metal gets put through a process where it's shredded and then can be sent off for recycling to be melted down and recycled. But all the rest of the products need to be disposed of as well.

And that's what we're talking about today are the byproducts of taking things apart and, and breaking them down into other parts and reusing them. And reusing them as well. Yes.

So one more question.

Of course.

Do you feel like the smaller - that you've addressed the concerns raised by the smaller shredders?

Well, we're working on it. The challenge is that the smaller shredders don't do the exact same process that the bigger shredders do. And it's our analysis that we've tried to identify the processes that create the potential for waste product getting outside of the facility.

And if the small shredders are not doing that, then they shouldn't have to worry about it because they're not doing it. And they would go through the same permitting process. But all part of the process is saying, "We don't do this. We don't do a chemical component."

If in fact they don't and "We don't shred, we just separate and we bundle and sell off the metal in a different form." So therein lies. The question is what they would prefer is just to be exempt totally.

And what we've been trying to do is to create a model for where if they move into any of the restricted type of activities that require a little bit more of an environmental review, that they have to go through that environmental review process in order to get the checkoff from DTSC.

In other words, in order to get the permit that DTSC would give. So we've tried to address the issues that have been raised. I think part of the challenge is fundamental belief that they shouldn't have to be regulated at all, and that therein lies the challenge.

Other questions? Vice Chair.

Thank you, Senator. Thanks, Senator. Mr. Mendonca.

Yes, sir.

Can you tell me why some folks in the shredding business use thermal oxidizers?

So when you take a car, they drain the fluids out of the car before they shred. Inherently, there's still going to be fluids in the car. So there's rear end fluid, which is almost a gallon. You'll have residues in the engines, residue in the transmission, what have you.

And again, when you sit in your car, when you go home today, I want you to look in the car. There's your seat. It's foam underneath the fabric. There's carpet on the floor.

So when you shred cars, you have some of the oils and the gases and what have you will absorb into the cushions, into the carpet, into the what have you.

The mega shredders will treat that material, which is a hazardous waste, after they've taken all the metal out of it, they treat that hazardous waste to make it soluble to go to a regular landfill as a non hazardous waste.

Do they mix what cement with it or fly action?

Surfacta. This Bill, I'll have to say has some, some really good parts in it because that's DTSC's job is to regulate hazardous waste. And the fact that they're allowed to take it to a landfill I think is absolutely wonderful. As long as you're using the proper amount of chemicals that the DTSC has prescribed for them.

And I think they have that in the Bill. That's the biggest difference. Company like ours, we do not shred autos, we do not shred appliances, we shred metal. So when you're looking at roofing, we don't. Our appliances will go to Radius Recycling. The reason why is we just don't want to recycle. We just don't want to process.

You're kind of a broker then of some stuff and a shredder, you know.

Not everything for, for us, we're a boutique shredder. So we shred approximately 3,000 tons of material per month. I think Radius is around 70,000 tons per month. They're one of, you know, five or six mega shredders in the State of California.

We've never had a complaint from a neighbor. We've never had a complaint from anybody because we don't. So we don't create VOCs because we don't shred VOCs.

Volatile organic compounds. Can you, can you tell me like how many agencies regulate you now?

I think it's six. We have Air Board permit, Water Board permit. Oh God. There's, there's a list of them.

County Health Department.

County Health Department, you know, everybody. And they come through and inspect us every, every six months, everything.

And have never had, we just had a DTSC inspection a week and a half ago and what they found was 155 gallon drum of used motor oil that was five days past due having it pumped off site. Other than that, there was nothing else wrong.

So you do have DTSC inspection?

Oh, DTSC regulates us. Absolutely, absolutely. They already regulate us. Or the certified appliance program they come in and do inspections for on us. Believe me, absolutely.

Have you ever applied for any permits with the DTSC?

No. I'm sorry, no. As a certified appliance recycler, you have to apply through DTSC as a certified appliance recycler. I believe we have to go through DTSC.

I'd like to ask a question of the attorney. How many pages of documents would you, if you had to apply for a DTSC permit under this new rule, would some consultant or some employee have to go through to understand the DTSC permit process?

Right. The concept behind this Bill is that each facility would be preparing a compendium of plans that are specific to their own operations. Taking into consideration the types of materials they process, the size the facility, et cetera, et cetera.

The facility can do 90% of the work on those plans. Maybe they need a consultant, maybe they don't. But that compendium of plans are reviewed and approved by the Department and essentially become the permit that would be issued.

My question is, I'm going to the cost of the what the consultant or the employee, or would you have to have someone, a full time employee monitor this after you apply the permit to meet permit conditions, et cetera, et cetera?

There is a level of effort that would certainly be required by in-house staff to monitor compliance with the terms and conditions of the permit. But I think most of these facilities have existing environmental staff and that function could be fulfilled by those existing employees.

Senator, I'd like to make a comment that I have been the recipient of DTSC permits and air quality permits over the years and, and albeit I'm not, I'm not anti-regulation, I am anti over regulation and I feel this goes a little bit too far for the small guys that don't have the capacity, the ability.

I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but I think that if I look at what it takes to be in compliant to a specific, these guys probably are small recyclers are doing a great job. You yourself, you know, we appreciate their work and the large shredders, they're all doing a great job.

I just find it hard to believe that someone in a small scale should have to operate in a large scale. Especially on the larger scale they're doing hazardous waste treatment which therefore they should be regulated by the DTSC. And this fits really well there.

And I also feel like for you know we have thermal oxidizers that are burning off ultra organic compounds. I think that shows a sign that there's a hazardous constituent and therefore they should be regulated.

I'm really concerned about the small guys so I'm going to vote no today just because I feel like the small guys should be exempt.

Understood.

Thank you Senator very much.

Other questions? seen and I want to thank you Senator for bringing this Bill forward. Obviously it's a crucial area. I'll invite you to close maybe and you touched on this a little bit earlier, but just that small operator and kind of where you see that falling or at least signaling kind of the nature of the ongoing discussions in that regard.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And I do appreciate the Assemblymembers' comments as well. You know, part of it is that we're trying to thread a needle. DTSC has the authority under certain rules to look at, for example, the certified appliance recycler. Right. But they don't have the authority to regulate the entire facility.

They have taken action to do so and then it's resulted in litigation because they don't have authority from the Legislature to do it. This is why we're trying to set up a regulatory framework that works. We're still working with the small shredders.

The challenge is that we're also working with the Administration and with DTSC, and DTSC wants some regulatory oversight of the small recyclers as well. And so it's a delicate balance. We'll continue to figure out if there's a different permit that they can get.

In the end, after doing all of this work, I want to make sure that if we can get it to the Governor's desk that he'll sign it.

And so having DTSC think it's a regulatory framework that they can work with, that makes sense and that paying the fees in will give them the ability to regulate them both at a different level. That's really what we're working towards. And so you have my, my assurance that we'll continue to have conversations.

I'm just, we've had them over the past number of months. I'm not sure we're going to be able to get there. What they want is to be exempted from any regulation. And that becomes difficult because every small, every shredder does their processing a little bit differently.

And it's one of the reasons why every shredding facility will have the ability to make their best case to DTSC about what they're doing, how they're doing it, and the assurances that are part of the Bill are being met. And so we see this as more of a, of a process that will.

And let me just say that it includes public comment as part of the permit. The public can challenge the permit with DTSC as well. There are a number of things that have been included as part of the Bill as part of the negotiation process because we want, if there have been bad actors in the past.

We can't change what happened in the past. And so what we want to make sure is that those things, fires, floating materials outside of the facility, do not happen. Which is why we haven't changed any of the authorities of the other entities, the Air Board, the Water Board, the County Health Department, through CUPA.

All of that remains as part of the process because we want to make sure that these facilities that have been located way too close to residential in the past, bad land use decisions quite frankly, don't create a nuisance for the community and that we're doing everything possible to clean up any challenges there might be.

So with that, I would respectfully ask for your aye vote unless there are any other questions, Mr. Chair.

