BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2099
Page 1
Date of Hearing: March 29, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HUMAN SERVICES
Susan Bonilla, Chair
AB 2099
(Mark Stone) - As Amended March 28, 2016
SUBJECT: Safe drinking water assistance program
SUMMARY: Provides for safe drinking water assistance to be made
available to specified individuals via the electronic benefits
transfer (EBT) system.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Makes a number of Legislative findings and declarations
regarding barriers to safe, clean, and affordable drinking
water faced by many Californians, and the effectiveness and
efficiency of the EBT system in delivering assistance to
individuals and households.
2)Requires the Department of Social Services (DSS) to establish
and administer a process for delivering interim emergency
drinking water assistance to households that are both of the
following:
a) Low-income, as determined through participation in a
means-tested public assistance program, as specified; and
AB 2099
Page 2
b) Lacking adequate access to safe drinking water because
they are one of the following: served by noncompliant small
water systems in disadvantaged communities, located in
communities deemed eligible for interim emergency drinking
water benefits, or have private wells with active outages
or water supply problems, as specified.
3)Requires DSS to utilize a computerized data-matching system
using existing databases, as specified.
4)Requires DSS to deliver the benefits through the EBT system,
to the extent allowable under state and federal law.
5)Requires the process to be funded from existing drought
response resources allocated for interim water assistance, and
further requires DSS, in consultation with specified entities,
to identify existing resources.
6)Stipulates that the benefits shall be in addition to the
California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids
(CalWORKs) program and shall not be considered as income or
resources for any other program established under the Welfare
and Institutions Code.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) Act, and
defines the EBT system as the program designed to provide
benefits to those eligible to receive public assistance
benefits such as CalWORKs and CalFresh. (WIC 10065 et seq.)
AB 2099
Page 3
2)Establishes the Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure
Improvement Act of 2014. (WAT 79700 et seq.)
3)Provides funding pursuant to the Water Quality, Supply, and
Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014 to address the critical
and immediate needs of disadvantaged, rural, or small
communities that suffer from contaminated drinking water
supplies, including, but not limited to, projects that address
a public health emergency. (WAT 79720 et seq.)
4)Defines "disadvantaged community" for the purposes of various
sections of state Water Code to mean a community with an
annual median household income that is less than 80% of the
statewide annual median household income. (WAT 79505.5)
5)Requires the Office of Systems Integration within DSS to
implement a statewide automated welfare system (SAWS) for
specified public assistance programs. (WIC 10823)
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown.
COMMENTS:
Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT): EBT is an electronic system
that automates the delivery, redemption, and reconciliation of
issued public assistance benefits such as CalWORKs. EBT is also
the method for distributing Cal Fresh benefits (formerly known
as Food Stamps and currently known federally as Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)). EBT is currently used in
all 50 states. In California, CalWORKs and CalFresh recipients
access their benefits via what has been named the Golden State
Advantage EBT card. As with a bank-issued automated teller
AB 2099
Page 4
machine (ATM) card, the cardholder slides this card through a
point-of-sale (POS) device, or uses the card at an ATM.
Access to safe drinking water for low-income households:
Infrastructure failures, polluted water sources, and the drought
all contribute to decreased access to adequate drinking water.
Small, disadvantaged communities face particular challenges with
inadequate drinking water supplies. According to the Public
Policy Institute of California (PPIC), "several recent studies
indicate that a lack of access to safe drinking water in poor,
rural communities is a serious problem. Small water systems
generally rely on groundwater supplies. They have little
ratepayer capacity and high unit costs for supplying safe piped
drinking water to households, and they are often in areas where
groundwater is highly contaminated."
The state has taken a number of steps in the wake of the drought
to help ensure that low-income households can obtain safe
drinking water; these have included interim measures such as:
the State Water Resources Control Board approving funds to
repair wells and supply bottled water and filtration devices,
among other services; the Office of Emergency Services providing
emergency drinking water; and the Department of Water Resources
working on finding longer-term solutions to assist with the
drinking water shortage. However, California Food Policy
Advocates, the sponsors of this bill, point to the gap left by
these current efforts, stating that, among other things the slow
implementation and the often longer-term, infrastructure-focused
approaches can lead to somewhat uneven and limited access to
emergency drinking water assistance. This bill, they contend,
helps fill that gap because it provides an individual
household-level, easy-to-access benefit that a family can access
when it is needed in a given month.
Need for this bill: According to the author, this bill
"represents a temporary, interim solution to upholding the right
AB 2099
Page 5
of all Californians to have safe drinking water. The
Legislature has taken several necessary steps to make long-term
improvements to water delivery and water quality infrastructure.
Yet over a million Californians continue to live in households
where their tap water is so contaminated that no one can drink
it, and thousands of Californians live in homes where there
simply is no water to use - their wells dried up during the
drought. When families can no longer trust their municipal
water systems or private wells to access enough clean water,
they must rely on local utilities delivering water, private
companies or charities donating water, or their own ability to
purchase bottled water.
With California's poverty rate at 16%, many Californians must
choose between using contaminated water and expending their own
scarce resources to pay for clean water. And it should come as
no surprise that inadequate drinking water supplies
disproportionately burden people living in poverty, communities
of color, homeless people, indigenous peoples, and residents of
unincorporated areas.
