Bill Text: CA AB2744 | 2019-2020 | Regular Session | Introduced

California Assembly Bill 2744 (Prior Session Legislation)

Introduced

Bill Title: Environmental protection: environmental data.

Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1)

Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2020-02-21 - From printer. May be heard in committee March 22. [AB2744 Detail]

Download: California-2019-AB2744-Introduced.html

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2019–2020 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill

No. 2744

Introduced by Assembly Member Limón

February 20, 2020

An act to amend Section 71050 of the Public Resources Code, relating to environmental protection.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 2744, as introduced, Limón. Environmental protection: environmental data.

Existing law requires the Secretary for Environmental Protection to develop and adopt information technology standards by which public agencies and the regulated community may use computers and other information technology to comply with environmental data reporting requirements, and to establish a standardized electronic format and protocol for the exchange of electronic data for the purpose of meeting the environmental data reporting requirements of specified laws.

This bill would make nonsubstantive revisions to legislative findings and declarations relative to the purposes of the above-described law.

Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: NO Local Program: NO

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

Section 71050 of the Public Resources Code is amended to read:

71050.

The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:

(a) Environmental data is currently required by, and submitted to, a variety of public agencies with jurisdiction at the state, regional, and local levels of government. The same information is often submitted by the regulated community to different public agencies, almost always on one or more paper forms. Since a different format is now required for each such report, data items are required to be reformatted one or more additional times at a cost of time and money that brings no accompanying environmental benefit.

(b) The blizzard of incoming paper reports often exceeds the capacity of a public agency to digest the information. In some cases, the public agency cannot look at or evaluate all of the data received on paper. That problem of data utility is aggravated further by the current wasteful and error-laden practice of retyping data from paper forms into the public agency’s computer ~~data base.~~ database.

(c) In many cases, reported data originates in a computer ~~data base~~ database maintained by the company submitting the report. The retyping of data by the public agency could be completely eliminated if business entities were permitted to submit the data in a single electronic format ~~which~~ that every public agency could then use. That standard approach would permit both business entities and public agencies to save time and money that is now spent in on reformatting, reentering, and reediting data. The data would also be available more quickly to any member of the public interested in using the data.

(d) Business entities already use common, standardized electronic data formats and protocols to exchange commercial and technical information on materials to be transported and used in manufacturing. That application of electronic data interchange is an important factor in determining the competitiveness of business entities in this state. The imposition by government of barriers to, or multiple incompatible data format requirements on, those existing electronic interchanges impairs the competitiveness of business entities without bringing any accompanying environmental benefit.

(e) It is the policy of the state, for environmental and hazardous materials reporting purposes, to employ nonproprietary electronic data formats and transmission protocols that already function effectively for ongoing commercial and industrial data exchanges between business entities and across different computer operating systems instead of expending public funds to develop public agency-specific formats and protocols.