Yeah, no. And really just uplifting a couple things you said. And appreciate you taking some key amendments to date. One is the fact that the public will be able to appeal these permits through DTSC. Another is that public attorneys will be able to enforce the provisions of this Bill.

That having been said, as you've noted, there are some ongoing conversations. Let us know of any potential changes if we can be of help in facilitating stakeholder discussions. Count us in.

This does recommend an aye vote from the Chair today. With that, do I have a motion and second on SB 404? And I will second. If we can have a roll.

[ROLL CALL]

We'll leave that open for absent Members.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much, everybody. Appreciate it.

Okay, we're moving on to file item two, Senate Bill 601. We have. Senator Allen. This is, this is a bill dealing with water quality. Welcome.

Well, thank you so much, Mr. Chair. So this bill would build out of a very controversial Supreme Court decision back in 2023, SAC at VEPA, where the Supreme Court narrowly significantly narrowed the definition of WOTUS, the waters of the United States.

The protections, waters that would be protected under the Clean Water Act, waters that had been protected for many, many years under the Clean Water Act. Basically, the court said that we're no longer going to apply those Clean Water Act protections to those wetlands, streams and even rivers that may occasionally dry up here in California.

We know that so many of our waterways occasionally dry up. That's a very kind of East Coast decision. Very few rivers are ever dry on the East Coast, but here, many, many of ours dry up at certain types of the year.

What that did effectively was strip many of these waters that had enjoyed these waterways that had enjoyed Clean Water Act protections for many years of their long standing federal protections, while creating more uncertainty regarding which waters remain protected.

Now, the State Water Board has noted that this decision is most likely to impact waters within the Central Valley, which include large numbers of isolated vernal pools, wetlands in Southern California, which has a prevalence of ephemeral or disconnected waters. Now, we do have our state law, Port of Cologne, which is very important.

Of course, it continues to regulate with these waters, but it lacks some of the more stringent protections that were under the Clean Water Act, such as total maximum daily load requirements, impaired water listings, as well as the stronger protections for environmental and human health in establishing water quality objectives.

In addition, the enforcement mechanisms, the tools under Port of Cologne are not as strong as under the Clean Water Act, which has high penalties that act as strong deterrence. It also Clean Water Act Included Inflationary Adjustments and opportunities for citizen enforcement of violations in order to supplement agency efforts to hold polluters accountable as a result of that.

Of course, that means that polluter accountability under the Clean Water Act is not dependent on agency staffing and resources at the Water Board. Now, what we've seen at the Water Board, partly as a result of the fact that they're up to their ears in responsibility and don't have enough resources.

Literally no enforcement actions, even compliant actions, compliance actions or informal enforcement actions were taken every year since 2017 in over 70% of known waste discharge requirement violations.

Now, it is true that last year we did allocate more resources to the Water Board for increased staffing and Partly as a result of that data and the SACU decision, we asked them also to report back on SAC it's impacts on their workload.

But this report is not going to change the underlying fundamental problem that the pollution prevention standards and tools and enforcement under the Clean Water Act are stronger than those under Porter Cologne. And you know, there are indications federally that there may be further changes to the definition of wotus, creating additional uncertainty.

So this is ultimately about ensuring that we not backslide. And it basically seeks to apply protections for point source discharges such as from a pipe or a specific drainage ditch into nexus waters analogous to those for federally protected waters through integration of nexus waters into the Clean Water Act Implementing statute in our state statute.

So the way we have it framed, the nexus waters category is designed to capture surface waters that are not currently federally regulated, that were not excluded from a pre Biden era WOTUS rule and were not already deemed to be not a WOTUS pre sacket. Thus mostly capturing waters that would have been federally protected prior to sack it.

We are, you know we've been working with this Committee and I think at the Next Committee goes to approach but we've been working on we've got some amendments that are in here to narrow down the definition of the waters to better comply with the Kavanaugh.

Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence in the Sackett decision that was signed onto by the Lamore liberal justices, by the way to calling for a more basically criticizing how robust the earlier Clean Water Act definition had been. We're also taking out, we've taken out the private right of action.

It's been replaced by public prosecutors, but we specify that those public prosecutors would not be allowed to bring an action in those cases where the applicable regional Water Board or the state board or the Attorney General are already diligently prosecuting a violation.

So we are continue to be really interested in trying to narrow the definition of nexus waters over the course of the legislative process to provide more clarity and limit the bill.

We certainly have taken extensive amendments since the bill was introduced and we would try our best to listen to all the opposition's concerns regarding feasible implementation of the bill and address certain overreaches beyond the Sackett framework and address concerns that the original citizen enforcement provisions in the bill would lead to bad actor abuses.

That's why we did away with the PRA. So where we are now though I believe it's still a strong bill. We're confident it can be efficiently implemented. I believe it's important to pass now rather than waiting until pollution gets worse to take action.

And with me here today, we have Sean Bothwell from California Coastkeeper alliance and also Kim Delfino on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife.

Welcome. Good afternoon, Chair Committee Members, Sean Bothwell for California Coastkeeper Alliance. The Supreme Court's second decision drastically reduced Clean Water Act protections for California's waterways.

Second decision essentially overturned the Biden rule for what is the water of the United States and therefore what the Clean Water Act Covers, and instead has returned us to trump level protections, meaning only major waterways that flow all year long are now protected under the Clean Water Act.

And waterways that are seasonal, many of which are in California, are no longer protected under the Clean Water Act. Statewide, we anticipate there's about 600,000 miles of streams that are losing protections, and anywhere from 50 to 97% of our wetlands are losing protections.

In the Bay Area, 61% of all streams are ephemeral, meaning that they're seasonal and are no longer protected under the Clean Water Act. 71% of streams in Los Angeles are are losing Clean Water Act protections. SB601 simply puts California back to protecting the waterways that have always been protected under a Democratic leadership.

The second decision was so extreme that we're not even the only state that is taking action similar to SB601. There's seven other states that have at least introduced legislation similar to SB601, several of which have been enacted and quite frankly, have stronger provisions than the bill before you here today.

Porter Cologne is an important backstop, but it is insufficient to protect our waterways the way the Clean Water Act does. Porter Cologne allows does not provide the monitoring necessary to know if you're in compliance or not. It allows for anonymous reporting so that you don't know who's in violation and who's not.

And it allows for aggregation of township data, so you don't even know where the pollution is coming from. To address, without SB601, we lose a lot of work in California. All of our Clean Water Act permits will need to be turned into state permits, all of which require CEQA and will have lesser protections.

And the Senator mentioned total daily maximum loads, which is a federal Clean Water Act tool. Those are used for our most polluted waterways, the waterways that are too polluted to swim, fish, drink. And without SB601, those requirements for those waterways go away. We lose those protections and those standards.

So for those reasons, I ask for your aye vote.

Good afternoon, Kim Delfino, testifying on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife. As we've already heard SB 601 is all about dealing with the aftermath of Sackett. As concurring Justice Kagan commented at the time, the majority opinion could use every letter of the Alphabet and graduate to quadratic equations and still not solve its essential problem.

In other words, the Sackett decision completely ignored the important role of science in the policy and consequently has left California's wetlands, streams and other waters exposed to greater threats and worsening water quality and flow. We've already heard California's hydrology is very different from the from the east and the Midwest.

We are basically an arid state for the most part, and waters appear and then disappear depending on whether we're in drought or whether it's summer or it's fall. And these waters serve as essential habitat for wildlife, safe drinking water for communities, and nature based solutions for climate resilience.

And while this may seem obvious, it can it bears repeating our waters are connected. When there is a source of pollution, such as runoff from a dredge and fill project of a wetland or urban toxics running into nearby storm drains, the impacts can be widespread.

The Sackett decision limited our ability to maintain federal protections for our waters because it pulled back Clean Water Act protections from what we're calling nexus waters. These are waters, as noted by the Committee analysis, that have been considered waters of the US by eight different presidential administrations.

For the most part, SB 601 simply maintains the status quo for nexus waters. It keeps the standards and terms of the federal Clean Water Act permits in place. I say for the most part because it's already been pointed out that SB601 was amended to remove the citizen suit provision.

