Legislative Tracker

Coastkeeper takes its role as a voice for the water quality interests of Orange County seriously. Through our work with legal interns volunteering for our Law and Policy Clinic, Coastkeeper regularly reviews environmental legislation being debated in Sacramento. In collaboration with the California Coastkeeper Alliance, Coastkeeper frequently comments on state bills which may directly or potentially impact the health of California’s marine, riparian, and coastal ecosystems.  Below are some Assembly and Senate bills Coastkeeper submitted comments on during the 2011 legislative session.  Click on the bill for Coastkeeper’s comment letter and the description for the text of the bill.

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Marine and Coastal Issues

SB 369 (Evans) – Dungeness Crab – Signed - Existing state law regulates Dungeness crab vessel permits, fees, and allows the Department of Fish and Game to delay the start of the season in specified situations. The law also established a Dungeness crab review panel in order to review applications for vessel permits and permit transfers, if the Department made a specific determination. SB 369 sought to prevent these protections from becoming inoperative by extending the life of the statute. The California crab fishery is one of the state’s most well managed and profitable fisheries landing approximately $24 million of crab annually. SB 369 ensured the longevity of our Dungeness crab fishery by putting it inline with Oregon and Washington state regulations. Read our comment letter

NOAA agent counting confiscated shark fins

AB 376 (Fong and Huffman) – Shark Fin Ban – Signed - California’s rich Asian-Pacific tradition make our state a significant market for the shark fin trade. Home to two of the largest Asian food markets outside of Asia, California is the greatest consumer of the product primarily used in shark fin soup. Shark fins are cultivated by capturing sharks, removing their fins and returning the sharks to the ocean where they sink, suffocate, and die. Scientists estimate between 26 to 73 million sharks are killed for their fins annually. AB 376 reduces California’s contribution to severe shark declines by banning the possession and sale of shark fins in California. Existing stocks of shark fins are permitted to be sold until July 1, 2013 under a companion bill, AB 853. California joins the states of Oregon, Hawaii, and Washington in banning the possession and sale of shark fins.  Read our comment letter. 

AB 1112 (Huffman) – Oil Spill Preparedness Act – Signed - In the event of a coastal or marine oil spill, the Oil Spill Prevention and Administrative Fund (OSPAF), administered by the Office of Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR), is the primary source of funding to conduct the recovery and cleanup effort. Due to a lack of funding for OSPR and the State Lands Commission, the Department of Finance projected the OSPAF to run a $3 million deficit in 2011-12 and an $11 million deficit by 2012-13. AB 1112 remedied the deficit by temporarily increasing the per barrel fee on crude or petroleum products delivered to the state from 5 cents to 6.5 cents. The bill also increased oversight and required a regular audit of the funds to ensure they are responsibly spent. Read our comment letter.  Read Governor Brown’s signing statement.

SB 623 (Kehoe) – Marine Antifouling Paint – Two Year Bill – In 2010, California legislatively recognized the harmful impact of copper on water quality when Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed SB 346 (Kehoe). SB 346 requires manufactures of vehicle brake pads to reduce the amount of copper in their product to no more than 5 percent by 2021 and no more than .5 percent by 2025. Small amounts of copper are released when vehicles brake. Copper dust travels to water bodies through runoff during rain events. Even relatively low levels of copper can endanger marine life. Studies in San Francisco concluded that brakes may account for up to 60 percent of the copper that reaches the bay. 
SB 623 builds upon SB 346 and seeks to reduce copper contamination in California’s marinas by phasing-out the use of copper in recreational vessel’s marine antifouling paint. Antifouling paint is applied to the hull of vessels in order to discourage aquatic organisms from growing on the hull. Aquatic organisms impair the integrity of vessels and create drag. Copper in antifouling paints is designed to leach into the environment to prevent marine fouling, a process known as passive leaching. However at relatively low levels, copper is toxic to a variety of aquatic organisms, not just fouling organisms, and is persistent in the environment. The elevated levels of dissolved copper exceed numeric water quality objectives in many areas and threaten wildlife and marine habitat beneficial uses. SB 346 will be considered again in 2012. Read our comment letter.

Water Quality and Supply

AB 275 (Solorio) – The Rainwater Capture Act of 2011 – Vetoed – This bill would authorize landowners to install rainwater capture systems, and authorize landscape contractors to install them for landscape irrigation. Currently, state authorization is required before systems can be installed. which would authorize residential, commercial, and governmental landowners to install, maintain, and operate rain barrel systems and rainwater capture systems for specified purposes, provided that the systems comply with specified requirements. Capturing rainwater will minimize the amount of polluted storm water reaching the beaches and protect coastal ecosystems. Read our comment letter.  Read Governor Brown’s veto message.
AB 1180 (Bradford) – California Global Warning Solutions Act of 2006: Compliance Offsets - AB 1180 would require the State Water Board to prepare a “report to the Legislature on the economic impacts to utility ratepayers because of the implementation of the Statewide Water Quality Control Policy on the Use of Coastal and Estuarine Waters for Power Plant Cooling, adopted May 4, 2010.”  AB 1180 was fundamentally modified from a focus on coastal power plants to an air pollution and global warming bill. Our comment letter relates to the earlier pre-amendment version of the bill. Read our comment letter
AB 262 (Harkey) – California Regional Water Quality Control Board: Boundaries – Two year bill – Orange County is divided into two state water authorities, the Santa Ana and the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Boards (Boards). These Boards issue permits and regulate Orange County’s surface water. SB 262 seeks to revise the decades old jurisdictional boundaries of the Boards and move the southern coastal cities in Orange County to the Santa Ana Board. Current boundaries of the Regional Boards were decided on sound scientific basis, after a detailed analysis of the watersheds, water quality issues, and the natural environment. AB 262 would shift the boundaries from scientifically based to politically based. Read our comment letter.