BILL NUMBER: ABX3 79INTRODUCED BILL TEXT INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Blakeslee SEPTEMBER 8, 2009 An act to add Section 57006 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to environmental protection. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AB 79, as introduced, Blakeslee. Environmental protection: California Environmental Protection Agency: rules: economic analysis. Existing law requires the California Environmental Protection Agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, to enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences, the University of California, the California State University, or any similar scientific institution of higher learning, or any combination of those entities, or with a scientist or group of scientists of comparable stature and qualifications that are recommended by the President of the University of California, to conduct an external scientific peer review of the scientific basis for any rule, as defined to include specified regulations and policies, proposed by any board, department, or office within the agency, and prescribes procedures for conducting that scientific peer review. This bill would, at or before the time a rule proposed for adoption is made available to the public at a public workshop or for purposes of public comment, require the California Environmental Protection Agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, to complete and place into the rulemaking record an economic analysis, as defined, of the rule. The bill would also require the agency to solicit public comment on the economic analysis in the same manner as on the proposed rule. The bill would allow any interested person, within 15 calendar days of the date of the public workshop or public hearing, to request the agency to submit the economic analysis to external peer review, and would prescribe procedures for conducting the external peer review. The California Constitution authorizes the Governor to declare a fiscal emergency and to call the Legislature into special session for that purpose. The Governor issued a proclamation declaring a fiscal emergency, and calling a special session for this purpose, on December 19, 2009. This bill would state that it addresses the fiscal emergency declared by the Governor by proclamation issued on December 19, 2009, pursuant to the California Constitution. Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS: SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (a) The people of the State of California expect that their state government will enact laws and promulgate regulations to the general benefit of the people and that regulations promulgated will tend to maximize benefits to society while minimizing costs. (b) Administrative and regulatory actions can have significant and far-reaching consequences for individuals, nonprofit organizations, and businesses throughout the state. (c) Administrative and regulatory actions should be based on adequate information concerning the need for and consequences of the proposed action. (d) Administrative and regulatory actions that maximize benefits to society while minimizing costs are preferable to actions that tend toward the opposite. (e) The agencies, boards, departments, and offices of the state generally strive to promulgate regulations that benefit the people of the state. (f) The Legislature has in numerous instances required that the agencies, boards, departments, and offices of the state take cost considerations into account when promulgating regulations. (g) The Legislature has specifically required that the scientific basis of environmental protection regulations be subject to analysis and peer review. (h) The costs and benefits of environmental protection regulations should also be subject to analysis and peer review. SEC. 2. Section 57006 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read: 57006. (a) For purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings: (1) "Benefit" means the reasonably identifiable significantly favorable effects that are expected to result from implementation of, or compliance with, a rule. (2) "Cost" means the reasonably identifiable significantly adverse effects that are expected to result from implementation of, or compliance with, a rule. (3) "Economic analysis" means an evaluation of the costs and benefits of a rule, quantified to the extent feasible and appropriate and otherwise qualitatively described, that is prepared at a level of detail appropriate and practicable for reasoned decisionmaking. (4) "Rule" means either of the following: (A) A regulation as defined in Section 11342.600 of the Government Code. (B) A policy adopted by the State Water Resources Control Board pursuant to the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act (Division 7 (commencing with Section 13000) of the Water Code) that has the effect of a regulation that is adopted in order to implement or make effective a statute. (b) At or before the time a rule proposed for adoption is made available to the public at a public workshop or for purposes of public comment, the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, shall complete and place into the rulemaking record an economic analysis of the rule and shall solicit public comment on the economic analysis in the same manner as on the proposed rule. (c) Any interested person may, within 15 calendar days of the date of the public workshop or public hearing, request the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, to submit the economic analysis to external peer review. If the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, receives such a request, it shall enter into an agreement with the National Bureau of Economic Research, the University of California, the California State University, or a group of economists of comparable stature and qualifications that is selected by the President of the University of California, to conduct an external peer review of the economic analysis for any rule proposed for adoption if, within 15 calendar days of making the request, the person requesting the external economic analysis peer review enters into an enforceable agreement with the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, that requires that person to fully reimburse the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, for all of the costs associated with conducting the external peer review. (d) (1) A person shall not serve as an external economic analysis peer reviewer for a proposed rule if that person participated in the development of the economic analysis of the proposed rule. (2) The person who requested the economic analysis peer review, a person affiliated with the requester, and personnel of the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, shall not participate in the selection of the individual external economic analysis peer reviewers or contact or communicate with the individual peer reviewers during the pendency of the peer review. The identity of the individual peer reviewers shall remain confidential until the external economic analysis peer review entity submits its written report to the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency. The agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, may contact or communicate with the external economic analysis peer review entity for the purposes of entering into a contract with that entity, as described in subdivision (c), and for purposes of providing information as described in paragraph (1) of subdivision (e). (e) The agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, shall not take any action to adopt the final version of a rule unless all of the following conditions are met: (1) The agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, submits the proposed rule, along with the economic analysis, findings, conclusions, and assumptions on which the economic analysis is based, and the supporting economic data and studies, public comment on the economic analysis, and other appropriate materials, to the external economic analysis peer review entity for its evaluation. (2) The external economic analysis peer review entity, within the timeframe agreed upon by the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, and the external economic analysis peer review entity, prepares a written report that contains an evaluation of the economic analysis. The agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, may accept the findings of the external economic analysis peer review entity, in whole or in part, and may revise the proposed rule accordingly. If the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency disagrees with any aspect of the findings of the external economic analysis peer review entity, it shall explain, and include as part of the rulemaking record, its basis for arriving at that determination. (3) A public hearing is conducted to provide opportunity for public comment on the written report of the external economic analysis peer review entity and any explanation of disagreement with the report included in the rulemaking record by the agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency. Notice of a public hearing on adoption of the final version of a rule shall not issue until the public hearing described in this paragraph is concluded. (f) The requirements of this section do not apply to any emergency regulation adopted pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 11346.1 of the Government Code. (g) This section does not limit the authority of an agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, to adopt a rule pursuant to the requirements of a statute that authorizes or requires the adoption of the rule. SEC. 3. This act addresses the fiscal emergency declared by the Governor by proclamation on December 19, 2009, pursuant to subdivision (f) of Section 10 of Article IV of the California Constitution.