So we actually are not going back to where we were before the Sackett decision. And in fact, as also been noted, the bill's been amended on numerous occasions to make it abundantly clear that SB is not coloring outside of the federal Clean Water Act minds.

So by enacting SB601, California will be joining several states in an effort to fill the gap left by the Sackett decision. And for these reasons we urgent I vote thank you.

Anyone else who would like to come forward in support, come on up.

Noah Melroy on behalf of the East Bay Regional Parks District in support. Thank you.

Emily Garcia on behalf of Natural Resources Defense Council, I support.

Hi. April Robinson with A Voice for Choice Advocacy in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon Chair and Members, Anthony Jimenez Tostado with CALPERG and Environment California and in support

Molly Colton, Sierra Club California in strong support. Thank you.

Marquis Mason, California Environmental Voters in support. Also on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund and Audubon California. Thanks.

Marty Farrell on behalf of California Coastkeeper Alliance along with Russian Riverkeeper, Orange County Coastkeeper, Inland Empire Waterkeeper, Santa Barbara Channel Keeper, Humboldt Bay Keeper, Shasta Waterkeeper, Monterey Waterkeeper, San Diego Coast Keeper, Los Angeles Waterkeeper and Yuba River Waterkeeper in support of SB601.

Good afternoon.

Megan Cleveland with the Nature Conservancy in support.

Ashley Overhouse on behalf of Defenders Wildlife in support, as well as the Resource Renewal Institute at Restore the Delta and Friends of the River. Thank you.

Gabriel Tolson in support on behalf of the Planning and Conservation League. Also asked to register support on behalf of the Community Water Center and the Montalaic Committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any opposition to the bill?

Good afternoon Chair and Members. Chris Anderson, on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce, respectfully in opposition do just want to first start off by thanking the author and his staff for all the work and certainly all the amendments that have been taken on this bill so far.

And also certainly want to thank Naomi for her engagement facilitating a number of meetings between both sides. I think it's been very helpful and constructive to the conversation. So like I said, the author has taken a number of amendments to address concerns with some of the water quality related concerns we've had with the bill.

However, there are still a few water quality related issues that we are hoping to resolve and certainly one of them involves the definition of nexus waters.

So you know, like you heard, the intent of the definition is to capture water bodies that were considered WOTUs prior to the SAC AT decision, but lost that protection following the SAC AT decision. However, fundamentally the definition presents concerns because it defines all waters of the state as nexus waters unless specifically excluded.

And so one of the difficulties with that is theorizing all the potential water bodies that were WOTIs but are no longer WOTIs. And this definition of wotus has changed and evolved for decades. Before Sackett and after Sackett, what is a wotus is not always evident.

And additionally, kind of compounding these issues is that defining nexus waters in statute, or specifically those exclusions in statute, means that if you inadvertently leave something out, going to have to run another bill all over again in order to include that exclusion.

One of the main concerns as well is how this definition would apply to artificial water supply infrastructure. And this is something that there's been some robust conversations about lately. One possible way to address this is potentially directing the State Water Board to develop the definition of nexus waters. The regulatory process is a little more fluid.

It allows a state agency to exercise its subject matter expertise, robust stakeholder engagement. So that's one possible approach. And as the author is aware, we do have a number of concerns with some of the enforcement related provisions in this bill. So we're here in final policy Committee. There's a lot of work left to do.

Possibly making this a two year bill and allowing additional time to work through some of these very complex issues would be helpful.

It also allow the bill to be informed by the report that's coming from the State Water Board next year so that there would be some information as to whether what sort of issues the Water Board has identified and whether this bill is actually responsive to those issues. So thank you for your time.

Good afternoon. Noelle Kramers with Wine Institute. I too want to express my appreciation to the author and his staff for working with us on amendments and to the Committee consultant for engaging and bringing us together to have these conversations. This is a very complex area, area of law.

I know the sponsors took quite a bit of time to come up with what they were proposing as a definition for nexus waters. We think that more time is needed for everyone to come up with a clear understanding of what that definition is.

I want to point out that we have a robust water quality protection law in Port of Cologne in California.

And when the Sackett decision was announced, we had the Governor, the Attorney General and the State Water Board all come out and talk about their frustration with the Sackett decision, but that it would not have significant effect in California because of our existing water quality protections.

So I think that argues for the need to take time to get this right rather than speeding this through and potentially having to come back after we see the report next year. There's a couple of provisions that we really do have continuing concerns with.

One is the elimination of the requirement that the State Board consider economic impacts in their permitting decisions so that when if a permit covered both federal and state provisions, they would the state board and regional board would no longer have to consider economic impacts when they're making those state level decisions.

And we're concerned about the ultimate impact on businesses. With that. The other piece is, as my colleague mentioned, the nexus waters definition, the way it's defined right now with the recent amendments, agricultural drainage ditches that ultimately could have some connection downstream to nexus waters or navigable waters would be included in the definition.

So then those ag drainage structures get wrapped into this permitting requirement. And we think that there needs to be more time to work that out so that we don't have unintended consequences on agriculture. I Just want to.

As was pointed out in the Committee analysis, the definition of waters of the United States has been litigated for the past 50 years. And the lack of clarity around that definition has led to the need to hire a lot of consultants to figure this out.

If we adopted SB601 as in print today, that would only exacerbate the challenge with needing to hire cadre of consultants, which adds costs and time to permits. And we. So we really want to make sure we get this right for businesses and would ask for more time to have these negotiations. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any remaining Members of the public in opposition? Please come forward.

Good afternoon, Chair, Committee Members. Jonathan Clay on behalf of NWD Mitch Small Water District of Southern California in opposition.

Thank you. Chair Members. Danny Merkley with the Goalkeeper on behalf of the California Association of Wine Grape Growers. Opposed.

Good afternoon. Andrea Abergel with the California Municipal Utilities Association. Respectfully opposed.

Hello. Keely Morris on behalf of Orange County Water District in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Yeah. Julie Malinowski Ball on behalf of the Contra Costa Water District in opposition.

Claire Sullivan on behalf of the cities of Santa Rosa and Thousand Oaks, in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Elizabeth Esquivel with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association in opposition.

Karim Drisi on behalf of the California Building Industry Association. We align ourselves with the remarks provided by the California Chamber of Commerce. Thank you.

Eric Turner, California Construction Industrial Materials Association. Respectfully opposed. Thank you.

Sarah Starr with the City of Roseville in opposition.

Jamie Minor with the California Stormwater Quality Association. Appreciate the author's engagement and continued work on this. But respectfully, still in opposition.

Good afternoon. Alex Beer and California Farm Bureau in respectful opposition and agree with many comments about the engagement. Appreciate it. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Connor Gusman on behalf of the Paradise Irrigation District in opposition. Thank you.

Kasha Hunt with Nosman on behalf of Padre Dam Water District, Santa Clara Valley Water District, as well as County of Monterey Board of Supervisors. In opposition.

Carrie West with the City of Sunnyvale also in respectful opposition. And also would like to thank the author's office for their engagement.

Jessica Gauger with California Association of Sanitation Agencies. Respectfully opposed.

Mr. Chair and Members, Carlos Terrace, here on behalf of the California Fresh Food Association, Western Plant Health Association, Western Tree Net Association, California Cotton Ginners and Growers Association and the Walnut, Tomato, Strawberry and Rice Commission. In opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Members Rosanna Carvacho Elliott here on behalf of Mission Springs Water District. Also in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members, Beth Olasso on behalf of Water Reuse California. Opposed unless amended. Inland Empire Utilities Agency, Cucamonga Valley Water District and the Water Blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley, Opposed. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Lily Mckay on behalf of San Luis Delta-Mendota Water Authority, El Sonora Valley Municipal Water District, United Water Conservation District, and West Valley Water District. Opposed unless amended, but echo. Thanks to all the engagement.

Good afternoon. Brenda Bass on behalf of Western Growers Association, Western Municipal Water District and Mojave Water Agency, all in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Soren Nelson with the Association of California Water Agencies and also on behalf of Cal Cities. Respectfully opposed and appreciate the work to date.

