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Home My WebLink AboutF-3 California Municipal Utilities Association (CMUA0 Legislative Update F-1 AZUSA 116NT I.WATEt INFORMATION ITEM TO: HONORABLE CHAIRPERSON AND MEMBERS OF THE AZUSA UTILITY BOARD FROM: GEORGE F. MORROW,DIRECTOR OF UTILITIES DATE: JUNE 22, 2015 SUBJECT: CALIFORNIA MUNICIPAL UTILITIES ASSOCIATION (CMUA) LEGISLATIVE UPDATE The attached June Legislative Update recaps different energy and water bills that are of interest to the members of CMUA: 1111.11111111111.1=ii Bill Title Position AB 568(Dodd) Grant Authority for Reclamation District Support AB 645 (Williams) RPS Increase from 33%to 50% Concerned AB 1144(Rendon) Classification of RECS created from Support if energy generated from new waste- Amended treatment digesters to category 1 AB 1236(Chiu) Expedited and streamlined permit Oppose unless process for EV chargers. Amended AB 1330(Bloom) Energy Efficiency Standard fixed targets Oppose at 1.5%EE savings in 2020 and 2%by 2025 AB 1448(Lopez) Statute clarification using a clothing line Support or drying rack is permissible at apartments with landlord approval SB 39(Pavley) Increased HOV lane stickers for clean Support vehicles from 55K i:0 60K as incentive to purchase zero pollution emitting vehicles SB 350(de Leon) RPS increase from.33%to 50%,reduce Concerned petroleum use by 50%by 2030&double efficiency of existing buildings by 2030. SB 502(Leno) Ensures Bay Area Rapid Transit(BART) Support gets renewable power without delay. UB-196 CMUA Legislative Update June 22,2015 Page 2 Water Bills Urban Water Management Plans(UWMP) due date change from Dec. 31,2020 to July AB 149(Chavez) 1,2021 to allow agencies to incorporate Support information on meeting the mandatory state 20%reduction in urban per capita water use Authorizes certain water projects to file Support AB 291 (Medina) notice with the county clerk where local agency is located in lieu of county clerk where project is located. Prohibits HOA from enforcing landscape AB 349(Gonzales) guidelines that prohibit the use of artificial Support turf Requires the Department of General Services and Department of Transportation AB 606(Levine) to reduce water consumption&increase Support efficiencies when replacing landscaping or irrigation on public property Requires California Energy Commission to Oppose AB 723 (Rendon) consider performance requirements Unless established by WaterSense standards when setting plumbing fixtures Amended Requirement for certification of backflow Oppose AB 1173 (Williams) prevention device if a local health officer Unless does not maintain the program Amended Allows the State Board to adopt all Oppose AB 1531 (ESTM Cmte) regulations to maintain primacy with Safe Unless Drinking Water Act by emergency regulation Amended SB 7(Wolk) Would establish program to require Support in submeters in all multi-unit dwellings Concept Requires the Department of Water ) Resources to provide an advanced 50% ( SB 208 Lara payment of grant award for IRWMP Support projects serving disadvantaged communities Would allow water systems affected by the SB 385 (Hueso) new chromium 6 MCL an opportunity to Support comply with State Water Board without being deemed in violation SB 471 (Pavley) Specifies reduction of GHG emissions Support if associated with water sector Amended Requires agencies to complete validated Oppose SB 555(Wolk) water loss audits and submit to Dept.of Unless Water Resources Amended Prepared by: Liza Cawte, Senior Administrative Technician Attachment: CMUA Legislative Update UB-197 y`topNtiT.ruN,`P C M UA June 08,2015+www.cmua,org �� 915 L Street.Suite M 1480•Sacramento,CA 95814•(918)3285810 " o 'le tTT04S 111 E u p DATE �'ti CMUA began the Ic grslati e year tracking 2.00 tails an;.:t,iku g p. sitions or.ti sir them. Nora at tl e half-way ni;trk, there remain 120 hills that CMUA continues to follov'. .nth I>cs h it s t.n•approti t ,itely._O r,t the thi°ro rt;cu4 re;. turns to budget trailer brli lang_rage that 111uS:be re ie to Ito to froet tl t',,tate's Jim ;' i 5th C<idImee to pa o a _,ttEi budget.AI=.o irIcluoed is a hr rof recap of Rip Lipper ar,d e mcg nr E t.rgs. Energy Bills AB 568(Dodd)SUPPORT Grants authority for Reclamation District(RD)No.108 to generate and sell hydroelectric power by extending,to RD 108,similiar authority currently granted to RD 1004 to do the same.CMUA has several water irrigation districts that would benefit by the hydro power generated by this Reclamation District. Status: Senate Energy hearing 6/16/15 AB 645(Williams)CONCERNED Increases the state's