Sierra Club heralds environmental wins in State Legislature

47 of 48 bills supported by Club signed into law

This was a banner year for the environment in the California State Legislature with laws passed to protect our watersheds, coastal waters, air quality, and community environment. One of our highest priorities, SB 810 (Burton) marked the first significant reform to the State Forest Practices Act in 30 years. This new law gives the Regional Water Quality Control Boards the authority to block the approval of logging plans that would violate water quality standards.

Two other bills signed into law which will improve enforcement of State water quality law were SB 923 (Sher) and AB 897. SB 923 requires that State Water Board waivers from waste discharge requirements be in the public interest, authorizes a fee on waivers, and requires waiver conditions to include a monitoring requirement except when discharges do not pose a significant threat to water quality. AB 897 (Jackson) strengthens water quality enforcement by reducing distinctions between nonpoint and point source violations.

Also signed were AB 121 (Simitian) and AB 906 (Nakano), which regulate discharges by cruise ships in our coastal waters. AB 16 (Jackson) will protect our coastal waters and shoreline by requiring offshore oil to be piped rather than shipped by tanker to shore.

A groundbreaking package of bills authored by Senator Dean Florez (Bakersfield) will address the terrible air quality in the Central Valley where children suffer from asthma at three times the national rate. Other significant air quality bills signed include SB 656 (Sher), which strengthens regulation of particulate matter, and SB 288 (Sher), which locks in place California’s air quality regulations in the face of rollbacks by the Bush administration.

Two important bills that address solid waste were signed. SB 20 (Sher) requires establishment of a system to recycle cathode ray tubes (CRTs-televisions and computer monitors) and AB 28 (Jackson and Sher) expands the state’s bottle bill law. Televisions and computer monitors typically contain five to seven pounds of lead. In California, more than 10,000 computers and TVs become obsolete daily. A fee collected when CRTs are sold will be used to collect and safely recycle discarded CRTs.

Special thanks goes to the Club’s lobbying team in Sacramento and Club members who wrote and called their legislators about specific bills. To sign up for the Legislative Action Network visit, http://cal-legalert.sierraclubaction.org.