Margie Lee, on behalf of the California League of Food Producers in opposition.

Talia Smith with the County of Marin and Proud Environmental Champions. But we respectfully oppose.

George Kavinta on behalf of the Almond Alliance, in opposition.

Cam Bestek on behalf of the Northern California Water Association, in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Brandon Knapp representing Barrier Council, in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Seeing no other speakers, we're going to bring it back to the dais. Members, questions? Discussion. Okay. Not seeing any. Assembly Member Papan. Yeah.

It's all waters of the state or nexus waters. I'm sorry, I didn't turn on my mic. That might help. It was that all waters of the state are nexus waters and subject to permitting requirements. Do I have that right under this bill? Is that what you testified to?

It's all waters of the state except. And then there's a list of enumerated exemptions.

Okay, we have that right. And those exceptions are currently regulated in other ways by the state, right?

Not in every case.

Not in every case, no. Okay. Was that your issue, then?

I don't know what they're referring to in terms of what is not regulated. Where the Clean Water Act ends, Porter Cologne begins. And so any water body that may have lost protection under the Clean Water Act is still regulated under Porter Cologne.

So in the list of exclusions, there are some, like prior converted cropland is actually under the wetlands policy under Port of Cologne is not regulated at all. So just to be clear. Okay. And it wouldn't be regulated under this bill either.

Got it. So maybe as part of that, it seems like one of the crucial issues is coming down to nexus waters and what. What that means, how it would be handled if. If you could tackle that more directly. And it sounds like there are ongoing discussions around that as well. Maybe touch on that.

I want to. I want to talk to them more. I mean, obviously, we've.

We've been working to try to further constrain the definition because I think there was, there was a General recognition that the, at least amongst the justices, that including the liberal ones, that some of the waters that were previously regulated under the Clean Water Act, that it basically it went too far, that the definition that was being applied by the agency was going too far.

And so what we're trying to do now is to kind of get it down to the types of waters, to try our best to conform with a couple of the concurrences that were relating to this sacuit decision so as to ensure that we're providing very meaningful protections for those waters that are most important that lost their protections under sack it.

But they don't step into the kind of over the top onerous overregulation that I think is at the heart of the opposition's concerns.

So I think, you know, that's we've, we've done a lot to narrow so far, but I know we have a little bit more to go and I think that's going to be a lot of the task of this week and a couple of the weeks over the summer to see whether we can't land a good land in a good place in terms of the water definition.

I know they've got a couple, they've obviously have a few other concerns, but that's probably your biggest.

On the water quality side. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. At this point, if there are no other questions, I'll invite you to close. But I think. Yeah, that's really underscoring the discussion.

If I may. It is that you are trying to capture at least what was protected pre Second, totally. That's exactly right. And that's the primary focus of the bill.

So we can, in fact, it's actually going to, I mean, I think as you're hearing, it will not include all the protections that exist at pre Sacket. There's not going to be a private right of action.

There's not going to be the definition of the waters that were included will be limited, will be smaller in scope than what was being protected pre Sacket.

Okay.

All right.

The question is where do we land.

Within that smaller universe of what a nexus water might be.

Would invite you to close at this time.

Yeah, I mean, let me One thing just to remember in all this is that with or without the bill, the regulated entities will still need to obtain a permit before discharging into nexus waters.

But this bill is seeking to incorporate the category of waters into the stronger federal permitting framework, which largely would have applied to them had the Supreme Court not change the definition, as well as try to make some improvements to some of the enforcement tools at the Water Board.

But this is from my perspective about trying to help the Water Boards more efficiently react to the Sackett decision rather than spending effort and resources on restructuring their programs first.

For example, should the bill pass, the Water Boards would be able to continue to utilize the General industrial and construction stormwater permits already developed under the Clean Water Act for Nexus waters, rather than having to start from scratch. So they'd be able to continue that practice.

So I think there's a lot of this could provide a lot of benefit. I understand there's still some sticky issues that we're just going to have to see if we can work out. But there's a real benefit to our water protection system if we're able to pass something meaningful in this space.

And that's what I'm seeking to do with SB 601. And I respectfully ask for an aye vote no.

And I really appreciate your effort on this. It is a complex issue. I think the spirit with which you're bringing it, though, is grappling with this Sackett decision kind of the problems that it created in the context of really in California. What we're trying to do is have very strong clean water regulations.

We don't want to backslide with that. It also sounds like thanks go to all the stakeholders for continued engagement. Yes, it's good to hear. There will be further discussions. We've heard a couple of the key topics. One is economic considerations. The other, and perhaps the most we heard about is the definition of nexus waters.

It sounds like you're continuing to tackle that forthwith. Please keep me and my staff in the loop. We're here to help in any way we can with the ongoing legislative process at this juncture. This does enjoy high recommendation from the chair. With that, I would ask for a motion. And second on SB601. Second.

[Roll call]

We'll keep that on hold for absent Members. Thank you. While we have you, we're going to move to File item number four. Also, Senator Allen, this is SB 682 dealing with PFAS, one of our recurring topics. You moved the last one, too.

Well, thank you for this again, it has to do with water quality. And actually, you'll find that a lot of the folks who have some nervousness about the last Bill are enthusiastic supporters of this one.

Because in the end of the day, I think a lot of the water folks are really on the hook for the basic water quality standards that are really being threatened by the amount of PFAS that are in our waters. Let me say.

You know, let me start by saying I accept the Committee amendments which specifically delay implementation on cookware products until 2030. When we'd originally introduced the Bill, it was a much more comprehensive Bill, but we're now down to six product categories where we seek to phase the unnecessary use of PFAS in those six categories.

And those six categories were basically chosen because there have been phase outs in other places in other states. So that we know this is doable. It's already happening and in many cases already happened. So what are those areas: cleaning products, cookware, dental floss, ski wax, food packaging, and juvenile products. So when we.

And of course, by narrowing the Bill in this way, we certainly remove the opposition of a number of key industries as part of the process. Folks here are no stranger to the conversation about PFAS. These are this large class of forever chemicals that persist and contaminate the environment.

They have demonstrated harms to human health even at low exposures, and they're ubiquitous in many products. And we've now found as a result of the ubiquity in our environment and all these products, state testing has now found PFAS and water systems serving a majority of our fellow Californians. And PFAS is in virtually all of our bodies.

Now, despite what you might hear from folks who have concerns, the Bill only applies to product categories from which there are PFAS free alternatives on the market at reasonable prices. This is not speculative. There are demonstrated products out there.

And the Bill is based on other states with similar bans that include Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Now, that doesn't mean that every single one has a Bill just like this, but everything in our Bill has already been done somewhere else.

We know that California's been a leader in addressing the use of PFAS by banning it from a number of other product categories, including firefighting foam, textiles, cosmetics, certain juvenile products, cosmetics, paper food packaging. I know some folks here have worked on menstrual products with regards to PFAS as well. So appreciate your leadership on that.

My wife especially appreciates it. Now, we know that in 20 - last year, the EPA finalized a rule to limit PFAS contamination in drinking water by targeting six PFAS chemicals. And beginning in 2019, the State Water Board began requiring testing for PFAS and has established notification response levels for four PFAS chemicals.

So to comply with our federal and state regulations, it's important that the state actually start addressing the source of this contamination by phasing out unnecessary uses of PFAS in products where there are alternatives in the market.

Otherwise we're just forcing these poor water folks to just spend more and more ratepayers dollars to try to come up with new technologies to sift this stuff out of the water that's getting into our bodies. That's really hard for them to do and really expensive for them to do.

And so the idea here is we're going to work on the front end and try to, you know, try to source reduce effectively. Because without addressing the source, widespread contamination will continue.

It'll make it more and more difficult, it will raise rates for our constituents as the water agencies have a harder and harder time and the sanitation agencies have a harder and harder time complying with the federal requirements and state law. So yeah, I'm ask for your aye vote, and I've got a couple great witnesses here.

All right, thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Connolly and Members of the Committee. I am Katie Pelch. I'm a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the NRDC. And to protect public health, we need swift and comprehensive action on PFAS, which are associated with numerous health harms, including cancer.

