Regional Climate Collaborative Program: technical assistance.

Existing law creates the Transformative Climate Communities Program, which is administered by the Strategic Growth Council. Existing law requires the council to award competitive grants to specified eligible entities for the development and implementation of neighborhood-level transformative climate community plans that include greenhouse gas emissions reduction projects that provide local economic, environmental, and health benefits to disadvantaged communities, as defined. Existing law requires the California Environmental Protection Agency to provide assistance in performing outreach to disadvantaged communities and assessing the environmental justice benefits of project awards. The Administrative Procedure Act generally governs the procedure for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of regulations by state agencies and for the review of those regulatory actions by the Office of Administrative Law. This bill, until October 1, 2029, would establish a regional climate collaborative program, to be administered by the council, to assist under-resourced communities, as defined, in a region to access statewide public and other grant moneys, as specified, for climate change mitigation and adaptation projects by establishing collaboratives, as specified. The bill would authorize the council to award specified annual grants to collaboratives for specified activities. This bill, by July 1, 2020, would require the council to develop technical assistance guidelines that a state agency would be authorized to use in delivering its technical assistance resources or in developing additional technical assistance policies, standards, or guidelines, as specified. This bill would exempt the above-described provisions from the Administrative Procedure Act.