June 5, 2015 marked the deadline for lawmakers to pass bills out of their house to the opposite house. Bills that did not pass in their house of origin by that date have effectively died (unless such bill has been identified as a 2-year bill). Below is the status and summary of the oil and gas related bills Stoel Rives is monitoring. Stoel’s Oil & Gas Team will continue to monitor these bills, among other environmental related legislation, throughout the 2015-2016 Legislative Session and provide periodic updates as the bills move through the legislative process.

SENATE BILLS

SB-13 (Pavley): Groundwater

UPDATE: This bill passed the Senate on April 30, 2015, and is pending in the Assembly Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife.

If passed by the legislature and signed into law, this bill would:

• specify that the State Water Resources Control Board is authorized to designate a high- or medium-priority basin as a probationary basin;
• provide a local agency or groundwater sustainability agency 90 or 180 days, as prescribed, to remedy certain deficiencies that caused the board to designate the basin as a probationary basin; and,
• authorize the State Water Resources Control Board to develop an interim plan for certain probationary basins one year after the designation of the basin as a probationary basin.

In addition, if the Department of Water Resources determines that all or part of a basin or subbasin is not being monitored, this bill would require the Department of Water Resources to determine whether there is sufficient interest in establishing a groundwater sustainability plan.

Finally, SB-13 would eliminate the provisions requiring a local agency or combination of local agencies that elect to be a groundwater sustainability agency for a basin to submit a prescribed notice of intent to the Department of Water Resources.Continue Reading Status of Oil and Gas-related Bills Proposed in California’s 2015-2016 Legislative Session