The 2019-2020 California Legislative Session has reached its first deadline.  February 22, 2019 marked the deadline by which bills could be introduced for the first half of the Legislative Session. Lawmakers will begin Spring Recess April 12 and reconvene April 22.  The last day for bills to be passed out of the house of origin is May 31, 2019.

Below is a list of some of the key bills Stoel Rives’ Energy Team will be monitoring throughout the Legislative Session.  We note that some bills do not contain language beyond the “intent of the Legislature.”  However, we will continue to monitor these bills in case of substantive amendments.  These bills are set forth separately below under the heading “Legislative Intent.”

The majority of the bills introduced this Legislative Session relate in some way to California’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and move to cleaner sources of generation, including legislation governing electric vehicles, energy storage, and renewable energy.  A number of bills introduced in February also attempt to address the impacts of wildfires, or to reduce wildfire risk.


ASSEMBLY BILLS

AB 40 (Ting, D)   Zero-emission vehicles: comprehensive strategy.

Status: Introduced December 3, 2018; referred to Committees on Transportation and Natural Resources January 24, 2019.

AB 40 would require by no later than January 1, 2021, the State Air Resources Board to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the sales of new motor vehicles and new light-duty trucks in the state have transitioned fully to zero-emission vehicles, as defined, by 2040, as specified.
Continue Reading Key Energy Related Bills Introduced in the 2019-2020 Legislative Session

In a move that was widely anticipated across the energy industry, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) today issued an order that terminated a notice of proposed rulemaking that had been initiated in October 2017 in response to a demand by Energy Secretary Rick Perry that FERC enact rules to compensate certain resources for what

Last Friday, September 11, 2015 was the final day for California legislators to pass bills out of the Legislature and on to Governor Jerry Brown for consideration. This year’s crop of bills included something for both sides of the aisle on energy and climate change issues: from the proposed repeal of AB 32, the California law mandating greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions, to bills to set a higher GHG reduction target for 2050 and cut petroleum use in half, and from a proposed leap in the state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to 50% and incentives for geothermal, biomethane, and alternative fuels, to the repeal of solar water heating loan incentives. Some big ticket items passed, most failed to pass out of the Legislature before the deadline and can be considered in 2016 during for the second half of the two-year California legislative session. Time for the post-mortem.
Continue Reading California Legislative Session Wrap-up

Voting is underway for the 2013 Hottest Partners in Biofuels and BioBased Products, a poll conducted by our friend Jim Lane of Biofuels Digest. Poll categories include:

  • Distributors
  • Engineering, procurement & construction
  • Enzymes, yeasts & sugars
  • Feedstocks (energy crops)
  • Feedstocks (gases and residues)
  • Finance (early-stage)
  • Finance (commercialization)
  • Lab services
  • Pretreatment systems
  • Professional counselors

On February 21, 2013, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) opened the comment period on a proposed rule that would create a Quality Assurance Program (“QAP”) to combat fraudulently-created Renewable Identification Numbers (“RINs”) – a serial number assigned to a volume of biofuel for the purpose of tracking its production, use and, trade.  A public

The California Public Utilities Commission has commenced a new rulemaking to implement Assembly Bill (AB) 1900, on the use of common carrier gas pipelines for biomethane. In the rulemaking, the CPUC will develop standards and requirements for biomethane injected into pipelines, as well as pipeline access rules to ensure non-discriminatory open access to the system. Under

Last Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency released its proposed rule for the 2013 Renewable Fuel Standard (“RFS2”) volume obligations. Every year the EPA is required to determine and publish the annual volume requirements for each class of renewable fuel that obligated parties will have to comply with for the upcoming year under the RFS2 program. The volumes required under the proposed rule for 2013 are as follows (generally in ethanol equivalent volume): 14 million gallons of cellulosic biofuel, 1.28 billion gallons of biomass-based diesel (actual volume), 2.75 billion gallons of advanced biofuel, and 16.55 billion gallons of renewable fuel. As always the categories are nested and the advanced biofuel volume includes the volumes set for the cellulosic and biomass-based diesel categories. The renewable fuel category accounts for all renewable fuel including traditional corn starch ethanol.

Three of the four categories are consistent with the volumes set forth by statute. The volume for cellulosic biofuel, however, is set by this rule because it must be the lesser of the statutory volume and EPA’s projection of industry production for any given year. As with each ruling prior to this one under the program, EPA set a dramatically lower cellulosic biofuel volume than the statutory volume based on its assessment of the industry’s status. Rather than 1 billion gallons as would otherwise be required by statute, EPA is requiring obligated parties to account for 14 million gallons of cellulosic fuel. Despite the dramatic reduction from the statutory requirement, this is significant because it is an increase over the 2012 standard of 10.45 million gallons that has been the subject of considerable recent controversy.Continue Reading EPA Proposes 2013 RFS2 Volume Obligations