PLASTIC POLLUTION
(PASSED AND SIGNED BY GOV) YES on SB 1422 (Portantino) - California Safe Drinking Water Act: microplastics This bill would require the State Water Resources Control Board to adopt regulations requiring annual testing for, and reporting of, the amount of plastics in drinking water, including public disclosure of those amounts. Call Governor Brown and express your support.
(PASSED, VETOED BY GOV) YES on SB 835/836 (Glazer) & AB 1097 (Levine) – Smoking Ban at State Beaches & Parks As the most littered thing on the planet and the most highly found item at waterway and coastal cleanups, cigarette butts burden the state both financially and environmentally. These bills would prohibit the use of smoking products of any kind at state beaches and parks.
(PASSED AND SIGNED BY GOV) YES on SB 1335 (Allen) – Sustainable Take out Food Packaging at Parks, Beaches, and State Facilities This bill will help reduce plastic pollution in our oceans by requiring state parks, beaches, and other facilities to serve only sustainable food pack- aging. Under this measure the State will lead by example, ensuring that all disposable food service packaging provided at these locations is locally recyclable or compostable.
(PASSED AND SIGNED BY GOV) YES on AB 1884 (Calderon) – Straws Upon Request Americans use roughly 500 million plastic straws daily – enough to wrap around our entire planet 2.5 times! Most go to landfills, some are incinerated, and the rest end up polluting the environment. This bill will require dine-in restaurants to give consumers a choice on whether or not they would like to receive a straw, saving businesses money and giving the consumer a chance to make a deliberate small change that will lessen the impacts of discarded plastic straws in our environment.
(PASSED AND SIGNED BY GOV) YES on SB 1263 (Portantino) - Ocean Protection Council: Statewide Microplastics Strategy This bill would direct the state's Ocean Protection Council (OPC) to develop, adopt, and implement a Statewide Microplastics Strategy in order to develop greater understanding of the risks of microplastics in the marine environment and to seek solutions for the growing problem. Call Governor Brown and express your support.
(Failed passage in committee 5/2/18) YES on AB 2308 (Stone) - Cigarettes: single-use filters The illegal litter of cigarette butts pollutes our environment, creates enormous costs to local governments and agencies tasked with cleaning up the waste, and poisons wildlife, domestic animals and children that ingest them. The vast majority of cigarette butts are made from a non-biodegradable plastic called cellulose acetate and can leach thousands of chemicals, including 50 different carcinogenic toxins, into the water and soil. This bill will prohibit the sale, gift or furnishing of cigarettes with single-use filters.
(INACTIVE) NO on AB 2921 (Low) – Expanded Polystyrene Food Service Packaging and Recovery ActThis bill allows for, not mandates, manufacturers to form a voluntary self-governing organization. If they choose to designate this organization, it allows them to establish their own recycling goals and assessment fees. Enforcement has yet to be spelled out, the bill lacks actual recycling targets and fails to give CalRecycle any oversight.
(INACTIVE) YES on AB 2379 (Bloom) – Microfiber Pollution Microfibers are tiny plastic fibers that shed from synthetic fabric during reg- ular washing and are the single most pervasive type of plastic pollution. This bill will require that all clothing made from more than 50% polyester include a label that warns of plastic microfiber shedding during regular washing and recommends hand- washing to reduce the impact.
(INACTIVE) YES on AB 2779 (Stone/Calderon) – Connect the Cap Plastic bottle caps and are the third most common item found at beach and river cleanups throughout the state; from 5-to-10 billion plastic bottle caps per year are not returned for recy- cling. This bill will require all single-use plastic beverage bottles sold in California to have bottle caps connected to the bottles.
(INACTIVE) YES on SB 168 (Wieckowski) – Minimum Recycled Content This bill will support California’s recycling industry by directing CalRecycle to set minimum recycled content requirements for all beverage containers, including plastic and aluminum. This bill would complement California’s minimum recycled content requirement for glass, which requires that all glass bottles made in the State are composed of at least 35% recycled glass, and significantly reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and environmental im- pacts associated with beverage container production.
