BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 1071 (Atkins) - Supplemental environmental projects.
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|Version: August 18, 2015 |Policy Vote: E.Q. 7 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: No |
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|Hearing Date: August 24, 2015 |Consultant: Marie Liu |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill would require each of the boards,
departments, and offices (BDOs) of the California Environmental
Protection Agency (CalEPA) to establish a policy on the use of
supplemental environmental projects (SEPs) that benefit
disadvantaged communities that may be voluntarily undertaken to
offset a civil penalty.
Fiscal
Impact:
Unknown lost revenues, likely in the millions of dollars, to
various special funds as a result of penalty reductions as a
result of SEPs.
Minor and absorbable costs to various special funds for the
BDOs to oversee SEPs.
Background: Under existing law, penalties for violations of environmental
laws can be partially offset by a commitment to undertake an
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SEP. Under CalEPA's recommended guidance on SEPs, released in
2003, SEPs must improve, protect, or reduce risks to public
health or the environment at large. The enforcing agency is
required to help shape the scope of the project prior to
approval, though the project must remain a voluntary action that
the defendant is not legally required to perform. There must
also be a relationship between the violation and the SEP. For
example, the SEP may remediate or reduce the environmental or
public health impacts of the violations. Various CalEPA BDOs
have adopted their own SEP policies since the release of the
CalEPA guidelines.
Proposed Law:
This bill would require each of the BDOs within CalEPA to
adopt a policy on SEPs that include the following:
A public process to solicit potential SEPs from
disadvantaged communities
Allowance for the amount of SEP to be up to 50% of the
enforcement action
A consideration of the relationship between the location
of the violation and the location of the proposed SEP
An annual list of SEPs that may be used to settle a
portion of an enforcement actions.
This bill would require CalEPA to post a list of adopted SEPs on
its website.
Staff
Comments: CalEPA anticipates that the cost for its BDOs to
create the required policies or to amend an existing policy to
conform with the requirements of the bill is minor and
absorbable.
By requiring the establishment of a policy that allows up to 50%
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of an enforcement action to be satisfied by a SEP, this bill
will likely result in decreased penalty revenues to various
special funds in the millions of dollars.
The BDOs may also have some costs to oversee the additional SEPs
that are likely to be adopted by the creation of a SEP policy.
These costs are likely to be minor and absorbable or covered by
penalty settlement terms.
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