BILL ANALYSIS �
SB 126
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Date of Hearing: June 28, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON BUSINESS, PROFESSIONS AND CONSUMER
PROTECTION
Mary Hayashi, Chair
SB 126 (Steinberg) - As Introduced: January 27, 2011
SENATE VOTE : 39-0
SUBJECT : California Transportation Commission: guidelines.
SUMMARY : Establishes a process for the adoption of guidelines
by the California Transportation Commission (CTC), starting
January 1, 2012, and exempts the adoption of these guidelines
from the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).
Specifically, this bill :
1)Exempts, regardless of any other law, the adoption of
guidelines by CTC from the rulemaking provisions of the APA.
2)Exempts the State Transportation Improvement Program (STIP)
guidelines, as specified, from the provisions of this bill.
3)Requires CTC's legal counsel to review the proposed guidelines
for necessity, authority, clarity, consistency, reference, and
redundancy and recommend any changes to CTC commissioners.
4)Provides that the comments and recommendations made by CTC's
legal counsel are subject to the attorney-client privilege,
unless otherwise waived.
5)Requires the CTC Executive Director to distribute the
recommendations and communications to all commissioners.
6)Requires program or policy guidelines to be presented first at
a CTC hearing for purposes of receiving public comment.
7)Requires that the proposed or draft guidelines be sent to any
person who has requested CTC meeting notices at least 45 days
beforehand, and be made available to the public in an
electronic format.
8)Requires that the proposed or draft guidelines include notice
a of the right of the public to comment orally on the proposed
or draft guideline during the public meeting, or to comment in
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writing at any time prior to the meeting to within 7 business
days following the meeting, at which time the written comment
period shall be closed.
9)Requires CTC staff to review all written and oral comments
following the close of the written comment period, prepare a
summary of the objections and recommendations made in those
comments and provide an explanation of how the guideline is
proposed to be changed to accommodate the objections or
recommendations, or the reason or reasons for proposing no
changes.
10)Requires CTC staff to make the recommendations and summary
publicly available at least 15 days prior to a subsequent
regular meeting of the CTC. At that subsequent public
meeting, CTC shall consider the staff recommendations and any
additional public comment made at the meeting prior to voting
on the adoption of the proposed guideline.
11)Specifies that a program or policy guideline adopted by CTC
shall be adopted by an affirmative vote of a majority of the
CTC membership.
12)Requires CTC to maintain a guideline adoption file containing
the public notice, public comments, minutes of the public
meeting, including the action taken by CTC, and a letter from
the CTC's legal counsel confirming that he or she reviewed the
proposed guidelines for compliance, as specified.
13)Requires the guideline adoption file to contain a summary of
each objection or recommendation made and an explanation of
who the proposed guideline was changed to accommodate each
objection or recommendation, or the reason or reasons for
making no change.
14)Requires CTC to include in its annual report to the
Legislature, a summary of its activities related to the
adoption of program or policy guidelines during the previous
calendar year, including a summary of the proposed guidelines
considered by CTC, a description of the actions taken by CTC,
and the votes of the CTC on matters it considered.
15)Makes legislative findings and declarations.
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EXISTING LAW :
1)Provides for programming and allocation of state and federal
funds available for transportation capital improvement
projects by the CTC, as specified, and authorizes CTC, in
certain cases, to adopt guidelines relative to its programming
and allocation policies and procedures.
2)Governs the procedure for the adoption, amendment, or repeal
of regulations by state agencies and for the review of those
regulatory actions by the Office of Administrative Law (OAL)
under the APA, exempting state agencies from these
requirements under certain circumstances.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
Purpose of this bill . According to the author's office, "The
CTC adopts guidelines for the administration of various
transportation programs it oversees. CTC's responsibilities in
this area grew immensely with the passage of Proposition 1B, The
Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port
Security Bond Act of 2006 (Prop 1B). Generally, CTC's
guideline-adoption process has not been subject to the APA
process conducted by OAL. In fact, the CTC has not submitted a
guideline to the OAL for approval in over 30 years. On some
occasions, the Legislature has specifically exempted CTC
guidelines from the APA.
"In some instances, the CTC has attempted to adopt guidelines
with little or no public process. This was most evident in
2007, when CTC attempted to adopt guidelines for the Corridor
Mobility Improvement Account program without releasing the draft
guidelines in advance of the public meeting at which a vote to
adopt the program was to occur. The public went ballistic.
More recently, the CTC was close to adopting guidelines for its
public-private partnership guidelines without sufficient
opportunity for public review and comment. In this latter case,
the CTC ultimately did the right thing and delayed guideline
adoption, but the process was close to another calamity.
"SB 126 agrees with the premise that CTC should be able to adopt
program guidelines without going through the long APA process;
however, this bill does establish a statutory public process for
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CTC to follow to adopt program guidelines."
Background . Established in 1978, the CTC provides a single
venue for addressing transportation development and funding
issues in the state. The CTC consists of eleven voting members
and two non-voting ex-officio members. Of the eleven voting
members, the governor appoints nine, the Senate Rules Committee
appoints one, and the Speaker of the Assembly appoints one. The
two ex-officio non-voting members are the chairs of the
transportation policy committees in each house. The CTC
programs and allocates funds for the construction of highway,
passenger rail, and transit improvements throughout California.
Existing law authorizes the CTC to adopt policy guidelines for
various transportation programs, but provides little direction
on how the adoption process should proceed. Among the programs
for which the CTC adopts guidelines are the STIP and regional
transportation planning process. The passage of Prop 1B
mandated the issuance of several new guidelines such as the
Corridor Mobility Improvement Account, State Route 99 Corridor
Program, the Trade Corridors Improvement Fund, the Public
Transportation Modernization, Improvement, and Service
Enhancement Account and the Highway-Railroad Crossing Safety
Account.
This bill is identical to SB 1348 (Steinberg) of 2010, which was
vetoed.
Previous legislation . SB 1348 (Steinberg) of 2010, provides a
procedure for the CTC to adopt legislatively mandated policy
guidelines. SB 1348 was vetoed with the following message:
"This bill would establish specified procedures that the CTC
would be required to use when adopting guidelines. This bill is
unnecessary as it establishes a formal process which is very
similar to the process already used by the CTC."
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
None on file.
Opposition
None on file.
SB 126
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Analysis Prepared by : Rebecca May / B.,P. & C.P. / (916)
319-3301