State Water Resources Control Board.

Under existing law, the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, the State Water Resources Control Board (state board) and the 9 California regional water quality control boards are the principal state agencies with responsibility for the coordination and control of water quality in the state. The act requires the state board to formulate and adopt state policies for water quality control, and requires the regional boards to adopt regional water quality control plans in compliance with the state policies. Existing law requires the California Environmental Protection Agency, or a board, department, or office within the agency, to enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences, the University of California, the California State University, or any similar scientific institution of higher learning, or any combination of those entities, or with a scientist or group of scientists of comparable stature and qualifications that are recommended by the President of the University of California, to conduct an external scientific peer review of the scientific basis for any proposed rule, as defined, to include a policy adopted by the state board that has the effect of a regulation and that is adopted in order to implement or make effective a statute, and prescribes procedures for conducting that scientific peer review, as specified. This bill would add the adoption of general permit application requirements for stormwater discharges by the state board and would add a conditional waiver of waste discharge requirements from irrigated lands adopted by a regional water quality control board to the definition of rule for the purposes of the above provisions, and would require these provisions to apply only when fees are available to cover the state board's or a regional board's costs of complying with these provisions. This bill would also deem the state board or a regional board to have complied with the above provisions if a scientific peer review has been done on the scientific basis or scientific portion of an adopted rule.