2003-04 State Legislative Session Wraps Up

The 2003-2004 California State Legislature adjourned late last week after a session that included a historic recall election, a new administration in the Governor’s Office and record low approval ratings for legislators. Although the session ended three days ahead of schedule, inevitable last-minute negotiations attempted to resolve a number of issues until the final vote was tallied in the early hours of August 28.

There were many significant budget-related and legislative proposals that were blocked by ACWA, ACWA members and related lobbying coalitions. These proposals included special district reform, CALFED user fees, reductions in State financial participation in flood control projects, blanket State flood damage immunity, expansion of wetlands regulatory powers, public contract indemnification, third party water transfer mitigation, investor owned utility access to State General Obligation Bond proceeds, delta improvement plan linkages to environmental quality improvements and resource plans for new local publicly owned electric utilities.

The annual planning meeting of the State Legislative Committee will be Friday, October 22, 2004 in the ACWA boardroom. The deadline for proposals is Friday, September 17. In addition to ACWA member proposals, ACWA staff is preparing proposals relating to special district reform, flood protection and management, and special district financial reserve policy.

The following is a list of 2004 priority bills affecting ACWA members and their current status as of August 31, 2004:

AB 105 (Wiggins) Ag & Water Omnibus -- SUPPORT
Status: To enrollment. Section 6 of the bill, relating to Water Code Section 10753.7 contains a one word amendment to “clean-up” an inadvertent error when Stats. 2002, c. 603 (SB 1938 (Machado)) was enacted. The intent of SB 1938 was to require entities seeking state funding for groundwater projects to prepare groundwater management plans that contain specified components. ACWA worked for months with Senator Machado to ensure that groundwater managements entities didn’t have to expend the necessary financial and human resources updating plans using the new requirements when they were not seeking state funding. Current law requires that all plans contain the SB 1938 components to qualify as a groundwater management plan. The intent was that only those plans qualifying under SB 1938 would be eligible for state funding. Since every entity is not seeking state funds and may be using their current plans for other purposes, it is vitally important that those plans not be void under the law.

AB 2067 (Harman): Local government reorganization: special district consolidation – SUPPORT/CO-SPONSOR
Status: Enrolled. ACWA co-sponsored AB 2067 with the California Association of Local Agency Formation Commissions (CALAFCO), which will enable the consolidation of special districts that do not share the same principal act. AB 2067 contains procedural and substantive protections to ensure that consolidations will result in similar or lower costs of services as well as similar or improved public accountability and access. ACWA also assisted homebuilder and business interests during the final days of the session to pass AB 389 (Montañez). This bill will provide incentives for infill development on brownfield properties—sites that have been contaminated by past industrial and manufacturing practices and contribute to soil and water pollution. ACWA members would receive certain legal immunities, as well as regulatory protections, should they become an “innocent landowner” of a brownfield property acquired by the enforcement of a judgment, tax or delinquency lien

AB 2121 (Committee on Budget)
Status: To Enrollment. Would require the SWRCB to adopt instream flow requirements for the Russian River area and allow them to adopt instream flow requirements for the rest of the state. In adopting these instream flow requirements, the SWRCB may utilize a draft set of guidelines jointly created by the Department of Fish and Game and the National Marine Fisheries Service (now NOAA) that have yet to be adopted.

AB 2298 (Plescia) Public water systems: water meters – OPPOSE/AMENDED
Status: Failed passage in committee. Would have required that an urban water supplier install or require the installation of a dedicated landscape water meter to measure or calculate the volume of water delivered to new irrigated landscapes measuring 10,000 square feet or more by January 1, 2006. Also would have required an urban water supplier to install or require the installation of a dedicated landscape water meter to landscaped areas of one acre or more on parcels not containing a single family residence by January 1, 2012. The main reasons for the opposition are based on the failure of AB 2298 to address the requirements of Stats. 1990, c. 1145 (AB 325, the Water Conservation in Landscaping Act); the challenge to identifying properties impacted by AB 2298; and feasibility and cost of retrofitting meters into existing systems.

AB 2572 (Kehoe) Water meters -- FAVOR
Status: Enrolled. Would require water purveyors to install water meters, by January 1, 2025, on all service connections constructed prior to January 1, 1992 in their service areas. This bill would also require that water provided after January 1, 2010, unless there is a contract executed prior to January 1, 2005 providing otherwise, to charge customers for water based on actual volume of delivery.

AB 2717 (Laird) CUWCC: stakeholders -- FAVOR
Status: To Enrollment. Expresses the intent of the Legislature that the California Urban Water Conservation Council convene a stakeholder workgroup to evaluate and recommend proposals for improving water efficiency in new and existing urban irrigated landscapes. This bill would further request that the stakeholder group report its recommendations to the governor and the Legislature by December 31, 2005 and would require each stakeholder to finance its own participation in the workgroup, though permits the state to fund any costs it chooses. This would present an opportunity for stakeholders to provide input and fashion a proposal for landscape conservation that could begin to achieve the kind of success indoor programs have.

