Assembly Standing Committee on Natural Resources

Welcome to the assembly natural resource committee hearing. Assembly member Burner is not here yet, but she's subbing in for assembly member Al Muratsuchi. And the following measures are proposed for consent. That's item number six, AB 2234 Pappan. And item 11, AB 2517 Calderon.

That leaves 11 bills to be presented. A quorum is here. Can we, establish that quorum?

Yes, sir. Brian?

Here.

Brian, present. Ellis?

Here.

Ellis, present. Alanis, Berner, Connolly, Garcia, Haney, Hoover?

Here.

Hoover present. Kalra?

Here.

Kalra present.

Macedo?

Macedo?

Oh, here.

Macedo present. Pellerin?

Here.

Pellerin president Schultz. Wicks?

Here.

Wicks present. Zbur?

Here.

Ziburr present. We have a court.

Thank you. And I see Assemblymember Ward is here. Come on down. Whenever you're ready.

Well, thank you, and good afternoon, Mr.Chair and Members. First, I wanna thank the committee staff for their work on this simple bill, and I do accept the committee amendments. Colleagues, pleased to present today AB 2559, which require local governments which collect refundable deposits as a condition of issuing a construction and demolition permit to return the full deposit if the permit holder submits all the required documentation demonstrating compliance with the deposit's terms within three years of the project's final inspection.

Now the California Green Building Standards Code or CalGreen mandates that locally permitted construction projects would recycle or salvage a minimum of 65% of non-hazardous construction and demolition debris generated during the project. To meet the requirements of CalGreen, many jurisdictions have adopted local construction and demolition waste diversion ordinances, which require refundable deposits to help ensure compliance with the applicable diversion standards.

Some jurisdictions have onerous and rigid timelines to be able to apply for some of the refunds, And therefore, there is no consistency between any of these jurisdictions, and there is a lack of a standardized timeline statewide for any permit holders to request a refund for some of these deposits.

For example, in the city of San Diego, applicants must submit a refund request within 180 days of final inspection. In the city of San Jose, that's 270 days. Unfortunately, the final inspection can occur well before the project is fully complete, and you would then actually, surpass some of these, locally developed timelines. As a result, homeowners and developers who digitally abide by local waste diversion programs can lose hundreds or even thousands of dollars despite ultimately meeting the important recycling requirements of local waste diversion programs.

This bill, AB 2559, would address the issue by establishing a uniform statewide standard requiring any local governments to return those refundable construction and demolition deposits if adequate compliance and documentation is submitted within three years of final inspection.

By creating this clear and reasonable timeline, the bill would prevent any premature forfeiture of deposits while provide preserving an existing and important diversion requirements under CalGreen. For witnesses in support, I have Mia Kang, the chair of the board of directors for the Council of Infill Builders. And when the time is appropriate, I would respectfully request your aye vote.

Good afternoon, Members. My name is Mia Kong, Council of Infill Builders. I'm an affordable housing developer with over two decades of experience developing infill housing projects across California, and we are here in support of AB 2559. AB 2559 addresses a narrow but important issue in how construction and demolition diversion programs are administered at the local level. Under CalGreen, projects are required to divert at least 65% of the construction waste to ensure compliance.

Many jurisdictions require refundable deposits that are returned once the applicant demonstrates that diversion requirements have been met. This framework is sound, and we support it. However, in practice, as Assembly Member Ward talked about, there is a mismanagement between when compliance documentation is finalized and when jurisdictions require applicants to request a refund.

In many cases, the refund deadline is tied to a final inspection, but the documentation, as the recycling reports and the haul reports are often compiled and submitted after that point as projects close out and materials are fully accounted for. As a result, a project may fully comply with all the diversion requirements, but still, unfortunately, have to forfeit their deposit if the application is not submitted within the prescribed local timelines.

So this is not an issue of noncompliance. It's just an issue of timing and administrative process. AB 2529 provides a reasonable and measured solution by requiring that deposits be returned when the compliance is demonstrated within three years of final inspection. The bill preserves local authority and maintains the integrity of the diversion program. It simply ensures that applicants who meet the standards are not penalized due to a procedural timing. And for these reasons, we respectfully urge your support. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room in support of this measure?

Good afternoon. Brooke Pritchard on behalf of California YIMBY in support.

Thank you so much. Any persons in opposition to this measure? Seeing none, not in the entire hearing room. Nobody is against the Assembly Member Ward's bill.

Good.

Fantastic. We will now turn it to colleagues on the dias. Any questions, comments, concerns?

I can.

We have a motion by Ms. Wicks, a second by Ms.Macedo. Would you like to close?

Just really proud this came from constituent in my district. I think it's a common sense solution that ensures that, again, the program is not violated, but, that, homeowners, those, trying to build more housing are not forfeiting their deposits prematurely, respectfully request your aye vote.

And you are accepting the committee's amendments correct?

That's correct.

Perfect. This bill has a due pass recommendation. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Give me one second.

Nobody in the hearing room was opposed to this measure.

[Roll Call]

Thank you.

The bill is out.

Thank you.

Absolutely. And we have a motion on the consent calendar by Ms.Wicks and a second by Mr.Hoover.

Consent calendar items, AB 2234, Papan and AB 2517, Calderon. [Roll Call]

The consent calendar is out. Mr. Gonzalez, whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm pleased to present AB 1704, which creates a cost assessment for conventional building materials and lower embodied carbon materials. I wanna begin by expressing my sincere appreciation to Mr. Chair, to the committee staff for their work on this bill.

I will be accepting the committee's amendments. And I also wanna thank the stakeholders who have offered thoughtful and thorough feedback. I remain committed to continuing those conversations so we can address the implementation concerns.

To give context to this bill, AB 2446 from Holden from 2022 and AB 43 from Holden, 2023, established an embodied carbon program that would require manufacturers and developers to measure and reduce the embodied carbon footprint of building materials at production and project level.

As a result, the state's building sector, including housing developers, would have to switch out building materials currently in use, and we still do not know if the housing market is ready for that immense change. In our current housing landscape, every cost impact can have resounding ripple effects. Down the line, these costs will eventually impact renters and home buyers.

California is facing several affordability challenges, with 55% of renters struggling to pay rent and one third of homeowners paying more than 30% of their income on housing alone. Additionally, estimates from the state and housing experts believe California has a housing shortage ranging from 800,000 to 3.5 million units.

To ensure the embodied carbon program does not adversely impact the housing market, AB 174 would direct the California Air Resources Board to perform a cost assessment comparing lower embodied carbon building and materials with conventional building materials.

If CARB determines that the cost parity between materials is not achieved, the program will be paused for five years. I wanna stress that AB 1704 is not not halting the effort to reduce embodied carbon in building materials. It's an important environmental standard that the state should continue to pursue.

The bill simply ensures that in the process of doing so, we avoid the unintended consequences affecting our most vulnerable and low income communities. We talk about affordability in the capitol, and we as a legislature try everything within our power to address it.

California cannot just say affordability. We must execute it on every front line to that finish line. Today, to testify in support of the bill are Brooke Pritchard, a Legislative Advocate representing California YIMBY, Steven Stenzler... Excuse me.

Representing the California Council for Affordable Housing and Housing Action Coalition. And I believe Margie Lie is here with us today a Legislative Advocate from Samson Advisors will be testifying as a technical witness and happy to answer any technical questions. I'll turn it over to you too.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Brooke Pritchard with California YIMBY, here to express support for AB 1704. California YIMBY is a statewide organization of 80,000 members who welcome more neighbors. We believe an equitable California begins with abundant, secure, and affordable housing. As you know, California faces a severe housing shortage that's driven up cost for both renters and aspiring home buyers.

At the same time, the state is rightly pursuing ambitious climate goals, including reducing emissions from the building sector. Both goals are essential, but we must ensure climate policies are implemented in ways that do not unintentionally make housing more expensive or harder to build.

We work with grassroots activists and community members across California helping Californians stay housed and keep their communities stable. Even a $100 increase in rent can mean missed meals, unpaid bills, or the risk of being forced out of the community they grew up in. Nearly a third of Californians are severely rent burdened.

More than half of their income is on rent. The reality is that when we don't build enough housing, more people compete for the same limited number of homes. That competition drives up rent and home prices. That is why building enough housing is one of the most important steps we can take to address affordability. For these reasons, we respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you, Chair and Members. My name is Steven Stenzler with Brownstein here on behalf of the California Council for Affordable Housing and the Housing Action Coalition, statewide organizations representing the gamut of housing production, including affordable, mixed income, mixed use, workforce, student, and market rate housing developers.

I'm here to speak in support of AB 1704, a bill which we believe effectively balances the state's efforts to reduce carbon emissions with the urgent need to protect housing affordability. The data is clear. California's housing affordability crisis is severe, and it's only getting worse.

According to the Legislative Analyst Office, the median mid tier home price in California is now $755,000, more than twice the price of comparable homes nationwide. For first time homebuyers, the situation is even more troubling. Entry level homes in California cost 30% more than homes elsewhere in the country. That imbalance is pushing homeownership further out of reach for working Californians every year.

Opponents may argue that the current program already accounts for cost increases. But under existing law, that protection only applies if material costs rise by 5% or more. On a $755,000 home, a 5% increase equals nearly $38,000. That is not a modest impact. That amount alone can and often does disqualify families from qualifying for a mortgage.

The National Association of Home Builders tells us that for every $1,000 increase in the price of a home, more than 11,000 households are priced out of the market. In affordable and workforce housing where margins are razor thin and financing is highly sensitive to per unit costs, even small increases can stall or kill a project entirely.

AB 1704 takes a reasonable data driven approach and ensures that embodied carbon reduction requirements move forward when lower carbon materials are price competitive, protecting housing production while still advancing our climate goals. This is a balanced solution that keeps the door open to homeownership for working families. For these reasons, we respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any person in the hearing room in support of this measure?

Margie Lie with Samson Advisors here on behalf of the American Wood Council, the Spray Foam Coalition, and the Resilient Floor Covering Institute in strong support. I've also been asked to give a me too for the Asphalt Roofing Manufacturers Association, Polyiso Insulation Manufacturers Association, and the California Asian Chamber of Commerce.

Good afternoon, Chair Bryan and Members. Jon Kendrick on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in support.