renewable portfolio standard from 33%to 50%. Passed off the Assembly Floor last week with a final vote count of 46-29(Assemblymembe Gray the only"no"vote from a democrat. All Republican members voted"no"). Status: Pending referral to Senate Energy Committee. AB 1144(Rendon)SUPPORT IF AMENDED Allows content category 3 RECS created from energy generated from new waste-treatment digesters to count instead toward content category 1. The bill passed the Assembly near the end of May,73-0. CMUA desires amendments to clarify the language to work in conjunction with CMUA's regulatory dealings with the Energy Commission. Status:Sen.Energy on 6/16/15. AB 1236(Chiu)OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED Requires all cities and counties to establish an expedited and streamlined permit process for electric vehicle chargers. CMUA has joined with the League of Cities in opposition,seeking amendments. The bill passed the Assembly end of May with a vote of 76-0. Status: Referred to Senate Government and Finance. AB 1330(Bloom)OPPOSE Establishes an Energy Efficiency Standard with feed targets that must be met by all utilties starting at 1.5% energy efficiency savings based off of retails by 2020,than to 2%by 2025. The bill passed off the Assembly Floor last week 46-29,with two Democrats voting"no"(Assemblymembers Gatto and Gray)and all Republican's either voting not or not voting. Status:Pending referral to a committee. AB 1448(Lopez)SUPPORT Clarifies in statute that using a clothing line or drying rack is permissable at apartments so long as the tentant has approval by the landlord. Status:This bill passed the Assembly Floor in May 52-18.Status:Pending in Senate Transportation and Housing. SB 39(Pavley)SUPPORT Increases the total number of high-occupancy vehicle(HOV)lane stickers for clean vehicles from 55,000 to 70,000 to continue incentives to customers to purohse zero or near-zero pollution emitting vehicles. This bill passed the Senate Floor in early May 29-7. Status:Pending in Assembly Transportation Committee. SB 350(de Leon)CONCERNED Increases the State's renewable portfolio standard from 33%to 50%,but also seeks to reduce the state's petroluem use by 50%by 2030 and double the efficiency in existing buildings by 2030.Passed the Senate Floor last week after a lengthy debate 24-14 with Democratic Senator Galgiani voting"no"and Democratic Senator Roth abstaining on the bill. Status:Pending referral to multiple Assembly committees. SB 502(Leno)SUPPORT Ensures that the Bay Area Rapid Transit(BART)car get renewable power without any discrimination or delay. This bill passed the Senate In late April. Status: Asm.Utilities Committee 6/15/15 UB-198 Water Bills AB 149(Chavez)SUPPORT Would change the due date for the 2020 Urban Water Management Plans(UWMP)from December 31,2020 to July 1,2021 so agencies can incorporate information related to meeting the mandatory statewide 20%reduction in urban per capita water use by December 31,2020.Passed Assembly floor in early May 77-0. Status:Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee 06/09/15 AB 291(Medina)SUPPORT This bill would authorize a local agency,for certain water projects,to file the notice with the county clerk of the county in which the local agency's principal office is located in lieu of the county clerk of each county in which the project is located and would,if the local agency exercises this authorization,require the local agency to file the notice with the Office of Planning and Research. The lead agency would also have to mail a certified copy of the notice to all affected counties.Passed the Assembly Floor in late April 77-0. Status:Senate Environmental Quality Committee 06/17/15 AB 349(Gonzales)SUPPORT Urgency bill that would prevent HOAs from enforcing goveming documents or architectural or landscaping guidelines or policies that prohibit use of artificial turf or any other synthetic surface that resembles grass. Passed through Assembly Floor in late May 73-3,with Assemblymembers Men,Brough and Harper voting"no." Status:Pending referral to a Senate Committee. AB 606(Levine)SUPPORT This bill would require the Department of General Services and the Department of Transportation,subject to certain conditions,to reduce water consumption and increase water efficiencies when replacing landscaping or irrigation on public property or when new public property is added to the department's statewide property inventory.Passed Assembly Floor 76-0 in late May. Status:Referred to Senate Govemmental Organization Committee. AB 723(Rendon)SUPPORT This bill would require the California Energy Commission,when setting plumbing fixture water efficiency standards,to consider the performance requirements established by the WaterSense standards set by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.Passed the Assembly Floor in early June 78-0. Status:Pending assignment in the Senate. AB 1173(Williams)OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED This bill would require,if a local health officer does not maintain a program for certification of backflow prevention device testers,the testing and maintenance of a backflow prevention device be performed by a person who has received a California-specific certification for testing backflow prevention devices from one of specified entities or a similar certification provider deemed acceptable by the state board or the local health officer.Would sever the relationship between the local health officers and the public water supplier in favor of three specific organizations.Passed Assembly floor 55-22 in late May. Status:Pending referral in the Senate. AB 1531(ESTM Cmte)OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED CMUA is opposed due to a provision that would allow the State Board to adopt all regulations needed to maintain primacy with the federal Safe Drinking Water Act by emergency regulation.Status:Working with State Board and committee staff on amendments;language has been offered and is under review by CMUA.Passed through the Assembly in mid-May 78-0. Status:Senate Environmental Quality Committee 05/17/15 SB 7(Wolk)SUPPORT IN CONCEPT Would establish program to require submeters in all multi-unit dwellings.This bill has been introduced a number of times.Even though it is still intent language,the bill received some"no"votes in the Senate,passing out in early May 28-7 with 4 Senators abstaining. Status:Referred to multiple Assembly Committees.In addition,the language from last year's SB 750 on this issue has shown up in a budget trailer bill. SB 208(Lara)SUPPORT This bill requires the Department of Water Resources to provide an advanced payment of 50%of the grant award for IRWMP projects serving disadvantaged communities.Passed the Senate floor 31-5 with four abstentions. Status:At the Assembly desk SB 385(Hueco)SUPPORT Would allow water systems affected by the new chromium 6 MCL a limited time opportunity to work toward compliance with the State Water Board without being deemed in violation as long as strict safeguards are met.Passed through the Senate floor 39-0. Status:Referred to Assembly Committees on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials and Judiciary. SB 471(Pavley)SUPPORT IF AMENDED This bill specifies that reductions of GHG emissions associated with the water sector,including water use,supply,and treatment,would be eligible investments from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund(GGRF).The requirement to establish a GHG inventory for the water system was amended out in Senate Appropriations.Senate floor vote was 37-2 with"no"votes from Senators Moorlach and Nielsen. Status:At Assembly desk. SB 555(Wolk)OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED Would require water agencies to complete validated water loss audits and submit them to the Department of Water Resources(DWR).DWR also would develop metrics for reporting year over year progress on water loss reduction and would adopt performance standards for the volume of water losses.Passed through Senate floor 36-2.CMUA is working to secure amendments with author's office. Status:Assembly desk. UB-199 SB 350 de Leon - Kip Meeting Brief Summary Organized by Kip Upper,Chief Policy Advisor on Energy and Environment policy for Senate pro Tempore Kevin de Leon(weekly Thursday meeting of stakeholders). Last Thursday's meeting focused on allowing the environmental community,consumer advocates,labor interests and independent energy producers a chance to respond to five policy areas sought by investor owned and publicly owned utilities seeking some flexibility in achieving a 50%RPS by 2030. These five policies are: • Transportation Electrification(TE)and unexpected load from EVs • Energy Efficiency(EE)RPS Credits and EE recognition for existing building retrofits • Flexible Compliance and Buckets • Operations Issues • POU Concerns on CEC enforcement and federal hydro power. The environmental stakeholders were made up of representatives from the Union of Concerned Scientists,Environmental Defense Fund,and the Natural Resources Defense Council. Labor was represented by Marc Jcseph;consumer advocates represented by Matthew Friedman