PFAS-related healthcare costs for California are estimated at $5.5 to $8.7 billion annually. A burden that has largely been borne by the public. California has already spent over half a billion on drinking water and environmental remediation, with a further billion planned. The traditional chemical-by-chemical approaches have failed to protect us from PFAS.

Which is why scientists from around the world, including from DTSC, are urging a class-based approach for managing PFAS, combined with the phaseout of all unnecessary uses. California has been a leader on some of these efforts, and this bill will phase out additional uses of PFAS that other states have already acted on.

As we just heard. All PFAS are extremely persistent or transform into extremely persistent PFAS lasting for hundreds to thousands of years. And because of this persistence, any use of PFAS will eventually contaminate the environment, especially once they make their way into our landfills and wastewater treatment facilities.

An example of an unnecessary use of PFAS is in nonstick cookware, which involves the use of the fluoropolymer PTFE, better known as Teflon. Despite claims that fluoropolymers are safe, these PFAS are problematic throughout their entire life cycle. Fluoropolymer production has devastated communities across the country, and their pollution has spread across the globe.

Heat and abrasion during normal use and disposal of fluoropolymers results in the release of smaller bioaccessible PFAS that are capable of causing acute and long term illness. Comparisons to fluoropolymers used in pacemakers is a red herring. Pacemakers are not heated to the same temperatures as cookware, nor are they subject to frequent abrasion.

This is just one example of where harmful impacts can be avoided. The use of PFAS when there are a plethora of safer alternatives is unjustified and we should be avoiding the use of harmful chemicals wherever possible. We ask for your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Chair and Members. I'm Jessica Gauger with the California Association of Sanitation Agencies. I'm here today on behalf of a broad coalition representing water, wastewater and local government entities. We're all in strong support of SB 682. PFAS contamination of our public resources is one of the most significant water quality challenges of our time.

These ubiquitous chemicals are present across the spectrum of services we provide. And this contamination we receive at the back end is from PFAS that's used in commerce and ultimately ends up in our water watersheds and our waste management systems. As local agencies providing essential public services. Affordability is central to all that we do.

Strict regulatory limits for PFAS and drinking water were finalized last year by U.S. EPA. And the cost of compliance for meeting these new regulatory limits for drinking water is staggering. And we anticipate these costs for cleanup will only grow as the limits have broad implications for not just drinking water, but all of the regulated water community.

PFAS cleanup is costly, it's burdensome, it's on the rate paying public. And at this time, even if we get the PFAS out of the water, there is not scalable destruction technology to eliminate it. We're simply moving it from place to place.

So SB 682 would impose reasonable limits on unnecessary uses of PFAS in several categories of consumer products that have a direct nexus both to human health and to our wastewater and watersheds more broadly. Banning PFAS in these products is a complement to the remediation efforts already underway in the water sector.

It doesn't make sense to invest in cleaning up PFAS contamination while allowing for the continued use of avoidable PFAS which will continue exposing our communities to these toxic chemicals.

This is a true source control Bill in that it provides top down and systematic approach to reducing sources of PFAS contamination in a way that doesn't further burden the rate paying public on the back end. So for these reasons our coalition is strongly in support of SB 682 and would urge your aye vote.

Thank you. Do we have other support of the Bill? Come on up.

Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee. Steve Castaneda, representing Sweetwater Authority in South San Diego. A PFAS impacted Water district. Thank you.

Emily Garcia, on behalf of Active San Gabriel Valley, 350 Bay Area Action, Community Water Center, and Pesticide Action Agroecology Network. Thank you.

Noah Melroy, on behalf of the Climate Equity Policy Center, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, Central California Environmental Justice Network, and Environmental Defense Fund, in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. April Robinson again, with A Voice for Choice Advocacy, in support. Thanks.

Hi, good afternoon. Andrea Abergel, with the California Municipal Utilities Association, in support. I've also been asked to register support for Water Reuse California

Jamie Minor, on behalf of Monterey One Water, California Stormwater Quality Association, and Eastern Municipal Water District, and on behalf of my colleague at Inland Empire Water Agency, in support. Thanks.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee. Paul Gonzales, on behalf of the cities of Lomita, Norwalk, and Roseville, as well as the Vallejo Flood and Wastewater District, in strong support. Thank you.

Hello. Keely Morris on behalf of Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts. In support.

Sarah Starr with the City of Roseville. In support.

Krystal Raynes from California Against Waste. In support. Also here to register support for the National Stewardship Action Council, Children Now, and Enviro voters. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Claire Sullivan, on behalf of the town, the City of Thousand Oaks, thank you. In support.

Molly Colton, Sierra Club California, in support. Thank you.

Jennifer Williams, East Bay Municipal Utility District. In support.

Nick Blair, Association of California Water Agencies. In support.

Nancy Buermeyer, in support, for co-sponsor Breast Cancer Prevention Partners. Also here registering support for Clean Water Action, another co-sponsor; the San Francisco Bay Physicians for Social Responsibility; and for Jeanne Rizzo, the inaugural chair of the State Board of Environmental Safety. Thank you.

Hello. Susan Little, on behalf of Environmental Working Group, one of the other co-sponsors of this bill. I'd also like to express support for by the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability; San Francisco Baykeeper; the Immaculate Heart Community Environmental Committee; and Families Advocating for Chemical and Toxic Safety, FACTS. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Jared Moss, on behalf of The City of Camarillo in support.

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

Hello. Anthony Jimenez‑Tostado, on behalf of Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network, as well as CalP‑ERG, and in support.

Hi. Kerry west with the Orange County Sanitation District, in support. As well as the Valley Sanitary District in the City of Sunnyvale in support. Thank you.

Ryan Spencer, with the American College of OB-GYNs, District 9, in support.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members. Bret Gladfelty, on behalf of AGC America. I appreciate working with the author to address our concerns for in support. Thank you.

Thanks everyone. Do we have anyone in opposition to SB 682.

Chair, Members. Elizabeth Esquivel, California Manufacturers and Technology Association representing a wide range of manufacturer sectors statewide. We just first want to acknowledge the author and express our gratitude for the amendments he has taken to narrow the scope of the bill to the six categories that have been mentioned. However, we must continue to maintain our opposed position.

The bill prohibits the sell or distribution of any product containing intentionally added PFAS, including cleaning products and cookware, without distinguishing between harmful substances and well characteristic well characterized inert fluoropolymers like PTFE. These materials are FDA approved for food contact, widely used in medical devices, and poses no credible risk to human health or the environment.

Moreover, SB682 imposes compliance obligations that are currently unworkable. Unlike AB347 from last year, which included a dimimous threshold and acknowledged the complexity of certain product categories, SB682 sets no practical limits. In industries like cleaning products, PFAS can appear unintentionally through recycled content or raw materials.

Enforcement hinges on providing intentionality and technical function, yet no validated standardized testing methods exist to make such determinations reliably. Tools like Total Organic Fluorine TOF are merely screening methods, qualitative and not quantitative, and risk false positives that could penalize compliant manufacturers.

I do want to emphasize that the bill includes distribution and a distribution ban that would extend to products merely transitioning through California, threatening logistics operations and incentivizing manufacturers to shift warehousing and distribution activities out of state at a direct cost to California jobs and economic competitiveness.

We strongly urge the Legislature to reconsider SB 682 current firm and pursue a more scientific driven policy framework that protects public health without undermining the responsible manufacturers and supply chain operations.

Thank you Mr. Chairman and Committee Members. And thank you to the sponsor and staff as well as Committee consultants for working with us over the past couple couple months. Really. I'm Steve Burns. I'm here representing two different groups in the cookware space. I'd like to make three quick points if I may.

The first one is that banning cookware isn't going to solve any problems, despite what a witness said just moments ago. PTFE, which went by the trade name of Teflon, has been shown for decades to be inert. It does not bioaccumulate and it is too large to penetrate a cell membrane.

And in fact, I think the sponsor kicked off this conversation by saying this has to do with water quality. PTFE is not water soluble. It's been shown not to be able to bind with any water for decades now.

