Sacramento, Calif. – On February 16, 2023, Senator Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) introduced Senate Bill 674 The Refinery Air Pollution Transparency and Reduction Act, to strengthen the state’s refinery fence-line monitoring program. The bill would help protect the health of communities living near refineries by establishing standard fence-line air monitoring requirements, including quarterly emissions reports and root cause analyses of any threshold exceedances. SB 674 would also expand the definition of refineries to include biofuel refineries and auxiliary facilities. 

From CalMatters Capitol reporter Sameea Kamal:

In another effort to help workers, Sen. Lena Gonzalez plans to introduce a bill today to make permanent a pandemic-era policy that extends the number of paid sick leave days from three to seven — or 24 hours to 56.

By LARA KORTE, JEREMY B. WHITE, MATTHEW BROWN and RAMON CASTANOS

A group of Senate Democrats Monday unveiled new versions of climate bills that died in the Legislature last year, hoping to put a tighter leash on a sector of the population that environmental advocates have long complained pumps an outsized amount of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere.

The bill package championed by Sens. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), Lena Gonzalez (D-Long Beach) and Henry Stern (D-Calabasas) is three-fold and attempts to crack down on corporate “greenwashing,” require climate risk disclosures, and — this is a big one — force the state pension funds to divest from fossil fuels.