Since the onset of the drought, the state has taken several
measures to help ensure that low-income households can access
adequate drinking water supplies. Sadly, these interim measures
have not met the needs of all low-income Californians with
inadequate drinking water supplies.
Ultimately, the best way to address the crisis of inadequate
drinking water supplies across the state is by investing in
several expensive, long-term solutions, including upgrading
existing infrastructure, improving water use efficiency and
conservation, improving water treatment, and carefully
monitoring and minimizing the use of contaminated water
supplies. In the meantime, though, poor people need and deserve
to access clean and safe drinking water.
AB 2099
Page 6
[This bill] provides temporary relief to struggling families who
live in homes with inadequate drinking water supplies by
offsetting the cost of bottled water during the interim wait for
long-term water supply infrastructure upgrades. The measure
allows impoverished families and who live in a community or home
with insufficient, contaminated, or otherwise unsafe drinking
water supplies to access a small supplemental cash benefit for
purchasing water. [This bill] adds an additional means of
reaching additional families who need safe drinking water, and
it would become part of an already broad state response to
California's drinking water crisis."
Staff comments: The policy objective of this bill is clear, and
it is important: providing vulnerable populations with access
to safe drinking water is arguably an imperative goal - and
unfortunately, a persistent challenge - for the state. However
this bill, as written, necessarily raises questions regarding
the ability of the SAWS and EBT system to deliver the proposed
benefit to all intended recipients. There remain questions
about proper identification of all eligible households and, upon
identification, seamless delivery of benefits to those
individuals.
While the bill currently establishes a framework for identifying
eligible households, it doesn't define roles and
responsibilities for the various entities involved (including,
at least, DSS, the State Water Resources Control Board, and the
Department of Water Resources). More importantly, however, is
the question about how the benefit will be delivered to
individuals who may be eligible per the bill's requirements, but
not in possession of an EBT card. For example, if an individual
is a Medi-Cal participant, but doesn't participate in any other
means-tested programs, he or she would both be eligible for the
benefit proposed by this bill, but also lacking an EBT card, and
therefore a means for readily accessing this benefit. This type
of probable scenario highlights some of the issues, and lack of
AB 2099
Page 7
clear direction, inherent in the current design of this benefit
as put forth by the bill.
Recommended amendments: To address the above concerns, with the
goal of developing an easily-implemented and fully-accessible
benefit, committee staff recommends establishing a workgroup to
develop recommendations regarding the design and implementation
of the benefit proposed by this bill, and therefore, committee
staff recommends the following amendments:
1) Strike lines 29 through 40 on page 3 of the bill, and
pages 4 and 5, inclusive.
2) After line 28 on page 3 of the bill, insert:
18997
(a) The Department of Social Services shall convene a
workgroup by February 1, 2017, to develop
recommendations for delivering a water benefit to
supplement the purchase of drinking water for low-income
households with inadequate access to safe drinking water.
(b) The water benefit to be developed shall do all of the
following:
(1) Be made available to low-income households with
limited access to safe drinking water including, but not
limited to: households served by noncompliant small water
systems in disadvantaged communities, as defined in
Section 79505.5 of the Water Code; households located in
communities deemed eligible for interim emergency
drinking water benefits by the State Water Resources
Control Board; and households whose private wells have
active outages or water supply problems as determined by
the Department of Water Resources.
AB 2099
Page 8
(2) To the extent possible, be made available via the
electronic benefits transfer system.
(3) To the extent possible, be funded from existing
emergency drought response resources allocated for
interim water assistance.
(a) The workgroup shall consist of representatives from all
of the following entities:
(1) Department of Social Services
(2) State Water Resources Control Board
(3) Department of Water Resources
(4) Office of Emergency Services
(5) County Welfare Directors Association of California
(6) Food policy advocates
(7) Other community advocates, as applicable
(a) The workgroup shall develop recommendations to include
the following:
(1) The design of the benefit.
(2) An implementation plan for identification of
eligible households and delivery of the benefit to those
households.
(3) Possibilities for interim or permanent adoption and
implementation of the benefit through regulations,
all-county letters, or related.
(a) The Department of Social Services shall produce a report
with recommendations for the Legislature and the
Administration by July 1, 2017.
DOUBLE REFERRAL . This bill has been double-referred. Should
this bill pass out of this committee, it will be referred to the
Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee.
AB 2099
Page 9
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
CA4Health
California Association of Food Banks
California Center for Public Health Advocacy (CCPHA)
California Food Policy Advocates (CFPA) - sponsor
California Primary Care Association (CPCA)
California Retailers Association
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation (CRLAF)
Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations (CCWRO)
Community Clinic Association of Los Angeles (CCALAC)
Community Health Councils
AB 2099
Page 10
Community Water Center
Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability
Orange County Food Access Coalition
Rural Community Assistance Corporation
Sacramento Hunger Coalition (SHC)
St. Anthony Foundation
The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by:Daphne Hunt / HUM. S. / (916) 319-2089
AB 2099
Page 11