2015-2016 Comes to a Close

The 2015-2016 Legislative Year ended late Wednesday night after a marathon session of last minute bill amendments. Close to 200 bills met their fate on the last day including a deal on cap and trade revenues (including $150 million in incentives for heavy-duty vehicles), a freight bill involving federal highway dollars, and the future of the Air Quality Management District. These bills are highlighted below.

Legislators waited till the last possible day to reach a deal with Governor Brown about how to allocate nearly two years worth of revenues that have gone unspent in prior years. Under the agreement, nearly $900 million will be allocated for various projects aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Of the total figure, $150 million was earmarked for heavy-duty vehicle incentives. CTA staff has long advocated for a substantial portion of revenues to be dedicated to trucking, and the news of this development was a step in the right direction. Moving forward, staff will be working with legislators to ensure that the $150 million will be used for incentives on vehicles that are widely available in the marketplace today.  

Assemblymember Jim Frazier (Chairman of the Transportation Committee) introduced legislation this year to ensure that federal freight dollars, allocated through the FAST ACT, are actually appropriated for freight purposes within California. The bill became highly controversial after the Air Resources Board inserted itself into the discussion and pushed for the federal monies to be spent on environmental purposes instead of traditional infrastructure upgrades. Later, the Brown Administration made a push to dedicate a substantial portion of the federal freight dollars to an account that some viewed as a mechanism to fund high speed rail. In the end, Frazier beat back both efforts and a deal was struck to prioritize upgrades to the Otay Mesa Border Crossing with Mexico, grade separations, and vital trade corridors through the state. In the end, this was a good result for trucking.  

CTA strongly opposed SB 1387 which would have stacked the South Coast Air Quality Management District Board (AQMD) with anti-trucking representatives. Currently, AQMD is undertaking a regulatory development that would plae harmful burdens on the trucking industry by requiring emissions caps on individual facilities. The decision on whether or not to go through with regulation, and its potential implementation, could happen within the time frame of the appointments of the anti-trucking elements. It was vital that we defeated this measure in order to ensure a more balanced board as we go on to fight the facility cap concept in the coming months. CTA was also concerned about the precedent that could have been established by allowing Sacramento to place new appointments on regional air boards across the state. 

After a lengthy development process, SB 1387 was finally brought up today and it only received 30 YAY votes, missing the mark on a simple majority needed for passage at 41. The bill was successfully defeated.