BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1348
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Date of Hearing: June 14, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION
Bonnie Lowenthal, Chair
SB 1348 (Steinberg) - As Amended: May 24, 2010
SENATE VOTE : 35-0
SUBJECT : California Transportation Commission: guidelines
SUMMARY : Codifies the process by which the California
Transportation Commission (CTC) is to adopt guidelines.
Specifically, this bill :
1)Makes legislative findings and declarations regarding the need
to ensure that CTC's process for adopting program guidelines
is understandable, predictable, and transparent and provides
ample opportunity for public review and comment on proposed
guidelines.
2)Provides, notwithstanding any other provision, in instances
where CTC adopts guidelines, pursuant to statutory
authorization or mandate, the guidelines will be exempt from
the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
3)Sets forth a process governing CTC's adoption of guidelines
after January 1, 2011, except for guidelines adopted to
implement the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP),
as follows:
a) CTC's legal counsel is required to review the proposed
guidelines for necessity, authority, clarity, consistency,
reference, and redundancy recommend any changes to CTC
commissioners. Comments and recommendations made by legal
counsel will be subject to attorney-client privilege. The
CTC Executive Director is required distribute the
recommendations and communications with legal counsel to
all commissioners.
b) Program or policy guidelines are to be first presented
at a CTC meeting for purposes of receiving public comment.
c) Final proposed guidelines will be presented at a CTC
hearing.
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d) At least 45 days prior to the hearing, copies of the
proposed guidelines must be distributed and be made
available in electronic format.
e) Proposed guidelines must include a notice of the right
of the public comment on the guidelines.
f) Following the proposed guideline review process, CTC
staff will summarize all comments and explain any changes
to the guidelines in response to comments made. Staff
recommendations and summary must be made public 15 days
prior to a regular CTC hearing.
g) Guidelines must be adopted by a majority of the
commission membership.
4)Requires CTC to maintain complete files on guideline adoption
proceedings, including a summary of each objection or
recommendation made and an explanation of how the proposed
guidelines was changed to accommodate each objection or
recommendation, or the reason no change was made.
5)Requires the CTC to include in its annual report to the
Legislature an accounting of its activities related to
guideline adoption during the prior year.
EXISTING LAW:
6)Establishes the CTC and prescribes its membership and
responsibilities, including advising and assisting the
Secretary of the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency
and the Legislature in formulating and evaluating state
policies and plans for transportation programs in the state.
7)In various provisions, directs CTC to establish guidelines to
implement specific programs.
8)Sets forth the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) and vests
with the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) the responsibility
for an orderly review of adopted regulations.
9)Prohibits any state agency from issuing utilizing, enforcing,
or attempting to enforce any "guideline, criterion, bulletin,
manual, instruction, order, standard of general application,
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or other rule."
10)Excludes from provisions of the APA any regulation that
relates only to the internal management of a state agency.
11)Defines "regulation" to mean "every rule, regulation, order,
or standard of general application or the amendment,
supplement, or revision of any rule, regulation, order, or
standard adopted by any state agency to implement, interpret,
or make specific the law enforced or administered by it, or to
govern its procedure."
12)Sets forth procedures to be followed by APA for promulgating
regulations with timeframes similar to those set forth in this
bill.
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the CTC, this bill generally
codifies the process it already follows when adopting program
guidelines; therefore, additional costs to CTC should be
minimal, if any.
COMMENTS : The author introduced this bill because he believes
that, on some occasions, the CTC's process for guideline
adoption lacked transparency and has not provided the public
with ample opportunity to fully review and comment on items at
issue in the proposed guidelines. This bill would codify a
process whereby CTC would adopt program guidelines but it would
do so in a way that avoids the often-cumbersome process by which
regulations are promulgated via the OAL.
Suggested Amendments:
13)The bill sets forth procedures to follow when the CTC adopts
"guidelines pursuant to a statutory authorization or mandate?"
This qualification is too narrow and should be generalized.
For example, the CTC recently adopted guidelines to govern
implementation of the newly established public-private
partnership program. For that program, the CTC was not
specifically authorized or mandated to adopt guidelines but
did so for practical purposes. Under SB 1348, however, these
guidelines would not be subject to the procedure set forth in
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this bill although they should be, as follows:
On page 3, beginning on line 4, strike "pursuant to a statutory
authorization or mandate"
14)The bill erroneously refers to the State Transportation
Improvement Plan. On page 3, line 8, "Plan" should be
replaced with "Program" in reference to the State
Transportation Improvement Program (STIP).
15)As part of the procedures for adopting guidelines, SB 1348
requires the CTC's legal counsel to review the proposed
guidelines and make comments. The bill specifically subjects
those comments to attorney-client privilege. The CTC should
have the authority to waive that privilege if it chooses to,
as follows:
On page 3, line 20, after privilege, add ", unless otherwise
waived."
16)The process set forth in the bill to govern adoption of the
guidelines requires a 45-day advance public notice, a public
hearing, a subsequent 7-day written comment period,
development of a summary of comments, and presentation and
adoption of the guidelines at the next regularly scheduled
meeting. SB 1348 erroneously refers to the subsequent meeting
as a hearing, and should be corrected, as follows:
On page 4, line 3 and line 4, replace "hearing" with "meeting."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Professional Engineers in California Government
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Janet Dawson / TRANS. / (916) 319-2093