Our bills are doing well, and…
Senator Catherine Blakespear’s SB 1259 requires California’s remaining refineries to prepare and publish plans for eventual closure, including site clearing and soil remediation. The bill could come up for a floor vote in the Assembly as early as today, and it needs your help to get past its oily opposition. While this measure will likely cost the refineries next to nothing, as good business planning requires this kind of forecasting, having this information in advance of the inevitable will be of tremendous value to the surrounding communities that also need to be able to plan. (See Benicia, reeling from the loss of the Valero refinery.)
Please call your Assembly Member this morning, and leave a message if necessary! Let them know you are a constituent and want them to vote AYE on SB 1259. Find your state Senator’s and Assembly member’s contact information here.
And now, the news!
Waiting for floor votes
- SB 1259 (Blakespear) Refineries: decommissioning and remediation: cost estimates. Requires California’s refineries to prepare public plans for eventual closure and site remediation, which will allow refinery communities to anticipate economic changes. The bill is strongly opposed by oil companies and their allies. In the Assembly
- AB 2313 (Berman) Gas corporations: gas distribution service line replacements: alternatives. When a gas line needs repair or replacement, requires gas utilities to offer cash incentives to customers for purchase of electric appliances instead. Because installing gas lines is so expensive, very large incentives will still save the utility money. In the Senate
- SB 905 (Becker) Electricity. Charges the Public Utilities Commission (PUC) with investigating alternative financing methods for infrastructure projects (transmission and distribution)—ultimately moving away fron the current model under which the utility only profits when it builds (not when it sells power). In the Assembly
- SB 1180 (Allen) Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act: California Plastic Pollution Mitigation Fund. Establishes the fund specifically to address past and current environmental justice, public health, and environmental impacts of plastics. In the Assembly
Passed and headed for the Governor’s desk
- SB 954 (Blakespear) California Environmental Quality Act: exemptions: natural and protected lands: advanced manufacturing: childcare facilities.Addresses the “advanced manufacturing” exemption from CEQA, opened up in the 2025 budget process, by adding conditions and a public hearing requirement. Restores habitat protections and tribal consultation requirements. A major victory!
- AB 1738 (Carrillo) State Housing Law: remote inspections. Requires local building departments to offer remote inspections (video/photos) for many permits, including water heaters, HVAC, and solar.
- AB 1761 (Rogers) Electricity: calculation methodology: data disclosure. Requires the Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to publicly disclose the calculations on which it bases the costs a utility can charge its customers. One of many measures designed to lower electricity bills
- SB 913 (Becker) Resource adequacy; aggregated distributed capacity resources. Directs the CPUC to take actions to count “distributed energy resources” (home solar, vehicle-to-grid EV batteries, etc.) when calculating resource adequacy. Designed to help build a market for local energy generation, smart appliances, and battery storage.
- SB 1359 (Stern) Gas Transition Responsibility and Electrification Act. Requires the CPUC to evaluate and disclose the cost of repairing or replacing natural gas infrastructure, and to calculate depreciation of those assets. The aim is to avoid stranded assets as we move away from natural gas (as we must).
- SB 868 (Wiener) Electricity: portable solar generation devices. Exempts “balcony solar” and other portable/plug-in solar devices from state law and electric utility requirements to connect to the electrical distribution system (“interconnection”).
- SB 222 (Wiener, Allen, Becker, Stern) Residential heat pump systems: water heaters and HVAC: installations. Requires permit streamlining for residential heat pump systems, and requires landlords and homeowners’ associations, etc., to allow air conditioning units, heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and replacement of gas appliances with electric.
- SB 1425 (Cortese) High-Speed Rail Authority: right-of-way: encroachment permits. Provides the California High-Speed Rail Authority with the right to issue encroachment permits, speeding construction.
- SB 894 (Allen) Wildfire resiliency: financial assistance. Establishes the California Wildfire Resilience Program, to fund home hardening modifications to homes.
It is surely gratifying to see all these “wins,” although it’s also true that practically all of these measures have been reduced in scope and ambition as they have wound their ways through the legislative thicket. This is why Climate Action California is also working hard to elect more climate leaders to the Senate and Assembly in November!
