BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2099
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB
2099 (Mark Stone)
As Amended May 27, 2016
Majority vote
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|Committee |Votes|Ayes |Noes |
| | | | |
| | | | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Human Services |6-0 |Bonilla, Calderon, | |
| | |Lopez, Maienschein, | |
| | |Mark Stone, Thurmond | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Environmental |7-0 |Alejo, Dahle, Beth | |
|Safety | |Gaines, Gray, Lopez, | |
| | |McCarty, Ting | |
| | | | |
|----------------+-----+----------------------+--------------------|
|Appropriations |20-0 |Gonzalez, Bigelow, | |
| | |Bloom, Bonilla, | |
| | |Bonta, Calderon, | |
| | |Chang, Daly, Eggman, | |
| | |Gallagher, Eduardo | |
| | |Garcia, Roger | |
| | |Hernández, Holden, | |
| | |Jones, Obernolte, | |
| | |Quirk, Santiago, | |
| | |Wagner, Weber, Wood | |
AB 2099
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| | | | |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY: Requires the Department of Social Services (DSS) to
establish a workgroup charged with developing recommendations
for the delivery of a water benefit to low-income households
with inadequate access to safe drinking water, as specified.
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 Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) system in
delivering assistance to individuals and households.
2)Requires DSS to, by February 1, 2017, convene a workgroup to
develop recommendations for delivering a water benefit to
low-income households with inadequate access to safe drinking
water in order to supplement the purchase of drinking water.
3)Requires the water benefit to be:
a) Made available to low-income households with inadequate
access to safe drinking water;
b) Provided through the EBT system, to the extent possible;
and
c) Funded from existing emergency drought response
resources, as specified and to the extent possible.
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4)Requires the workgroup to consist of specified entities,
including, among others: DSS, the State Water Resources
Control Board, the Department of Water Resources, and food
policy advocates.
5)Requires the recommendations developed by the workgroup to
include all of the following:
a) The design of the benefit;
b) An implementation plan for identification of eligible
households and delivery of the benefit to those households,
as specified; and
c) Possibilities for interim or permanent adoption and
implementation of the benefit through regulations,
all-county letters, or similar instruction.
6)Requires DSS to submit a report with the recommendations
developed pursuant to this bill to the Legislature and the
California Health and Human Services Agency by July 1, 2017,
as specified.
7)Sunsets the provisions of this bill on July 1, 2021, as
specified.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Establishes the Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) Act, and
defines the EBT system as the program designed to provide
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benefits to those eligible to receive public assistance
benefits such as CalWORKs and CalFresh. (Welfare and
Institutions Code Section (WIC) 10065 et seq.)
2)Establishes the Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure
Improvement Act of 2014. (Water Code Section (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: According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, this bill may result in the following costs:
1)Minor and absorbable costs to DSS to convene the working group
and produce the required report.
2)Significant future cost pressure to DSS to implement the
recommendations in the report.
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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
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
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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
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.
"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. [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."
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Analysis Prepared by:
Daphne Hunt / HUM. S. / (916) 319-2089 FN:
0003330