BILL ANALYSIS AB 2379 SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY Senator S. Joseph Simitian, Chairman 2009-2010 Regular Session BILL NO: AB 2379 AUTHOR: Feuer AMENDED: April 7, 2010 FISCAL: Yes HEARING DATE: June 14, 2010 URGENCY: No CONSULTANT: Rachel Machi Wagoner SUBJECT : ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION: HAZARDOUS WASTE SOURCE REDUCTION SUMMARY : Existing law , under the Hazardous Waste Source Reduction and Management Review Act of 1989, requires specified generators of hazardous waste to maintain certain plans, reports, and summaries with regard to hazardous waste reduction practices. The act also requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to establish a technical assistance and outreach program to promote implementation of model source reduction measures in priority industry categories. The act requires the DTSC to select at least two priority categories of generators for participation in DTSC's cooperative source reduction technical assistance and outreach program every two years. This bill expands the number of priority categories of hazardous waste generators that DTSC must select for participation in the DTSC's cooperative source reduction technical assistance and outreach program to: 1) Expand, from two to four, the number of priority categories of hazardous waste generators DTSC must select for participation in DTSC's cooperative source reduction technical assistance and outreach program. 2) Require that at least one selected category of generators primarily consist of businesses affected by action taken by DTSC pursuant to the Green Chemistry program. AB 2379 Page 2 COMMENTS : 1)Purpose of Bill . According to the author, AB 2379 expands and enhances the scope of DTSC's pollution prevention program in order to provide assistance to businesses as they transition to safer consumer products. Under California's Green Chemistry framework, users and manufacturers of consumer products containing chemicals of concern will begin to move towards less toxic alternatives under a regulatory process established by AB 1879 (Feuer) Chapter 559, Statutes of 2008, and SB 509 (Simitian) Chapter 560, Statutes of 2008. AB 2379 will allow DTSC to help businesses most affected by these changes with technical and other assistance. 2)Pollution Prevention . DTSC developed its pollution prevention program (P2), pursuant to SB 1916 (Sher) Chapter 881, Statutes of 1998, to provide technical assistance and outreach to businesses and industries to reduce their generation of hazardous waste. However, the paradigm of focusing chemical management on the end of a production pipeline is currently shifting toward a more lifecycle-focused principle consistent with implementation of the Green Chemistry Initiative. 3)Green Chemistry . AB 1879 (Feuer) Chapter 559, Statutes of 2008 and SB 509 (Simitian), Chapter 560, Statutes of 2008 implement together two key pieces of a green chemistry initiative for California: 1) requiring DTSC to adopt regulations for the identification, prioritization, and evaluation of chemicals or chemical ingredients in products that may be considered a "chemical of concern" and their potential alternatives; and 2) requiring DTSC and the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment to establish a Toxics Information Clearinghouse for the collection, maintenance, and distribution of specific chemical hazard traits and environmental and toxicological end-point data, and to evaluate and specify the hazard traits and environmental and toxicological end-points and any other relevant data that are to be included in the AB 2379 Page 3 clearinghouse. DTSC recently released an outline of the regulations that DTSC is currently working to develop. According to DTSC, the projected release date of the proposed regulations is late spring/early summer of 2010 and the department projects completing and adopting the final regulations by the end of 2010. 4)Related Legislation . AB 1131 (Feuer) of 2009 would have expanded the DTSC pollution prevention (P2) program and transferred the state's hazardous materials emergency programs - the business and area plan program and the accidental release prevention program (Cal ARP) - from the California Emergency Management Agency (CAL EMA) to DTSC. AB 1131 was held on the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense file. SOURCE : Assembly Member Feuer SUPPORT : Breast Cancer Fund OPPOSITION : None on file