American Chemistry Council v. Public Health and Our Environment

August 28, 2010 in Legislation, Public Health & Toxics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | by evonchambers | Leave a comment

Two long sought after bills are nearing the finish line in the legislature before heading to the Governor’s desk. These policies could be huge victories for both public health and the environment, but both face intense lobbying from the American Chemistry Council.

Senate Bill 797 (Pavley) bans from children’s products the toxic chemical BPA (bisphenol A), which is suspected of wreaking havoc with hormone levels and causing a host of problems including impaired brain development, breast and prostate cancers and early puberty. This common sense policy was stopped twice before in the Assembly by intense lobbying from the chemical industry, but finally passed in July. Now the chemical lobby has ramped up efforts in the Senate to prevent the bill from making it over this final legislative hurdle.

Assembly Bill 1998 (Brownley) would eliminate single use plastic bags in grocery stores, pharmacies, convenience stores and numerous other commercial businesses.  Following in the steps of environmentally conscious Germany, China, Uganda, Mexico City, San Francisco and about a dozen others, this ground-breaking bill would become a shining example of positive measures taken to avoid plastic pollution. Californians use 19 billion plastic bags every year, with most ending up in landfills or polluting our oceans. The American Chemistry Council opposes this measure even though retailers and grocers are supportive. They have mounted an expensive campaign full of deceptive advertising and political contributions trying to stop this important and overdue bill.

Both measures must get off the Senate floor by Tuesday, August 31st. If passed, the governor has until September 30th to sign or veto both of these measures. To support these important bills, call your Senate today.

Two Down, One to Go: PCL Backed Bills on Open Space, Water and CEQA on the Move in the Legislature

August 28, 2010 in Legislation | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | by tinaandolina | Leave a comment

This week the Legislature passed two bills co-sponsored by the Planning and Conservation League, sending both measures to the Governor’s desk. The Governor has until the end of September to sign or veto the bills. One other PCL sponsored bill awaits action next week.

The first bill passed, SB 1124 (Negrete McLeod) co-sponsored with the California Council of Land Trusts, ensures that San Bernardino County fulfils its obligation to protect lands it purchased with state bond money from Proposition 70 passed in 1988. The County purchased the land two decades ago and promised to protect the land with easements. However, the easements were never placed. As a lead advocate for Prop 70, the Planning and Conservation League pushed to ensure the will of the voters was upheld and taxpayer money was spent in good faith.

The second bill, SB 918 (Pavley) co-sponsored with Water ReUse, will increase opportunities for water recycling in California by directing the Department of Public Health to finally develop criteria for safely using recycled water to recharge groundwater basins and augment surface storage reservoirs. Every year, California discharges more than 4 million acre-feet of used water to the ocean – nearly as much as it receives annually from the Colorado River Aqueduct. Without criteria for safely using recycled water, water agencies face significant uncertainty in attempting to tap into this underutilized resource, and many potential water recycling projects are unable to get off the ground. SB 918 is one of the priorities identified in PCL’s 8 Affordable Water Solutions for California report.

Next week we expect the Senate to take up AB 499 (Hill), which makes clarifying amendments to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to ensure that all parties with a direct interest in a CEQA case are aware of a pending lawsuit and parties with no direct link to the case are not unnecessarily dragged into litigation. Under current law, all “recipients of approval” must be notified of a lawsuit.  Unfortunately, in many cases, those bringing the CEQA lawsuit do not know who exactly these parties are.  However, if any of the recipients are not included in the lawsuit, the case can be thrown out completely. To avoid this, those bringing the lawsuit are forced to over name and serve parties who might or might not be really recipients of approval to ensure they have not missed anyone. This is a burden for business, community groups and local governments. AB 499 fixes this problem.

AB 499 will come up in the Senate next week and hopefully be on its way to the Governor’s desk. The Governor has talked a lot about CEQA reform this year. This bill represents a common sense fix that benefits everyone and continues to protect public health and our environment.

Do or Die: T-Minus Less 10 Days for Bills to make it to the Governor’s Desk

August 20, 2010 in Climate, Legislation, Public Health & Toxics, Water | Tags: , , , , | by evonchambers | Leave a comment

With just a handful of days left in this year’s legislative session, both the Senate and the Assembly are contemplating final approval of hundreds of bills. Here are some of the top environmental and public health bills that we’re tracking:

SB 51 (Ducheny): Establishes the Salton Sea Restoration Council as a state entity within the Natural Resources Agency to implement preferred alternatives outlined in the Salton Sea Ecosystem Restoration Program.

SB 434 (Pavley): Improve air quality and reduce noise from motorcycles by enforcing existing federal requirements that motorcycles must display a label demonstrating compliance with noise standards.