Good afternoon. Silvio Ferrari on behalf of the California Building Industry Association in strong support.

Good afternoon. Tim Shestek with the American Chemistry Council, also in support. Thank you.

Hi. Elizabeth Esquivel of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association in strong support. Thank you.

Anthony Molina on behalf of the Gypsum Association in support. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room in opposition to this measure? Primary opposition first. Come on up here. I saved you two seats.

Alright. I'm gonna go first. Good afternoon, Chair Bryan and Members of the Committee. My name is Marquis King Mason with Natural Resource Defense Council. We will be respectfully opposing AB 174. We respect the committee's amendments, and we think that that's moving in a better direction.

Although we have some concerns that Jake will lay out in a second. AB 1704 adds a cost parity provision to California's AB 2446, a law passed by the legislature in 2022. AB 2446 enacted a nation leading law aimed at reducing 40% of greenhouse gas emissions in new construction by 2035.

AB 1704 as written would interfere with implementation of the existing law. While we share the desire to build affordable housing in California, that is why we believe that the existing law is critical to deploying cost effective green building strategies. As currently written, the cost parity requirement will pause the implementation of the entire program if one lower carbon material, say, cement or concrete, is not a cost parity with a conventional counterpart.

We believe this inhibits implementation of a full suite of cost effective and even cost reducing strategies that can achieve the emissions reductions laid out, like refusing less materials. Therefore, we believe the bill may not address the housing affordability crisis in its current state and could prematurely pause an important law going into effect.

We're open to working with the author and the committee to ensure housing and climate targets reinforce one another as intended in the original law. However, at this time, we respectfully urge the committee to reject AB 174 in its current form. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Jakob Evans with Sierra Club California here today in respectful opposition to AB 1704 on behalf of over half a million members and supporters in California. AB 1704 introduces a blunt cost parity requirement to AB 2446, California's landmark law passed in 2022, requiring a 40% reduction in embodied carbon emissions and our building materials.

The standard will guarantee the delay of the implementation of this law by ten year timeline outlined in the amended bill. The emissions reduction goals in AB 2446 aims to build a strong market for lower carbon intensity building materials by inducing the necessary demand for them.

The approach in AB 1704 would flip this, requiring demand before the markets reach scale and halting the program that would drive the scaling. Like you've seen with the solar industry and electric vehicle market, clean materials markets will not reach cost parity in advance of demand. Demand drives scale and scale brings costs down.

Also, implementation of this program would dampen this rapidly evolving markets. We'd also be leaving cost efficient emission reduction strategies on the table. There are various existing cost effective strategies available to drive down emissions in the built environments ranging from altering cement mixes used in a project or designing projects to use less of emissions intensive materials like concrete.

Data shows that these meaningful emission reductions in building construction are already achievable today, often with little to no added cost. AB 1704 put this entirety of AB 2446 on pause, preventing California from implementing these practical and sheet emission reduction strategies available today. Most importantly, AB 1704 conflicts with the existing nuanced cost impact and feasibility provisions AB 2446 mentioned earlier.

Law evaluates cost impact at the project level and allows developers to receive exemptions from the law if their budgets are affected by more than 5% because of the law's requirements. AB 1704 fails to build off this existing cost impact protection and simply halts the entirety of this nation leading law. For these reasons, we respectfully urge no vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room in opposition to this measure? Seeing none. We'll turn it back to the dais. Mr. Connolly.

Thank you, Chair. Good afternoon. Yeah, just trying to better understand some of the underlying assumptions of this bill. So a couple questions. Is there a current requirement that developers use more expensive carbon friendly materials when building housing?

No. They always try to make sure it can be as affordable as possible. At the end of the day, they need to figure out ways to pencil out. There are other costs that are occurring in California right now, like high impact fees. So it's in their interest to make sure that's not the case.

So even under existing law, including the Holden bill, there is not a current requirement for use of a more expensive carbon friendly material. Second question, can we identify how the embodied carbon program has increased the cost of building housing or is this merely speculation that this program could impact housing development in the future?

So the the bill does require this, and so it's gonna be up to the California Air Resource Board to be able to determine that.

So and in fact, they do have to do a cost and impact feasibility analysis. Is that right?

Correct.

And the bill by its own current law by its own terms would not go into effect even till sometime after that cost feasibility analysis is undertaken. Is that right?

Yes.

Yeah. So I'm concerned that we're being asked to kind of engage in speculation at this point, would be my concern at this time about it.

Any other colleagues? Mr. González, would you like to close?

Yes, sir. By studying impacts on the housing market, AB 1704 ensures we are building smarter, not just faster, aligning housing development with our climate goals and environmental stewardship. This bill helps reduce sprawl, supports more sustainable land use, and advances housing solutions that are both affordable and environmentally responsible.

It also recognizes the urgent need to rebuild and provide housing in areas impacted by wildfires while addressing the growing demand in densely populated communities that need more housing close to jobs, transit, and resources.

To our environmental partners and advocates, their concerns are heard and reflected in the approach grounded in data, accountability, and shared commitment to protecting our natural resources while meeting California's housing needs. I look forward to continue to work with you on that. Thank you, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much. I think there are only three of us, I think Mr. Haney as well, who voted for the original landmark bill back in 2022 by Mr. Holden. And I think the opposition's concerns are well founded, and I trust that the author will get there. And I hope those conversations continue.

Also, just a personal pet peeve. I didn't see any tenants rights organizations in support of this measure, and it really bothers me when we speak about renters. Although the author is a renter, and so you get a pass today.

85% of my district are renters, so I get it.

Yep. And the intersection between what they demand and ask of us and the need for us to build and increase supply seem to run into conflicting intersections in this building that are staggering. And so nothing about them without them. But I wanna thank the author for bringing this forward. This bill has a do pass recommendation today. Madam Secretary, can we call the roll?

Motion is to pass as amended to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

The bill is out. Can we, can we get Lakewood's finest, please? Whenever you're ready, Mr. Solache.

Thank you, Mister Chairman. Thank you, Mister Chair. Good afternoon, Members. I am here to present AB2349, which would establish a regional air quality incident response program. California has experienced numerous disasters in recent years that have threatened air quality and public health, most recently the Eden and Palisades fires.

These incidents highlight the urgent need to improve the modernized emergency air monitoring and response capabilities across the state. As a former South Coast AQMD board member, I have seen firsthand how critical, timely, and accurate air monitoring is for protecting communities during emergencies. AB2349 builds on that exact experience and by establishing a coordinated statewide network of regional air quality incident response centers to support rapid deployment, real time data collection, and stronger coordination between state and local agencies during, emergencies.

This approach ensures that communities have access to reliable air quality information when they need it most. The network will strengthen the state's preparedness through training, planning, and coordination with first responders and public health agencies.

Importantly, the policy is structured to move forward, as funding becomes available, ensuring that we build this capacity responsibly and effectively. For the reasons I respect, ask for an aye vote on AB2349. I am joined by Susan Nakamura, chief operating officer at South Coast District, and she loves this bill so much that she's celebrating her birthday today with all of you.

And if that was not enough, this next this next person is not taking a stance, but our member services will behind me to celebrate his thirtieth birthday today as well.

So yes.

It's full of birthdays today and celebration of our bills. So with that, Susan

And Ally Mosquito too. Okay. Today?

Saturday. Oh, today?

Aries go Aries.

I'll air it up. Seriously. Just work it.

Thank you.

So okay. Thank you, Assembly Member Solace. So good to see you. So it's kinda neat to to see a a board member become an assembly member, and then assembly member yes. Ver, it's like so this is very cool for me.

I'm just gonna say so. Great birthday. So, good afternoon, chair and committee members. I'm Susan Nakamura, chief operating officer at the South Coast Air Quality Management District. We're here to tell you about our strong support for AB 2349, and we wanna just highlight some of the key elements of this bill.

Three points I wanted to make is timely air quality monitoring information. When you have an incident, community members, emergency responders, health agencies, they wanna know if the air is is is good enough for people to go outside. And so this bill will provide that information quickly and efficiently and accurately. Preparedness and training, this bill will deliver training and critical tabletop exercises for emergency responders. And so that's another key element.

And thirdly, it's like the type of equipment needed to do this type of work, it needs to be accurate. It needs to be state of the art. And so there's money behind that, and so we wanna just highlight the the need for the equipment. So we respectfully ask for your aye vote for my birthday at a v twenty three forty nine. So thank you very much.

And we have with us deputy executive officer Jason Lowe, who heads up our monitoring division. So thank you very much.

Absolutely. Two minutes.

Any sense or any any technical questions? Technical. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Any persons in the hearing room in support?

Brendan Tullen on behalf of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association in support. You get me? California Air Pollution Control Officers Association in support.

Good afternoon, Member Chair, Miss, Mister Chair and Members of the Committee. Paul Gonzales on behalf of the cities of Indian Wells and Kerman in strong support.

Thank you. Thank you, sir. Any persons here in opposition to this measure? Any persons in the hearing room who are afraid to stand up because it's miss Susan's birthday? We'll now turn it to committee members.

Mister Ziburton.

So first of all, I'd love to be added as a coauthor to the bill. Miss Nakamura, happy birthday. Thank you. It's great to see you. We were we grew up together as children, and now that we're both in our teens, happy birthday.

But great bill. Thank you for bringing it. And I'd like to move it.

We have a motion by Mister Zbur. Second. A second by Mister Haney. Mister Solache, would you like to close?

Thank you. Mister Chair and Committee Members, again, this regional air quality incident response centers will be done with AB22249 ensuring that, you know, Health Care Health Public Health and Shared informed decision making during disasters throughout our state. I appreciate the committee's thoughtfulness and work on this, and we look forward to your support today. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I first met Assemblymember Salace in his role as a board member for AQMD, and so it it's full circle for a lot of for two years, Mister Chair, but I feel like ten years.

So you did ten, ten, ten years of good work in those two years. This bill has a do pass recommendation. Madam secretary, can we call the roll?

Motion is do passed to appropriations. [Roll call]

That bill is out. Happy birthday.

Alright. Thank you, everyone. Thank you very much.

Mister Hart, you've got both an ACR and Mister Bennett's 1960. Is that correct?

I have the ACR, and I think assembly member Bennett is trying to get here, but I can do it as well.

If, if you'd like to, Miss Wicks would really appreciate that.

