California Legislature—2015–16 Regular Session

Assembly Bill No. 2800

Introduced by Assembly Member Quirk

February 19, 2016

An act to add Division 33 (commencing with Section 56000) to the Health and Safety Code, relating to building standards.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

AB 2800, as introduced, Quirk. Building standards: climate change effects.

Existing law, the California Building Standards Law, requires the California Building Standards Commission to promulgate and publish updated building standards adopted in the California Building Standards Code every 3 years. The commission receives proposed building standards from state agencies in the course of the adoption cycle. These proposed standards are then made available for public inspection and hearings and are reviewed by technical advisory bodies appointed by the commission.

This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would require the California Environmental Protection Agency, in coordination with other state agencies, to establish appropriate standards for the development, design, and construction of infrastructure projects that will withstand the effects of climate change.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no. State-mandated local program: no.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.  

Division 33 (commencing with Section 56000)
is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read:

 

Division 33.  Climate Change Building
Standards

 

56000.  

(a) The Legislature finds and declares that there exist
throughout the state many buildings and infrastructure projects
which are not capable of withstanding the effects of climate change,
that adequate standards do not exist for the development, design,
and construction of infrastructure projects that will withstand the
effects of climate change, and that it is within the public interest
to establish appropriate standards for infrastructure projects that
will withstand the effects of climate change.

(b) It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature to enact
legislation that would require the California Environmental
Protection Agency, in coordination with other state agencies, to
establish appropriate standards for the development, design and
construction of infrastructure projects that will allow these projects
to withstand the effects of climate change, utilize the most
up-to-date climate science, and ensure the state’s infrastructure is
developed with an understanding of the impacts that climate change
will have on proposed projects.