AB 2782 (Benoit) Public agencies: JPA: meetings -- FAVOR
Status: To Enrollment. Authorizes the legislative body of a local agency to hold closed sessions to discuss or receive information, or to take action on matters relating to issues of the JPA on which it has a member. Limits the subject matters that may be discussed in closed session by the local agency’s legislative body to those where the local agency has a direct financial or liability implication.

AB 2864 (Canciamilla) Water rights: fees -- SUPPORT/SPONSOR
Status: Died on suspense (Assembly). Although ACWA fell short of its legislative goal to enact AB 2864 and restore General Fund appropriations for the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Water Rights, ACWA and member representatives were able to negotiate a compromise with the State Board and restore about $3 million in state funding beginning in FY 2005-06. Water right fees on ACWA members and others will be reduced if the compromise results in a partial restoration of funding through the State Budget.

AB 2889 (Laird) Employment discrimination – NOT FAVOR
Status: Died on suspense (Assembly). Would have extended the liability imposed on employers under last year’s AB 76 (Stats. 2003, c. 671) for sexual harassment to all forms of harassment by all persons including non-employees. Employers should be held responsible or liable for the actions of persons who are not under the direction and control of the employer. While the bill attempted to limit the liability to those harassment actions that the employer knew or should have known, the fact that it extends to such person as contractors, outside sales person, etc., requires the employer to control people it in general has no employer-employee relationship with and hence limited ability to influence.

AB 2902 (Hancock) CEQA: project approvals -- OPPOSE
Status: Failed passage in Senate committee. Would have prohibited a public agency from making a finding that those changes or alterations that are within the responsibility and jurisdiction of another public agency and have been, or can and should be, adopted by that other agency, unless the public agency with responsibility and jurisdiction for adopting the change or alteration (1) holds a hearing in the jurisdiction impacted and finds that the changes or alteration are not within the responsibility of the public agency holding the hearing; and (2) conducts good faith negotiations with the other public agency for not less than 90 days prior to making the finding that the changes or alterations are within the responsibility and jurisdiction of the other public agency, as specified.

SB 18 (Burton) Traditional tribal cultural places -- WATCH
Status: Enrolled. ACWA moved from oppose to watch based on amendments. Requires local planning agencies to consult with the appropriate tribes regarding potential sacred sights at the general plan stage. Also requires that the Office of Planning and Research develop guidelines for use when identifying the appropriate tribes, protecting the confidentiality of sites and their characteristics, and for the facilitation of voluntary landowner participation in site preservation and protection. By using an early notification and enhanced consultation process public and private property owners obtain more certainty about the status of their property and are therefore able to plan accordingly, avoiding in many instances large capital expenditures in areas that will require site protection.

SB 1165 (Local Gov’t) Omnibus bill -- SUPPORT
Status: Chaptered. (Stats. 2004, c. 118). Amends the California Water Districts Act, Water Code §34701 to be consistent with the Uniform District Election Law standard. Allows the general manager or other district representative of the Water Replenishment District of Southern California (WRD) to sign contracts and documents valued between $10,000 and $25,000 as long as the contracts and documents have been presented to and approved by the WRD board, and by resolution, signature authorization has been granted. Further allows the WRD’s general manager or other district representative to sign all contracts and documents valued at less than $10,000, but prohibits the general manager or other representative from signing multiple contracts with the same person within the same year that totals $10,000 or more, unless he or she has received the board's prior approval.

SB 1477 (Sher): Wetlands -- OPPOSE
Status: Failed passage in committee. This bill would create The Isolated, Non-navigable Waters, Wetlands, and Special Aquatic Sites Protection Program that would close the gap left by the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the 2001 Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (SWANCC) case. However, the author and sponsors went well beyond the gap by expanding definitions of beneficial uses and types of conditions that would require a permit. ACWA, along with a large coalition of business and water stakeholder groups, strongly opposed SB 1477. The bill failed passage in a July committee hearing and the coalition successfully stopped the proponents from advancing a similar proposal during the last two weeks of session.

SCA 4 (Torlakson): Local Government Finance
Status: Chaptered, proposition to appear on November 2004 ballot. One of the major accomplishments earlier this year for local government was the passage of Senate Constitutional Amendment 4 (SCA 4), a measure to protect the future revenue of local governments throughout California. SCA 4 will appear as Proposition 1A on the November 2004 election ballot and offers protection for local governments against future state financial uncertainty. This measure helps stabilize local funds and protect delivery of critical services through more reliable funding sources for local agencies and restrictions on reallocations from local to state government. Proposition 1A is the alternative to Proposition 65, the initiative supported by the LOCAL Coalition, of which ACWA is a member. In late August the ACWA Board of Directors voted to support Proposition 1A in place of Proposition 65.