BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 1833 Page 1 Date of Hearing: May 11, 2016 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Lorena Gonzalez, Chair AB 1833 (Linder) - As Amended April 25, 2016 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Transportation |Vote:|15 - 0 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | |Natural Resources | |8 - 1 | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill establishes the Advanced Mitigation Program (AMP) at Caltrans to implement environmental mitigation measures in advance of future transportation projects. Specifically, this bill: AB 1833 Page 2 1)Requires Caltrans to track all implemented advanced mitigation projects to use as credits to fulfill environmental mitigation requirements of any environmental law for a transportation project eligible for the State Transportation Improvement Program or the State Highway Operation and Protection Program. 2)Requires Caltrans, no later than February 1, 2017, to establish an interagency transportation advanced mitigation steering committee consisting, as specified, to support the AMP. 3)Stipulates that the AMP does not replace or alter mitigation requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the California Endangered Species Act, or other applicable law. FISCAL EFFECT: An AMP would likely cost in the low tens of millions of dollars annually, including Caltrans' administrative costs for the steering committee. (This bill is identical to the advanced mitigation proposal in the Governor's proposed transportation funding package, except that the Governor also proposes $30 million annually to support the program.) Presumably, these up-front costs would eventually be more than offset by the avoided costs of mitigation within individual transportation project budgets that are assigned AMP credits and by cost savings related to shorter project delivery times. COMMENTS: AB 1833 Page 3 Background and Purpose. CEQA provides a process for evaluating the environmental effects of applicable projects undertaken or approved by public agencies. If a project is not exempt from CEQA, an initial study is prepared to determine whether or not the project may have a significant effect on the environment. If not, the lead agency must prepare a negative declaration. If the study shows that the project may have a significant effect on the environment, the lead agency must prepare an EIR. Generally, an EIR must accurately describe the proposed project, identify and analyze each significant environmental impact expected to result from the proposed project, identify mitigation measures to reduce those impacts to the extent feasible, and evaluate a range of reasonable alternatives to the proposed project. For large infrastructure development entities, like Caltrans, whose activities can result in a broad range of impacts from small, temporary disturbances associated with maintenance activities to large multi-acre impacts associated with building bridges or highway alignments, developing multiple small mitigation sites can be costly, time consuming, and result in fragmented habitats. To address these issues, both state and regional entities have utilized advanced mitigation as a way to provide high quality replacement habitat, achieve economies of scale in its development, and reduce project delivered delays. For the most part, Caltrans has greater experience developing smaller-scale advanced mitigation sites is that it must rely, almost exclusively, on funds from individual project budgets. Since project funds are not available far enough in advance, it is not possible for them to complete the costly and time consuming steps needed to complete advanced mitigation before the project goes to construction and mitigation credits are needed. While this bill includes no funding and places in statute a tool AB 1833 Page 4 that Caltrans may already use under CEQA and other environmental laws, it should provide added value requiring Caltrans to coordinate with other agencies in planning for the use of advanced mitigation for future transportation projects. Analysis Prepared by:Chuck Nicol / APPR. / (916) 319-2081