BILL ANALYSIS ----------------------------------------------------------------- | | | SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER | | Senator Fran Pavley, Chair | | 2009-2010 Regular Session | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- BILL NO: SB 1169 HEARING DATE: August 27, 2010 AUTHOR: Lowenthal URGENCY: No VERSION: August 20, 2010 CONSULTANT: Dennis O'Connor DUAL REFERRAL: No FISCAL: Yes SUBJECT: Water. BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW The State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) is a 5 member board, appointed by the governor, which oversees the state's water rights and water pollution prevention laws. PROPOSED LAW This bill would update cross-references, delete obsolete provisions, remove gender specific references, and makes other non-controversial technical changes to the water code. ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: According to the SWRCB: As statutes are enacted year-by-year, conforming changes must be made to all affected code sections that reference a newly updated or created law. In the process of drafting bill language to accomplish this goal, some code sections have not been properly updated. In addition, drafting errors sometimes have been made in writing bill language at the various stages of the legislative process. In some cases, code sections need to be modified to reflect final judicial interpretations of statutes that would otherwise be unclear. This bill will make technical, non-controversial changes in order to address these issues in the Water Code and the Government Code. By doing so, this bill will help to prevent any confusion and unnecessary legal action in the administration of the State Water Board's duties and programs. ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION: None 1 COMMENTS Purpose of Bill . This bill is a technical water code cleanup bill sponsored by SWRCB. It amends various water rights provisions of the water code, which are in this committee's jurisdiction, as well as to the water pollution prevention provisions, which are in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee's jurisdiction. The changes to the water rights provisions are mostly technical, clarifying and non-substantive. It updates cross-references, deletes obsolete provisions, removes gender specific references, and makes other non-controversial technical changes. Related Bills. This bill contains language that was previously in AB 2776 (Committee on Water Parks, and Wildlife.) Before that bill was heard in this committee, AB 2776 was amended and became a Huffman bill dealing with water transfers. The Senate Environmental Quality Committee did consider the water quality provisions of AB 2776 (Committee on Water Parks, and Wildlife) on 6/14 (before it became a water transfers bill). It passed out on a 7-0 vote. SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS: None SUPPORT State Water Resources Control Board (Sponsor) OPPOSITION None Received 2