BILL NUMBER: AB 128	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Logue

                        JANUARY 11, 2011

   An act to add Section 39615 to the Health and Safety Code,
relating to air pollution.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 128, as introduced, Logue. State Air Resources Board:
alternative actions to assessing penalties.
   Existing law subjects violators of air pollution laws to specified
civil and administrative penalties. Existing law imposes various
duties on the State Air Resources Board relative to the reduction of
air pollution.
   This bill would authorize the state board, in lieu of assessing
penalties for a violation of an air pollution control law
administered by the state board, to require a person who has violated
that law to spend an amount equivalent to the amount that would have
been assessed for the violation toward actions to comply with the
air pollution control law that was violated or toward a supplemental
environmental project, as defined.
   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.  Section 39615 is added to the Health and Safety Code,
to read:
   39615.  (a) In lieu of assessing penalties for a violation of an
air pollution control law administered by the state board, the state
board may require a person who has violated that law to spend an
amount equivalent to the amount that would have been assessed for the
violation towards actions to comply with the air pollution control
law that was violated or towards a supplemental environmental
project, if the person has prepared a financing plan to complete the
actions to comply with the air pollution control law or prepared a
financing plan to complete the supplemental environmental project.
   (b) (1) If the penalty amount exceeds fifteen thousand dollars
($15,000), the portion of the penalty amount that may be directed to
be expended on a supplemental environmental project shall not exceed
fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000) plus 50 percent of the penalty
amount that exceeds fifteen thousand dollars ($15,000).
   (2) For purposes of this section, a "supplemental environmental
project" means an environmentally beneficial project that a person
agrees to undertake, with the approval of the state board, that would
not be undertaken in the absence of an enforcement action under this
section.