Senate EQ — 2026-08-27

We will come to order in 30 seconds. Are you ready? The Senate Environmental Quality Committee is now in order. Pursuant to Senate Rule 2910D, we are hearing one bill today. It's SB 675. We will otherwise follow the same procedures. So we do not have a quorum, but we will begin as a subcommittee,

Good afternoon, Chair, Committee Member. Jonathan Clay on behalf of the City of Imperial. Proud to be the sponsors of this measure. The Senate covered a lot of the big picture aspects of this. I'll just try and keep this brief. As the Senate said, the region is facing significant air quality issues, and there's a need for greater public engagement in the Valley on these issues. The old ways of doing things need to change, and SB 675 will do that through the following, by broadening out the board to include more voices at the table as these issues are discussed. It will require greater public access to already publicly available records, and I think that's important here that the things that we're asking for disclosure on are already public records. It's just extremely difficult to actually get that information, Hence why the bill asks for posting on a public website. That's it. That's what this bill does is broaden out the membership of the board so there's more voices at the table and post public information. We've worked extensively with various opposition groups. We've removed the prohibition on Title V permits. We more clearly defined the qualifications for the ag seat to make sure that it's someone from the ag producer community. We created a process to redact sensitive information, especially for the ag community, but for other industries as well, so that things aren't posted on a public website that shouldn't be, but is still available as a public record. Reduced and delayed many of the reporting requirements to reduce the administrative burden for the APCD and to reduce the costs. Additionally, we added another seat to the board to bring it from an even number to an odd number, giving a special district a seat at the board. I know the analysis had kind of talked about this as a big board given the population in comparison to San Diego. And all I just say is we had a lot of different groups that wanted to have seats on this board that we had to say no to Ag wanted an additional seat We actually had unincorporated communities that should be represented by the county wanting their own seats because they felt the county wasn't representing their voice. So with that, I hope I'd answer any questions.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members. Alfredo Medina here on behalf of the Imperial Irrigation District. in strong support. We'd like to thank the senator for the inclusion of an irrigation district within Imperial County. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members, committee members. Michelle Rualcaba here on behalf of the County of Imperial Board of Supervisors in unfortunately an opposed and less amended position on SB 675. And even though the county is supportive of the senator's primary objective of diversifying and expanding our governing board and having operational transparency, we still must remain opposed as the bill currently is drafted, presents some significant concerns for the county. Specifically, SB 675, while expanding the board from 5 to 11, and more than doubling our current board, still does not provide a funding mechanism to make this expansion. There are significant financial concerns that the county is trying to find a way through. Technology concerns, facility concerns, all of these, right? Like the county, as the senator noted, is a small rural county and just doesn't have the resources that, say, some of our bigger urban counties have. In addition, being able to, I'm sorry, so the timing of the bill, some of the deadlines that are in the bill, referencing 2027, 2029, we think underestimates the complexities of what the bill is asking us to do. And so if you take a look at, as was mentioned, the San Diego process, that was a several years process. And so we just don't think that the timelines are very realistic. And so without additional amendments to the bill, we respectfully must ask for no vote.

Good afternoon, Chair Blakespeare and members. John Kendrick from Cal Chamber. I think the fundamental tension that we're seeing here is very much an urban versus rural divide. San Diego County is obviously a very different county than Imperial County in terms of population, permit base, the resources that it has for IT, human resources, payroll, all of those sort of things. now basically what you're doing is you're importing a model that was created for a major air district and you're putting it on a very small rural air district and that creates tensions particularly when there's no actual funding being provided to accomplish it so where does the funding come from to fund all of these additional requirements of posting online any additional staff that needs to be hired to support this greatly expanded board. That source of funding is not coming from the state legislature right now, but this is a state mandated transition. That funding is going to come from one of two sources. It's going to come from additional fees placed on air permit holders. Imperial County, I believe, has less than a thousand total air permit holders. That's not a substantial base for the additional costs this is going to impose. The other path to additional funding is potential grants. So the county's going to have to go out and see where they can get grants from. If they're unable to get grants, if they're limited in how much they can impose on their fee holders, it's a per capita tax or a per capita fee that's imposed on the local governments. That means that you're imposing obligations that could reduce local services, it could increase local tax burden, and it could also increase the burden on the limited number of regulated businesses within Imperial County I really believe that any air district reform should reflect the local scale and capacity Imperial County challenges deserve locally appropriate and adequately funded solutions not the transplantation of a major air district model without any source of funding to implement it on an ongoing basis. We respectfully request a no vote. Thank you.

Respectfully, yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity. Obviously, I have a very different view. I think it's important to remember that, first and foremost, the responsibility and tasking that we've given to APCDs across this state is critical. And, in fact, is not just designed to protect quality and public health, but also direct and indirect costs as a result when we're not managing that adequately. This bill does nothing to change the regulatory architecture or framework here. It doesn't impose new responsibilities around the regulatory or oversight process. What this bill does do is make sure that the voices that are present to engage in that same task are more diverse, more aptly reflective of the community, more inclusive, and are more competent, to be just blunt, all due respect. The idea that this is a funding issue, I think I would just respectfully disagree. Again, the real major change here is not to the regulatory process, not to the statutory architecture in any way, means, methods, protocols, none of that is affected by this bill. The number of people who get to access that same process that we already have in statute and in rules are just a little more large and a little more diverse and a little more competent subject matter-wise. That's really the impact. And so I would argue to the committee that if there are financial impacts, they are probably somewhat de minimis in terms of accommodating a larger meeting room, a larger number of people participating in the same schedule of meetings that we already have set forth. It doesn't change the rules. And I just would also say that if we want to talk about costs, let's think about empirical evidence. There's a lot on the plate of the Imperial County Board of Supervisors. They do many things well. They have a tough job. But in terms of doing the job that APCDs are designed to do in the first place, the empirical evidence has to say that the current structure has not been very effective for many decades. Just the fact that we have some of the worst air quality and a lack of ability to intervene, to mitigate, to do more, to empower residents to deal with these environmental impacts, is proof itself that something is not adequately working in this area of regulatory oversight. So I don't think cost is an issue. I want to clarify what the bill does and does not do. And it is important going forward that the district there has the right voices and the right competency around the table to engage, as I stated in my first statement, a region of the state that has some of the most challenging and some of the most unique environmental challenges in the state. Okay, thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity to address the dialogue here, and I would respectfully ask for an aye vote. Okay, thank you.

Present.

Valderas here, Allen, Daly, here.

Blakespeare, aye.

No.

Allen.

No.

Aye.