Drinking water: federal stimulus funding.

Existing law establishes the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund in the State Treasury to be administered by the State Department of Public Health. Under existing law, the fund is continuously appropriated for the purpose of providing grants or revolving fund loans for the design and construction of projects for public water systems that will enable suppliers to meet safe drinking water standards. This bill would allow the department to expend federal moneys in the fund that are received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in accordance with the guidelines of that act. The bill would provide that the maximum amount of a grant is $10,000,000 per project. Because this bill would provide for the expenditure of moneys from a continuously appropriated fund it would constitute an appropriation. Existing law requires every urban water supplier to prepare and adopt an urban water management plan, in accordance with specified requirements, for submission to the Department of Water Resources and other entities. Existing law creates a grant and loan program for urban water suppliers, to fund programs or projects for surface water and groundwater storage, recycling, desalination, water conservation, water supply reliability, and water supply augmentation, subject to specified conditions. This bill would exempt projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 from those conditions. Existing law establishes the continuously appropriated State Water Pollution Control Revolving Fund, administered by the State Water Resources Control Board, to provide financial assistance, as defined, for various purposes allowed by the federal Clean Water Act. This bill would include specified grants for projects funded by the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in the definition of financial assistance and would allow the funds in the fund to be used for those grants. The bill would also allow for loan forgiveness to the extent authorized by that act. Because the bill would expand the purposes for which continuously appropriated funds may be used, the bill would constitute an appropriation. The California Constitution authorizes the Governor to declare a fiscal emergency and to call the Legislature into special session for that purpose. The Governor issued a proclamation declaring a fiscal emergency, and calling a special session for this purpose, on December 19, 2008. This bill would state that it addresses the fiscal emergency declared by the Governor by proclamation issued on December 19, 2008, pursuant to the California Constitution. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.