Okay. Sure.

Well, good afternoon, mister chair and members. I'm very pleased to present ACR 149 commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the passage of the California Coastal Act and the creation of the State Coastal Conservancy. The Coastal Act stands as one of the most important environmental protections in our state's history. It reflects our passion and determination of the people of California that our coast should be protected as public resource for generations to come.

Since 1972, the California Coastal Commission and the Coastal Conservancy have been responsible for conserving nearly half a million acres of natural lands and restoring 50,000 acres of critical coastal habitats.

The Coastal Commission and the Coastal Conservancy also play a key role in ensuring the coastal development prioritizes public access, environmental health, and conservation. As a result, the Coastal Commission and the Coastal Conservancy have helped create 2,500 public access ways and protect 875 miles of coastal trail, helping guarantee that the public can continue to enjoy California's beautiful coastline.

As a former coastal commissioner myself and a long time local government elected official in Santa Barbara County, I've seen firsthand how deeply our community values and benefit from coastal protection. Our coastline is central to our environment, economy, and way of life. Work of the commission and conservancy has helped preserve these extraordinary resources for local families, visitors, and future generations.

Joining me in support are Kate Huckelbridge, executive director of the Coastal Commission, and Amy Hutzsell, executive officer of the Coastal Conservancy.

Two minutes.

Thank you. Good afternoon, chair, members of the committee. Thank you, Assembly Member Hart. I'm thrilled today, to be here in support of this resolution that marks the fiftieth anniversary of the California Coastal Act and the Conservation Act or Conservancy Act. Fifty years ago today, during a time of indiscriminate development and increasing industrialization and private privatization of our coast and beaches, Californians decided that they had a different vision for our coastline.

In passing the Coastal Act and the Conservancy Act, your predecessors agreed with the public that California's coast is a distinct and valuable resource of vital and enduring interest to all people.

And to ensure that the public could continue to enjoy the coast into the future, these two acts enshrined the public's right to access a healthy and functional coastline, created a land acquisition and conservation program to support that goal and established a framework and public process for making decisions on how to balance competing uses and priorities on our coastline. Critically, that framework had to be strong yet flexible enough to address challenges that were not yet on the horizon when the law was passed.

It is this approach and legal construct that has supported the evolution of the law itself to address changing needs of our state. For example, how to address and adapt to climate change, specifically sea level rise, coastal hazards, also supporting the shift towards clean energy and reduced greenhouse gases, how to address environmental justice to ensure that all people, including those that have been historically excluded, can enjoy our coastline.

The act has also provided additional tools to enforce the provisions of the act, to address complex transportation projects, and to expand public education efforts. The commission's whale tail grant program has provided over a thousand grants supporting coastal access and education to organizations in every county in our state, underscoring the premise that our coastline is for everyone, not just those who have the good fortune to live there. And it is working.

I won't repeat, the successes that were mentioned by assembly member Hart, but I would like to underscore that all of this was achieved while supporting what is now an enviable $51,000,000,000 coastal economy. Proof that California's unique approach to balancing economic growth and coastal protection works.

But that work is not done. Protecting our coast for future generations requires continued vigilance and dedication to the vision and goals of the acts we celebrate today. And so I would like to thank the countless advocates, community members, NGOs, who have worked tirelessly to realize the vision of the Coastal Act and the Coastal Conservancy Act. I would also like to thank our many local, state, and tribal partners as well as the dedicated staff of our two organizations.

And finally, I'd like to thank you, chair, and the members of the Senate Natural Resources Committee for taking the time today to consider sorry.

Assembly, Natural Resources Committee taking the time to consider the this resolution and for hearing our comments today. We would not be here today celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Coastal Act if it wasn't for the broad support of the legislature and the public. In closing, I urge you to vote in support of this resolution and important acknowledgment of the importance of these acts in shaping coastal steward stewardship and access for all over the last fifty years and into the future. Thank you.

Just a reminder, two minutes. We went over because I know you've waited, we have all waited fifty years for this moment, so we allowed for that one to go a little over, but if we could keep it to two minutes, that would be wonderful.

Great. Good afternoon, chair and members. I'm Amy Hutsell, with the State Coastal Conservancy. And our agency was created as the non-regulatory partner agency fifty years ago to the Coastal Commission and to the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission and over the last fifty years, we've partnered with over a thousand different nonprofits, public agencies, and tribes, to conduct all the projects that assembly member Hart, discussed.

Looking towards the next fifty years, climate change and equitable access to the coast are our highest priorities. I wanna thank the legislature for your, support for our agencies over the years, most recently with the placement of proposition four, the climate bond on the November 2024 ballot. Those bond funds have started to be appropriated to the Coastal Conservancy and to other agencies, and we are already putting them to work, on the ground, enhancing coastal flood risk management, supporting coastal access and habitat restoration, and mitigating wildfire risk.

We're facing major challenges to protect our coastal resources and public access to the coast in the face of sea level rise and extreme storms. Proposition four provides the resources necessary to carry out our mission over the next decade.

I wanna thank our staff and our board at our relatively small agency who manage hundreds of projects from Del Norte to San Diego and I wanna thank them and their predecessors over the past fifty years. And just, you mentioned the whale tail grant. Our whale tail and explore the coast grant programs have brought hundreds of thousands of people to the California coast, many for the very first time,so, you know this is what we wanna continue to do moving forward and thanks to all of you.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room in support of this resolution?

Hi. Good afternoon. Michael Chen with Audubon California in support.

Jacob Evans with Sierra California in support.

Hello. Natalie Brown voicing support on behalf of the California Coastal Protection Network, Center for Environmental Health, Defenders of Wildlife, Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, Environmental Defense Center, Monterey Bay Aquarium, Planning and Conservation League, Research Renewal Institute, Surfrider Foundation, and the Surfrider Foundation San Francisco chapter. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Christina Scrantz with the Center for Biological Diversity in support.

Good afternoon. Thomas Valdez with Tasul in support.

Thank you so much. Any persons in opposition to this resolution? Thank goodness. We'll now turn it down to members of the the dias, miss Pellerin.

Thank you, Chair. And as someone who represents a coastal district, and this resolution is especially meaningful to me. And it's be thanks to the Coastal Act, families can walk down to the beach, access points are protected, wetlands and habitats are preserved, and development is done thoughtfully. And I know many of you enjoy the coast during spring break, and it's a beautiful place to be and to shop and to experience nature.

And with I I hate to think of what we what we would look like without the Coastal Act, and our coast would look very, very different.

You can imagine stretches of coastline lined with private development and fewer natural spaces. So as we continue to see the sea level rise, coastal erosion, and climate impacts, it's more important now than ever to protect our coastline. So I wanna thank the author for this very thoughtful resolution. I'm proud to be a co author, and I move the resolution.

We have a motion and a second. No other comments from the dais. Mister Hart, would you like to close your resolution?

Yeah. I'd just like to say that, the combination of the California Coastal Commission and the Coastal Conservancy is really a unique approach around the globe. It's the most successful program of its kind in the planet.

People around the world look to California for our leadership in coastal management and resource protection, and it's really appropriate, I think, to celebrate the fifty years of accomplishments that have been made in this last period of time and to look forward to the challenges and the opportunities that the next fifty years will bring. So I respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you, mister Hart. I too can't imagine what our coast would look like without the coast side. And I know it's been a source of contention through the years. A lot of people feeling like the Coastal Commission and the Coastal Act maintains the status quo, and I think about the fact that that's kind of what the purpose was, fifty years, to protect some of these things.

And so that's an intersection and a balance that we struggle with, and I think this resolution is important for reframing it and re grounding us in the original purpose and intent.

I wanna thank you for bringing it forward. We have a motion in a second. Can we call the roll?

The motion is that the measure be adopted. [Roll call]

That bill is out, and I strongly encourage my Republican colleagues to go to the beach. Thank you.

We'll, we'll, we'll put it on call. It needs one more. You'll be doing Mister Bennett's bill real quick?

I can do that.

Thank you, sir.

On behalf of Assemblymember Bennett, I'd like to begin by accepting the committee's amendments. Last year marked a historic and devastating wildfire season in California with entire communities lost in the Eaton and Palisades fires. A 2025 study on home hardening found that significant reductions in property loss can be achieved when mitigation efforts are implemented at the community level. As climate change continues to increase the frequency and intensity of wildfires, building community resilience is more important than ever.

AB 1960 allows CAL FIRE to fund community level hardening projects to the wildfire prevention grants fund.

This bill incentivizes homeowners to reduce risk together rather than one home at a time, helping to create safer, more resilient communities.

Any persons in the hearing room in support of this measure? Any persons in the hearing room oh, in opposition to this measure?

I'm just a me too for support.

Gotcha. Come on down.

Kasha Hunt with political solutions on behalf of Matador Fire in support.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room in opposition to this measure? We'll now turn it back to the dais. Mister Connolly.

Thank you, and thank you for pinch hitting. Understanding you may not have the answer to these questions, and I will be supporting it today. But I have a a couple questions I wanted to flag and then a a quick comment. I've had some really good conversations with the author, to date as well. I will be so question, but also statement.

We'll be very interested, to see where the funding for this bill will come be coming from. Will it be from Prop four? Will that supersede funding for current programs like Cal Fire's wildfire mitigation program that includes home that includes home hardening, and we kinda specifically fought to get a a large chunk of money for home hardening into proposition four. That heretofore has been implemented through the wildfire mitigation program.

And again, to the author, have your conversations with departments like CAL FIRE indicate how long it will take to do the work required in this bill.

So I don't know if you know any of those details. Alright. So just for the record and then, again, a quick comment. One to express my support for the concept. I think I'm even a co author.

While, again, kind of just flagging an overarching concern, and I think we're headed in the right direction on this by creating added layers of government or bureaucracy, so to speak, that might prevent individual homeowners and communities from actually receiving the money. That's what this is really all about is getting home hardening funding into homeowners' hands.

That being said, the concept of the bill seems to align well with work that is being done, for example, in my own district with the Marin Wildfire Prevention Authority, an agency that is doing really good work. It's funded in part with a local tax measure, but also state funding and incentivizes local residents to harden their homes by actually providing financial assistance among other efforts that they're doing. So again, with kind of those comments and and caveats, supporting the bill today.

