BILL ANALYSIS Ó SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER Senator Fran Pavley, Chair 2015 - 2016 Regular Bill No: AB 939 Hearing Date: July 14, 2015 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Author: |Salas | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Version: |July 8, 2015 Amended | ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |No | ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Consultant:|Dennis O'Connor | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Groundwater sustainability agencies. BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW Last session, the Legislature passed and the Governor signed SB 1168 (Pavley), SB 1319 (Pavley) and AB 1739 (Dickinson). Those three bills established the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), and made other related changes to the California Water Code. Together, those bills created a comprehensive program to achieve sustainable groundwater management in California. Under the California Water Code, the singular includes the plural, and the plural includes the singular. PROPOSED LAW This bill would make two changes to SGMA: 1.Regarding what happens when a basin is upgraded to a high- or medium-priority basin in the future, this bill would change "agency" to "agency, or a combination of local agencies overlying a groundwater basin." 2.Regarding how a groundwater sustainability agency establishes rates under SGMA and how soon the agency is required to make available to the public data upon which the proposed fee is based, this bill would change the time from "10 days" before the hearing to "20 days." AB 939 (Salas) Page 2 of ? This bill also includes chaptering instructions should both this bill and SB 13 (Pavley) both become enacted. ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: None received ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION: None received COMMENTS Is This A Spot Bill? The author's office asserts it is not. SUPPORT: None Received OPPOSITION: None Received -- END --