Bill Text: CA SB260 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Amended
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
Bill Title: Climate Corporate Accountability Act.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 11-0)
Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2022-08-31 - Read third time. Refused passage. [SB260 Detail]
Download: California-2021-SB260-Amended.html
NOYES
Bill Title: Climate Corporate Accountability Act.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 11-0)
Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2022-08-31 - Read third time. Refused passage. [SB260 Detail]
Download: California-2021-SB260-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Senate
April 05, 2021 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION
Senate Bill
No. 260
| Introduced by (Principal coauthors: Assembly Members Cristina Garcia and Kalra) (Coauthor: Senator Min) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Carrillo, Chiu, Friedman, Lee, Robert Rivas, Stone, and Ting) |
January 26, 2021 |
An act to add Section 38532 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to greenhouse gases.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
SB 260, as amended, Wiener.
Climate Corporate Accountability Act.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 requires the State Air Resources Board to adopt regulations to require the reporting and verification of statewide greenhouse gas emissions and to monitor and enforce compliance with the act. The act requires the state board to make available, and update at least annually, on its internet website the emissions of greenhouse gases, criteria pollutants, and toxic air contaminants for each facility that reports to the state board, as provided.The act provides that any person who violates specified provisions of the act, as provided, is guilty of a misdemeanor and is punishable by a monetary fine, imprisonment in a county jail, or by both a fine and imprisonment.
This bill would require the state board, on or before January 1, 2023, to develop and adopt regulations requiring publicly traded domestic and foreign corporations
United States-based partnerships, corporations, limited liability companies, and other business entities with total
annual revenues in excess of $1,000,000,000 and that do business in California, defined as “covered “reporting
entities,” to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, categorized as scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions, as defined, from the prior calendar year. The bill would require the state board, on or before January 1, 2024, to develop and adopt regulations requiring covered reporting entities to set science-based emissions targets, as defined, based on the covered reporting entity’s emissions that have been reported to the state board. The bill would require covered
reporting entities to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions and science-based emissions targets in a manner that is easily understandable and accessible to residents of the state, including, but not limited to, by making that information available on a widely available digital platform. state. The bill would also require covered reporting entities to ensure that their public disclosures have been independently verified by a third-party auditor, approved by the state board, with expertise in greenhouse gas emissions
accounting. The bill would require the state board to create a digital platform, as provided, to house all reports submitted by reporting entities. The bill would require the state board to consult with a panel of experts to determine standards and protocols to ensure that public disclosures are made in a manner that is easily understandable and accessible to state residents, for the state board to utilize to collect data for all scope 1 emissions, scope 2 emissions, and scope 3 emissions from covered entities by reporting
entities, and to set science-based emissions targets for covered reporting entities. By expanding the scope of a crime under the act, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program:Bill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(a) California has demonstrated its leadership in the battle against climate change and the climate actions of the state have inspired and contributed to bold actions in other states and across the globe.
(b) Yet, even in California, carbon emissions are not being reduced at the scale and pace required to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, and Californians are already facing devastating wildfires, sea level rise, drought, and other impacts associated with climate change.
(c) California has achieved record economic growth, is the fifth largest
economy in the world, and is a highly desired consumer market for the globe’s most profitable corporations. companies.
(d) Facing an imperative to act decisively and quickly to combat the growing climate threat and given the outsized role consumer purchasing plays in contributing to the climate crisis, publicly traded domestic and foreign corporations United States-based companies that have access to California’s tremendously valuable consumer market by virtue of exercising their corporate franchise in the state also share a responsibility for addressing the climate
crisis in the Golden State.
(e) Corporations Companies play a major role in the worsening climate crisis through emissions activities that include, but are not limited to, corporate company operations, employee and consumer transportation, goods production and movement, construction, land use, and natural resource extraction.
(f) Accurate, verified, and comprehensive data is required to determine a company’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, also known as its carbon footprint, and to effectively identify
the sources of the pollution and develop means to reduce the same.
(g) To ensure reductions of GHG emissions are sufficient to address the climate crisis, it is necessary that a company set an emissions reduction target in line with the scale of reductions required to keep global warming at or below 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, as defined by the leading climate science.
(h) The current approach for monitoring climate emissions from private corporate enterprises relies almost exclusively on voluntary reporting of greenhouse gas inventories, goals, commitments, and agreements, and lacks the full transparency needed for the state to make meaningful, strategic, and rapid carbon reductions. By their nature, these voluntary campaigns neither record nor disclose the full list of emitters or the full
scope of carbon pollution by those reporting the information. The result is a continuing lack of transparency from polluters.
(h)
(i) The people and communities of California, facing the existential threat of climate change, have a right to know about the sources of carbon pollution, as measured by the GHG emissions data of those publicly traded domestic and foreign corporations companies benefiting from doing business in the state, and the
emissions reduction goals of these corporations, companies, as measured by science-based emissions targets, in order to make informed decisions about the impact of the consumers’ choices when purchasing, patronizing, and making investments in these corporations. companies.
(i)
(j) To
ensure that corporate carbon emissions data disclosure and science-based emissions targets are actionable by the people of California, it is imperative that the information is conveyed in a manner that is understandable and accessible to the general public.
(j)The current approach for monitoring climate emissions from private corporate enterprises relies almost exclusively on voluntary reporting of greenhouse gas inventories, goals, commitments, and agreements, and lacks the full transparency needed for the state to make meaningful, strategic, and rapid carbon reductions. By their nature, these voluntary campaigns neither record nor
disclose the full list of emitters or the full scope of carbon pollution by those reporting the information. The result is a continuing lack of transparency from polluters.