Well, thank you. I just say that, I've been party to some of the conversations that you've had with assembly member Bennett. I know that you're working collaboratively to try and make sure the bill does what it's intended, which is to expand the definition of eligibility for for wildfire protection grants to include communities that would be working collaboratively together to kind of leverage those investments beyond an individual home, but also to include a community that then benefits neighbors in a more accelerated way.

And that the the details of that, I do not know exactly, but I'm sure Assemblyman Bennett Assemblymember Bennett will be talking to you very soon about that.

Thank you. Mister Zbur.

To sort of align my my comments with Assemblymember Connolly's in particular, but we'll be supporting the bill as well. And, obviously, we've got a very thoughtful author but wanted to convey that I thought that, some of the suggestions made in the Sierra Club letter were important ones to be considered. And I'm hoping that he'll be working with them on that as well as, some of the issues that the fire chiefs raised related to equitable equitability and funding.

So I'm hoping that he will continue working with both of those entities. And with that, I guess, I'll move the bill.

Second. Move a motion and a second. Mister Hart, would you like to close?

Yeah. We just respectfully request an aye vote on behalf of Assemblymember Bennett.

Absolutely. So as a do pass recommendation, madam secretary...

[Roll Call]

That bill's out. Thank you, mister Hart. Mister Gallagher?

Move the Bill.

Alright. Thank you, Mister Chairman. Appreciate the opportunity to present AB1757 to the committee. And I want to just start by making clear this does not, exempt from CEQA or from local control, you know, any small modular react reactor nuclear facility. It it simply creates a very limited carve out from the moratorium, the current moratorium on any nuclear power, you know, for the nuclear modular nuclear reactor unit.

And so I wanna make that clear at the outset so that people fully understand that these would be projects that would still need to go through local control, CEQA review, you know, before they were approved. But the reason why I really think this is important is as we are thinking about meeting our our climate goals and also affordability goals of energy, I do believe that nuclear has to play a pretty key role in that. And this technology has been developed over many years, decades.

There's been a lot of research as you are going to hear from, my witnesses. And this technology is very ready to deploy, and could be part of that mission of, one, ensuring capacity.

We're gonna need a lot of capacity for the electrical demands when it comes to, you know, the the goal for EVs, when it comes for the goal for, you know, increased use at ports, etcetera. There's gonna be a huge demand on the system, and we simply need more power generation. And one of the key ways we can do that in an affordable way that's not in same old mold that and that's another thing I wanna point out. We've been doing things within the same old mold.

I believe the committee analysis talked like, well, this maybe needs to be more like France, more centrally planned, more monopolistic view.

Well, that's what we have. We have a monopoly right now, right, that in in many of our areas where you don't have a choice over what utility you're gonna use. You're gonna get whatever the rates are, and right now, it's high. Right? We all know that.

But one of the key things we can do is develop new technology, new generation that's local, more localized, and doesn't need, you know, large scale transmission that's very costly and also that's getting old. And that's where I really think that this technology comes into into play. So when it comes to next generation nuclear technology, California needs to be a leader. You know? And right now, we are standing we're kinda behind the curve because we've had this moratorium.

Now we've had this moratorium for a good reason. There were real concerns about nuclear power, but I would say that's antiquated power. And, you know, older systems, you

know, very large scale silos and, you know, that people are kinda used to, technology has changed a lot. These can basically be delivered on a trailer. They're very small. They're self contained. And as you'll hear, many are already moving forward.

The states like Texas, Wyoming, Idaho, and Tennessee are actively moving forward with advanced nuclear and microreactor deployment. And these states are attracting federal funding, private investment, and high skilled jobs and next generation energy, California should be right there with them. And that that's the pitch I really wanna make, you know, to the committee.

I don't know nearly enough, and that's why I've brought some folks here, you know, from from Radiant Technology who are going to present, you know, some of their what they've found and and their history of working with nuclear technology, so you can hear firsthand from them. And and what I'm hoping is we really open up a conversation.

We learn a little bit more today, and I'm I'm hopeful that we can maybe start moving this forward in a in a new direction, again, to meet those twin goals of clean power and affordable power. So with that, I would ask for your aye vote, and I'll turn it over to my first witness with us today.

Right.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, chair Brian and and members of the committee. It is my absolute privilege to be able to share with you a little bit about our background and what Radiant is doing in the state of California. My yourself. Yeah.

My name is Rita Baranwall, and I am the chief nuclear officer at Radiant Nuclear. Radiant is a clean energy company headquartered in El Segundo, California. We are developing the Kaleidos reactor, which is a portable zero emissions power source. I have nearly thirty years of leadership in the nuclear sector, including as assistant secretary for nuclear energy in the US Department of Energy. I started my career at Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory.

I'm a materials engineer by degrees, but my first job out of grad school was to develop new nuclear fuel for the US Navy's aircraft carriers and submarines that are powered by nuclear. One summer, I thought I had drawn a short straw, but it ended up being the privilege of a lifetime. I had to drive a van full of interns to Newport News Shipyard, and I got to stand inside where the reactor was going to go and, the USS Ronald Reagan as it was being constructed.

And that was a a monumental turning point for me where I realized that nuclear power was going to power this behemoth of a ship and defend my country, and I've never looked back. I now have two children who are grown and out of the house, and I stay in this industry because of the clean energy that it can provide to this country and to the rest of the world.

I'm pleased to provide testimony today on AV seventeen fifty seven. It would allow California to consider deploying nuclear microreactors. Microreactors, by definition, are traditionally 20 megawatts electric or smaller. At Radiant, we're developing the Kaleidos microreactor, which is one megawatt electric. So for context and comparison to Diablo Canyon, which is 2,200 megawatts, A microreactor is less than one tenth of a percent the size of the Diablo Canyon facility.

This bill would modernize California's energy policy without compromising safety or environmental standards. It is a targeted practical update to an outdated policy. California faces unprecedented energy challenges. We must meet ambitious climate goals, strengthen the grid, and plan for rising electricity demand from data centers and from electrification. Nuclear energy is safe, reliable, and clean.

Starting with microreactors, we position California to harness advanced nuclear technology for energy resilience, climate progress, and grid reliability. Microreactors offer dispatchable zero carbon options that complement renewables.

We're coming up on three minutes.

They provide constant base load power for critical infrastructures like data centers, manufacturing facilities, military bases, and hospitals, and they help stabilize the grid during peak demand or extreme weather. So as a replacement for diesel generators, microreactors provide backup power with that particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, or other emissions, supporting air quality goals and improving health outcomes for Californians.

Thank you so much. Two minutes.

I'll continue where we left off. My name is Phoebe Lynn. I've been a part of Team Radiant. But as a replacement for diesel generators, microreactors provide backup power without that particular matter, but they're ready for deployment now. Unlike large scale nuclear power plants, microreactors are built in factories, they're shipped to a site and installed in days instead of years.

There's no on-site construction required. Then when these reactors reach the end of their life cycle, they are removed from the site and shipped back to the factory, and the site returns to a greenfield. No spent fuel stored on-site either. Fuel remains contained within that sealed transportable unit to be returned to the factory and stored there. Microreactor deployment builds on a strong foundation of safety.

The new the commercial nuclear industry is has an exemplary safety track record under the oversight of the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. From start up to operation and eventual decommissioning, all nuclear facilities require exhaustive safety reviews and ongoing compliance with NRC regulations. In addition, microreactors incorporate enhanced safety features. At Radiant, Rita mentioned we're developing the Klydos microreactor. It is designed with pass passive safety systems, meaning the reactor can safely shut down on its own without operator intervention and without external power.

It can withstand extreme conditions, including severe weather and seismic events, and it also uses TrISO fuel. This is an advanced fuel form that cannot melt down in the reactor core. And then finally, radiance technology, it's probably designed and prototyped here in California. We've long led in energy innovation and advanced manufacturing. As assembly member Gallagher referred to, AB 1757 would further support high skilled jobs, attract investment, and position the state as a leader in the advanced nuclear industry.

In closing, California cannot reach its ambitious climate energy goals without nuclear energy. There is no net zero without nuclear. AB 1757 would enable California to integrate nuclear technology responsibly, charting a path to carbon neutrality by 2045 while bolstering energy security. This is a practical first step on the path to broader nuclear development in California, and it's a logical complement to AB 26, 45 or forty forty seven.

47.

Thank you so much.

At the end, get them mixed up. But I know you're looking at that next week, and we're really excited to continue the conversations on nuclear deployment in California.

Thank you. Any persons in this hearing room in support of this measure?

Heather Hoff, Mothers for Nuclear, in support. Thanks.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members of the Committee. Aaron Sanford on behalf of the Northern California Power Agency in strong support.

James Bayard Dillas, Californian since 1960, San Luis Obispo resident, and I support this.

Jeff Donovan, Californian since 1968 from Glow Strategies. We support this strongly.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room in opposition to this measure?

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room in opposition to this measure?

Two minutes each whenever you're ready.

Thank you. Good afternoon again, chair members. Jacob Evans with Sierra California here today and was my full opposition to AB 1757 on behalf of over half a million members and supporters in California. California's moratorium on new nuclear plans has protected ratepayers and communities for nearly fifteen years fifty years. AB 15 AB 1757 would dismantle that protection at precisely the wrong moment as the Trump administration is getting national nuclear oversight and short cutting environmental review for unproven reactor designs.

Opponents argue that Nuclear Micro Micro reactors are different. The cost data says otherwise. The new scale small modular project in Idaho was canceled after cost conceded $20,000 per kilowatt, 18 times the cost of utility solar. Plant Vogel, the most recent large director to come online in The US, came in at $32,000,000,000, tripled its original budget, and delivered 25% higher bills to rate payers, The largest rate increase in Georgia history. Generic microreactors project even worse.

$34,000 per kilowatts with energy electricity costs around $470 per megawatt hour. These aren't outliers. Every small modular reactor project built internationally has significantly exceeded cost estimates, in some cases, by 300 to 700%. In addition to saddling Californians with increased utility bills, waste from the technology included in the AB 1757 would jeopardize the safety of California's frontline communities.

The bill's opponents claim that no nuclear waste would be stored on-site, but have not received a federal permit to transport spent nuclear fuel, and construction has not started on a proposed waste facility in Tennessee.

In other words, breaking California's nuclear moratorium for this new technology is premature and risky. California should not rely on this expensive and dangerous power source to meet our climate goals while our nation leading build out renewables, battery energy storage, geothermal, and grid innovation is delivering abundant, reliable, and affordable electricity. AB 1757 asks Californians to take on safety risks, waste storage liability, and ratepayer exposure for technology that's never delivered on its cost cost premises, for these reasons, we urge your no vote. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and members. Michelle Canales with Union of Concerned Scientists in respectful opposition to AB 1757. Although micro-reactors are only 20 megawatts, being smaller does not necessarily reduce their risks. UCS research has long indicated that micro-reactors could pose greater risks of radiological exposure to surrounding communities than currently operating reactors and deregulation at the federal level makes this increasingly more likely.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has already adopted rules that would allow certain microreactors to be located in densely populated areas it would exempt their owners from any responsibility for off-site management, emergency planning, saddling state and local authorities with the entire burden of preparing for and responding to nuclear accidents.

As directed by the president, the NRC is also pursuing major rollbacks of its licensing regulations to facilitate rapid deployment of untested designs with drastically shortened environmental reviews and little opportunity for public input. While we've heard claims that smaller reactors are less costly to build, small modular reactors and microreactors in particular will actually produce more expensive electricity because of diseconomies of scale. You heard about new scale expenses at $20,000 per kilowatt before its cancellation.

With microreactors being of even smaller scale, they will remain unaffordably expensive no matter project design most likely with projected electricity cost two to three times more than that of small modular reactors. California should continue investing in renewable energy sources such as solar,wind and firm sources like geothermal and battery storage, not create pathways for nuclear micro-reactor projects that are costly and riskier to residents in the state.

We respectfully request your no vote. Thank you.

Any other persons in the hearing room in opposition to this measure?

Hello, chair and members. Natalie Brown voicing opposition on behalf of Resource Renewal Institute, Mothers for Peace, Climate Resolve, Committee to Bridge the Gap, and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Now turn it back to committee members. Questions, comments, concerns? Mister Ellis. You go first.

I want, I genuinely wanna hear this. So.

So assembly member, thank you for bringing this forward. I've been in science for fifty years. I've dealt with fusion, quantum, AI, and I commend you for nuclear micronuclear because it is our future. I have a couple questions. When when what do you do with the spent fuel?

Because everybody's perception is, oh, Chernobyl and, blah blah blah. That's just a 100 ago. So we're we're in a new we're and I'd like to explain to everyone. We're in a new world where we have with AI and if we have quantum and we have supercomputers that are algorithms for safety, that go on, forever are so unbelievably good that I would expect that you're using this in your process. So I I first wanna ask about the the, the fuel.

Sure. So I'm gonna I'm gonna address the spent fuel question.

And I'm gonna extrapolate on that. One, no spent fuel. If this if this passes, no spent fuel will be stored in California. Our business model is for any client. No matter where it is deployed around the world, the fuel comes back to Radiant.

Yes.

And so in this instance, as was mentioned earlier, our factory in Oak Ridge is going to take that fuel back and when we refuel the reactor and then ship the reactor back out to the client. That used fuel is stored in spent fuel containers at our Oak Ridge, Tennessee facility just like the used fuel at the 94 operating plants in The United States are stored in dry-dry spent fuel storage casks on concrete pads. Okay. That's one.

The other one was around the transport that I wanna address as well.

Hundreds of highly irradiated transports of nuclear fuel have been conducted around The United States for decades without a single incident. That's from those naval nuclear aircraft carriers and submarines.

What about what about the data centers that are moving out of California because they they don't have the power to supply them and we're putting in. Are you doing any of the micro nuclear work there?

So we do have a client that has ordered 20 of our micro reactors for data center support. I can't tell you where they are located at the moment, but data centers in The United States are absolutely vital to it's vital to keep them here, not only for data security, but for for national security reasons as well.

Okay. Thank you very much.

question. I'll elaborate on that question as well. Why is it important for you to make the note that no spent fuel will be stored here in California?

Because he he just mentioned that that the waste would be in California.

Do you think it would be a problem if the waste was in California?

Not at all.

Not at all.

Okay. In terms of the clean energy conversation, I think we talk about this a lot, in our oil conversations. The idea of trucking spent fuel all the way to Tennessee, does that offset any of the benefits that you would expect gain from these modular reactors?

I mean, certainly, yes. There's the there is that transportation, cost and potential, you know, if the if you use not a clean, energy source, then, yeah, emissions associated with that, but that's that doesn't offset the benefits of a microreactor. We're talking about one megawatt that powers a thousand homes for five to eight years without interruption. You don't need to refuel it. You don't need to do anything with it.

Would it be your recommendation that California should invest in storing nuclear waste here in California communities?

So that's not what this conversation is about. I'm happy to have that conversation separately, but that is absolutely not what we're talking about. We're talking about in the environment today where we sit, there is a moratorium on deploying new nuclear micro-reactors and especially the ones that Radiant wants to deploy, do not need to be operating under that continued we're -we're advi- advocating that we don't need to continue to operate under that moratorium, we're asking for an amendment to that.

Yeah. No. I- I'm mostly just following up on the the conversation about the spent fuel and waste and the fact that if we were to lift this moratorium, your suggestion is that we ship it to Tennessee, but you actually think it would be perfectly safe for California communities to have nuclear waste is what you told me to talk about.

Communities. No. No. No. No.

I said it could be here.

California Mountains or where can we.

Hang on.

Let me explain. So just like we are doing in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, we have a facility. And by the way, we are one of the I think we are the only micro-reactor company that is working with the NRC post the executive orders of the president last year. We have a part 70 application to build, part what's called the category two fuel facility in addition to our factory, we're going to manufacture these reactors.

And what that does is accommodate for, by the NRC, the not only the fueling, but the refueling of these reactors.

By analog so first, that creates almost 200 jobs in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. By analog, if we were going to hypothetically have this converse like, have to go down this road, if we wanted to do that here in the state of California, we would find an area of the state that also wants to host a fueling and manufacturing facility. And if we extrapolated that business model for Oak Ridge, then that would apply to that.

Now that's a lot of if's and-and extrapolation, but that's what how that would look like.

Right. I-I think it's it's an important conversation when we're talking about, you know, lifting a moratorium that's been in place for for quite some time. What kind of conditions for a place in California would make sense? Would it be like an urban center like Los Angeles or a rural community like Nicholas? Where would you expect something like this refueling station that you have in in Tennessee?

Where would where would be the ideal conditions in California for something like that?

Could I sort of briefly respond, and then she can, you know, add to that? One, you should know you already are storing nuclear at San Onofre. So anybody that's been, you know, on the tour to Edison knows that they've actually been doing that when they decommissioned that nuclear facility, that is being safely stored there and it is continually monitored.

There's been no you know radiation emanating, you know, from that. So it is being safely stored in California right now, but this bill doesn't require or even open that up to doing more storage here in California, you know, this company would be taking that back to Tennessee where they, again, have safe storage approved by the NRC, has to go through all that regulatory review. So I just wanna make that point.

And, yeah, I don't know if you wanted to add to that. Yeah.

we're-we're-we're really kind of pulling on this thread here in terms of extrapolating $17.57 to to are we going to store spent fuel in California. I think that is very much outside the scope, of this proposed, legislation. I'm happy to answer the question. I mean, I-I don't know how to re-frame it.

No.

I-Let me let me give it another example, though. So, I was recently in the Indo Pacific, and I spoke to presidents of countries who want microreactor technology in their midst. That they are-they said, obviously, you know, it doesn't make sense, do we use your facility in Oak Ridge? Or then as we're expanding globally, do we consider something else that is closer to them?

Absolutely, we would entertain the thought of having a different facility that is more, approximate to their location, if that makes sense. Once we move down that that road for, this state, absolutely, we'll have that conversation, but that is not in our business model today.

I appreciate that and it was, I think it's all of these questions are relevant, which is why I think there was bipartisan interest in kind of seeing how does this all play out, because I think this is an important conversation and has been a bipartisan conversation going back, I think, for the last three or four legislative cycles.

I-I think I would like to see the Energy Commission kind of look into this and report back to the legislature in a, in a meaningful way at some point so we can have this conversation fully on our pathway to-to net zero.

Can I-can I add something, Chairman?

Unfortunately, I am going to close this one out, but I-

Okay.

But I look forward to hearing you back, I think, in a couple weeks, I would imagine. I'm not ready to support this yet, but I do think this conversation is important. And I know that our colleague from Nicholas is sincere in his efforts to try to lower energy costs, and I think that's a priority of the legislature and a goal for all of us. I'm not sure if this is the way to do it.

I'd like to see more data, more research, more information. I'd like to see the energy commission get involved in providing us the kind of foundational framework for us to make good legislative decisions. And so I cannot support this measure today. We have a motion by mister Hoover and a second by miss Macedo. Madam secretary, this bill does not have a yes recommendation from the chair.

Could I-could I close?

Would you like to close mister Gallagher?

We don't have questions.

Yes, sir.

Okay. Thank you, mister chairman. I appreciate it. And, you know, we just celebrated Easter and I think the theme here is that we need more eggs in the basket.

You know, like, we've got different eggs out there they've been working. They're trying to to deal with this dual problem, but we need more. Right? And-and probably the other you know, look, I've been a very big champion of solar in California.

You guys have heard that from me but even with the renewables that we've done, right, it's massive. It's been very massive. Our costs are still going up, right?

Those rates are still going up, and and it's been exponential. This is zero emission. This is zero emission technology. So, again, if we wanna meet that and think the other problem that we haven't really dealt with is transmission. Transmission is so expensive. Right?

You're bringing all these you know, the old way of doing things is to bring power from a long ways away and bring it to your household. We're talking about technology now that could bring the generation closer to home. Nuclear is one of those options, not the only one but it's one of those options that could bring that generation a lot closer to home, right and help power our low localities.

And then we don't have to have large scale transmission that's very costly to maintain and that also is a wildfire threat.

So that's why I think, you know, there's multiple benefits to at least opening this up. Again, it doesn't require it, it allows California to evaluate this technology. No one's gonna deploy this if it costs too much. Why would they do that?

Right? Like, there's if it if it's too costly, they're just not gonna use it. But if it is a cost savings, they are gonna use it. And lastly, the data centers, that's one of the issues. We're worried that when data data centers goes up, they're gonna suck the existing power that we already don't have capacity for.

