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This year we cleaned up

CLCV wins critical victories with landmark legislation in 2003

Air quality
Water quality
Toxics

AIR QUALITY is the crowning achievement for this year's legislative session. CLCV's hard work to pass SB 288, the Central Valley air quality improvement series and SB 656 will mean better air quality for all Californians.

A Breath of Fresh Air: SB 288 (Sher) and the Clean Air Act

The most stunning victory of all won with the slimmest possible margin, as the Assembly voted 43-35 to pass SB 288. SB 288 proves that California's environmental community can defeat the Bush Administration's environmental rollbacks and the oil-industry lobby. The bill is a landmark strengthening of California's clean air policy in response to the Bush Administration's 2002 rollbacks of the federal Clean Air Act, a cornerstone environmental law signed by President Richard Nixon in 1972.

This bill, which Governor Gray Davis signed as soon as it reached his desk, addresses the Bush revisions of the NSR (New Source Review) provision of the Clean Air Act. A key element of the Clean Air Act since 1977, NSR has been responsible for reducing millions of pounds of soot and smog-forming pollutants being released into our air. According to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), reductions of the following air pollutants occurred under NSR from 1980-1999:

Ozone: minus 53%
Carbon Monoxide (CO): minus 35%
Particulate Matter: minus 21%

Under NSR, factories, such as power plants, refineries, and other large polluters, were required to install the most modern pollution control technologies when making changes to existing facilities. The new Bush Administration rules had opened major loopholes in NSR and the Clean Air Act by changing the definition of "routine repairs" that are exempt from NSR requirements. Major plant changes that increase pollution by hundreds of thousands of tons qualified under these new rules as "routine maintenance," undermining the fundamentals of NSR and making the Clean Air Act virtually useless in reducing pollution from existing factories.

Now, with the passage of SB 288, California has the opportunity to lead the rest of the nation in filling in the gaps in the Federal Clean Air Act created by the Bush Administration's revisions. SB 288 requires the CARB to adopt regulations that incorporate those of the federal NSR prior to the Bush Administration rules, thus restoring vital safeguards to the quality of California's air. Thanks to SB 288, Californians will be able to breathe a little bit easier.

How Clean Was My Valley: Central Valley smog & the “700 series” (Florez)

In the past 30 years, California's Central Valley—the "Green Belt" from which our state receives its legendary fresh produce—has surpassed the Los Angeles Basin as the area most polluted by smog and particulate matter in its air. In fact, California's child asthma rates are almost twice the national average, with Fresno County suffering the highest child asthma rate and over 300,000 San Joaquin Valley residents afflicted with chronic respiratory conditions. Clearly, steps had to be taken to help ameliorate these appalling statistics and bring the Central Valley's air back to a higher standard of breathability.

This effort won a tremendous victory in September with the passage of the "700 series" (including SB 700, 704, 705 and 709), a group of bills strengthening requirements for agricultural facilities in the Central Valley as regards agricultural waste disposal and the permitting process governing sources of air pollution. The new rules will require facilities to burn their waste products at existing processing plants designed to minimize the deleterious effects on the air, instead of in open areas where air pollution is the inevitable result, as well as repealing the exemptions from air permits that previously existed for agricultural sources of air pollution.

SB 700 (Florez and Sher) eliminates the longstanding exemption of farm equipment from the state's air permit system. SB 700 finally holds agricultural sources of air pollution to approximately the same standards as other air pollution sources. The bill not only reduces air pollutant emissions from farm equipment and activities, but it also results in increased efficiencies for many farm operations.

SB 704 (Florez) creates incentives for biomass energy facilities to use more agricultural waste. Biomass combustion reduces air pollution by 95 percent compared to open-field burning.

SB 705 (Florez) requires the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District to prohibit open-field burning of specified agricultural waste.

SB 709 (Florez) extends to the San Joaquin Valley Unified Air Pollution Control District the authority to carry out a number of measures commensurate with the district's dire air quality conditions. Indeed, the district is about to become the first in the country to voluntarily seek the Clean Air Act's worst air quality designation—"extreme"—as a means of buying more time to reach compliance. This bill is another important measure to improve the San Joaquin Valley's worsening air quality.

Particulates Matter: SB 656 (Sher)

SB 656 is one of the most important environmental and public health bills this year. After an exhaustive review of available scientific research, the state Air Resources Board (ARB) identified elevated airborne particulate matter (PM) levels as a major contributor to respiratory illnesses like bronchitis and asthma, as well as to thousands of hospital visits and cases of early death. California's child asthma rates are very high, averaging about 15 percent of all school-age children. And data from a long-term study undertaken by the Department of Health Services shows a high correlation between periods of increased air pollution and increased school absences.