MARINE LIFE PROTECTION
(PASSED AND SIGNED BY GOV) YES on AB 2369 (Gonzalez Fletcher) – Marine Protected Areas Enforcement A change in state law is needed to ensure that fines and penalties for MPA poaching violations are adequate and sufficient to deter future poaching. A meaningful increase in fines for commercial scale violations and the revocation of fishing permits for repeat offenders would help to ensure that the punishment for poachers is in line with the severity of their crime – a theft from all Califor- nians. This would be consistent with fines set for other wildlife crimes in California. Most importantly, increasing fines for poachers would help deter future poaching, thereby protecting California’s ocean wildlife now and for generations to come.
OFFSHORE OIL DRILLING
(PASSED AND SIGNED BY GOV) YES on AB 1775 (Muratsuchi, Limón) & SB 834 (Jackson/ Lara) – Offshore Drilling and Production AB 1775 prohibits the State Lands Commission from approving any new leases, or any lease renewals, extensions, or modifications of any lease in state waters that would result in an increase of oil or natural gas production from federal waters. On Janu- ary 4, 2018, the Trump administration announced a proposal to drastically expand offshore drilling and exploration for oil and natural gas in federal waters off of California’s coast. Expanded oil and gas development off of our coast significantly increases the risk of oil spills, which threaten the ocean, our wildlife, and our coast. AB 1775 will help protect California’s coastline, our environment, and our economy by putting a stop to new offshore oil and gas drilling and production.
(PASSED AND SIGNED BY GOV) YES on AB 2864 (Limón) – Oil Spills and Coastal CommissionThisbill would add a consultative role for the Coastal Commission during the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process.
(PASSED) AJR 29 (Limón, Chiu, Gloria, Muratsuchi, Wood) – Offshore Drilling Assembly Joint Resolution 29 would affirm the California State Legislature’s strong and unequivocal support for the current federal prohibition on new oil and gas drilling in federal waters offshore California, and emphasizes the legislature’s opposition to both the Trump administration’s proposal to remove safety and environmental protections related to offshore drilling operations and the recently proposed leasing plan that would expose the state to new offshore drilling. California’s ocean, waves and beaches are vital recreational, economic and ecological treasures that would be polluted by an increase in offshore oil drilling.
COASTAL ACCESS
(PASSED) YES on Proposition 68 (Water and Parks Bond) The California Clean Water & Safe Parks Act is a $4B bond measure that contains critical funding for ocean protection and coastal access. If approved by voters on June 5, Governor Brown has included $1B to implement “shovel-ready” projects including coastal protection in Fiscal Year 2018-2019: $175M in Proposition 68 is allocated to ocean, bay, and coastal protection in the following way: $85M for beaches, bays, wetlands, and coastal watershed resources; $35M for marine protected areas and sustainable fisheries; $20M for coastal watershed forests; and $5M for estuarine lagoons and designated wildlife areas. In addition, Proposition 68 has $60M dedicated to low-cost coastal accommodations which would provide significant and innovative resources to enable Californians from disadvantaged communities the opportunity to experience and visit the coast.
(PASSED, VETOED BY GOV) YES on AB 1918 (Garcia) – Office of Sustainable Outdoor Recreation This bill would establish in the agency the Office of Sustainable Outdoor Recreation. The bill would require the office to undertake certain activities such as promoting economic development and job growth in the outdoor recreation economy of the state. The bill would also require the office to create an advisory committee to provide advice, expertise, support and service to the office.
SURFING AS STATE SPORT
(PASSED AND SIGNED!) YES on AB 1782 (Muratsuchi) – Surfing as State Sport Surfing is an iconic California sport; California is home to world-famous surf breaks and the Surfers’ Hall of Fame, as well as the International Surfing and the California Surf museums. Due to the state’s historic connection to the sport, culture, and industry, it is appropriate that AB 1782 declares surfing the state sport of California.
COASTAL PROTECTION
(INACTIVE) NO on AB 2919 (Frazier) – Project Permitting This bill would deem all project permits requested by the Department of Transportation (Caltrans) from the Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW), State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) and California Coastal Commission (CCC) (collectively referred to as “resource agencies”) approved if the resource agencies fail to complete their reviews within two years after receipt.
(INACTIVE) NO on AB 2754 (Levine) – Coastal Act Amendment Creates exemption from coastal development permits within the Coastal Act for "routine" agricultural activity.