BILL NUMBER: AB 1071	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Members Atkins and Eduardo Garcia

                        FEBRUARY 26, 2015

   An act to add Section 71118 to the Public Resources Code, relating
to environmental justice.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 1071, as introduced, Atkins. Supplemental environmental
projects.
   Existing law requires the Secretary for Environmental Protection
to convene a Working Group on Environmental Justice to assist the
secretary in developing an agencywide strategy for identifying and
addressing gaps in existing programs, policies, or activities of the
agency's boards, departments, and offices that may impede the
achievement of environmental justice.
   This bill would require each board, department, and office within
the California Environmental Protection Agency to establish a
specified policy on supplemental environmental projects, as defined,
that benefits environmental justice communities, as defined.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 71118 is added to the Public Resources Code, to
read:
   71118.  (a) For purposes of this section, the following terms have
the following meanings:
   (1) "Agency" means the California Environmental Protection Agency.

   (2) "Environmental justice community" means a community identified
pursuant to Section 39711 of the Health and Safety Code.
   (3) "Supplemental environmental project" means an environmentally
beneficial project that a person subject to an enforcement action
voluntarily agrees to undertake in settlement of the action and to
offset some of a civil penalty.
   (b) Each board, department, and office within the agency shall
establish a policy on supplemental environmental projects that
benefits environmental justice communities. The policy shall include,
but need not be limited to, all of the following:
   (1) A public process to solicit potential supplemental
environmental projects from environmental justice communities.
   (2) Allowing the amount of a supplemental environmental project to
be up to 50 percent of the enforcement action brought under the
jurisdiction of a board, department, or office within the agency.
   (3) An annual list of supplemental environmental projects that may
be selected to settle an enforcement action under the jurisdiction
of a board, department, or office within the agency.
   (c) The Secretary for Environmental Protection shall consolidate
the projects compiled pursuant subdivision (b) into one list and post
that list on the agency's Internet Web site.