BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 276|
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 276
Author: Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials
AmendedAmended:8/31/15 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE: 7-0, 6/17/15
AYES: Wieckowski, Gaines, Bates, Hill, Jackson, Leno, Pavley
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 5-0, 8/27/15
AYES: Lara, Beall, Hill, Leyva, Mendoza
NO VOTE RECORDED: Bates, Nielsen
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/3/15 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: Department of Toxic Substances Control: response
actions: cleanup ability information
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill allows the Department of Toxic Substances
Control (DTSC), or an authorized agency, to require a person to
furnish information regarding a person's ability to pay for, or
to perform, a response action.
ANALYSIS: Existing federal law, under the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA),
establishes prohibitions and requirements concerning closed and
abandoned hazardous waste sites; provides for liability of
persons responsible for releases of hazardous waste at these
sites; and authorizes the United States Environmental Protection
Agency (US EPA) to request information relating to the ability
to pay for or to perform a cleanup.
Existing state law:
AB 276
Page 2
1)Establishes the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC)
to protect California against threats to public health and
degradation to the environment and to restore properties
degraded by past environmental contamination, and requires the
DTSC to regulate management of hazardous wastes, clean up
existing contamination, and prevent pollution by working with
businesses to reduce their hazardous waste and use of toxic
materials.
2)Authorizes the DTSC to incur direct cleanup costs and
oversight costs (response costs) in remediating contaminated
properties.
3)Authorizes the DTSC to recover those costs from responsible
parties.
4)Permits the DTSC or any local officer or agency authorized to
enforce the Hazardous Waste Control Law to require specified
parties to furnish and transmit certain information relating
to hazardous substances, hazardous wastes, and hazardous
materials.
5)Pursuant to the Carpenter-Presley-Tanner Hazardous Substance
Account Act, authorizes the DTSC to require any potentially
responsible party, or any person who has, or may have acquired
certain information relating to hazardous substances and
hazardous substance release sites in the course of a
commercial, ownership, or contractual relationship with a
potentially responsible party to furnish that information.
6)Authorizes the US EPA to request information relating to the
ability to pay for or to perform a cleanup.
This bill:
1) Requires any person that is managing or has managed hazardous
waste, including those that have applied for a permit, to
provide information to the DTSC regarding the ability of
those persons to pay for or perform a cleanup;
AB 276
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2) Authorizes the DTSC to issue an order directing compliance
with a request for information if a person intentionally or
negligently fails to provide requested information;
3) Authorizes the DTSC to disclose the information under certain
circumstances to authorized representatives, contractors, or
government agencies, including the United States
Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA);
4) Requires any person providing the specified information to
the DTSC to identify all of the information that is
considered a trade secret and imposes penalties for failure
to comply with the measures protecting information;
5) Authorizes the DTSC to require a person who has or may have
information relevant to the ability of a person to pay for or
perform a cleanup to furnish and transmit that information to
the DTSC;
6) Authorizes the DTSC to impose penalties if a person
intentionally or negligently fails to furnish the required
information or makes false statements or representations; and
7) Provides that there will be no reimbursement by the state for
any costs incurred by a local agency.
Background
1) State Audit Report: On August 7, 2014, the Bureau of State
Audits (BSA) released a report on the DTSC's cost recovery.
The BSA found that long-standing shortcomings with the DTSC's
recovery of costs have resulted in millions of dollars in
unbilled and billed but uncollected cleanup costs dating back
to 1987.
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The BSA found that as of March 2014, the DTSC's spreadsheet
for tracking projects with outstanding costs shows that it
has 1,661 projects totaling almost $194 million in
outstanding costs, of which nearly $142 million was unbilled
and almost $52 million was billed but uncollected. These
outstanding costs were incurred between July 1987 and
December 2013.
According to the State Auditor, "[DTSC] is also limited in
its ability to recover costs effectively because it lacks the
authority to require a potentially responsible party to
provide information related to the financial ability to pay
cleanup costs. Unlike the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, [DTSC] does not have the authority to require that
potentially responsible parties provide financial information
when searching for responsible parties. Instead, [DTSC] can
only request potentially responsible parties to provide
financial information voluntarily. Having the authority to
compel parties to submit pertinent financial information
would allow [DTSC] to identify those potentially responsible
parties who genuinely lack the ability to pay for cleanup and
no longer require [DTSC] to first sue these parties to obtain
financial information... The ability to require this type of
information could better inform the [DTSC's] decision making
about whether to file cost recovery actions because it could
better differentiate between parties capable of paying for
cleanup costs, thus increasing the department's ability to
recover costs effectively."
2) What information does the US EPA request? Under CERCLA, the
US EPA has the authority to request financial information
from potentially responsible parties. The US EPA typically
uses a tiered approach to invoking this authority; first, the
US EPA will ask a party if it has the ability to pay or
perform a cleanup. If the party does have that ability, then
the US EPA typically does not ask for further information.
If the party indicates it cannot pay or perform a cleanup,
then the US EPA will request information supporting that
claim, including, but not limited to, bank statements,
financial statements, proposed budgets, market appraisals,
etc.
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As this bill proposes to model this authority for the DTSC
verbatim after the US EPA's existing authority under CERCLA,
any party affected by this legislation is already or can be
covered under existing federal law.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:Yes Local: Yes
According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, this bill will
have unknown costs, potentially in the range of $200,000
annually, to the Toxic Substances Control Account (General
Fund), for workload to request, collect, and process financial
information from responsible parties.
SUPPORT: (Verified8/27/15)
California League of Conservation Voters
Environment California
Environmental Working Group
Natural Resources Defense Council
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/27/15)
None received
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 78-0, 6/3/15
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Bloom,
Bonilla, Bonta, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau,
Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly,
Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina
Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez,
Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper, Roger Hernández, Holden,
AB 276
Page 6
Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Lackey, Levine, Linder,
Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, McCarty, Medina, Melendez,
Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte, O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson,
Perea, Quirk, Rendon, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas,
Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner,
Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Atkins
NO VOTE RECORDED: Brough, Mayes
Prepared by:Rachel Machi Wagoner / E.Q. / (916) 651-4108
8/30/15 19:11:27
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