Legislature(2021 - 2022)SENATE FINANCE 532
04/25/2022 09:00 AM Senate FINANCE
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| Audio | Topic |
|---|---|
| Start | |
| HB102 | |
| SB121 | |
| HB155 | |
| Adjourn |
* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
| += | HB 102 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| += | SB 121 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | HB 155 | TELECONFERENCED | |
| + | TELECONFERENCED |
SENATE BILL NO. 121
"An Act relating to pollutants; relating to
perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances;
relating to the duties of the Department of
Environmental Conservation; relating to firefighting
substances; relating to thermal remediation of
perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substance
contamination; and providing for an effective date."
9:10:16 AM
Co-Chair Bishop relayed that it was the third hearing for
SB 121. The intention of the committee was to hear comments
from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and
cover the fiscal notes for the bill.
Co-Chair Bishop asked for confirmation that there was
currently no mechanism by which DEC could accept, handle,
or expose any amount of perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS).
9:11:39 AM
TIFFANY LARSON, DIRECTOR, SPILL PREVENTION AND RESPONSE,
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION, confirmed that
there was no currently established infrastructure.
Co-Chair Bishop presented a hypothetical scenario in which
DEC obtained funding for the Resource Conservation and
Recovery Act (RCRA) or for Section 404 of the Clean Water
Act (CWA). He asked if DEC would be able to accept PFAS if
it received RCRA funding as well as a Subpart C designation
[under federal Title 40, Subpart C: Characteristics of
Hazardous Waste].
9:12:53 AM
AT EASE
9:13:14 AM
RECONVENED
RANDALL BATES, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF HABITAT, DEPARTMENT OF
FISH AND GAME, expressed that he would like to defer the
question about RCRA.
CHRISTINA CARPENTER, DIRECTOR, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH,
DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION, asked for Co-
Chair Bishop to repeat his question.
Co-Chair Bishop repeated his question.
Ms. Carpenter replied that she would like to provide a
thorough response to the committee at a later date. She
explained that RCRA ensured that hazardous waste was
disposed of properly. There was no current infrastructure
to accept Aqueous Film-Forming Foam Concentrates (AFFF) if
it contained PFAS.
9:16:06 AM
Co-Chair Bishop asked Ms. Carpenter to research the matter
to provide an accurate response to his question. He
suggested that if the department was given the RCRA
designation, it would have the means to travel around the
state to catalogue the contaminated sites.
Co-Chair Bishop asked Ms. Larson about the difference
between the Environment Protection Agency's (EPA) Title I
and Title V air permits. He understood that the state
currently operated under Title V.
Ms. Larson responded that both permits were currently
issued. The bill intended to implement the permitting
activity into a Title V process, which took about a year
and half longer than a Title I process. She relayed that
DEC believed the permitting process was better suited under
Title I as it was less time intensive but included the same
level of oversight as Title V.
Co-Chair Bishop understood that emissions were the same
under Title I and Title V.
Ms. Larson answered in the affirmative.
Senator Wilson referenced the fiscal note from DEC with
control code YoiXA, which indicated a need for three
additional positions to provide PFAS oversight. He asked
how the department would absorb the costs of the new
positions in outgoing years, especially considering other
positions had been cut in the previous year.
Ms. Larson relayed that given the language in the bill, the
department would require a total of four additional
positions in perpetuity for as long as the statute existed.
She thought the legislature held the authority to ensure
that the new positions would be funded.
Senator Wilson shared his concern about funding sources and
thought there were no other funding options apart from
unrestricted general funds (UGF).
Co-Chair Bishop believed there was a bill in the other body
that would help. He indicated that the committee would
discuss later in the meeting the Infrastructure Investment
and Jobs Act (IIJA) money as it pertained to PFAS.
9:20:48 AM
Co-Chair Stedman noted that there was a request for an
addition of 233 state employees in the current budget
submission. He thought it seemed that the state was
exposing itself to a substantial increase in personnel in a
single budget cycle. He was concerned about adding more
positions in order to oversee PFAS and thought there had to
be a better solution.
Co-Chair Bishop emphasized that everyone wanted clean
drinking water. He referenced discussion around the EPA and
asked when the agency would be releasing more information
and guidance.
Ms. Larson cited that EPA had released its strategic
roadmap in October of 2021 on how it planned to address the
variety of PFAS compounds. There were many benchmarks that
EPA hoped to achieve within the next four to five years.
The agency expected to release a proposed rule regarding
PFAS in the National Primary Drinking Water Regulations
(NPDWR). Sometime in the next few months, a regulated
community was expecting to see the results of its research
and peer review process and the results would determine
whether the methodologies were sound. She noted that the
current limits were 70 parts per trillion for a lifetime
health advisory, and she had been told that the limits were
expected to go down by an order of magnitude to seven parts
per trillion or less. She relayed that the approval was
expected to be released in August of 2022.
