BILL ANALYSIS Ó ------------------------------------------------------------ |SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 582| |Office of Senate Floor Analyses | | |1020 N Street, Suite 524 | | |(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | | |327-4478 | | ------------------------------------------------------------ THIRD READING Bill No: SB 582 Author: Emmerson (R), et al. Amended: 5/5/11 Vote: 21 SENATE TRANSPORTATION & HOUSING COMMITTEE : 8-0, 4/26/11 AYES: DeSaulnier, Gaines, Harman, Huff, Kehoe, Lowenthal, Pavley, Rubio NO VOTE RECORDED: Simitian SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE : 5-0, 5/9/11 AYES: Strickland, Hancock, Kehoe, Lowenthal, Pavley NO VOTE RECORDED: Simitian, Blakeslee SUBJECT : Commute benefit policies SOURCE : Bay Area Air Quality Management District Metropolitan Transportation Commission DIGEST : This bill authorizes, until January 1, 2017, a metropolitan planning organization and an air district to adopt jointly an ordinance that requires certain employers located within their common area of jurisdiction to offer their employees specified commute benefits with the goal of reducing single-occupant vehicle trips. ANALYSIS : Existing state law provides that air pollution control districts and air quality management districts (hereafter, collectively, air districts) have primary responsibility for controlling air pollution from all CONTINUED SB 582 Page 2 sources, other than emissions from mobile sources. Federal law establishes metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) for the purpose of developing regional transportation plans in urbanized areas with populations greater than 50,000. This bill: 1. Allows a local air district and a metropolitan planning organization to jointly adopt a commute benefit ordinance for their common jurisdiction that require employers to offer one of the following options: A. A pretax option consistent with federal law allowing covered employees to exclude from taxable wages certain employee transit pass, vanpool, or bicycle commuting costs. B. An employer-paid benefit whereby the covered employer offers a subsidy to offset the transit or vanpool commuting costs. In 2013, the subsidy must be equal to either the monthly cost of commuting or $75, whichever is lower, and annually thereafter the subsidy must be adjusted as consistent with the California Consumer Price Index. C. Transportation furnished by the covered employer at no or low cost to the covered employee in a vanpool, bus, or multipassenger vehicle operated by or for the employer. 2. Provides that an employer may offer a more generous commuter benefit than is otherwise required by the applicable commute benefit ordinance. 3. Allows an employer offering an alternative commuter benefit not identified above to seek approval of the alternative benefit from the MPO. The MPO may approve the alternative benefit if it determines the alternative benefit provides at least the same benefit in terms of reducing single-occupant vehicle trips as any of the options above. CONTINUED SB 582 Page 3 4. Requires that the commute benefit ordinance must provide covered employers with at least six months to comply after adoption of the ordinance. 5. Requires a commute benefit ordinance to specify how the implementing agencies will inform covered employers, how compliance will be demonstrated, the procedures for proposing and criteria used to evaluate an alternative commuter benefit, and any consequences for noncompliance. 6. Requires that for the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District to adopt a commute benefit ordinance it must be jointly adopted by all eight MPOs partially or wholly within its jurisdiction. 7. Requires that on or before July 1, 2016, a MPO and air district that implement a commute benefit ordinance report to the Legislature and sets various requirements for that report. 8. Defines "covered employer" to mean any employer for which an average of 20 or more employees perform work for compensation on a full-time basis within the area where a commute benefit ordinance is adopted except that a MPO may provide for the ordinance to apply solely to employers with 50 or more employees. 9. Defines "covered employee" to mean an employee who performed at least an average of 20 hours of work per week within the pervious calendar month within the area where the ordinance is adopted. 10.Provides that the statutory or regulatory authority of a MPO or air district is not limited or restricted. 11.Provides the above provisions sunset January 1, 2017. 12.Excludes from all of the above provisions an air district with a trip reduction regulation initially adopted prior to the 1990 Federal Clean Air Act Amendments as long as it continues to have a trip reduction regulation. CONTINUED SB 582 Page 4 Background Metropolitan planning organizations and air districts . MPOs are agencies established under federal law in urbanized areas with more than 50,000 persons with the purpose of developing the region's transportation plan (RTP), as required by federal law. There are 18 MPOs in California, which together cover 37 counties. Many MPOs are also the region's regional transportation planning agency (RTPA) established under state law. While the specific responsibilities of an RTPA may vary somewhat across each region, RTPAs generally have responsibility for transportation planning and allocating funds from certain state and federal highway and transit programs. Air quality management districts and air pollution control districts (air districts) are agencies established under state law that are responsible for achieving and maintaining state and federal ambient air quality standards within their jurisdiction. All areas of the state are covered by an air district. Existing law broadly authorizes air districts to adopt and enforce rules and regulations to achieve these standards, including adopting rules to reduce or mitigate emissions from indirect and areawide sources of air pollution and to encourage or require the use of measures that reduce the number or length of vehicle trips. Air districts or any other public agency, including a congestion management agency, may not, however, require an employer to implement an employee trip reduction program unless the program is expressly required by federal law. Laws designed to reduce single-occupant vehicle trips . There exists in state law few programs or requirements that seek to encourage commuters to use a mode of transportation other than the single-occupant vehicle. One such requirement is parking cash-out, which requires each employer with 50 or more employees that provides a parking subsidy to employees to provide a cash allowance to an employee who does not use the parking space in an amount equivalent to the amount the employer would otherwise pay to provide that employee a parking space. FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: No CONTINUED SB 582 Page 5 Local: No SUPPORT : (Verified 5/16/11) Bay Area Air Quality Management District (co-source) Metropolitan Transportation Commission (co-source) Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District American Lung Association Brereton Architects Britannia Oyster Point Commute Program California Transit Association E.L. Williams Realty Enterprise Holdings Environmental Defense Fund Facebook Genentech San Francisco Chamber of Commerce South San Francisco Business Center Sunnyvale City Center Transform T.Y. Lin International Water Emergency Transportation Authority Wendel, Rosen, Black & Dean LLP OPPOSITION : (Verified 5/16/11) Sacramento Metropolitan Air Quality Management District JJA:mw 5/17/11 Senate Floor Analyses SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE **** END **** CONTINUED