LegAlert #97-1

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Legislative Season 1997:
Early Victories in Policy Committees
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The legislature got off to a fairly slow start this year, and as
a result, a big batch of bills were rushed through during the
last two weeks of policy committee hearings. Sierra Club
California's legislative staff kept busy rushing between
hearings, trying to get bad bills killed and good ones cleared
for consideration by Appropriations. All in all, we were quite
successful, especially in the areas of coastal, recycling, air
quality, and toxics legislation.

Below is a brief summary of some of the most important
legislation. For a more complete list, please contact Megan
Mullin at the Sacramento office (916/557-1100 x102 or
<megan.mullin@sierraclub.org>). As legislation starts to move
through Appropriations and onto the floor in the coming weeks, we
will be sending Legislative Alerts on issues that require action.

Air Quality
The Sierra Club proudly saw two air quality bills that it helped
write pass through their respective committees. The Children's
Health Protection Act, AB 278 (Escutia), would require that: 1)
key public health standards for air and water be set to protect
infants and children; 2) the California Air and Resources Board
conduct air pollution monitoring at selected schools and day care
centers; 3) major facilities within one mile of a school submit
plans for air pollution source reductions; 4) repeat air quality
violators located near schools be better monitored; and 5)
selected schools and day care centers be notified when air
quality standards are violated or expected to be violated.
Though the bill faces strong opposition from every major industry
group in California, it is winning the support of many public
interest groups. Staff at the Sacramento office have been
working hard to back this bill, and we are pleased to see it move
forward.

The Diesel Fuel Bill, AB 1368 (Villaraigosa), would create the
California Air Quality and Energy Efficiency Program, a far-
reaching program to dramatically reduce emissions from all
categories of diesel technology. As introduced, AB 1368 would
establish a fund to assist operators of heavy-duty vehicles and
equipment to purchase clean, alternative fuel technologies by
offsetting the higher incremental costs of low-emissions vehicles
and engines. It would also help operators to clean up existing
vehicles by retrofitting or repowering them to meet higher
standards and provide assistance to reduce emissions from marine
vessels and harbor operations. The program would be funded by a
30-cent fee on every barrel of oil that enters the state's
refineries. Many of these provisions were removed in order to
ensure the bill's passage through the Transportation Committee,
but the substance of the bill as introduced will now be the
subject of a conference committee. AB 1368 enjoys the support of
industry, environmentalists, and public health advocates; only
the oil industry actively opposes this bill. Of course, oil
industry opposition has been sufficient to kill good bills in the
past. AB 1368 has made it over the first hurdle, however, and
will now move on to conference committee.

Coast and Ocean
Coast and ocean legislation is a priority for the California
legislature this year, and the Sierra Club participated in a
broad coalition that launched a legislative flotilla of over 30
bills to restore fisheries, reduce ocean pollution, and protect
coastal resources. Most of those bills advanced successfully
through committee, including the following.
AB 241 (Lempert) - creates a coastal wetlands mitigation
bank
AB 411 (Wayne) - requires public posting of contaminated
beaches
AB 667 (Lempert) - extends Oil Spill Prevention and Response
Act (OSPRA) penalties to inland waterways
AB 1000 (Keeley) - provides funding for coastal habitat
AB 1022 (Lempert) - establishes coastal lobbyist rules
AB 1084 (Bowen) - prohibits Coastal Act violators from
serving on the Coastal Commission
AB 1188 (Lempert) - protects coastal accessways
AB 1429 (Shelley) - develops a comprehensive coastal water
quality monitoring system
AB 1479 (Sweeney) - extends the repeal date of fees for
discharge into estuaries and enclosed bays
SB 1006 (Hayden) - creates the Malibu and Point Dume Marine
Life Refuges
SB 1048 (Sher) - establishes the San Francisco Bay Area
Program

Recycling
All four solid waste/recycling bills that we supported advanced
through their committees. The first, AB 362 (Bowen), would
reinstate the Truth in Environmental Advertising Law, which from
1990 until it was repealed in 1995 established minimum standards
for making environmental claims in advertising and on product
labels. AB 1512 (Shelley) would increase overall recycling by
expanding California's Beverage Container Recycling Program to
include containers for sports drinks, iced teas, juices, and
waters.

Two solid waste bills that passed through their policy committees
deal with the practices of state agencies and facilities. AB 705
(Strom-Martin) would require state facilities to meet the same
waste reduction requirements as local governments, and AB 228
(Migden) would require state agencies to meet the same recycled
paper requirements as newspapers and other publishers. The Sierra
Club was happy to see all these bills progress successfully to
fiscal committee.

CESA
We have begun to expect an annual rash of bills repealing,
limiting, or somehow altering the various provisions of CESA.
This year was no different. However, those bills have taken on
increased significance following the recent appellate court
decision which seriously questioned whether the Department of
Fish and Game (DFG) has statutory authority to grant incidental
take permits under CESA. Since the decision, the issue has
developed special urgency for the DFG, the Wilson administration,
the regulated community, and several key legislators.

With that decision, and with a number of successes in the initial
policy hearings, environmentalists seem to be in good shape to
negotiate on CESA. Basically, we killed all the bad CESA bills
we opposed in the Assembly. Three bills dealing with incidental
take and habitat protection emerged from the Assembly Water,
Parks and Wildlife Committee linked to one another; this package
of bills will be negotiated by all the parties, and moving the
negotiated package forward will be the ultimate test for CESA
reform this year.

On the Senate side, there are only three important CESA-related
bills. SB 1120 (Hayden) would establish scientific criteria for
natural community conversation plans (NCCPs); we were pleased
(and somewhat surprised) to see this bill pass through committee
unanimously. SB 75 (Hayden) and SB 231 (Costa) both deal with
incidental take for agricultural activities. Hayden's bill,
which we support, is narrow and well-defined, while Costa's bill
is vague and unacceptable. The outcome of these bills is still
uncertain, though the situation is hopeful; the Senate Natural
Resources and Wildlife Committee held both bills over pending
negotiations between the authors and the various constituent
groups, including the Sierra Club.

All in all, the Sierra Club and the California environmental
community as a whole did quite well in the initial round of
policy hearings. Most of the bills we supported advanced through
their committees, and we were able to stall or kill many of the
bills we opposed. In addition to the areas described above, we
had success in the issues of parks, land use, government,
forestry, transportation, water quality, the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and toxics and hazardous waste.
Of course, it's still a long way to adjournment.

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