But more importantly to the comment of addressing the source of PFAS, cookware uses about 5% of global PTFE production and that PTFE production is 10% of global PFAS production. So addressing cookware nonstick PTFE is going to address less than 1/2 of 1% of the world's PFAS production. Less than 1/2 of 1%.

The second point I'd make is it has been said there's actually six states that have banned cookware already, three of them in the northeastern part of the country where chemical production has a long and very unpopular history for good reason. Those three states collectively make up 1% of the United States population. A fourth of the six.

The Governor of Connecticut said publicly in his signing message that he was. This is a quote. I'm concerned this could mean, among other things, that Teflon nonstick pans could be unavailable.

And then Vermont, the fifth of the six, just delayed their cookware ban for two and a half additional years in response to the facts that we brought to them about PTFE. So, yes, there has been precedent in other states around the country, but several of them are backtracking what's happened this year.

In just six and a half months of 2025, there have been three states that have done the opposite. They've either excluded cookware or they're excluding all PTFE. And we count Illinois and Ohio among those states, the sixth and seventh most populous states in the country. Three more states have walked away entirely from PFAS bans.

New York is one of these three, the fourth most populous state in the country. In other words, in 2025, no state has banned cookware this year. And frankly, we're the only ones that are going about this in a way that we believe our organization ignores the science of PTFE and how it is different from PFOA and PFOS.

The final point I'd make, and this was touched on by my colleague, that the bill also would ban the distribution of nonstick cookware. The companies that we represent bring these products in through the ports of Long Beach, the ports of LA, Port of Oakland. They'll go to a shipping warehouse, they'll go to a distribution center.

From there they get put on rail or truck and distributed around the country. One of the companies that we represent has 30 jobs in Compton, California, that they're going to have to pull up and move out of state by law. And all of the other companies that we represent are also going to look at their distribution systems.

And this isn't just the cookware in Everybody's Kitchen. There's 110,000 restaurants in California. There are a thousand food trucks. I guarantee the vast majority of those have nonstick products. The answer might be, well, we're not banning today's existing technology.

But once word gets around that the California Legislature has found nonstick to be in any way harmful to human health, I guarantee that a lot of small businesses, family owned businesses, are going to have to go out and look for another alternative. So I urge a no vote. Thank you.

Do we have any remaining Members of the public who wish to express opposition?

Kasia Hunt, here with Nassimin on behalf of the Motorcycle Industry Council. We're looking for a very specific amendment for for youth off highway vehicles. And appreciate the continued conversations with the author's office.

Mr. Chair and Members. Carlos Guterres, here on behalf of the Association of Equipment Manufacturers, Western Plant Health Association, Croplife and Rise. Removing our opposition. Moving to a neutral position. I'd like to thank the author for his work on the bill.

Thank you.

Margie Lee, on behalf of the California League of Food Producers and respectful opposition.

Pat Joyce on behalf of the California Restaurant Association. In opposition.

Thank you, Adam. On behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce, we remove our cost. Driver wanted to thank the author from the committee's. Excuse me. For the amendments in the Senate. We still have a me to oppose and look forward to working with the author. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee. Jacob Cassidy with the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. We are currently in oppose unless amended. Let's continue working on inaccessible components and floor polymers which are safe.

Kevin Messner, with Group Seb. We're a cookware manufacturer and distributor in the State of California and we oppose this bill very strongly unless amended.

Edwin Bourbon with Serlin Haley on behalf of the Flexible Packaging Association, the Center for Baby and Adult Hygiene Products and the Baby Safety Alliance, manufacturers of juvenile products. In opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Ashley with the California Retailers Association and we respectfully oppose unless amended. But in light of the Author Taking the 2030 amendment, we believe that will lead us to removing our opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we're going to bring it back to Committee Members with any questions or discussion. Looking for questions? We'll start with the Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Senator. Thank all of you guys for your presentation. Again. I'll bore you with science for a second. How do they determine PFOs? Do they use mass spectrometry? What's the analytical method for determining PFAS? Anybody Know determine what is PFAS? No, no, I know what PFAS is.

What analytical method do they use to determine it?

So right now in the State of California, to address this, for the other chemicals or for the other consumer products that the state is already regulating, California uses the total organofluorine method.

Okay, so let me ask you about solubility. Is there a method to determine solubility? For example, the hundred year acid leaching technique. What technique do you use for solubility?

I don't know that there is a technique that the State of California is using to determine solubility. But we do know that soluble chemicals do escape from fluoropolymers like Teflon and PTFE.

What are those chemicals?

There have been many chemicals throughout history. Historically PFOA can leach off of the Teflon. But also now that they are not using PFOA, we know that Gen X is present. We know that very, very small chemicals like TFDA, trifluoroacetic acid can also leach.

This is a PFAS that is being found at alarming levels in our environment and in our bodies.

At what PH and at what temperature.

I have those studies that I could send you, but I don't know those exact details at this off the top of my head.

So is there any standardized testing for solubility of pfos? Do you know what temperature Teflon goes into solution? Sorry, no. I'm curious because. Because where I'm going with my comments, Assembly Member, are that we want to put forth some.

Yeah, I think if I was a judge this would be a short leash at this point. But we're gonna give you.

Okay, I'll, I'll get to. I'll get to my point. I'm concerned that there is no standardization and, and my comments.

Thank you, Appreciate it. Other questions or comments? See if you can be that technical.

I don't intend to be. I've had the privilege of sitting here for six plus years now watching the Senator do incredible work on toxins that I know he, I'm sure in his own home, ensures his children are not exposed to because of the harms that they pose.

And his efforts to protect the rest of California I think are incredible and laudable and based on deeply in his intelligence and the science that he spends. I know a lot of time in. Because he is a thoughtful author. But I guess I'm a little bit confused by the opposition's testimony on the Teflon.

As someone who long ago decided it wasn't worth the potential risks and took them out of my own home. I have not suffered one day since I made those choices. I have great alternatives. I use cast iron mostly, but there are also other alternatives, nonstick alternatives.

And so I guess I'm just super confused by the testimony that we're going to create this massive harm by getting rid of something that causes potential harm. Like, I just don't see it. I don't see what I'm worried about.

We'll start with the Teflon market overall is about 60 to 70%. So the California consumer prefers non stick cookware. And there's a reason for that. To your point about cast iron, Cast iron requires some form of oil or butter. It can't just cook food on its own. Your fish would stick to it terribly.

The same is true for metal or glass. Those are not harm, those are not healthy. They create free dioxins when they get to a certain temperature. A nonstick pan needs nothing on it. An egg can be placed on it directly and it can be cleaned with a wipe of a paper towel.

So there are both health issues and there's personal choice issues. But it's really, it gets to the unintended consequences because the number one issue that people say is going to replace non stick cookware is ceramics. Now, ceramics are not the potted plants that we all see in our backyard.

Ceramics are actually very sophisticated new forms of Sol gel, which is a mesh that has silicon oil placed in between two layers.

And when it's heated, the silicon oil will slowly eke up to the top and it will appear as if you have a nonstick coat that lasts about a year, whereas a non stick panel lasts 10 to 12 years. So you're replacing them, they're more expensive.

And quite frankly, we've been told by regulators that the type of scrutiny that I believe in on PTFE and fluoropolymers, which has happened for 30 to 40 years, has not even come close to really looking at what the chemicals are in ceramics. And the Guardian, just a couple of weeks, got a wonderful piece about this.

There's a lot of questions. So if we're forcing away from one product to another, one that's more expensive, lasts far less frequently, will end up in landfill more often, and chemically has not been tested over many, many years, we think that's a bit hasty.

So I think it's a fair point and one that, you know, BPA I think is the classic example of California banning something and getting regrettable alternatives. Right. Which is why another piece of the Senator's work was trying to get DTSC to actually do their job.

Which despite your best efforts, I'm not sure we've completely succeeded on Senator, because that is one of their charges in the green chemistry division is to look at regrettable alternatives. What do they do? One chemical every five years or something like that. So that's a conversation for another day, I guess.

