BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                           Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair

                                           1284 (Ducheny)
          
          Hearing Date:  05/10/2010           Amended: 04/26/2010
          Consultant:  Brendan McCarthy   Policy Vote: EQ 7-0














































          SB 1284 (Ducheny), Page 2


          _________________________________________________________________ 
          ____
          BILL SUMMARY: SB 1284 exempts certain violations of waste  
          discharge reporting requirements from existing mandatory minimum  
          penalties. The bill also extends the time limit under which  
          dischargers must come into compliance with a permit requirement  
          from five years to ten years.
          _________________________________________________________________ 
          ____
                            Fiscal Impact (in thousands)

           Major Provisions         2010-11      2011-12       2012-13     Fund
                                                                  
          Upgrading permit tracking         $360                  Special  
          *
             system

          Reduced penalty revenueUnknown                          Special  
          **

          Additional enforcement cost       Unknown               Special  
          *

          * Waste Discharge Permit Fund.
          ** Waste Discharge Permit Fund and Cleanup and Abatement Fund.
          _________________________________________________________________ 
          ____

          STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the  
          Suspense File.

          Under current law, parties that discharge waste into rivers and  
          streams must meet waste discharge requirements set by the State  
          Water Resources Control Board or a regional water quality  
          control board. Dischargers are required to file periodic reports  
          documenting the amount and characteristics of their discharges.

          Current law establishes mandatory minimum penalties of $3,000  
          for several specified violations of the law, including failure  
          to report on discharges. There are several exceptions to the  
          mandatory minimum penalty requirements. For instance, a regional  
          board may make an exception if the discharger has a plan for  
          coming into compliance within five years (or ten years if the  
          discharger is in the process of upgrading its facilities to meet  
          specified federal requirements).








          SB 1284 (Ducheny), Page 2


          SB 1284 exempts certain violations of reporting requirements  
          from mandatory minimum penalties. Specifically, the bill exempts  
          violations for a failure to file a discharge monitoring report  
          when the State Water Board or a regional water board has not  
          notified the discharger of the violation within 90 days. The  
          bill exempts violations for a failure to file a discharge  
          monitoring report for any period when there was no discharge.  
          The bill exempts violations for a failure to file a discharge  
          monitoring report for any period in which discharges did not  
          violate the effluent limitations in the waste discharge  
          requirement.

          SB 1284 also allows the Water Board or regional water boards to  
          avoid assessing a minimum mandatory penalty if the discharger  
          has adopted a plan to come into compliance that will take not  
          more than ten years.

          Dischargers are currently required to provide reports to  
          regional water board and/or the State Water Board. However, the  
          water boards do not have a system in place to systematically  
          record the receipt of these reports. Thus the water boards often  
          do not realize that required reports are overdue. In some  
          instances, dischargers have failed to file reports for several  
          years and were never notified of this violation. Upon later  
          review, these dischargers have been assessed very large fines  
          for ongoing violations of the reporting requirement.

          The State Water Board indicates that, in order to provide timely  
          notification to dischargers of late reports, it will need to  
          upgrade its tracking system. The State Water Board indicates  
          that it will need about $360,000 in additional staff and  
          contract funds to upgrade their systems.

          Because the bill exempts some violations from mandatory minimum  
          penalties, the bill is likely to reduce future penalty revenues.  
          The amount of any potential penalty revenue loss is unknown.

          Staff notes that by eliminating penalties for non-reporting when  
          no discharge has occurred or when no violations of waste  
          discharge requirements have occurred, some dischargers may elect  
          not to file reports under these circumstances. However, because  
          the water boards may not know why dischargers have stopped  
          reporting, the water boards may incur additional enforcement  
          costs to follow up with dischargers that have stopped filing  
          reports. The extent of this impact is unknown.








          SB 1284 (Ducheny), Page 2



          AB 25 (Gilmore) provides alternative penalties for public school  
          districts that violate waste discharge requirements. That bill  
          is in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee.