WCN November 2019

industry, which is where our biggest
concern lies. It could mean that any
of the truck drivers you contract with
would now become your employees.
This bill passed the Assembly 61-16, and
the Senate 29-11, and was signed by the
Governor.
AB 916 (Muratsuchi): Pesticide
Use: Glyphosate.
This bill would have, until January 1,
2025, prohibited a city, county, charter
city, city and county, or a special district,
as defined, from using any pesticide that
contains the active ingredient glyphosate.
The concern here was the precedent that
would have been set. Thankfully, this
bill was held in the Senate Agriculture
Committee and did not pass this year.
AB 1054 (Holden): Public Utilities:
Wildfires and Employee Protection.
AB 1054 requires Pacific Gas and
Electric (PG&E), Southern California
Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas &
Electric (SDC&E) to make $5 billion in
safety investments, otherwise known
as “system hardening”. This $5 billion
is spent without the normal return on
equity that the utilities normally receive,
saving ratepayers hundreds of millions
of dollars. This legislation also clarifies
an issue whereby it allows cost recovery
if the costs and expenses are determined
just and reasonable based on reasonable
conduct by the utility. The legislation
requires the utility to bear the burden
to demonstrate, based upon a preponderance
of the evidence, that its conduct
was reasonable. Going forward AB 1054
creates the “Wildfire Fund” which would
be used to pay eligible claims related to
a covered wildfire. Utility shareholders
will contribute $7.5 billion initially and
an additional $3 billion over 10 years
to the wildfire fund. On the other side,
ratepayers will be assessed a non-bypassable
energy usage charge of $0.005 per
kWh for 15 years. While this charge is
new, ratepayers will not see a difference
on their bills, because it will simply continue
an already existing charge created
during the energy crisis several years
ago that was scheduled to end in 2020
or so. AB 1054 requires PG&E to resolve
all pre-bankruptcy claims and achieve a
California Public Utilities Commission
(CPUC) approved reorganization plan
that is neutral to ratepayers. Therefore,
PG&E shareholders would be responsible
for all liability claims from the 2017
and 2018 wildfires, which is currently
estimated to be close to $30 billion! This
bill passed the Assembly 63-10, and
the Senate 31-7, and was signed by the
Governor July 12, 2019.
AB 1080 (Gonzalez) and SB 54 (Allen):
Solid Waste: Packaging and Products. SB 1 (Atkins): California
This bill would enact the California Environmental, Public Health, and
Circular Economy and Pollution
Workers Defense Act of 2019.
Reduction Act, which would impose a Arguably, this is the most controversial
comprehensive regulatory scheme on bill and would require specified agencies
to monitor federal action and adopt
producers, retailers, and wholesalers
of single-use packaging and priority federal regulatory standards through
single-use products to be administered emergency regulations that existed before
by CalRecycle. As part of that regulatory
scheme, the bill would require level resulted in a less stringent standard.
January 19, 2017 if a change at the federal
CalRecycle, before January 1, 2024, to It would apply the California Endangered
adopt regulations that require producers Species Act to the operations of the
(1) to source reduce, to the maximum Central Valley Project, which caused the
extent feasible, single-use packaging and gravest concern, especially regarding
priority single-use products, and (2) to the impact it may have on future water
ensure that all single-use packaging and
priority single-use products that are Continued on Page 78
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manufactured on or after January 1, 2030,
and that are offered for sale, sold, distributed,
or imported in or into California
are recyclable or compostable. These bills
are very impactful to the agricultural
industry, and an area we worked hard
on this past session. Both of these bills
were held on the floor, but we fully expect
these to be taken up in the
2020 session.
November 2019
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