We're already, you know, looking at brownouts even with everything that we have right now. If, for instance, you had a data center powered by a microreactor, it wouldn't be taking from that pie. Right? It would be self sustaining. So it's another thing to think about, you know, as we start looking through this.

So, anyway, those are just some things I'd ask you to think about and I'd ask for your support for, again, this very limited carve out from the moratorium.

Appreciate you. And with with the Easter reference, I thought you were going to say that this bill has risen from the dead for the fourth time.

That too.

Madam secretary, can you call roll?

The motion is due past two appropriations. [Roll call]

That would be great. Okay. Thank you, Mister Chair, and thank you, committee members and staff and advocates that are here today. I'm here to present AB2254, the Coastal Monarchs Protection Act, and we will be I will be accepting the committee amendments.

This bill requires local governments within the coastal zone that have monarch butterfly overwintering sites within their jurisdiction to develop and implement overwintering site protection policies, but only to do that when they are already going to update their local coastal plan or their LCP.

So it would happen within a natural time cycle for the entities that would be updating. And just to give you the problem in a nutshell, western monarchs are incredibly important, not just to the Central Coast, but much of Coastal California. They bring, ecotourism dollars to very small communities that need those dollars, and they're also a very important part of our ecosystem. But since the nineteen eighties, we've had a 95% decrease in Western monarchs, which means that the population is on the brink of collapse.

And over 60 sites have been destroyed or severely damaged by human development.

So AB2254 is a very simple solution, as I mentioned, that when local government is updating their LCP or local coastal plan, they would include overwintering site protection policies. And with me today is Scott Black, executive director of the Zeri Society for Invertebrate Conservation, and Robert Heim, program coordinator for the California State Parks Foundation. And I'll turn it over to them. Great.

Chair and Members of the Committee, thanks for the opportunity to testify today. I'm Scott Black, as she said, executive director of the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. Our organization has been working across California for decades to conserve monarch butterflies in their habitats. I'm here today in strong support of AB 2254. The science is really clear.

Monarchs are in trouble. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that the monarch butterfly warrants listing under the endangered species act. Western the Xerces' western monarch counts documented only 12,000 monarchs this year. We had likely 4,000,000 monarchs in the nineteen eighties. These extremely low population numbers put western monarchs at serious risk.

Overwintering sites are forested groves along the coast of California that are absolutely critical for monarch survival. Without these sites, we will no longer have migratory monarch butterflies. Yet every year, sites are destroyed and severely damaged. 60 sites over the last thirty years have been damaged or destroyed. Once these groves are gone, we cannot recreate them.

So these monarchs need them. So while some regulatory protection exists through the Coastal Act, there are significant gaps and inconsistencies in implementation. This bill creates clarity, predictability, while protecting vital monarch habitats. For the future of monarchs, I respectfully urge you to support AB2254. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. My name is Robert Heim, and I'm a program coordinator with the California State Parks Foundation. Thank you for the opportunity to support AB2254. For more than fifty years, California State Parks Foundation has partnered with the state to protect all 280 state parks across California. That includes long standing work to steward monarch overwintering groves through restoration, volunteer engagement, and public education.

As you've heard, western monarch populations have declined significantly. I'd like to share what that looks like from the perspective of California state parks and the communities connected to them. State parks play an important role in supporting monarch overwintering habitat. More than 50 overwintering sites are located across roughly 40 state parks, including Natural Bridges State Beach in Santa Cruz County and Pismo State Beach in San Luis Obispo County. Each year, more than 100,000 visitors come to state parks to see monarchs.

Over time, many coastal communities have developed a deep connection to the scenic to the seasonal return of these butterflies. Their arrival has become part of the identity of these places and brings visitors during the winter months, helping support local economies during a typically slower season. And more broadly, monarchs are deeply valued. Research by the United States Geological Survey found that people across the country placed between 4.78 and $6,640,000,000 in total value on conserving monarch populations.

AB2254 offers a practical way to strengthen protection of monarch overwintering habitats by providing clear guidance and consistency within existing local planning process local coastal planning processes.

Without action, we risk losing more than habitat. We risk losing a seasonal rhythm that communities have come to know and depend on, something that brings people together and supports local livelihoods. And once those monarch groves and the butterflies that return to them are gone, a part of those communities is lost with them. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Any persons in this hearing room in support of this measure?

Good afternoon. Ruth McDonald with Climate Action California in support. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon. Michael Chen with Audubon California in support.

Hi. Britney Harabedian, also with Climate Action California in support.

Hi. Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity in support.

Hi. Natalie Brown with Defenders of Wildlife in support. Thank you.

Are there any persons here in this hearing room in opposition to this measure? Two minutes.

Okay. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Brian, and Committee Members. My name is Melissa Sparks Kranz with the League of California Cities, and we respectfully have an oppose unless amended position on AB2254. We believe AB2254 is problematic based on the approach the bill proposes, not that we oppose butterflies or their habitats for clarification.

First, under the Coastal Act, LCP updates are a very challenging, time intensive, and costly process that local governments must go through to gain coastal commission approval to retain their local land use permitting authority in the coastal zone. LCPs are not site specific plans.

They are long range land use planning documents. And, if specific sites are in need of greater protection, the development of Habitat management plans would be the most appropriate planning mechanism to provide these protections and mitigations for such sites. There, in fact, are local governments that already have existing Habitat management plans for the monarch butterfly Habitat sites in their jurisdictions, which this bill would impose a duplicative planning effort for those that already have such plans by requiring their LCPs also be updated.

AB2254 presumes that monarch butterfly habitat is bound to the coastal zone by requiring LCPs to be updated when, in fact, about a third of all habitat sites in California are, in fact, outside of the coastal zone proper. This would neglect managing these sites holistically for those areas outside the defined coastal region.

AB2254 would propose this mandate at a time when local governments are working diligently to complete a robust LCP update to address sea level rise planning efforts. This was a specific goal and priority of the legislature for coastal jurisdictions two years ago. Adding more to the plates of local coastal, jurisdictions will only deter from successfully meeting those existing requirements.

We believe ultimately to achieve the author's intent, first, working through the process to have monarch butterflies and their habitats listed under CISA, the California Endangered Species Act, would be the preferred approach. They are currently not a listed species here in California.

The process requires evidence of threats, population trends, Habitat needs, while providing temporary protections during that evaluation. Habitat management plans could then be developed locally as appropriate based on completing the scientific process. For these reasons, we remain opposed unless amended and have been working with the author on on future amendments.

So thank you. Any other persons in the hearing room in opposition?

Good afternoon. Stacy Heaton with the Rural County Representatives of California representing 40 rural counties statewide. We also hold an opposed and less amended position. We are working with Cal Cities and with CSAC to come up with some amendments that would ease our concerns on this bill. Thank you.

You so much.

Good afternoon. Jordan Wells on behalf of the California State Association of Counties, also respectfully opposed unless amended for the reasons outlined by my colleagues. Thank you.

Thank you. And I'll turn it back, to the dais, Mister Sebaert.

So first of all, I wanna, thank you for bringing this bill. I'd love to be added as a co-author. Given what the, local governments have said, how long would it take to have monarch butterflies listed under the California Endangered Species Act?

I mean, isn't that a year and multiple years long process before we would then what I under as understanding is that they're suggesting that we have to go through a listing process either with through the federal or the state Endangered Species Act, which in my years of practice of environmental law is most of the time multiple years of a process. And then I think they're arguing that you would, at that point, look for protection under the Coastal Act.

Am I right about that? And I guess the second thing is the Coastal Commission has already protects monarch butterflies in sort of an ad hoc way. I I know this from projects that I worked on before the Coastal Commission where the Coastal Commission would actually look at ad hoc evidence of whether or not there was a, an overwintering habitat and look for sort of ad hoc protections of that, what you would be doing is sort of standardizing this.

So it's not something that's new in terms of the Coastal Commission having authority over it. It would just basically be more robust and require every jurisdiction to start looking at this.

So, the Coastal Commission in the past has never required that something be listed before it protects a species. In fact, I there's a there's a separate regulatory structure under the Coastal Act to protect environmentally sensitive habitat areas, otherwise known as ESHA. Is that is that right?

Yes. If I could say, maybe in colloquial terms, how long it would take, it'd be a super long time. I think, I wish I could give you a number. Actually, I wish that we could define here's exactly how long it would take to get through Cessa, but, but it would be a very long time. And I think with the decline that we've seen, there is a worry that the population would be gone by the time, we could get through the process.

I would also say it's not standard. I would agree with you on that. It's not at all standard. And while monarchs, may be protected, their sites aren't necessarily protected under the Coastal Act as it stands. So this would create, more of a, to your point, more of a broad policy that could be used across, you know, across the State, but also the Coastal Commission is, working on this and willing to create model policies so that I I used to be a council member.

I was a council member in the city of Morro Bay, and, one of the most helpful things when we were going through the LCP process was to be in con constant contact with Coastal Commission, but also when they have model policies that you know are gonna stand up to their scrutiny, that makes the process a lot easier. And so they've been willing, to work with us to say that they would develop model policies.

And there's no there's no debate that monarch butterflies are endangered and threatened. I mean, it's I think from what I'm aware of, the Coastal Commission alone has been tracking this for at least two decades now and has been looking at monarch butterfly populations who, you know, understand go I mean, don't they fly all the way down to Mexico and then they come back? And we know that the numbers are declining pretty rapidly.

So it's not like we need to go through a state or federal endangered species act process to know that these, that these species are endangered and threatened. Is that accurate?

Correct. Correct. They're, very I think there's widespread agreement that they're endangered, and it's and it does hurt local economies. I mean, I represent Pismo Beach. They've seen, you know, multiple declines, which means tourists aren't coming to those areas.

Tourists that would normally be coming to see the monarchs that might be going up to Natural Bridges, and Assemblymember Keller's district to Pacific Grove in my district down to Pismo. You heard from state parks. So everybody agrees there's widespread problems for the population, and it's largely related to declining habitat. And it's dangerous not just for the ecosystem, but for the economy.

I'd say one last question. I thought the bill also requires that the update happen when an LCP is gonna be updated anyway. So it doesn't seem to me like there's some huge burden. It's one more thing that the city or local government would have to do when they update their LCP. But it's not like you're requiring a new a new process.