9:24:04 AM
Co-Chair Bishop thought that Ms. Larson's prediction on the
order of magnitude reduction was accurate considering that
IIJA would designate $5 billion specifically to PFAS and
other emerging contaminants over the next five years.
Co-Chair Bishop asked who would be covering the fiscal
notes.
Mr. Bates responded that the fiscal notes would be
presented by the governing divisions.
Co-Chair Bishop suggested beginning with the fiscal note
that involved the air quality permit.
9:25:14 AM
JASON OLDS, AIR QUALITY DIVISION, DEPARTMENT OF
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION, addressed a new fiscal impact
note from DEC with the OMB component number 2061 and
control code of iVDzt. The fiscal impact note totaled
$80,000 to pay for contractual support and three new peer
review positions to develop a threshold limit for PFAS. The
bill referenced a minimal amount for air quality emissions,
and the fiscal note established a threshold under special
procedures that would allow DEC to obtain contractual
support and peer reviews. He noted that DEC was typically
disincentivized from developing procedures that were more
stringent than EPA.
Co-Chair Bishop understood that the difference between
Title I and Title V was the time involved in the process,
and that the emissions would remain the same. He asked if
he was accurate.
Ms. Larson deferred the question to Mr. Olds.
Mr. Olds responded that Co-Chair Bishop was correct. There
were a separate set of administrative procedures, but the
inherent monitoring or emissions associated with a given
permit did not necessarily change. He clarified that Title
I was a state-only process, whereas Title V included
specific rules crafted for the permit process under federal
regulations.
Co-Chair Bishop asked for confirmation that if the process
was to be unchanged and remain under Title V, the
department would need $80,000.
Mr. Olds relayed that the $80,000 figure was to establish
the minimal threshold value in the bill. There currently
was no emission limit, and in order to craft the limit the
department would have to go through special procedures to
develop the threshold value and would need contractual
support.
Co-Chair Bishop asked if the $80,000 was simply intended to
get the department up to speed. He understood that after
the contractual procedures had been completed, then the
pricing of the permit could begin.
Mr. Olds answered affirmatively.
9:28:27 AM
AT EASE
9:30:38 AM
RECONVENED
Ms. Carpenter addressed a new fiscal impact by DEC with OMB
component 3202 and control code QaKQo. The Drinking Water
Program within the Division of Environmental Health (DEH)
under DEC would provide technical and engineering
assistance to the Division of Spill Prevention and Response
(SPAR) in their efforts to ensure drinking water was safe.
She relayed that DEC would require two additional positions
to adhere to the requirements of the bill. One of the new
employees would be responsible for providing technical and
compliance assistance to owners and operators of
contaminated public drinking water systems and to SPAR. The
second requested employee would be responsible for
approving proposed treatments for contaminated drinking
water systems. The fiscal note requested the funds for the
two positions to help with the work.
Co-Chair Bishop asked if Mr. Bates was aware of the IIJA
funds. He assumed that DEC would be working with all
responsible parties to help individuals who had
contaminated drinking water. He understood that DEC would
work collaboratively with other entities to apply for IIJA
funds in an effort to receive as much money as possible.
Mr. Bates wanted to give a brief overview of the State
Revolving Fund (SRF) program, which was a low interest loan
for communities in Alaska. He elaborated that it was a
capitalization grant from EPA for drinking water and clean
water funds and was a revolving fund and would grow year
after year. The program had been extremely useful in Alaska
and successful nationally as well. The eligible entities
included municipalities as well as private non-profit
utilities that were rate-regulated by the Regulatory
Commission of Alaska (RCA). The IIJA funds for SRF would be
distributed through existing programs and processes within
the SRF program. He reported that $7.54 million per year
would be distributed to the state through IIJA for five
years. The funds would be used to address emerging
contaminants with a specific focus on PFAS in drinking
water systems. He assured the committee that the funds were
fully subsidized and were considered grants rather than
loans because there was no matching requirement.
9:35:26 AM
Ms. Larson addressed a new fiscal impact note by DEC with
OMB component 3094 and control code YoiXA. The fiscal note
was the largest of the notes by DEC and requested four
additional SPAR employees who would be conducting the
majority of the oversight and monitoring work described in
the bill. The majority of the requested $6.3 million would
fund the sampling and provisioning of drinking water in
communities where PFAS contamination was suspected. A small
portion of the fiscal note also requested funds for
administrative oversight and the associated costs.
Senator Wilson asked if the department could add receipt
authority to offset some of the costs.
Ms. Larson explained that the department had an obligation
to cost recover under statute. However, the entity that
polluted they system with PFAS contaminants was usually the
party that was required to pay the costs. The state would
pay the majority of up-front costs due to the manner in
which the bill was written, but it could collect the funds
from the polluting entity after contamination had been
proven.
