ASSEMBLYMEMBER PEDRO NAVA
35TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT
For Immediate Release: April 2, 2008
Contact: John Mann
Phone: (805) 483-9808

Sacramento –Assemblymember Pedro Nava announced today that his legislation, Assembly Bill 1946, to provide district attorneys more power to pursue polluters passed the Assembly Judiciary Committee this week on a 7 to 3 vote.

“I am proud to be working with the California District Attorney’s Association to better protect Californians from pollution. The more tools to enforce California’s environmental laws, the better,” said Nava. “It is necessary to make sure that the public, our firefighters and police officers are protected. Companies who fail in their obligation to our community shouldn’t be able to hide from their responsibility because of a flaw in the current law.”

Assembly Bill 1946 will reform state law by allowing State and Regional Water Quality Control Boards to refer cases of water code violators to local district attorneys and large city attorneys to bring a civil action or to petition the superior court to impose, assess and recover civil penalties for violations of the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act.  As the law now stands, only the State Attorney General’s office can enforce water pollution cases referred by Boards. This bill will give the Boards more ways to protect Californians from pollution.

Additionally, this measure will extend the statute of limitations from 1 to 5 years to make it like other laws related to hazardous substances and hazardous waste which have a statute of limitation of 5 years.  Companies that have facilities that handle hazardous materials are required to develop a hazardous material release response plan, submit hazardous material inventory and management information and immediately report any release or threatened release of a  hazardous material.  This measure will give district attorneys enhanced tools to go after polluters who fail to develop and file plans and report any hazardous material release.  This measure will bring much need protections to the public and first responders such as law enforcement and firefighters.