As an LCP is updated to the COSLA Act, this would be a new part of it. Is that right?

That's correct. Is that, we want this to be part of the natural cycle of a city updating their LCP again, understanding what it's like as a former city council member, what it's like to go through the LCP process. And it is a very robust process. It's a purposeful process, but we're not adding an extra layer. We're just making this part of the natural update of the LCP. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Any other questions from colleagues? Seeing none. Senator, would you like to close?

Sure. I just, wanna thank the committee and staff. And, again, we do accept the committee amendments and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much. We have a motion by missus Birr and a second Second. By miss Burner. This committee supports the monarch butterflies in your efforts. It has a do pass recommendation.

Madam secretary, can we call the roll?

Motion is do pass as amended to Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee. [Roll call]

We'll leave it open for absent Members.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We're gonna have Miss Boerner go really quickly. Assemblymember Petrie-Norris and assembly member Wilson, if you can hear me, please come to the committee room.

We would love to hear from you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. First, I wanna thank the Chair and his amazing committee staff for working with me on this bill. I will be accepting the committee amendments, which address what has been raised over and over again as the opposition's principal concern.

AB 2253 would protect consumers from deceptive recycled content claims by requiring companies that advertise recycled content in their products to be honest about the amount of recycled materials used. The bill emerged from a single premise.

If a product has a claim on it that it is made from recycled content, it should actually be made of recycled content. Currently, companies can use accounting methods to falsely claim that their products contain recycled content when oftentimes is lower than .1%. In our affordability crisis, Californians shouldn't be charged more for a product that claims to be green that isn't.

Furthermore, this practice undercuts the California companies that have invested billions of dollars in real recycle, in real recycling and product manufacturers that pay a premium for more sustainable materials. I introduced this bill because California has always been ahead in consumer and environmental protections.

We shouldn't be bamboozled by these companies' false marketing on products that are not green. I respectfully ask for your aye vote. And I have here with me Kayla Robinson with Californians Against Waste and Renée Sharp from NRDC.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Kayla Robinson with Californians Against Waste, the proud sponsor of AB 2253. Recycled content has long been a cornerstone of California's policies. Recycling doesn't happen at the curb as many, as many of us might think it does.

It happens when materials are actually used to make new products, and recycled content is what really creates the demand that makes the whole system work. So without it, collected materials lose value, programs get more expensive, and more actually ends up in the landfill.

This bill was inspired in part by a lawsuit brought by the Attorney General Rob Bonta against ExxonMobil, in which the AG pointed out that ExxonMobil marketed products as having significant recycled content when internal documents indicated that the actual material had upwards of 99.9% virgin plastic.

This is not an isolated example. Companies across industries are using mass balance gimmicks and so called booking claim systems to buy credits and inflate recycled content claims. That's not how consumers understand these labels. When someone sees 30% recycled content on a yogurt container, they expect real recycled content in that product.

Not an accounting allocation made somewhere else in the industry. Recycling is complex and real world manufacturing can result in slight variations, which one package may contain 28%, one another 32%. That's not what this bill is talking about and addressing, and the committee amendments will clarify that intent.

AB 2253 targets accounting practices that allow companies to assign recycled content to products that may not contain any at all. And in some cases, the material behind these credits may be double counted or even burned and not actually recycled.

These accounting practices are inherently misleading. They overstate recycled content claims, claims that consumers actually pay more for usually, and perpetuate the false impression that these materials are being meaningful recycled at scale. And I just wanna close with here in California and across the country, our plastic reclaimers are actually really struggling to survive.

And just in the past year, multiple facilities have closed, shut down, and several others are on the brink of going under. So when companies can make questionable marketing claims on with paper credits instead of purchasing actual recycled content, it really undercuts our marketing industry, or sorry, our recycling industry here in California. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and Members of the Committee, for the opportunity to testify today. And thank you, Assemblywoman, for your leadership in authoring this important bill. My name is Renée Sharp, and I'm here on behalf of NRDC to express support for AB 2253.

Which would disallow the use of deceptive accounting and marketing schemes that allow companies to claim they are using recycled content in a product when they actually may contain none at all. There are many different forms of such deceptive accounting and marketing schemes, including credit based mass balance and booking claim.

And they raise a wide range of concerns. Some of them allow companies to purchase credits associated with material from elsewhere in the global supply chain that is dubiously labeled recycled rather than using actual recycled material in their products.

Some allow plastic to be turned into fuel and be counted as recycling, a practice which conflicts with California law. While others disadvantage proven mechanical recycling technologies while giving an unfair advantage to other highly polluting technologies that may not actually be doing any recycling at all.

But all of them have one thing in common. They will undermine public trust in the recycling system. This is a problem because today public trust in recycling is at an all time low, and we need public trust for recycling to work.

The other thing that we need for recycling to work is robust, fair markets for real recyclers and a system that does not disadvantage California recyclers. AB 2353 is also important because it addresses... Is so important, I should say, because it addresses all of these issues. It protects public trust, promotes fair markets, and helps California recyclers. I urge you aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any persons in the hearing room in support of this measure?

Good afternoon. Jim Lindberg, Friends Committee on Legislation of California in support.

Good afternoon, Committee. Britney Harabedian with Climate Action California in strong support.

Good afternoon. Jake Schultz on behalf of Breast Cancer Prevention Partners, CalPurg, and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Aaron Martinez on behalf of Rethink Waste and Clean Water Action in support. Thank you.

Hello again. Staci Heaton with the Rural County Representatives of California as well as the Rural Counties Environmental Services Joint Powers Authority in support. Thank you.

Jordan Walls on behalf of the California State Association of Counties in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Dylan Hoffman on behalf of StopWaste in support.

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

Ruth McDonald with 350 Sacramento in support. Thank you.

Shay Logan with Novolex and in between her, if you will. Mister Chair, I wanna thank the author and the committee for the amendments, and we look forward to working, with her. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any persons here in opposition?

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Adam Ragele on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in strong opposition. I I wrote a bunch of testimony, but I I thought it'd be better to have a conversation. Candidly, we don't understand the intent of the bill when it states we're trying to, prevent untruthful, statements in products when the entire impetus of the mass banning accounting system, which is an internationally recognized accounting system used in energy systems. It's used in glass.

It's used in paper. It's used in plastics. It's used in aluminum. It's used in textiles, just to name a few. All of these are impacted by this law, and all we talk about is plastics.

And yet, even for plastics, the internationally recognized ISCC ISCC plus, the ISO standards, they're all internationally recognized. So California is effectively coming in here and saying, we don't care what's internationally recognized. We don't care that there's accounting systems that track every molecule for you to be able to make a claim on it. When you blend recycled content with virgin material, these systems cannot tell you that every single bottle has exactly 20%, 90%. We do not believe the amended language in the bill actually addresses that.

AB793, which requires on average, is a requirement in law for the bottle bill. Then this bill comes in and tries to amend with the on average. And then right after, it literally says without the use of credit math credit based mass balance accounting. So we believe the bill's in in contradiction with itself even under these new amendments. You'll see the opposition.

No one's removed it because it doesn't actually address the issue. And so, basically, what this bill is saying is it's very, very analogous to the way we do renewable energies. We don't say when we put renewable energy onto the grid if all those ions go directly into that one house. Otherwise, you cannot say you got any renewable energy into the grid.

That's, like, identically what we're saying here is if you can't say exactly what's on this product, these accounting methodologies attract basically account for it at scale for entire systems for manufacturing.

Millions and billions of products. And so, effectively, when we are trying to push EPR and circularity, you want to at scale attract as much recycled content into these products as possible and not basically hold manufacturers liable for did every single claim on your bottle state exactly? In reality, what you wanna do is have accounting systems which are already internationally recognized accounting so that you don't make any false claims.

Thank you.

If this bill is about false claims, then why are we saying you can't tell the consumer you're using mass balance? That's the exact opposite of what this bill is trying to do.

Thank you. Two minutes.

I'm gonna just build on, Rachel Michelin with the Cow Retailers Association. You know, we're the consumer facing industry, and we are under every single product stewardship program and EPR program in the state of California. Our members are trying very hard to comply and be great partners. I think we have a reputation in this building as leaning into a lot of these really difficult issues and trying to find solutions.

And I wanna use one example different, I think, than what Adam was using, and that's in a recently passed bill, SB707, which is the textile EPR, first in the in the world in terms of of, textile EPR programs.

If this bill were to pass, we can't implement that EPR program in the state. You're setting up my member companies to fail. We are trying to lean in. We actually, apply to be the pro. We didn't receive it, but we're still leaving leaning in to try to be good actors in that.

But, you know, I guess to Adam's point, what is the problem we're trying to solve? You know, we really are trying to create programs that we can I'm excited about the textile EPR program. I think there's incredible opportunity. There's opportunities happening right now around the Olympics in Los Angeles, where California, the Olympics, LA wants to be the most sustainable games in the history of the Olympics. This bill passes, that won't happen.

And so I I find it very challenging to understand why on one hand, we want to be a global leader in EPR and sustainability. We pass these EPR programs, whether it's 54 or 707, and yet then we pass or or we debate these bills such as this, and we're telling businesses we're not gonna give you a way to comply. But we're gonna give you a way to be litigated, and we're gonna give you a way to be sued, which then turns around.

And when we talk about affordability, that's only gonna increase the cost on California consumers, or it's gonna reduce the ability for consumers to have access to products. The other piece is gonna be that candidly then consumers can go to other states and still buy these products where they're gonna spend their tax dollars in other places and California still loses out.

So as a as a and as a president who represents an industry that's in every one of your districts, and these impact businesses small and large. There's there's no discrimination in terms of who this will impact. You know, I really question what are we trying to accomplish here when, to Adam's point, there are already this is internationally recognized, and we are trying to comply. We are complying.

And so help us to make to help you to implement a lot of these these these programs that we're trying to to work with you on.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any persons in the hearing room in opposition? Name, organization, position on the bill.

Good afternoon. Silvio Ferrari on behalf of the Vinyl Institute in opposition.

Kelly Larue for the American Cleaning Institute in opposition to the bill in print. We look forward to evaluating the amendments. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Tim Schoestick with the American Chemistry Council in opposition. Thank you.