But I mean it's a fair point that you're concerned that we're going to land with regrettable alternatives. Do you have a response to that?

Sure. I mean we need to make careful decisions and look at the broad landscape. Right. But already like the State of Minnesota is our already has many alternatives that are affordable that are available. Like you said that we're not.

The people in these states where these bills are going into effect are not with a lack of alternatives and there are safe alternatives that are available.

I also would just like to point out that the industry itself, on websites where you might go buy a nonstick pan recommends throwing out and disposing your nonstick pan that's PTFE coated with a single scratch or at least every five years.

So the statement that these last forever on their cookware and that you know, these are really long lasting products is a little bit moot by their own evidence.

But you didn't address and I agree the scratching is I think a really important point because I think that often 10 years, I don't think these pans go without being scratched.

When you scratch it, you're supposed to.

I haven't seen that. Frankly I'm not sure which which website it is. That's what I would love to know. Okay. There's dozens of companies in the space but I would, I was told that's when the harm arise if I'd seen that.

So I don't know.

But think scratch Teflon is safe.

The definition of a molecule of PTFE is it was going to pass through the human body. It does not bioaccumulate and it's not water soluble. So technically would you take a thimble full of Teflon and drink it? You shouldn't have to.

But if some of it did get scratched and somehow ingested into your body, studies have shown that it passes directly through. It does not bind to the human body.

They form microplastics that can be found in the human body. This is why we have found them in human semen and sperm and that there is an Association with decreased semen counts.

So but I guess the point that was made by the opposition that I would like you to address is do we have evidence that the alternative, which is the ceramics, is safe?

So that's one possible alternative. We also have, like you said, stainless steel and cast iron. Thank you. I'm not as familiar with the research right now on the ceramic coated coatings.

Okay. I mean, if we are going to drive a market towards ceramics, that's concerning for me, if we don't know that that's a safer alternative. And I think it is something that I would ask the Senator to look into because that is would not please me.

We're driving people to have something we don't know is safe or not. As I said, I did cast iron because I don't know, my grandma did it back in the day when things were actually safe before Teflon was even in the market.

But it is important that we don't just drive consumers to products that we don't know are safe or not. Again, which is what we did with BPA and I think was regrettable. So I'm happy to support the bill today.

But I think to me that is sort of the open question that remains, which is are we safer with this ban? And I think what I've seen to date tells me yes. But I think some important questions were raised that it is incumbent upon us to spend some time looking into. Thank you.

As a follow up, is it fair to say that extending to 2030 could help establish alternatives?

I think that's exactly. That's certainly part of the idea. The speed with which technology continues to improve, it's allowed for a lot of wonderful products to come onto the market. And I think that's the hope here that we'll be able to get some clarity and I think also we'll get more testing. Right.

I mean, I think, you know, I know one of my staffers actually has been using ceramics for many years and so this whole idea that it's only last for one year certainly doesn't conform with her personal experience.

You know, I also will say I want to spend some time getting into the details of what drinking a thimbleful of Teflon might do to your body.

Of course, even if it does pass right through going straight into our water system and then holding these poor folks accountable with us all having to pay the cost to get it out of the water. But yeah, this is tricky stuff. Right. We know there's a real problem associated with PFAS.

And having more time will allow us and also not only allow for more science, more technology, more innovation, more studies, and also for the Legislature to act in one direction or another based on how the science moves.

Invite you to close.

Yeah. Appreciate the discussions very much. It's a, again, a tough ish topic, and we're certainly going to be engaging our. The folks who've raised concerns about the bill over the course of the summer to see what more we can figure out here. We know we have a problem with regards to PFAs. We've only.

We've now limited the bill to those products where there are good alternatives. And that's, you know, that. That's ultimately what the, what the. What the bill is all about. You know, I thought that ceramic coating was basically sand and water, so I, you know, maybe I'm. Is that not the case? I know I'm closing here, but.

No, no. Okay. All right, well, let's get in. We'll talk more about it this week. We'll get together and talk some more. But, you know, what we're trying to do here is, is basically source reduce the amount of this dangerous chemical that's out in the environment. That's the broad goal here. This is not a magic bullet.

This is certainly nowhere near as comprehensive as the bill was when we first got started. But it's ultimately about making sure that the folks who are trying to manage our water systems are given a fighting chance to comply with the federal regulations that they're required to comply with so as to ensure public and environmental health.

That's why you see them all here asking for your support on this important measure. And I respectfully ask for a Aye vote.

No, I appreciate your work on this. As you noted, this Committee has done a lot of work on pfos, certainly continuing that spirit here. I do appreciate your willingness to take the amendment to extend the deadline on cookware. Let me just maybe throw down a marker.

Lastly, I believe that based on DTSC's work and other environmental studies, we should not be exempting PTFE and should be regulating PFAS as a class. We'll look forward to ongoing discussions around that. And with that, I will be recommending an aye vote as the chair today. Do I have a motion? And second, on SB682, you.

Who was it again? Got it. Thank you. Awesome. Yeah. At the time. Let's call the roll.

Item number four, SB682, by Senator Allen. The motion is due pass as amended, to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll Call]

Okay. That matter passes. We will leave it open for missing members.

No, that's good. That's good. You know that solubility question.

Yeah. As we wait, Senator. Dr. Weber. We will invite add ons at this time.

Item number one, SB 404. Senator Caballero, the current vote has two ayes, one no. Chair voting aye. Vice Chair voting no. [roll call].

Okay, folks, if you can keep it down, we're trying to do some votes.

[roll call].

That matters out. We still are awaiting one member.

Let's see. Oh, item number two, SB 601 by Senator Allen. Chair voting aye. Vice Chair voting no. [roll call]. That measure has four votes.

Great. Is that it?

No, we're just doing. Quick, quick moment on. Add on. Come on up. Dr. Weber. Yeah. We're ready. Item three. I know, sorry. Left out part of that.

Move the bill.

Okay, we have a motion. Second. Welcome. This is SB 646, Senator Weber Pearson, dealing with prenatal vitamins. Welcome.

Thank you. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to present today. I want to extend my sincere thanks to the committee staff for their thoughtful engagement on this bill. I'm here to present SB 646, which would protect maternal and fetal health from unregulated risk, toxic metal contamination and prenatal vitamins.

Since it has already been moved, I will move to my witnesses. With me today is Ryan Spencer representing EWG and Dr. Sarah Kirschner with ACOG. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon, chair and committee members. I'm Dr. Sarah Kirschner. I'm an OBGYN working here in Sacramento, and I'm here today on behalf of the American College of Obstetrician Gynecologists, District 9, or ACOG, in strong support of our sponsored bill, SB 646.

This is a critical measure to protect maternal and fetal health by ensuring transparency and safety in prenatal vitamins. As a physician, I routinely counsel my patients on the importance of prenatal vitamins, which are essential for fetal development and maternal well being.

These vitamins provide key nutrients such as folic acid, iron and others that help reduce the risk of birth defects, low birth weight and pregnancy complications. They are a cornerstone of prenatal care. I also counsel my pregnant patients to avoid high mercury foods like tuna.

But unfortunately, they may be ingesting toxic elements like mercury in their actual prenatal vitamins. When I make recommendations for my patients, I need to be certain that what I advise is both effective and safe. It's a matter of trust between physician and patient. That's why SB 646 is so important. Recent studies have revealed a very troubling reality.

Toxic elements including lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury that I mentioned earlier have been found in prenatal vitamins. These are not negligible contaminants. Even low level exposure to these heavy metals can harm a developing fetus and increase the risk of complications like low birth weight, preterm delivery and neurodevelopmental disorders.

Given these risks, both patients and providers need to have access to accurate, timely information about what is in these products before a recommendation is made or a purchase is completed. SB 646 is simple. It demands transparency. It requires manufacturers to test their products and disclose the results so people can make safe and informed decisions.

We cannot allow the very vitamins that are intended to protect maternal and fetal health to become a hidden source of harm. SB 646 ensures that when I recommend a prenatal vitamin, I can do so with the confidence that I am truly helping and not potentially harming my patients.

