California Environmental News: July 2021

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Pasadena City Hall (Photo – Coloradoblvd.net)

The first-round of 2021 state bills that focused on plastic and solar rights have been finalized, mostly in favor of the environment.

By Cheryl Auger

Here’s a quick summary of some of what went down in Sacramento in this last legislative season.

Bills defeated

AB 1139 sought to increase the monthly cost of residential solar system connections to on average $70 and reduce the kWh payout reduction from $0.25 to $0.03. Many environmentalists thought it was important to focus on climate goals. Since much of the west is in an extended drought and extended fire season, environmentalists wonder why utilities continue to advocate extensive investments in transmission since they believe we really need local generation and storage for reliability.

AB 1371, arguably one of the most important bills, finished 5 votes short. This bill would have helped minimize plastic packaging from Amazon and other e-retailers including mailing envelopes, plastic film and bubble wrap.

Bills passed to the Senate

• AB 478 mandates a percentage of raw materials to come from post consumer recycled plastic.
• AB 1201 prohibits companies from calling products “compostable” unless they meet specified standards.
• AB 881 disallows exported plastic waste to be called recycled if it is landfilled, burned, dumped, or improperly managed.
• AB 1276 requires food-service operations to provide single-use to-go accessories only if requested.

Bill passed to the Assembly

SB 343 tightens the requirements around the use of the “chasing arrows” recycling symbol and recyclability claims.

Bills that may return

SB54 (plastic recycling 75% of single use plastics by 2032) and AB 661 (requires CA to buy products with recycled content) may be back in January 2022. Both bills were taken off the floor by their authors because they didn’t have the votes to make it to the opposite house. We might also see the return of AB 1139.  To see how your legislator voted on key bills go to leginfo.legislature.ca.gov.

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