SB 565 (Pavley): Address the current problem of illegal water diversions by allowing the State Water Resources Control Board to request annual statements of water diversion and use from major water diverters, and would update the existing statutory cap on civil liabilities for unauthorized water diversions.

SB 722 (Simitian, Kehoe and Steinberg): Bill creates a clear, enforceable 33% renewables portfolio standard (RPS) for all utilities.

SB 797 (Pavley and Liu): Protects children’s health by prohibiting the toxic chemical and synthetic estrogen bisphenol A (BPA) in baby bottle, sippy cups, infant formula cans and baby food jars and also ensures that the replacement chemical is not carcinogenic or a reproductive toxin.

SB 918 (Pavley): [PCL Co-sponsoring]: Increases water recycling in the state by directing the California Department of Public Health to complete public safety standards for using recycled water to recharge groundwater basins and augment surface storage and ensures the development of a safe, cost-effective, and drought-proof source of new water for the state.

SB 1142 (Wiggins): Creates a second track within the Department of Conservation’s California Farmland Conservancy Program to fund agricultural easements that can provide secondary conservation benefits such as flood protection and habitat preservation.

SB 1365 (Corbett): Allows the Department of Toxics Substances to test for lead and to enforce the federal Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act to ensure public safety.

SB 1433 (Leno): Adjusts ceilings for air pollution violations with inflation so the real value of statutory air penalties does not further decline. The ceiling for the most commonly used category (strict liability) has not been increased since 1982.

AB 1963 (Nava): Improves the pesticide poisoning prevention program to protect farm workers who handle pesticides. By simply having laboratories send test results electronically to the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR), state officials will have the necessary information to monitor the existing pesticide poisoning prevention program and protect farm workers.

AB 1998 (Brownley): Reduces a significant source of waste and ocean pollution by prohibiting grocery stores from distributing single-use bags.

AB 2289 (Eng): Enacts critical updates to California’s Smog Check program that will save money for consumers and the state and boost the emission benefits of the smog check program, removing 70 tons of pollution per day.

AB 2595 (Huffman): Improves compliance with critical water quality laws that protect California’s waterways by linking compliance with polluted agricultural runoff requirements to the issuance of operator identification numbers needed for pesticide use.

Good and Bad Budget Reforms on the Ballot

August 20, 2010 in Legislation | Tags: , , , , , , , | by tinaandolina | Leave a comment

With everyone’s focus turned to last minute bills trying to make their way off the legislature floor before the end of the August, certain issues on this November’s ballot have not garnered the attention they deserve and need. Both Propositions 25 and 26 circulate around the controversial 2/3s vote requirements to pass the state budget or increase revenues, but in very different ways.  And both directly affect our ability to protect our environment and the health of all Californians.

The Planning and Conservation League is in support of Prop 25 – the Majority Budget Initiative and is opposing Prop 26 – the Polluter Protection Initiative.

The goal of Proposition 25 is to prevent future budget gridlock, similar to what our state is currently facing with one of the latest budgets in our history, and to hold legislators accountable for their actions, or rather, inactions if a budget is not passed.  If the Legislature fails to pass a budget bill by June 15th, which it has failed to do for the last 23 years, all members of the legislature will be barred from receiving compensation from income and benefits for everyday that the budget is late.  This seemingly impossible task is made a bit simpler by the second reform outlined under Prop 25- changing the required 2/3rds votes to pass a budget to only a simple majority. 

With 47 other states in our country passing their budget by a simple majority vote, it is time California get on board and end the mess caused when small minority in the legislature can hold the entire budget up. Our current budget gridlock has put our state parks in peril, reduced funding for key restoration programs and has made it nearly impossible to ensure polluters pay their share to clean up the pollution they cause.

Everything Prop. 25 aims to be Prop. 26 is not.  This deceptive initiative is almost completely funded by major polluter’s like Chevron and ExxonMobil as well cigarette manufacturer Phillip Morris.  Prop 26 lets polluters off the hook by calling the fees they pay to clean up their pollution or “taxes,” requiring a 2/3rds vote by the legislature or voters to implement them, making such payments much harder to enact and leaving taxpayers to foot the bill.

Proposition 26 will only further cripple our state’s budget mess, making it harder to collect revenue owed to the state and regional jurisdictions, as well as putting at risk the implementation of regulatory fees to pay for such things like oil spill clean-up, air and water pollution, the health impacts of cigarettes and pesticides and much more.  We don’t need corrupt companies taking over our legislative process.

For the reasons listed above, we are supporting Proposition 25 and opposing Proposition 26.

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