BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | SB 122|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
Bill No: SB 122
Author: Jackson (D) and Hill (D), et al.
Amended: 8/15/16
Vote: 21
SENATE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY COMMITTEE: 5-1, 4/15/15
AYES: Wieckowski, Hill, Jackson, Leno, Pavley
NOES: Gaines
NO VOTE RECORDED: Bates
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: 5-2, 5/28/15
AYES: Lara, Beall, Hill, Leyva, Mendoza
NOES: Bates, Nielsen
SENATE FLOOR: 24-15, 6/3/15
AYES: Allen, Beall, Block, De León, Hall, Hancock, Hernandez,
Hertzberg, Hill, Hueso, Jackson, Lara, Leno, Leyva, Liu,
McGuire, Mendoza, Mitchell, Monning, Pan, Pavley, Roth,
Wieckowski, Wolk
NOES: Anderson, Bates, Berryhill, Cannella, Fuller, Gaines,
Galgiani, Huff, Moorlach, Morrell, Nguyen, Nielsen, Runner,
Stone, Vidak
NO VOTE RECORDED: Glazer
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 55-18, 8/23/16 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: California Environmental Quality Act: record of
proceedings
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill requires the Governors Office of Planning and
Research (OPR) to implement a public database of all environmental
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documents and notices required by the California Environmental
Quality Act (CEQA) and requires a lead agency, upon request of the
project applicant and with consent of the lead agency, to prepare
the record of proceeding concurrently with the administrative
process.
Assembly Amendments make minor, technical changes.
ANALYSIS: Existing law, under CEQA, requires lead agencies with
the principal responsibility for carrying out or approving a
proposed discretionary project to prepare a negative declaration,
mitigated negative declaration, or environmental impact report
(EIR) for this action, unless the project is exempt from CEQA
(CEQA includes various statutory exemptions, as well as
categorical exemptions in the CEQA guidelines). (Public Resources
Code (PRC) §21000 et seq.).
This bill:
Concurrent preparation of the record of proceeding
1)Requires the lead agency, upon written request by a project
applicant and with consent of the lead agency, to concurrently
prepare the record of proceedings with the administrative
process.
2)Requires all documents and other materials placed in the record
of proceedings to be posted on a Website maintained by the lead
agency.
3)Requires the lead agency to make publicly available, in
electronic format, the draft environmental document, and
associated documents, for the project.
4)Requires the lead agency to make any comment publicly available
electronically within five days of its receipt.
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5)Requires the lead agency to certify the record of proceedings
within 30 days after filing notice of determination or approval.
6)Requires certain environmental review documents to include a
notice, as specified, stating that the document is subject to
this section.
7)Requires the applicant to pay for the lead agency's cost of
concurrently preparing and certifying the record of proceedings.
State Clearinghouse database system for CEQA documents
8)Requires OPR to establish and maintain a database for the
collection, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of
environmental documents and notices prepared pursuant to CEQA
and to make the database available online to the public.
9)Requires OPR to submit a report describing the implementation of
the database to the Legislature by July 1, 2017, and a status
report by July 1, 2019.
Comments
1)Purpose of Bill. According to the authors, "[CEQA] ensures that
state and local agencies make informed decisions when
undertaking projects that may impact the environment.
Stakeholders have voiced concern that the current CEQA process
can be cumbersome and inefficient. In May 2014, the Senate
Judiciary and Environmental Quality Committees sent a joint
letter to a broad range of CEQA stakeholders - developers,
business, environmental, and labor groups, planners, local
governments, and academics - asking for community input on how
to improve the process without undercutting the statute's goal
of fostering informed environmental decisionmaking. Drawing
upon stakeholder responses to that letter, this bill will enact
substantive changes to CEQA that will help expedite the process
while protecting the integrity of the act."
2)Increased Use of Internet Resources - The State Clearinghouse.
Many CEQA stakeholders have noted that the CEQA process makes
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poor use of internet resources for distributing information,
providing notice to affected parties, and facilitating the
submission of comments. The current CEQA process is still
largely paper-based, and information that is posted online is
often buried deep within agency or project proponent websites.