(k) Mandating GHG emissions data disclosure and science-based emissions targets for all publicly traded domestic and foreign corporations United States-based companies with total annual revenues in excess of $1,000,000,000 and that do business in California will also help
inform policymaking, empower the public and activate the private sector to drive corporate GHG emissions reductions, and is a critical next step the state must take to
achieve its climate goals through the creation of additional market-based incentives that encourage innovative approaches to carbon reduction. and protect the state and its residents.
(l)Given the corporate sector’s major role in the worsening climate crisis and given the state’s overall leadership in addressing and reducing climate emissions, it is in the interest of the state to require corporate disclosure of carbon emissions data and science-based emissions targets.
SEC. 2.
Section 38532 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read:38532.
(a) This section shall be known, and may be cited, as the Climate Corporate Accountability Act.(b) For purposes of this section, the following terms have the following definitions:
(1) “Covered “Reporting entity” means a publicly traded domestic corporation or a publicly traded foreign corporation
partnership, corporation, limited liability company, or other business entity formed under the laws of this state, the laws of any other state of the United States or the District of Columbia, or under an act of the Congress of the United States with total annual revenues in excess of one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) and that does business in California.
(2) “Science-based emissions target” means a greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction target that is in line with the scale of reductions required to keep global warming at or below 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, and includes scope 1 emissions, scope 2 emissions, and scope 3 emissions.
(3) “Scope 1 emissions” means all direct greenhouse gas emissions that stem from sources that a covered reporting entity owns or directly controls, regardless of location, including, but not limited to, fuel combustion activities.
(4) “Scope 2 emissions” means indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electricity purchased and used by a covered entity.
reporting entity, regardless of location.
(5) “Scope 3 emissions” means indirect greenhouse gas emissions, other than scope 2 emissions, from activities of a covered reporting entity that stem from sources that the covered reporting entity does not own or directly control and may include, but are not limited to, emissions associated with the covered
reporting entity’s supply chain, business travel, employee commutes, procurement, waste, and water usage. usage, regardless of location.
(c) On or before January 1, 2023, the state board shall develop and adopt regulations to require a covered reporting entity to verify and annually report to the state board all of the covered reporting
entity’s scope 1 emissions, scope 2 emissions, and scope 3 emissions. The state board shall ensure that the regulations adopted pursuant to this subdivision require, at a minimum, both of the following:
(1) That a covered
reporting entity, on or before January 1, 2024, and annually thereafter, publicly disclose all of the covered reporting entity’s scope 1 emissions, scope 2 emissions, and scope 3 emissions for the prior calendar year in a manner that is easily understandable and accessible to residents of the state, including, but not limited to, by making that information available on a widely available digital platform. state. The public disclosure shall include the name of the covered
reporting entity and any fictitious names, trade names, assumed names, and logos used by the covered reporting entity.
(2) That a covered reporting entity’s public disclosure pursuant to this subdivision is independently verified by a third-party auditor, approved by the state board, with expertise in greenhouse gas emissions accounting. The covered
reporting entity shall ensure that a copy of the complete, audited greenhouse gas emissions inventory for the prior calendar year, including the name of the approved third-party auditor, is provided to the state board as part of or in connection with the covered reporting entity’s public disclosure pursuant to this subdivision.
(d) On or before January 1, 2024, the state board shall develop and adopt regulations to require a covered reporting entity to set
and annually report to the state board a science-based emissions target, based on the reporting entity’s emissions that have been reported to the state board pursuant to subdivision (c). The state board shall ensure that the regulations adopted pursuant to this subdivision require, at a minimum, both of the following:
(1) That a covered reporting entity, on or before January 1, 2025, and annually thereafter, publicly disclose the science-based emissions target the covered
reporting
entity has set for its emissions in a manner that is easily understandable and accessible to residents of the state, including, but not limited to, by making that information available on a widely available digital platform. state.
(2) That a covered reporting entity’s science-based emissions target is independently verified by a third-party auditor, approved by the state board, with expertise in greenhouse gas emissions accounting. The covered
reporting entity shall ensure that a copy of the complete, audited science-based emissions target, including the name of the approved third-party auditor, is provided to the state board as part of or in connection with the covered reporting entity’s public disclosure pursuant to this subdivision.
(e) The state board shall create a digital platform that will house all reports submitted by reporting entities pursuant to this section. The digital platform shall be capable of featuring individual reporting entity reports, as well as aggregated data, in a manner that is easily understandable and accessible to residents of the state.
(e)
(f) In developing regulations pursuant to this section, the state board shall consult with a panel of experts, which shall include, but not necessarily be limited to, experts in climate science and corporate carbon emissions accounting, implementing state agency representatives, stakeholders representing consumer and environmental justice interests, and covered
reporting entities that are leaders in collecting, reporting, and setting targets for the reduction of their own carbon footprint, to develop standards and protocols for the state board to utilize to do both all of the following:
(1) Ensuring that public disclosures required under this section are made in a manner that is easily understandable and accessible to state residents.
(1)Collect
(2) Collecting data for all scope 1 emissions, scope 2 emissions, and scope 3 emissions from a by covered entity. entities.
(2)Set a
(3) Setting science-based emissions target targets for a covered entity. reporting entities.
(g) The state board may adopt or update any other regulations that are necessary and appropriate to implement this section.
