BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 498 (Lara) - Biomass: conversion technology.
Amended: January 6, 2014 Policy Vote: EQ 5-1
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: January 21, 2014 Consultant:
Marie Liu
This bill may meet the criteria for referral to the Suspense
File.
Bill Summary: SB 498 expands the definition of biomass
conversion under the California Integrated Waste Management Act
to include conversion technologies, which is defined as
noncombustion thermal, chemical, or biological processes that
convert biomass into marketable products.
Fiscal Impact:
One-time cost of $100,000 from the Integrated Waste
Management Account (special) in 2014-15 for the revision of
regulations.
Possible one-time cost of up to $50,000 from the Integrated
Waste Management Account in 2014-15 for a CEQA analysis
associated with ending regulation of anaerobic digestion and
composting facilities.
Background: The California Integrated Waste Management Act
requires that local agencies reduce the amount of waste sent to
the landfill. One of the allowable diversions is for waste to be
used for biomass conversion. Conversion technologies are
generally processes that can covert organic materials (i.e.
biomass) into usable forms of energy including heat, steam, and
electricity. However, the existing statutory definition of
biomass conversion only includes conversions that occur through
controlled combustion. Other conversion technologies, such as
gasification and pyrolysis, can convert biomass into usable
forms of energy without combustion and thus are excluded from
the existing biomass conversion definition.
Proposed Law: This bill would expand the definition of biomass
conversion to also include conversion technologies, which are
defined as those methods that covert biomass into marketable
SB 498 (Lara)
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products and fuels through noncombustion thermal, chemical, or
biological processes.
Related Legislation: SB 804 (Lara) also sought to revise the
definition of "biomass conversion" among other provisions. SB
804 was vetoed by the Governor based on the definition of
biomass conversion.
Staff Comments: As discussed in the Senate Environmental Quality
Committee, the definition for a conversion technology in this
bill is broad and inadvertently incorporates anaerobic digestion
and composting into the definition of biomass conversion. Both
anaerobic digestion and composting facilities are currently
regulated by CalRecycle. However, because biomass conversion
facilities are not within CalRecycle's jurisdiction, by
incorporating anaerobic digestion and composting into the
definition of biomass conversion, this bill would require
CalRecycle to stop regulating most of these facilities.
CalRecycle would incur one-time costs to revise their
regulations to reflect these changes at an estimated cost of
approximately $100,000.
CalRecycle also believes that they would be required to go
through the CEQA process in order to cease their regulations of
anaerobic digestion and composting facilities. However, staff
believes that this may be unnecessary as these regulatory
changes would not be a discretionary action, but rather required
by statute.
According to the author, inclusion of anaerobic digestion and
composting is inadvertent. The author has committed to working
with CalRecycle over a more refined definition of biomass
conversion and conversion technologies. Should the refined
definition not include anaerobic digestion and composting, the
costs associated with this bill would be removed.