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<ns0:Id>20250AB__164298AMD</ns0:Id>
<ns0:VersionNum>98</ns0:VersionNum>
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<ns0:Action>
<ns0:ActionText>INTRODUCED</ns0:ActionText>
<ns0:ActionDate>2026-01-27</ns0:ActionDate>
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<ns0:ActionText>AMENDED_ASSEMBLY</ns0:ActionText>
<ns0:ActionDate>2026-03-02</ns0:ActionDate>
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<ns0:SessionYear>2025</ns0:SessionYear>
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<ns0:MeasureNum>1642</ns0:MeasureNum>
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<ns0:AuthorText authorType="LEAD_AUTHOR">Introduced by Assembly Member Harabedian</ns0:AuthorText>
<ns0:AuthorText authorType="PRINCIPAL_COAUTHOR_OPPOSITE">(Principal coauthor: Senator Allen)</ns0:AuthorText>
<ns0:AuthorText authorType="COAUTHOR_ORIGINATING">(Coauthors: Assembly Members Irwin and Patel)</ns0:AuthorText>
<ns0:AuthorText authorType="COAUTHOR_OPPOSITE">(Coauthor: Senator Pérez)</ns0:AuthorText>
<ns0:Authors>
<ns0:Legislator>
<ns0:Contribution>LEAD_AUTHOR</ns0:Contribution>
<ns0:House>ASSEMBLY</ns0:House>
<ns0:Name>Harabedian</ns0:Name>
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<ns0:Legislator>
<ns0:Contribution>PRINCIPAL_COAUTHOR</ns0:Contribution>
<ns0:House>SENATE</ns0:House>
<ns0:Name>Allen</ns0:Name>
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<ns0:Legislator>
<ns0:Contribution>COAUTHOR</ns0:Contribution>
<ns0:House>ASSEMBLY</ns0:House>
<ns0:Name>Irwin</ns0:Name>
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<ns0:Legislator>
<ns0:Contribution>COAUTHOR</ns0:Contribution>
<ns0:House>ASSEMBLY</ns0:House>
<ns0:Name>Patel</ns0:Name>
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<ns0:Legislator>
<ns0:Contribution>COAUTHOR</ns0:Contribution>
<ns0:House>SENATE</ns0:House>
<ns0:Name>Pérez</ns0:Name>
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<ns0:Title> An act to add Part 3 (commencing with Section 13980) to Division 12 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to wildfires, and declaring the urgency thereof, to take effect immediately. </ns0:Title>
<ns0:RelatingClause>wildfires, and declaring the urgency thereof, to take effect immediately</ns0:RelatingClause>
<ns0:GeneralSubject>
<ns0:Subject>Wildfires: contamination standards.</ns0:Subject>
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<ns0:DigestText>
<html:p>Existing law establishes the Office of the State Fire Marshal in the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and establishes the Deputy Director of Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation within the office. Existing law makes the deputy director responsible for fire preparedness and mitigation missions of the department, as provided. The Department of Toxic Substances Control regulates the handling and management of hazardous waste and hazardous materials.</html:p>
<html:p>This bill would require the Department of Toxic Substances Control to adopt, no later than July 1, 2027, emergency regulations specifying the science-informed, health-based
standards for investigation, environmental testing, and clearance, to guide the removal of lead and asbestos inside and outside of homes, schools, workplaces, and other structures in residential areas after a wildfire, as provided. The bill would also require the department, in consultation with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, to adopt regulations by July 1, 2028, specifying science-informed, health-based standards for hazardous chemicals following a wildfire, and would require those standards to be established at chemical levels to ensure safe reoccupancy and prevent new cancer cases attributable to such fires, as provided.</html:p>
<html:p>This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.</html:p>
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<ns0:DigestKey>
<ns0:VoteRequired>TWO_THIRDS</ns0:VoteRequired>
<ns0:Appropriation>NO</ns0:Appropriation>
<ns0:FiscalCommittee>YES</ns0:FiscalCommittee>
<ns0:LocalProgram>NO</ns0:LocalProgram>
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<ns0:MeasureIndicators>
<ns0:ImmediateEffect>YES</ns0:ImmediateEffect>
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<ns0:Urgency>YES</ns0:Urgency>
<ns0:TaxLevy>NO</ns0:TaxLevy>
<ns0:Election>NO</ns0:Election>
<ns0:UsualCurrentExpenses>NO</ns0:UsualCurrentExpenses>
<ns0:BudgetBill>NO</ns0:BudgetBill>
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<ns0:Preamble>The people of the State of California do enact as follows:</ns0:Preamble>
<ns0:BillSection id="id_E729E128-A82C-409D-A836-8D6025E82CFC">
<ns0:Num>SECTION 1.</ns0:Num>
<ns0:Content>
<html:p>This act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Wildfire Environmental Safety and Testing Act.</html:p>
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<ns0:BillSection id="id_1A372146-7365-4272-A447-EA8905306323">
<ns0:Num>SEC. 2.</ns0:Num>
<ns0:Content>
<html:p>The Legislature finds and declares the following:</html:p>
<html:p>
(a)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Wildfires are increasingly frequent and severe, exposing Californians to hazardous smoke, ash, debris, and toxic contamination that pose serious short- and long-term health risks.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(b)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Following wildfires, residents, workers, students, and vulnerable populations are often compelled to return to homes, schools, and workplaces without adequate environmental testing, remediation, or health-based clearance standards.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(c)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Existing law does not provide a uniform statewide framework to
address postwildfire habitability and reoccupancy based on public health exposure.