Elizabeth Esquivel, California Manufacturers and Technology Association, also in opposition.

Greg Erner with Canned Manufacturers Institute. Appreciate the amendments, and we'll be looking and hopefully, we can have some further discussions.

Marjorie Lee, Sampson Advisors here on behalf of the California League of Food Producers and the Toy Association, a respectful opposition.

Hi. Edwin Bourbon on behalf of AmeriPen, the American Institute on Packaging and the Environment, opposed. Thank you.

Lauren Zavalencio representing the International Sleep Products Association in opposition.

Good afternoon. Nicole Quinones on behalf of the Household and Commercial Products Association as well as the Pet Food Institute in opposition.

Good afternoon. Jason Bryant on behalf of the National Confectioners Association. We're opposed as well. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Iria Rapitan on behalf of the International Bottled Water Association in opposition.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members. Jasmine Vai on behalf of Plastics Industry Association in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Randy Pollock on behalf of the Carpet and Rug Institute in opposition.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair. Jackie on behalf of the Consumer Technology Association. I'd like to be opposed.

Chair and members, Craig Schuller on behalf of the Personal Care Products Council in opposition.

Thank you so much. Well, now turn it back to the dais. Questions? Mister Zbur.

So, first of all, I'll be supporting the bill today, in part because we haven't had any opportunity to have any dialogue since we've both been well, I've been gone anyway. I'm really confused about the bill. I think, obviously, the goals are absolutely laudable. Obviously, you know, consumers shouldn't be you know, there shouldn't be

fraudulent claims about recycled content in anything. And, when those claims are made, they should be accurate. So that part of the bill, obviously, you can't argue with. The whole issue with the mass balance, and I was, you know, looking at the the language, there's a lot of term of art in the bill itself that that I'm not quite sure what it

means. And so, you know, it says the recycled content shall claim shall be based on actual physical recycled content in the product. That part, I don't think anyone can debate. Right? Without the use of credit based mass balance accounting, including free allocation, booking claim accounting, or similar approaches that are not based on the actual physical recycled content in the product.

Now the last part seems like you can't debate it. All that stuff in between, to me, it's sort of like, okay. Well, what am I averaging the content about? Like, how many products is this in? At some point, you're not basically taking one bottle, carving it into three pieces, and then putting it in one bottle, one bottle, one bottle.

So you're actually averaging recycled content in some group of products, I would think. Isn't that what's happening? So is there a problem with these the protocols that are being used to do that? It sounds like there there's at least in some cases, there has been some concern with the with the mass balancing protocols. Can you sort of describe what those are?

Because it sounds like in many cases, you have to do some amount of mass balancing in order to sort of calculate recycled content in some body of products. Don't you?

So I'll, I'll, so we recognize this is, it's very it's, it's a confusing issue. Absolutely. And so one one clarification that I wanna make is that the the bill does not say that you can't use any form of mass balance. It specifically says you can't use credit based mass balance. And the, and the form of mass balance that is explicitly allowed, especially now with the it was allowed before, but it's more explicit in with the committee amendments, is that you can use rolling average mass balance.

And so in that case, what it allows is is say say you have, you know, 75% of or say you have, like, recycled feedstock and you have Virgin feedstock. And, you know, on a on a given day, you might have, you know, 75% of recycled feedstock and 25% of Virgin feedstocks. Or another day, you might have the opposite, 25% of, what did I say, of recycled feedstocks and 75% of Virgin.

So, it allows fluctuations, and what it says is that, you know, the number of the amount of recycled content in a bottle or whatever can vary. It can absolutely vary.

It can vary dramatically. But on average, over a period of time, you know,

one month, three months, you know, some defined period of time, on average, you have to be using whatever claim. So if you're saying if you're claiming 50% recycled content, then on average, like, over that time period, you have to use 50% recycled content. So it can actually vary really substantially. You could have 1% and it would still be in compliance. But as long as you're actually physically using that amount in making the products over time, that's allowed.

What you can't do is say, you know what? Instead of actually using, like, physical recycled content, we're gonna for example, there's a number of different ways that you can there's another different forms of this, but you can't, like, buy a credit over here that is, you know, theoretically associate with some, like, other recycled content. And then to say, like, okay. Well, I'm not gonna change with how I'm making my product.

I'm just gonna kind of, like, buy the certification over here and put that claim on my product.

You can't do that kind of thing. Does that make sense?

Yeah. So, I mean, it sounds like you're not arguing against mass balance accounting completely.

Correct.

Right? I mean, so this is it's not the intent of the sponsors Correct. To outlaw mass balance. It's basically to make sure that there are some guidelines around it so that you're not basically buying a credit that someone else used recycled content and then not using it and sort of getting a free pass on your own product. Is that sort of?

More or less.

So so why so are the are the mechanisms that the I I assume this is guidance that puts the mass balance protocols together. Are are are they not dealt with in the protocols?

So there there are ISO standards that kind of that define different forms of they're called, like, chain of custody models. And there's other ones in addition to mass balance that are also allowed. So they kind of define, you know, like, here's what they are, and here's kind of generally how they work.

And what this bill does is say, okay, you can use these chain of custody models, which really are tied to physical content, But you can't use these other chain of custody models which aren't tied to physical content and can allow companies to, you know, for example, buy a cut over here.

Or another example is to take plastic waste, turn it into fuel, which is not recycling, and essentially transfer recycling credits to essentially virgin plastic, call it recycled, market is recycled, and then companies are essentially incorporating what is essentially virgin plastic into their products and calling it recycled when actually that plastic waste was burned as fuel.

So it's also restricting that, that practice, which is really against California law. So there's there's a number of different things that are happening That it's really trying to, guard against and really support, you know, the the actual incorporation of actual physical content in in products even, you know, even allow even though it allows, you know, fluctuation in a mass. Does that does that help clarify?

Yeah. So, I mean, it sounds like basically what the goal of the bill is to have the mass balancing is permitted, but it's more closely tied to the products. Correct. Is that is that right?

I believe that's the amendment we took in this committee.

Correct.

And would that apply also to the fabrics that on the textile recycling as well or not?

Yes. It would so there's there's different types of mass balance, I think, is part of what the confusion is. Right? And so the mass balance rolling average is something that we are comfortable with. There's other forms of mass balance defined by ISO that we aren't this bill is trying to create guardrails around.

May may I ask you one last question to to the miss Michelin. So, it sounded like you had some concerns about the textile issue, and I just wanted to just understand what that was.

Well, yeah. Because as as my members have read it, there there's still concern that it's it's a one size fit fits all, and we still have concerns on how it's gonna implement how we are gonna be able to implement, s p seven zero seven. We need that technology in order to implement certain types of fabrics, polyester, nylon, those types of things. So, you know, we don't Wanna Handcuff ourselves when we we no one's ever done this type of EPR pro project globally at all. California's first.

We're leaning into it. But a sweeping bill like this, roping in so many different I mean, I I heard plastic, plastic, plastic. This incorporates carpet, all kinds of different programs, not just plastic. We're not concerned about plastic. I'm I'm concerned really about textile.

So I think that there's a you know, that's really where our concerns are. So it it really is something that I think more thought needs to be put into that. I don't know, Adam, if you had any so

Comment. If I can just as the author respond, this bill only affects marketing. It doesn't affect EPR programs. Thank you.

Mister Ellis.

Yeah. One quick question. Can you point to a single certified mass balance claim that the EPA, Federal Trade Commission, or any regulatory agency has found to be deceptive?

So, actually, during the Biden administration, they actually made clear that mass balance certain forms of mass balance will actually not be allowed through their procurement program. So while we can't necessarily say there aren't claims that aren't true, I think the Federal Government did take action back in 2023 on on this topic or at at least initiate it. And then, you know, with the administration change, of course, things may have changed since then.

But But you don't know of any, ma'am, any claims?

I will say that actually in the analysis, it notes that, the EPA recommended that, these forms of mass balance not be allowed, under the FTC's green guide updates. That has not, you know that process has not has not completed. So at this point, I think it's still, you know, an open question of what of what will happen. But that's

Oh, then then my question of the opposition then, do you know of any?

We've asked no. And and and on that point around the FTC, the green guys have not changed based on that. And it's specifically from their statements that if you can't track it or account it, you shouldn't get credit for it. We don't disagree with that. Basically, this is a 100 different countries have adopted the ISCC as a a model for accounting and accrediting mass balance.

This is a bill of basis that says, we've thrown all that out. We want you to make no claims. And the idea that making no claims somehow has no impact on EPR, we would fundamentally disagree with. It's very important that if we're gonna be subject to EPR laws and basically spending SP 54 is a $21,000,000,000 program minimum, then we should be able to actually tell consumers we're using mass balance. The fact that we put this amount of recycled content, it is tracked certified to these protocols.

This bill is saying the opposite. It's It's actually saying you're allowed to do that, but you can't tell anyone. I mean, I don't understand how it's a transparency law. It it it seems to be the reverse of that. If we wanna have a discussion about if you're gonna use mass balance, we wanna know what protocols you use and you should be able to tell consumers you did that.

Why isn't that what we're proposing here? This is basically saying, don't tell anyone you can use it, but you can still use it for EPR compliance. That that seems contrary to transparency in our view.

Thank you very much. Mister Zbur, you have a quick one?

I have one quick question. It sounds to me I mean, I have a lot of confidence in the bill sponsors in terms of wanting to make sure that the EPR programs and recycling programs work. And I just wanted to it sounds like you're willing to continue to work with some of these folks on like because it sounds to me like there's just a disconnect in terms of what's intended and what I think some of folks in the regulated community think is gonna happen with this.

So I assume you're willing to continue working with them.

I always am happy to work with the opposition. Thank you.

Miss Boerner, would you like to close?

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Aye, wanna thank the author for working with the committee and taking these amendments, which we crafted intentionally to clarify that this bill protects important and useful tools used to calculate real recycling while ensuring that deceptive deceptive accounting gimmicks cannot be used.

And I know you had some concerns taking an amendment that speaks directly to the chief concerns of the opposition because you felt like they would come to committee and say that you had done nothing despite taking these amendments, and I can't imagine why you would feel that way. But I wanna thank you for taking that amendment nonetheless, and for working with this committee in good faith. This bill has a do pass recommendation. Madam secretary, can we call the roll?

Oh, we have a motion so minute.