Letter Encouraging Adoption of Regulations for SB 54

RE: SB 54 (Allen, 2022) Encouraging Adoption of Regulations

Dear Governor Newsom,

The passage of SB 54 was a remarkable achievement for California that cemented our state’s leadership role in reducing plastic pollution and ensuring producers of consumer products take responsibility for the end-of-life management of their food service ware and packaging. We acknowledge that while passing the measure was a major milestone, much work lay ahead as California began implementing the law. We support the Department’s proposed regulations and urge their timely adoption.

SB 54 is a product of intense stakeholder negotiations with the goal of creating an ambitious program that both transformed markets globally while including flexibility for industry and extended implementation timelines to ensure the program could be implemented successfully. Legislative leaders and your administration worked to painstakingly gain consensus on every key policy delineated in the measure, including the definitions, rates and dates, exemptions, program governance, and enforcement. While not every stakeholder embraced every aspect, SB 54 ultimately represents a policy each entity could accept.

We recognize that the policy decisions deferred to the regulatory process are challenging. While not every stakeholder can be happy with every provision in the regulations, we are grateful for the time, thoughtful consideration of stakeholder comments, conscientious revisions, and hard work that clearly went into the most recent draft. We want to be clear that the regulations as a whole are consistent with state law and reflect legislative intent.

It is imperative that California continues to move forward and meet the timelines established in the law. When we passed SB 54 nearly three years ago, the world took notice. Other states and jurisdictions throughout the world are watching us to determine whether we can meet the ambitious goals established in this groundbreaking law. This is especially true as the UN Plastics Treaty is reaching a critical point in time when it will either follow California’s lead and act aggressively to curb plastic pollution, or scale back its ambition, allowing the unchecked growth of plastic to contaminate our communities, choke our oceans and waterways, and negatively affect public health. With the eyes of the world watching us, it is crucial that we not delay advancement of SB 54.

We knew that as hard as it was to pass a bill as far-reaching and transformative as SB 54, implementation would be harder. We are committed to continuing to work on this as the program is implemented, but we need a strong foundation on which to base future actions. As tough decisions are being made, we should
stay the course. We urge CalRecycle to submit the proposed regulations to the Office of Administrative Law in order to begin the rulemaking process immediately.

Thank you for considering our intent in carefully crafting SB 54. If you have questions, please contact Senator Blakespear’s Chief of Staff Jack Christensen (916) 651-4038, or Senator Allen’s Chief of Staff Tina Andolina, at (916) 651-4024.

Sincerely,

Senator Ben Allen

Senator Catherine Blakespear

Assemblymember Damon Connolly

Assemblymember Isaac Bryan

Assemblymember Jesse Arreguin

Senator Josh Becker

Senator Lena Gonzalez

Senator John Laird

Senator Monique Limon

Senator Sasha Renee Perez

Senator Henry Stern

Senator Scott Wiener

Assemblymember Dawn Addis

Assemblymember Tasha Boerner