Climate Legislation Update
We recently asked our members to call their state Assembly members and state Senators ahead of an important legislative deadline, to ask them to vote for bills related to fighting the climate crisis, reducing plastic waste, protecting California’s water, and protecting communities from harmful pollution and the impacts of the climate crisis.
Now that the deadline has passed, we are happy to share that we were incredibly successful, with all but one of our supported bills making it out of their initial side of the legislature and moving forward. Here is the list of bills:
California State Assembly Bills:
The following Assembly bills received a majority of support in the Assembly and are now in the Senate, where they will next go through Senate committees:
AB 57 (Ash Kalra) California Pocket Forest Initiative
AB 1167 (Wendy Carrillo) Oil and Gas: Acquisition, Bonding Requirements
AB 1305 (Jesse Gabriel) Voluntary Carbon Offset Disclosures
AB 1407 (Dawn Addis) Coastal Resources: Ocean Recovery and Restoration: Large Scale Restoration
AB 1423 (Pilar Schiavo) PFAS in Artificial Turf
AB-1563 (Steve Bennett) Groundwater Sustainability Agency: Extraction Permits Review
AB-1572 (Laura Friedman) Potable Water, Nonfunctional Turf
The following Assembly bill was held back as a 2-year bill, and will not move forward this year:
AB 1290 (Luz Rivas) Product Safety: Plastic Packaging: Substances
California State Senate Bills:
All of our supported Senate bills received a majority of support in the Senate and are now in the Assembly, where they will next go through Assembly committees:
SB 49 (Josh Becker) Renewable energy: Department of Transportation strategic plan
SB 233 (Nancy Skinner) Energy: New Zero Emission Vehicles, Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment: Bidirectional Capability
SB 244 (Susan Eggman) Right to Repair Act
SB 252 (Lena Gonzalez) Public Retirement Systems: Fossil Fuel Divestment
SB 253 (Scott Weiner) Climate Corporate Data: Accountability Act
SB 261 (Henry Stern) Greenhouse Gases: Climate Related Financial Risk
SB 389 (Ben Allen) Water Diversion Investigation and Prevention of Unlawful Diversion
SB 394 (Lena Gonzalez) Climate Resilient Schools
SB 499 (Caroline Menjivar) School Extreme Heat Action Plan Act of 2023
SB 539 (Henry Stern) Sepulveda Basin: Planning Process: Nature-Based Solutions
SB 615 (Ben Allen) Vehicle Traction Batteries
SB 665 (Ben Allen) Plastic Waste: Single Use Plastics Alternatives
SB 674 (Lena Gonzalez) Air Pollution: Refineries: Community Air Monitoring Systems: Fence-Line Monitoring Systems
SB 707 (Josh Newman) Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2023