Co-Chair Bishop thought the bill would also require the
state to dispose of up to 25 gallons annually of PFAS
contaminated substances for persons domiciled in Alaska.
Ms. Larson answered affirmatively.
Co-Chair Bishop thought the matter was similar to his
earlier question regarding RCRA.
9:37:37 AM
Mr. Bates addressed a zero fiscal impact note by DEC with
OMB component 3204 and control code OhSKs. He noted that
the establishment of concentration limits for PFAS in
drinking water as proposed by the bill appeared to act as a
maximum contaminant level (MCL). The establishment of MCL
might require monitoring and discharge limits for all
dischargers where PFAS compounds were reasonably likely to
be present. If regulations were necessary, DEC would absorb
the costs in the normal course of business as it reviewed
permits.
Co-Chair Bishop asked for an example of a wastewater
facility that would be required to conduct monitoring. He
asked if all municipal wastewater systems, seafood
processing centers, and similar facilities would be
required to conduct monitoring, or would it be applicable
only to facilities in communities with known PFAS
contaminants.
Mr. Bates stated that the bill would apply to the
facilities in which DEC reasonably expected to find PFAS
contaminants.
9:39:36 AM
JOHN BINDER, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, DEPARTMENT OF
TRANSPORTATION AND PUBLIC FACILITIES, addressed a new
indeterminate fiscal impact note for the Department of
Transportation and Public Facilities (DOT) with OMB
component 530 and control code bUckf. The note would not
require operating funds, but DOT projected that it would
require about $18 million of capital funds. He explained
that the state had already identified approximately 30
airports in the state that were suspected of PFAS
contamination due to the presence of AFFF, which was a
substance used by airport crash rescue personnel. He
reported that DOT had conducted PFAS testing at 10 of the
suspected airports. The fiscal note assumed that the 10
airports that had been tested would need to be tested again
since one of the compounds in the bill [hexafluoropropylene
oxide dimer acid] had not been included in past tests. The
results would drive whether a site needed to be
characterized as contaminated and provided with new water
processes. The department averaged out the costs that had
been incurred in the past based on the tests that had been
conducted to arrive at the predicted $18 million cost.
However, the note was indeterminate because there was no
way to know how many sites would need further action. It
was possible that several of the suspected airports would
not require additional action.
Senator Hoffman referenced an Alaska map which showed the
locations of PFAS contaminated sites (copy on file). He
asked if DOT had the same map.
Mr. Binder responded that he was not familiar with the map.
He offered to provide a list of the 30 airports suspected
of PFAS contamination.
Senator Hoffman would appreciate the information.
Senator Wilson wanted to verify that the estimated cost was
$18 million.
Co-Chair Bishop answered "Yes."
9:43:52 AM
Co-Chair Stedman referenced Senator Hoffman's request for a
list of contaminated sites and thought it would helpful if
the top 10 sites were highlighted.
Mr. Binder emphasized that DOT recognized that PFAS was
undesirable at any of the state's airports. The
contaminated airport sites were prioritized based on which
sites were closest to communities and drinking water
systems.
Co-Chair Stedman asked for a list of the top 10 most
contaminated airports.
Mr. Binder agreed to provide the list immediately following
the meeting.
9:45:25 AM
AT EASE
9:46:15 AM
RECONVENED
Co-Chair Bishop asked for both DEC and DOT to provide a
list of the contaminated sites ranked in order of severity.
SB 121 was HEARD and HELD in committee for further
consideration.
| Document Name | Date/Time | Subjects |
|---|---|---|
| HB102-DOA-DRM SFIN 2022 draft changes per Sen FIN 04182022.pdf |
SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM |
HB 102 |
| HB 155 Testimony Office of Public Advocacy 4.3.2021.pdf |
HFIN 5/5/2021 9:00:00 AM SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM SFIN 5/11/2022 1:00:00 PM |
HB 155 |
| HB 155 Sponsor Statement 3.30.2021.pdf |
HFIN 5/5/2021 9:00:00 AM SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM |
HB 155 |
| HB 155 Explanation of Changes Version B to Version 1 02.16.2022.pdf |
SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM |
HB 155 |
| HB 155 Version I Sectional Analysis 02.15.2022.pdf |
SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM |
HB 155 |
| HB 155 Additional Document - Alaska Court System Response to HJUD Questions on April 5_2021 4.7.2021.pdf |
SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM |
HB 155 |
| SB 121 support Kiehl.pdf |
SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM |
SB 121 |
| SB 121 Suppot Testimony - Jenn Currie.pdf |
SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM |
SB 121 |
| SB 121 RCRA Response to SFIN - 04.28.22.pdf |
SFIN 4/25/2022 9:00:00 AM |
SB 121 |