with TURN and Steven Kelly for the Independent Energy Producers. In brief on: • TE-None starter on any RPS credits. OK with holding utilities harmless for their emissions obligations under cap and trade from increased EV load through an increase in their allowance allocation. • Open to a flexibility off-ramp that addresses failure to meet RPS targets due to unexpected large increase in EV load. • EE-No RPS credits for EE investments. Yet supportive of efforts to improve oversight of EE programs including appropriate crediting of savings from bringing existing buildings up to code and support the language from AB 802(Williams)joining the AB 350 bill package.AB 802 is specific to the CPUC's authority over IOU EE programs(CMUA clarified this bill doesn't include POUs). • Flexible Compliance and Buckets(1st item raised at meeting) 45 minutes of non-utilities not budging and refusing to understand the requested flexibility in banking rules as presented by PG&E and So Cal Edison. The fear from non-utility participants was that to provide some flexibility in the current banking rules would somehow open up a world where all RPS compliance is done via 1-year agreements or entirely through RECs. • Compliance period trajectory within each period-part of the"Equal Rules"issue by IOUs.The enviros didn't think this needed to be addressed believing that CEC/CPUC authority to determine"reasonable progress between compliance periods" remains sufficient. • Use of unbundled RECs over time-Open to more bucket 2 transactions but do not believe allowing more renewable procurement to occur in the form of unbundled RECs is the way to go. • Operational Issues:Curtailment in the RPS Not favorable to counting curtailment of renewables towards the RPS. Would like to explore solutions. One idea to consider is clarifying the flexibility offramp already in statute that the utilities have the ability to make the clear case that they missed their RPS compliance obligation because of curtailment. Assessment of meeting: Even Kip Upper appeared a little exasperated at the unwillingness of most environmental stakeholders to budge on a variety of issues. The notion of finding some policy areas that maybe worth revamping for utilities to cost-effectively move toward a 50% RPS was clearly resisted. Only Gavin Purchas,Director for Clean Energy with the Environmental Defense Fund was willing to think broadly about the banking issue and a couple others. NRDC was willing to remove some disincentives on the issue of ET but said nothing else throughout the meeting. PG&E representatives building off of PG&E's big ask list and actual amendments for discussion grew more and more frustrated as few of their solutions had any traction. What's next Thursday meeting next week. Kip is urging that others come back with amendments to discuss. IOU and CMUA coordination: After the meeting PG&E expressed that it is very interested in seeing if all the utilities want to form a coalition to inform policy makers on issues that we all have in common together. If so,maybe exploring a unified position on SB 350 and AB 645 is doable. UB-200 Budget Trailer Bill Meetings CMUA attended two invite-only stakeholder meetings with the Administration and legislative leadership including Kip Lipper to discuss budget trailer bills on mandatory consolidation and drinking water program fee regulations.We are on coalitions opposing both proposals and have submitted letters to the budget conference committee,which are linked below.The effective coalition work and these letters were key in securing these meetings. On the drinking water program fee regulations proposal,the coalition submitted an alternative that would amount to an 8.8%increase on large water systems for the 2015-2016 budget year and provide for a stakeholder process to determine a long-term funding solution for the program.At the time of this update we are waiting to hear back on our proposed alternative. On the mandatory consolidation proposal,the meeting included supporters of the budget trailer bill as well and we were offered the opportunity to provide suggested changes to the most current language.After reviewing that version,CMUA remains opposed and as of this update is working with the coalition on next steps. More information will be provided at the Legislative Committee meeting on June 11. • Budget Trailer Bill Consolidation Letter • Drinking Water Fees Budget Committee Coalition Letter Follow Us on Twitter Follow us today for up-to-date California energy and water updates as well as timely member information.@CMUA_Tweets UB-201