BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2912
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Date of Hearing: April 18, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
Das Williams, Chair
AB 2912
(Committee on Natural Resources) - As Introduced March 15, 2016
SUBJECT: Oil spills
SUMMARY: Makes conforming and other nonsubstantive changes to
the Government Code that provide clean up from recently enacted
bills and others that simply make needed technical changes.
EXISTING LAW, pursuant to the Lempert-Keene-Seastrand Oil Spill
Prevention and Response Act (Act):
1)Requires the Administrator of the Office of Spill Prevention
and Response (OSPR), acting at the direction of the Governor,
to implement activities relating to oil spill response,
including emergency drills and preparedness, and oil spill
containment and clean up.
2)Imposes various requirements relating to oil spill contingency
planning, prevention, response, containment, and cleanup,
including the obligation that a vessel operator or marine
facility prepare and implement an oil spill contingency plan.
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3)Requires operators of specified vessels and facilities to
submit to the Administrator an oil spill contingency plan.
Requires the Administrator to determine whether the plan meets
applicable requirements.
4)Requires the Administrator to periodically evaluate the
feasibility of requiring new technologies to aid prevention,
response, containment, clean-up, and wildlife rehabilitation.
5)Requires the Administrator, taking into consideration the
facility or vessel contingency plan requirements of the State
Lands Commission, the Office of the State Fire Marshal, the
Coastal Commission, and other state and federal agencies, to
adopt regulations governing the adequacy of oil spill
contingency plans. Requires regulations to be developed in
consultation with the Oil Spill Technical Advisory Committee,
and not in conflict with the National Contingency Plan.
Requires regulations to provide for the best achievable
protection of waters and natural resources of the state,
including standards set for response, containment, and clean
up equipment and that operations are maintained and regularly
improved to protect the resources of the state.
6)Requires a responsible party to be strictly liable for
penalties for a spill on a per gallon released basis.
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS: SB 861 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review),
Chapter 35, Statutes of 2014, expanded the oil spill
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preparedness and response program to cover all state surface
waters at risk of oil spills from any source, including vessels,
pipelines, production facilities, and rail. This expansion
provided critical administrative funding for preparedness, spill
response, and continued coordination with local, state, and
federal government, along with industry and non-governmental
organizations. SB 861 authorized the extension of the
successful marine oil spill preparedness and response program to
apply to facilities handling or transporting oil where a spill
could impact inland surface waters; thus making the program
statewide. This bill makes several clean up corrections to
create consistency in the code for this expansion. This bill
also moves the response efforts definition to the definition
section of the Act.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
None on file
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by:Michael Jarred / NAT. RES. / (916) 319-2092
AB 2912
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