As a result, last summer the ARB updated its 20-year-old standard for PM 10 (coarse particles) and adopted a new standard for PM 2.5 (fine particles). The vast majority of the state's population lives in areas that do not meet these new particulate standards. In fact, in 2002, the two most polluted air basins, the south coast and the San Joaquin Valley, exceeded the state's PM standards more often than they exceeded the ozone standard.

SB 656 responds to this pressing problem by requiring the ARB and local air districts to adopt all readily available, cost-effective and proven control measures to reduce particulate emissions. This is consistent with the approach taken by California and the federal government to reduce other air pollutants, including NO_x and toxic air contaminants.

WATER QUALITY

Holes in Clean Water Enforcement Plugged: AB 897 (Jackson) and AB 1541 (Montañez)

AB 897 (Jackson) strengthens various facets of the state and regional water boards' authority to enforce against waste discharge permit-holders who violate clean water standards. This bill comes in the wake of, and is all the more important because of, aggressive efforts by the Bush Administration to relax a broad range of federal environmental laws and regulations.

AB 1541 (Montañez) implements a mandatory minimum penalty for companies that fail to submit, after 30 days, discharge reports currently required under the Federal Clean Water Act and the California Porter Cologne Water Quality Act.

Under current national and state water laws, facilities that discharge into a United States water body are required to submit either monthly or yearly reports indicating the amount and types of substances released. However, despite their importance in combating water pollution, the submission of these reports is drastically under-enforced. A 1999 report found that, of 9,000 Los Angeles violations of the Clean Water Act in a seven-year period, only 14 were fined.

"California's waterways are too precious; we cannot continue to allow dischargers to continually disregard our basic clean water laws," said the bill's author, Cindy Montañez. "AB 1541 steps up the penalties and provides the teeth needed to hold dischargers responsible for submitting necessary information."

The law currently imposes a one-time fee for each unsubmitted report. AB 1541 would expand the penalty portion of the law and impose a $3,000 fee for every 30 days each report is late.

TOXIC WASTE

E-Waste headed for Recycle Bin: SB 20 (Sher)

Revived from a similar legislative effort that narrowly failed last year, Senate Bill 20 was victoriously signed into law by Governor Davis. SB 20 establishes a recycling fee to be paid by the manufacturers of cathode ray tube (CRT) devices such as computer monitors and televisions.

CRT devices, also known as "E-Waste," can contain lead, cadmium, mercury and other hazardous materials that pose significant health risks. Despite a statewide ban on putting CRT devices into landfills, less than 10% are currently recycled, with many of the rest ending up in landfills. The devices then create a significant risk of toxics leaking into nearby groundwater. Unfortunately, E-Waste that does avoid our landfills is often exported to developing countries, where low wage laborers who are not protected from the toxic releases pick apart the devices.

The issue of E-Waste is global and could soon overwhelm us with millions of tons of toxic waste. Many experts see E-Waste handling as the next step of recycling and consumer responsibility (after paper, plastic, and cans).

SB 20 will establish California's first-ever front-end financing system for recycling E-Waste by implementing a system commonly called "manufacturer responsibility." The manufacturer will build the cost of collecting and recycling the discarded product into the price of its new products. This fee, which is not to exceed $30 per CRT device and which is to be set at the lowest level feasible, would then ensure that discarded products be properly managed at the end of their useful life. This is the responsible solution.

SB 331 (Romero) strengthens legal protections for persons injured by exposure to toxic substances. Specifically, SB 331 codifies case law, which declares that the two year statute of limitations for suing for damages from wrongful exposure does not begin until the injured party has a reason to suspect the cause and the wrongful nature of their illness.

AB 826 (Jackson) requires the Department of Toxic Substances Control to develop best management practices for the handling of perchlorate and to detect that contaminant in the soil before it gets to groundwater. Like MTBE, perchlorate—one of the primary ingredients in rocket fuel—spreads quickly in water and is difficult and expensive to clean up. Prevention is far more cost-effective than clean-up.

AB 998 (Lowenthal) is a self-financing program that assists dry cleaners in switching to nontoxic cleaning alternatives. AB 998 clearly demonstrates the concept of polluter pays: the fee imposed on the sale of the polluting product (perchlorethylene) is used to help dry-cleaning businesses convert to non-polluting alternatives that are available.