Sierra Club California priority bills signed into law in 2003

• SB 20 (Sher) creates an advance recycling fee on electronic waste to fund recycling of discarded electronic equipment.
• SB 189 (Escutia) moves California closer to the goal of establishing an environmental health tracking system.
• SB 245 (Sher) restricts salmon, transgenic, and exotic finfish aquaculture in State waters.
• SB 288 (Sher) blocks the Bush Administration rollback air quality regulations.
• SB 331 (Romero) codifies the doctrine of delayed discovery as it applies to the statute of limitations for filing a lawsuit for illness, injury, or death caused by exposure to a hazardous material or toxic substance.
• SB 352 (Escutia) prohibits the siting of a school within 500 feet of a freeway and brings closer scrutiny to the siting of schools near large agricultural operations or rail yards.
• SB 412 (Sher) allows for the collection of any fully-protected species as is necessary for scientific research, including efforts to recover those species.
• SB 418 (Sher) streamlines and clarifies the streambed alteration agreement process.
• SB 552 (Burton) requires the Department of General Services, in consultation with the California Air Resources Board and the California Energy Commission to develop minimum fuel efficiency and emission standards and specifications for all vehicles leased or purchased by the State of California.
• SB 649 (Kuehl) prohibits mining operations from selling their products to the State agencies unless they have complied with SMARA.
• SB 656 (Sher) works to improve air quality by requiring the California Air Resources Board and local air districts to identify and adopt cost-effective measures to reduce particulate pollution.
• SB 666 (Bowen) facilitates the protection of Ballona Wetlands.
• SB 700 (Florez & Sher) repeals the current agricultural exemption on air quality permits.
• SB 704 and 705 (Florez) will phase out open field burning of agricultural waste in the San Joaquin Valley over the next decade.
• SB 777 (Escutia) improves whistleblower protection by creating a confidential Whistleblower Hotline in the office of the Attorney General, providing a safe-haven for employees who want to expose wrongdoing within their companies.
• SB 796 (Dunn) allows workers to file civil actions against their employers for violations of the Labor Code.
• SB 810 (Burton) gives the Regional Water Quality Control Boards the authority to block the approval of logging plans that would violate water quality standards.
• SB 923 (Sher) authorizes the State Water Board to issue waivers from waste discharge requirements, authorizes a fee on waivers, and requires waiver conditions to include a monitoring requirement except when discharges do not pose a significant threat to water quality.
• SB 1004 (Soto) establishes safeguards to protect Californians from perchlorate contamination and require those who contaminate drinking water supplies to pay for the costs caused by their pollution.
• AB 16 (Jackson) requires that oil produced offshore be transported by pipeline instead of by ship.
• AB 21 (Jackson) establishes terms for Coastal Commissioners appointed by the Legislature (response to lawsuit by Pacific Legal Foundation).
• AB 28 (Jackson, Pavley, Burton, Sher) increases the deposit amount for beverage container recycling.
• AB 47 (Simitian) requires landowners to include maps of their past logging conducted in the watershed.
• AB 110 (Oropeza) allows the establishment of a regulatory fee structure that ensures that those who pollute our air and water will bear the full cost of regulation.
• AB 121 (Simitian) prohibits cruise ships from dumping sewage or oily bilge into State waters.
• AB 302 (Chan) bans the use of fire-retardant polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs) after 2008.
• AB 334 (Goldberg) allows local governments to limit the availability or prohibit the installation of water softeners that discharge to community sewer systems.
• AB 433 (Nation) reauthorizes the model ballast water discharge management program, which will help control the introduction of invasive species accidentally released from ship ballast water.
• AB 455 (Chu) prohibits the use of four regulated heavy metals-lead, mercury, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium-in packaging materials.
• AB 514 (Kehoe) requires water meters on all service connections of urban water suppliers that receive water from the Central Valley Project.
• AB 826 (Jackson), the Perchlorate Contamination Prevention Act, requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control to establish standards for best management practices for the handling of perchlorate materials.
• AB 859 (Nakano) facilitates the protection of Ballona Wetlands.
• AB 897 (Jackson) strengthens water quality enforcement by reducing distinctions between nonpoint and point source violations.
• AB 906 (Nakano) prohibits cruise ships from discharging graywater from kitchens, laundries, and showers into State waters.
• AB 998 (Lowenthal) imposes an initial $3 per gallon fee on perchloroethylene (perc or PCE) to fund a grant program for alternative dry cleaning systems considered to be nontoxic and nonsmog-forming.
• AB 999 (J. Horton) reduces mercury pollution by making non-mercury dental fillings eligible for Medi-Cal reimbursement. AB 1168 (Berg) assigns Wild & Scenic River status to Albion and Gualala Rivers.
• AB 1244 (Chu) encourages the modernization of urban schools and will help to revitalize urban neighborhoods.
• AB 1330 (Simitian) creates a privately-funded State Department of Education study to analyze the scholastic and behavioral effects of outdoor education on underserved populations.
• AB 1360 (Steinberg) provides a statutory basis for CalEPA’s Environmental Indicators for California Project.
• AB 1492 (Laird) closes loopholes in the Williamson Act by restricting lot line adjustments and construction of nonagricultural buildings not allowed in the contract.
• AB 1497 (Montañez) helps ensure that solid waste landfills throughout the state are operated in a manner that protects public health and the environment by increasing the ability of communities to participate in decisions about local landfills.
• AB 1541 (Montañez) improves reporting of water pollution by classifying failure to file reports of the discharge of waste into waterways as “serious violations” under the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act.
• AB 1548 (Pavley) facilitates coordination of environmental education curriculum.
• AB 1685 (Leno) extends the California Public Utilities Commission’s Self-Generation Incentive Program and requires certain distributed generation projects using fossil fuels to meet specific emissions targets to be eligible for the program.
• AB 1700 (Laird & Wiggins) helps clean up contaminated military bases by saving positions at the Department of Toxic Substances Control and the State Water Resources Control Board that oversee base remediation and that are not funded by the General Fund.
• AB 1756 (Assem. Budget Committee) prohibits the California Integrated Waste Management Board from spending public funds on the incineration of waste tires.

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