</html:p>
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<ns0:BillSection id="id_3CAC96EA-E3C2-4A0E-89E9-06A474AE5F5E">
<ns0:Num>SEC. 3.</ns0:Num>
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Part 3 (commencing with Section 13980) is added to Division 12 of the
<ns0:DocName>Health and Safety Code</ns0:DocName>
, to read:
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<ns0:Num>3.</ns0:Num>
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<ns0:LawHeadingText>Wildfires Contamination</ns0:LawHeadingText>
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<ns0:Num>13980.</ns0:Num>
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<ns0:Content>
<html:p>For purposes of this part, the following definitions shall apply:</html:p>
<html:p>
(a)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“Clearance” means a formal determination that a home, school, workplace, or other structure has been cleared of WUI debris and that any remaining hazardous chemicals meet the standards established pursuant to this part.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(b)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“Contamination” means property polluted by WUI debris.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(c)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“Department” means the Department of Toxic Substances Control.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(d)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“Hazardous chemical” means a chemical that is determined by a local health officer or the department to be toxic, carcinogenic, explosive, corrosive, or
flammable.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(e)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“Office” means the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(f)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“TEM-identified asbestos” means Transmission Electron Microscopy-identified asbestos.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(g)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“WUI” means the term used by the United States Fire Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mean the wildland urban interface, or the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development. “WUI” includes the line, area, or zone where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(h)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“WUI debris” includes, but is not limited to, ash, soot, and char, combustion byproducts, TEM-identified asbestos, CAM 17 heavy metals, cyanide, lithium, manganese, dioxins, furans, and polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons (PAHs), and volatile organic compounds in indoor air, resulting from a wildfire event.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(i)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
“WUI impact zone” means the WUI area plus the maximum perimeter of the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection’s Damage Inspection Data map area and the adjacent downwind ash zone.
</html:p>
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</ns0:LawSection>
<ns0:LawSection id="id_3612DFC7-0E2E-4B49-9F4B-0B00DEC39EC3">
<ns0:Num>13981.</ns0:Num>
<ns0:LawSectionVersion id="id_FEF4C229-F8C8-4B75-A7AE-20750F7A5F00">
<ns0:Content>
<html:p>
(a)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The department, in consultation with relevant coordinating agencies, shall, no later than July 1, 2027, adopt emergency regulations specifying the science-informed, health-based standards for investigation, environmental testing, and
clearance, to guide the adequate
removal of lead and TEM-identified asbestos inside and outside of homes, schools, workplaces, and other structures in residential areas after a wildfire.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(b)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The adoption and readoption of regulations consistent
with this section shall be deemed to be an emergency and necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, or general welfare for purposes of Sections 11346.1 and 11349.6 of the Government Code, and the department is hereby exempted from the requirement that it describe facts showing the need for immediate action.
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<ns0:LawSection id="id_97F78653-4B29-4B60-A21A-1BA85E168388">
<ns0:Num>13982.</ns0:Num>
<ns0:LawSectionVersion id="id_EE7115E7-B40E-40E6-8E04-7C344635E6F2">
<ns0:Content>
<html:p>Emergency regulations adopted by the department pursuant to Section 13981, in order to protect the public health of residents of standing homes, schools, workplaces, or other structures after a WUI fire and to prevent the onset of new cancer cases attributable to a WUI fire, shall include all of the following:</html:p>
<html:p>
(a)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
(1)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A presumption that a home, school, workplace, or other structure is safe for human occupancy only if the levels of lead and TEM-identified asbestos on an indoor surface meet both of the following conditions:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
For lead, less than, or equal to, 5 micrograms per square foot on floors, and less than, or equal to, 40 micrograms per square foot on window sills.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
For TEM-identified asbestos, less than, or equal to, one structure per square centimeter.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(2)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The department shall adopt nonemergency regulations pursuant to Section 13983 through the regular rulemaking process for science-informed, health-based standards for lead and TEM-identified asbestos. The standards in those regulations may be stricter than those specified in paragraph (1).
