Transportation bond funds.

Existing law, the Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality, and Port Security Bond Act of 2006, authorizes the issuance of general obligation bonds for various transportation purposes. Existing law requires that $1,000,000,000 of those funds be deposited in the Transit System Safety, Security, and Disaster Response Account, administered by the California Emergency Management Agency (Cal EMA) , for capital projects that provide increased protection against a security and safety threat, and for capital expenditures to increase the capacity of transit operators to develop disaster response transportation systems, as specified. Existing law requires 25% of the available funds to be allocated to certain regional public waterborne transit agencies. Existing law requires entities receiving funds from the account to expend those funds within 3 fiscal years of the fiscal year in which the funds were allocated and requires that funds remaining unexpended after those 3 years revert to Cal EMA for reallocation in subsequent fiscal years. Notwithstanding these provisions, this bill would provide that entities receiving an allocation of the funds set aside for regional public waterborne transit agencies, relative to allocations of funds made prior to June 30, 2011, shall have 4 fiscal years from the last day of the fiscal year in which the funds were received by that entity to expend those funds. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.