The Legislature hereby finds and declares as follows:

(a) The board and the state water board have submitted a report entitled Joint Report: Reforming the California Solid Waste Disposal Regulatory Process, and have recommended legislation to the Governor and the Legislature that identifies areas of regulatory overlap, conflict, and duplication and makes recommendations for change.

(b) The report found that regulatory overlap, conflict, and duplication were evident between the board and the state water board and between the board and local enforcement agencies and that regulatory reform was necessary to streamline the state’s solid waste disposal regulatory process. In addition, it was found that a recasting of the solid waste facilities permit was warranted to make more efficient and streamlined the permitting and regulation of solid waste disposal facilities. The report also makes numerous other appropriate recommendations for improving the manner in which the management of solid waste is regulated by the state which require immediate legislative response.

(c) It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature, in enacting this chapter, and in making the necessary revisions to this division and Division 7 (commencing with Section 13000) of the Water Code by the act enacting this chapter, to accomplish all of the following:

(1) As provided by Sections 40054 and 40055, the board, the state water board, and the regional water boards shall retain their appropriate statutory authority over solid waste disposal facilities and sites. A clear and concise division of authority shall be maintained in both statute and regulation to remove all areas of overlap, duplication, and conflict between the board and the state water board and regional water boards, or between the board and any other state agency, as appropriate.

(2) The state water board and regional water boards shall be the sole agencies regulating the disposal and classification of solid waste for the purpose of protecting the waters of the state, consistent with Section 40055, and the board and the certified local enforcement agencies shall regulate all other aspects of solid waste disposal within the scope of their appropriate regulatory authority.

(3) To effectuate that clear division of authority, the board and the state water board shall develop one consolidated set of solid waste disposal facility regulations where distinct chapters are written and implemented by the appropriate agency, and one consolidated permit application, including one technical report to incorporate the requirements of both the solid waste facilities permit and waste discharge requirements.

(4) The process and timeframe for the review and approval of the consolidated application shall be revised to allow, to the greatest extent feasible, for the concurrent development and review of the waste discharge requirements and the solid waste facilities permit. The intent of this permit streamlining effort is to shorten the overall timeframe for processing a permit and to accommodate concurrent reviews by the local enforcement agency and the regional water boards within a set timeframe.

(5) Any details of a concurrent permit approval process shall be worked out in an implementation plan that is developed jointly by the board and state water board with input from interested parties.

(6) If practicable, joint inspections of facilities shall be conducted by the board, regional water boards, and local enforcement agencies, and inspection reports shall be shared with any other affected state or local agency.

(7) The closure and postclosure maintenance requirements of the board and the state water board for solid waste landfills shall be combined into one set of consolidated regulations which require one closure and postclosure maintenance plan to be prepared for each solid waste landfill.

(8) A clear and concise division of responsibilities shall be maintained to minimize overlap and duplication of permitting, inspection, and compliance duties between the board and certified local enforcement agencies. The board’s primary role in regard to permitting and compliance shall be to provide technical assistance and ongoing training and support to local enforcement agencies, to ensure a local enforcement agency’s performance in complying with state minimum standards, and to review permits and other documents submitted by local enforcement agencies for board concurrence or approval. The board shall strengthen the state certification and evaluation program for local enforcement agencies and shall set clear and uniform standards to be met by local enforcement agencies.

(9) The Solid Waste Disposal Site Cleanup and Maintenance Account shall be abolished and a solid waste disposal fee established for deposit in the Integrated Waste Management Account which provides adequate funding for all obligations imposed pursuant to this division. In addition, the costs of the state water board and the regional water boards of regulating solid waste facilities shall be funded from the account.

(10) The Solid Waste Assessment Test Program shall continue operating with resources from the Integrated Waste Management Account until all of the ranked solid waste disposal sites are reviewed.

(11) Responsibility for establishing and enforcing financial responsibility requirements for solid waste landfills, from operation through to cleanup, shall, to the greatest extent practicable and consistent with applicable federal law, be consolidated into one set of regulations administered by the board, in consultation with the state water board.

(12) At a minimum, the financial assurance requirements for closure and postclosure maintenance shall be combined, and the requirements for corrective action and operating liability shall be reviewed, as required by subdivision (b) of Section 43040, to determine if there can be further consolidation of financial assurance requirements for solid waste landfills.

(13) The state water board or the appropriate regional water board shall have access to the financial assurance funds for closure and postclosure activities and to financial assurance funds for corrective action, as necessary, to address water quality problems, if the owner or operator has failed to implement the required closure and postclosure activities or corrective action activities.

(d) It is the intent of the Legislature, in enacting this chapter, and in making the necessary revisions to this division and Division 7 (commencing with Section 13000) of the Water Code, to ensure that the state minimum standards for environmental protection at solid waste disposal facilities are not reduced.

(Added by Stats. 1993, Ch. 656, Sec. 12. Effective October 1, 1993.)