BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER
Senator Fran Pavley, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 2912 Hearing Date: June 28,
2016
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|Author: |Committee on Natural | | |
| |Resources | | |
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|Version: |June 20, 2016 Amended |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Katharine Moore |
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Subject: Oil spills
BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW
Existing law:
1)Establishes the Lempert-Keene-Seastrand Oil Spill Prevention
and Response Act (Act) (SB 2040, Chapter 1248, Statutes of
1990), as amended. This Act created the Office of Spill
Prevention and Response (OSPR) in the Department of Fish and
Wildlife. The Act complements and builds upon federal oil
spill law and regulations. The Act contains numerous
provisions including, among others, those related to planning
for and responding to oil spills, an extensive list of defined
terms, and financial responsibility and damages in the event
of a spill.
2)Establishes OSPR's mission to provide the best achievable
protection of California's natural resources and the public
health and safety by preventing, preparing for, and responding
to spills of oil and other deleterious materials to all waters
of the state, and to restore and enhance affected resources.
3)Provides for the appointment of the OSPR administrator
(administrator) to lead OSPR.
AB 2912 (Committee on Natural Resources) Page 2
of ?
In 2014, prompted by the expected growth in the transportation
of crude oil by rail in the state, the Public Resources budget
trailer bill (SB 861, c. 35, Statutes of 2014) made significant
changes to the Act in order to extend OSPR's ability to prepare
for and respond to inland oil spills.
PROPOSED LAW
This bill would make several technical and clarifying changes to
the Act. In particular, it would:
1)Restore the definition of "marine waters" inadvertently
deleted by SB 861, and
2)Additional technical and clarifying changes.
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT
As noted in the analysis when this bill was heard before the
Assembly Natural Resources Committee, this bill "makes
conforming and other nonsubstantive changes to the Government
Code that provide clean up from recently enacted bill and others
that simply make needed technical changes."
ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION
None received
COMMENTS
Persons, parties and contractors. As there are some minor
inconsistencies between how contractors, injured persons and
parties were referred to in recent amendments, the Committee may
wish to further amend the bill to fix these inconsistencies.
[Amendment 1]
The Incident Command structure . Existing federal and state laws
and regulations provide for an Incident Command structure to
manage oil spill response. Both federal (the US Coast Guard in
marine waters or the US Environmental Protection Agency inland)
and state (OSPR) entities are part of Incident Command as is the
responsible party (and/or its contractors). Local responders
may also participate.
SUGGESTED AMENDMENTS
AMENDMENT 1
AB 2912 (Committee on Natural Resources) Page 3
of ?
On page 18, line 30: restore "person" to "party" (existing
law)
On page 22, lines 27 - 28: add "persons who are" between
"with" and "qualified" and delete "contractors"
On page 23, lines 6 - 7: add "persons who are" between
"with" and "qualified" and delete "contractors"
SUPPORT
None Received
OPPOSITION
None Received
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