Currently, OPR has operates a limited online CEQA repository as
part of the State Clearinghouse used for state-level review of
environmental documents. This bill proposes to expand OPR's
clearinghouse to include copies of all CEQA documents in a
single, electronic database system, which would be available via
the Internet and to the public. Stakeholders believe such a
resource would greatly expedite the CEQA process by eliminating
transmission times for relevant documents. In addition,
universal accessibility of such a resource would make it much
harder to justify last minute "document dumps." A fully
functioning clearinghouse would provide California residents
with a universal point of entry into the CEQA process,
furthering the policy of transparency and public participation
in the environmental review process.
3)Proposed Central Database: Potential Cost Savings. Expanding
OPR's CEQA database would likely require some type of financial
commitment by the state, but it is possible that any new costs
could be offset by reductions in agency staff time and resources
used to distribute paper-based materials. Last year, the
California Research Bureau (CRB) researched CEQA-related
document handling costs for selected state agencies and looked
into issues such as clerical document management and preparation
and delivery costs. According to CRB, "We estimate that the
cumulative annual cost to state entities in staff time
commitments for clerical processing and handling of CEQA-related
documents exceeds $250,000 and may easily be in excess of
$500,000, with additional expenditures for materials, supplies,
and delivery services. Not all of these staff expenditures are
truly avoidable costs, as few state entities delegate any
clerical staff full-time to CEQA-related document handling
functions. But it appears plausible that an effective,
electronic document management system and web-based application
for CEQA-related document submission and retrieval by lead
agencies and reviewing agencies could generate cost savings
across the state."
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FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee:
1)One-time GF costs of $200,000 to establish the database at the
Office of Technology, including necessary training.
2)Ongoing GF costs of $54,000 for the Office of Technology to host
and update the database. These costs may be offset by savings to
GF and various special funds for reduced administrative costs to
state lead agencies.
3)One-time GF costs of $20,000 for OPR to provide training for
lead agencies on the new database.
4)Unknown costs to state agencies, to the extent they are the lead
agency under CEQA, to concurrently prepare the record of
proceedings (GF and various special funds), these costs should
be fully reimbursed by project applicants who request the record
of proceedings to be prepared concurrently with the
administrative process.
SUPPORT: (Verified8/17/16)
American Planning Association, California Chapter
Association of Environmental Professionals
California Labor Federation
California League of Conservation Voters
City of Camarillo
County of Santa Barbara
Environmental Defense Center
Planning and Conservation League
State Building and Construction Trades Council
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/17/16)
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Associated General Contractors of California
Association of California Cities, Orange County
Bay Area Council
Bay Planning Coalition
California Business Properties Association
California Business Roundtable
California Construction and Industrial Materials Association
California Retailers Association
Central City Association of Los Angeles
Engineering Contractors' Association
Harbor Association of Industry and Commerce
Humboldt Association of Realtors
Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce
Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation
National Federation of Independent Business
Orange County Business Council
Pleasanton Chamber of Commerce
San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce
San Francisco Chamber of Commerce
San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership
San Mateo County Association of Realtors
Santa Clara Chamber of Commerce
Santa Clarita Valley Economic Development Corporation
Sonoma County Alliance
Southern California Water Committee
Southwest California Legislative Council
United Ag
Valley Industry & Commerce Association
West Coast Lumber and Building Materials Association
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 55-18, 8/23/16
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Arambula, Atkins, Baker, Bloom, Bonilla,
Bonta, Brown, Burke, Calderon, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooley,
Dababneh, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo
Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Hadley, Roger
Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Kim, Levine, Linder,
Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis, McCarty, Medina, Mullin,
Nazarian, O'Donnell, Quirk, Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Santiago,
Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon
NOES: Travis Allen, Bigelow, Brough, Chang, Chávez, Beth Gaines,
Gallagher, Grove, Harper, Jones, Lackey, Mayes, Melendez,
Obernolte, Olsen, Patterson, Salas, Wagner
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NO VOTE RECORDED: Campos, Cooper, Dahle, Daly, Gray, Steinorth,
Waldron
Prepared by: Joanne Roy / E.Q. / (916) 651-4108
8/23/16 19:58:19
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