</html:p>
<html:p>
(b)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A presumption that if WUI debris is present in a surviving home, school, workplace, or other structure after a WUI fire, any identified hazardous contamination in the WUI impact zone is the result of that WUI fire.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(c)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
(1)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Requirements for testing for lead and TEM-identified asbestos in a surviving home, school, workplace, or other structure that
include, at a minimum, testing of all of the following locations:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Indoor floors, window sills, and interior horizontal hard surfaces.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Garage floors and garage horizontal hard surfaces.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(C)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Attics, and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(2)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Testing standards shall also include conditions in which testing behind drywall is required.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(d)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
(1)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Requirements for preremediation testing to understand where contaminants are present to guide appropriately licensed cleanup efforts and ensure worker safety.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(2)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Requirements for postremediation testing after debris cleanup to confirm that lead
and TEM-identified asbestos have been removed from the home, school, workplace, or other structure and that clearance has been achieved, or to determine that further remediation efforts are required.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(3)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Requirements for postremediation testing after debris cleanup to confirm whether remediation reduced the levels of chemicals identified in subparagraphs (C) to (F), inclusive, of paragraph (4).
</html:p>
<html:p>
(4)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Preremediation and postremediation testing standards shall include testing for known WUI fire hazards, including all of the following:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Lead.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
TEM-identified asbestos.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(C)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Combustion byproducts.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(D)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
CAM 17 heavy metals.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(E)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Cyanide, lithium, manganese, dioxins, furans, and PAHs.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(F)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Volatile organic compounds in indoor air.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(e)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The standards set forth in the department’s Residential Soil Evaluation Guidance for the 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires, including the standards for soil sampling based on property damage levels.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(f)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Guidance on the use of other restoration strategies, including, but not limited to, the repair or replacement of damaged structures if remediation cannot achieve clearance.
</html:p>
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<ns0:LawSection id="id_AD4361B4-6383-4085-8836-8E26193BC220">
<ns0:Num>13983.</ns0:Num>
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<ns0:Content>
<html:p>
(a)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
The department shall, no later than July 1, 2028, adopt regulations specifying science-informed, health-based standards for hazardous chemicals, including levels for these chemicals that are required to achieve clearance for a home, school, workplace, or other structure, as well as standards for investigation, environmental testing, and to guide the removal of hazardous chemicals inside and outside of a home, school, workplace, or other structure in a residential area after a wildfire. The adopted science-informed, health-based standards for hazardous chemicals shall be established at levels intended to ensure that residents can safely reoccupy their homes, schools, workplaces, and other structures and to prevent the onset of new cancer cases attributable to a WUI fire. The department shall develop
these standards in consultation with the office.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(b)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Regulations adopted by the department pursuant to this section, in order to protect the public health of residents of standing homes, schools, workplaces, or other structures after a WUI fire, shall include all of the following:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(1)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Adoption of nonemergency regulations from regulations adopted pursuant to Section 13981, including standards for levels of lead and TEM-identified asbestos on an indoor surface pursuant to subdivision (a) of Section 13982.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(2)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
A presumption that if WUI debris is present in a surviving home, school, workplace, or other structure after a WUI fire, any identified hazardous contamination in the WUI impact zone is the result of that WUI fire.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(3)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Requirements for testing in a surviving home, school, workplace, or other structure that include, at a minimum, testing of all of the following locations:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(i)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Indoor floors, window sills, and interior horizontal hard surfaces.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(ii)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Garage floors and garage horizontal hard surfaces.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(iii)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Attics and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Testing standards shall also include conditions in which testing behind drywall is required.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(4)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
(A)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Requirements for preremediation testing to understand what hazardous chemicals are present to guide appropriately licensed cleanup efforts and ensure worker safety.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(B)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Requirements for postremediation testing after debris cleanup to confirm that WUI debris and contamination have been removed from the home, school, workplace, or other structure, or to determine that further remediation efforts are required.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(C)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Preremediation and postremediation testing standards shall include testing for known WUI fire hazards, including all of the following:
</html:p>
<html:p>
(i)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
TEM-identified asbestos.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(ii)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Combustion byproducts.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(iii)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
CAM 17 heavy metals.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(iv)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Cyanide, lithium, manganese, dioxins, furans, and PAHs.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(v)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Volatile organic compounds in indoor
air.
</html:p>
<html:p>
(5)
<html:span class="EnSpace"/>
Standards to ensure that a home, school, workplace, or other structure is safe to inhabit. The standards shall include steps to ensure that a home, school, workplace, or other structure is habitable to prefire conditions and that the home, school, workplace, or other structure has reached clearance before a resident is required to move back into the resident’s home or return to a structure.
</html:p>
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<ns0:BillSection id="id_DE78FB58-B57A-4A5B-8B8A-FE9882E1A26C">
<ns0:Num>SEC. 4.</ns0:Num>
<ns0:Content>
<html:p>This act is an urgency statute necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, or safety within the meaning of Article IV of the California Constitution and shall go into immediate effect. The facts constituting the necessity are:</html:p>
<html:p>Because of the immediate need to remediate contamination and rebuild housing in communities in the Counties of Los Angeles and Ventura impacted by the wildfires that began on January 7, 2025, in the County of Los Angeles, it is necessary that this act take effect immediately.</html:p>
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