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.