For these reasons, ACOG urges your support of SB 646 to empower consumers and protect future generations from preventable toxic exposures. I very much appreciate your time today and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members. Ryan Spencer, on behalf of the Environmental Working Group, co sponsors of SB 646, this bill addresses a critical gap in consumer protection by requiring greater transparency around toxic elements and prenatal vitamins designed for pregnant individuals and developing babies.

We know that the exposure toxic heavy metals like lead and cadmium can cause lasting harm to children's developing nervous system- nervous systems. Many responsible manufacturers already test for these contaminants. However, without consistent standards for disclosure, unsafe products remain on the market and consumers are left unaware.

SB 646 fills this gap, providing clear, accessible information to consumers and the health care providers so that pregnant individuals can utilize the best possible choices about what they put in their bodies.

I'd like to emphasize the fact that we've had some very good discussions with the opposition over the concerns that they had that manufacturers would diminish the quality of the product or pregnant individuals would be afraid to take prenatal vitamins.

With the help of your consultant, we came up with some very good language which we think addresses those concerns, which we would say maybe were a little overemphasized, but we obviously that is not the intent of the bill.

The intent of this bill is to make sure that pregnant individuals know what they're buying and know what they're putting into their body is a common sense measure. We thank the doctor for introducing this legislation. We ask for your aye vote. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Do we have any other folks in support of the bill? Come on up.

Good afternoon. April Robinson with a Voice for Choice Advocacy.

Good afternoon. Symphoni Barbee on behalf of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California in strong support. Also been given permission to record support for the California Nurse Midwives Association and the California Medical Association in support. Thank you.

Nancy Biermeier on behalf of Breast Cancer Prevention Partners in support.

Thank you. Do we have anyone in opposition?

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, members. Anthony Sampson here on behalf of the Council for Responsible Nutrition in an oppose unless amended position. I appreciate the comments from the sponsors. We have had some good discussions. We submitted a letter to the committee that outlines the basis for our opposition.

But I will just focus on a couple of things here today, which is, number one, we have not raised any concern with the idea of testing prenatal vitamin products to ensure that we're testing for the four heavy metals specified in this bill. The issue has always been around disclosure.

And while disclosure often sounds simple, which is you should simply disclose the contents of a product, you need to be careful, depending on the context. Prenatal vitamins, we all know are absolutely critical for expectant mothers to take. We also know that they contain heavy metals.

We also know that those heavy metals are naturally occurring in the Earth's crust and due to human activity.

So with all of that said, the question is, how do you disclose this information to expectant mothers to ensure that they are getting the full context and understand that the product that they're taking, notwithstanding the presence of heavy metals, is safe. We've also had discussions about the fact that our food supply has heavy metals.

I often joke that I spoil everybody's dinner every time I come and testify, but the fact of the matter is leafy greens, spinach, they all have heavy metals, right? But we all understand that eating leafy greens is a good thing. With all that said, we've had really productive back and forth on this.

And as Mr. Spencer noted, I think that we've- we've come to. To work on some disclosure language that makes sure that that context, albeit know, complicated, is provided, I think in the simplest of terms and as digestible of terms as possible.

There continue to be a number of other issues that we're continuing to have discussions with, but really want to commend the author, the sponsors for the productive dialogue that we've had and of course to the chair and to Naomi and the committee for all the support as we continue to move through this process. Thank you.

Molly- Molly Mala, on behalf of the Consumer Healthcare Product Association, completely aligned with my colleague at CRN. We appreciate the work of the author on amendments and unfortunately remain opposed unless amended.

You know, I think we appreciate the goals of this bill, but remain concerned that the bill could limit nutrients that pregnant people are getting by creating confusion in the marketplace and potentially encouraging key nutrients be left out when manufacturing. And so we those reasons we're still opposed unless amended but appreciate all the work on this bill.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other opposition?

Dan Seaman on behalf of the Natural Products Association in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Apologize, Mr. Chair. I came late for my support. Christopher Sanchez on behalf of the Consumer Federation of California in support.

Great. Thank you. Any others? Not seeing any. We're going to come back to committee members with questions, comments, Vice Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator. I have a couple questions for the opposition.

If you know these I was looking on I was actually looking online at the some of the constituents lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic and it said that there were like 5ppb parts per billion of this 1 and 10ppb but it didn't go into again which is more stable and which isn't stable.

So for example, I think arsenide's the most it could be labeled as arsenic, but it is super soluble and super dangerous. But then there's arsenide, which isn't. So I kind of got to go back to the science side. If what is the testing that determines, you know, which is which is really bad.

And then the other question that I had, if you get your metals to such a low concentration, are you also taking away the calcium and the magnesium and the minerals that are beneficial?

Yeah. So I will take the second question first and then you can, you know, add to the first question because that has been something that we have been in conversation about and like I think everyone at Paris said, we've come to some language that hopefully addresses that concern since there are natural toxic elements.

But the question is there are some products that don't have them and some of them don't have some of the other added nutrients that we as OBGYNs would recommend.

So there are some that source their products from much cleaner places and are able to have toxic elements at very low levels, but still are able to have the full range of nutrients that we as OBGYNs would recommend. But with the disclosure label that the language has been worked out between the sponsors and the opposition.

It would clearly state that, you know, some of those that are sourced from cleaner sources may not have some of those nutrients, and so they may have to substitute with either diet or other supplemental things. The point of this bill is not to dissuade individuals from using prenatal vitamins. It is just to provide more information.

As an OBGYN, as a mother of two, I didn't even think about toxic elements in or toxic chemicals in the prenatal vitamins that I was taking, that I was recommending for my patients to take until started looking into this bill.

And so it really is about disclosure to allow the individual and their provider to help make the best choice possible for them. But I'll let you answer the first question.

Thank you for giving me the easy one.

Oh, you're welcome.

What I've learned very quickly in observing the previous bill, Mr. Ellis, and now this one is that I need to bring a scientist with me the next time I testify. It's a good question. I don't know the answer. I don't like responding when I don't know the answer. So I will.

I can certainly get that information for you and get back. As to the second question, I think the. You know, the senator was spot on. We are not. We're not trying to mess with the marketplace here. People can choose to put what they wish in prenatal vitamins and market them as they please.

Our concern is the idea that if- if a prenatal vitamin, for example, doesn't have any calcium, let's just take two prenatal vitamins sourced from the same exact place. Alright? One includes calcium, the other does not. The one with calcium is going to have more lead in it. Right, because lead is naturally occurring in calcium. That's fine.

We need to make sure there's a disclosure for people to understand that if they're going to take a prenatal vitamin that doesn't have any calcium, that it may very well be that the heavy metal levels will be lower.

They will also understand that if they were to go get the calcium through eating something like spinach, they may also be exposed to heavy metals. So it's just an awareness issue.

And I think we've, again, it all came down to the disclosure and it took some time to get there because obviously there's a lot of things that we're balancing here. But I think this is probably as good of a disclosure as I think we can get given the circumstances.

I think you'll get there on the disclosure. So I'm ready.

That was my question too. So it sounds like very close.

Yeah. Just to be clear, we've- we've worked on disclosure language that will- will be in print and we have all. There continue to be some issues we will work out. But I think as for the disclosure language, I think it addresses all the issues that we've discussed. Yeah.

Great. Good job.

Senator, would you like to close?

Just respectfully ask for an aye vote on SB 646. Thank you.

Great. Appreciate your work on this. I think we had a motion and second. Yep. Ready for a vote.

This is item number three. SB 646 by Senator Weber Pierson. The motion is do pass to the Committee on appropriations. [roll call].

That matter passes and we'll leave it open.

Thank you.

Okay, let's do add ons.

Item number four. SB682. [Roll Call] Thank you.

Item number one, SB404 by Senator Cabrero. [Roll Call]

That has 6 votes, 6 Aye votes.

Item number two. SB601. [Roll Call]

That passes five to two.

Item number three. SB646. Weber Peirson. [Roll Call]

That passes 5-0.

That passes five to two. Thanks again, everyone. We are adjourned.