AB 2059 amends Section 29000 of the Public Resources Code to correct duplicated words in the statute that names the Suisun Marsh Preservation Act of 1977. The amendment deletes the repeated words so the division reads smoothly as the act's official name and citation line.
The change is purely editorial: it does not alter substantive authorities, duties, permit processes, funding, or enforcement in the underlying Suisun Marsh Preservation Act or affect the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission's role. The bill carries no appropriation or fiscal committee referral and functions solely to tidy statutory text for accuracy and publication.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill amends Section 29000 to remove duplicated words in the statute's caption and citation clause so the division is cleanly titled the Suisun Marsh Preservation Act of 1977. It does not change any operative requirements or delegations in the Public Resources Code.
Who It Affects
Primary effects are administrative and editorial: legislative codifiers, state code publishers, and legal researchers who rely on precise statutory text. Agencies and regulated parties with interest in Suisun Marsh policy see no change in substantive law or permitting authority.
Why It Matters
Even small textual errors can create confusion in statutory printers, citations, and electronic search results; fixing them preserves clarity in legal materials, reduces citation errors, and limits needless litigation over drafting mistakes.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 2059 targets a one-sentence problem: Section 29000 currently contains duplicated words in the clause that gives the division its short title and citation. The bill replaces the erroneous phrasing so the statute simply states the division 'shall be known, and may be cited, as the Suisun Marsh Preservation Act of 1977.' There is no addition, removal, or rewording of substantive provisions that define agency powers or permit requirements.
Because the amendment only alters the caption/citation line, procedural consequences are limited. The Legislative Counsel will update the official code text; state code publishers and online repositories will republish the corrected wording; cross-references that cite the short title remain valid because the statutory section number (Section 29000) is unchanged.
Agencies such as the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) retain all existing authorities and responsibilities under the act.Practically speaking, the bill reduces the risk of clerical citation errors—cases where a duplicated word in the printed code might be miscopied into regulation text, agency guidance, or legal filings. That mitigation is modest but real for attorneys, compliance staff, and libraries that maintain statute libraries.
The change has no fiscal effect, no new compliance obligations, and no deadlines for regulated parties.
The Five Things You Need to Know
AB 2059 amends Public Resources Code Section 29000—the section that supplies the short title—by removing duplicated words in the caption/citation clause.
The textual error corrected is the duplication of 'known' and 'cited' (the bill removes the repeated words so the clause reads normally).
The amendment makes no substantive changes to the Suisun Marsh Preservation Act of 1977 and does not alter BCDC’s permitting authorities or implementation duties.
The bill lists no appropriation and was referred without fiscal committee assignment, indicating no anticipated state fiscal impact from the edit.
Because the statute number remains Section 29000, existing statutory cross-references, citations, and regulatory references continue to point to the same legal provision.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Text correction to Section 29000 (short title and citation)
This provision replaces the current wording of Section 29000 that contains duplicated words in the clause that furnishes the division’s short title. The mechanical edit restores conventional grammar and punctuation in the short-title line; it does not substitute different statutory text or add parenthetical clarifications. For implementation, the Legislative Counsel will incorporate the corrected language into the official code.
What the short-title line does and why punctuation matters
Section 29000’s role is purely nominative: it supplies a convenient name for the division and a citation shortcut for references. Small errors in this line rarely change legal meaning, but they can affect automated text extraction, printed codices, and the exact text used in formal citations. Correcting the duplication reduces the likelihood of downstream clerical mistakes when drafters or publishers copy the short title into regulations, guidance documents, or filings.
Code publication and administrative housekeeping
After enactment, the standard administrative steps are limited: the Office of Legislative Counsel updates the published code, state online code services refresh their text, and third-party legal publishers mirror the change. Agencies that maintain internal statutory reference libraries may update their copies; no regulatory rulemaking or stakeholder notification is required because the substantive law and section numbering do not change.
This bill is one of many.
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Who Benefits
- Legal publishers and codifiers — they get a corrected official text to publish, reducing risk of perpetuating the typo in secondary sources.
- Attorneys, researchers, and librarians — clearer statutory text lowers the chance of citation errors and simplifies automated searches and document parsing.
- BCDC and other state agencies that reference the act — they avoid potential clerical confusion when the act’s short title is copied into regulations, guidance, or permitting forms.
Who Bears the Cost
- Office of Legislative Counsel and code publishers — minimal administrative time to update the official and published texts (a routine but nonzero cost).
- State printing and electronic publishing vendors — they must overwrite or append corrected versions in their systems, incurring standard maintenance expenses.
- Legislative staff and clerks — processing, drafting, and shepherding even purely editorial bills through committee and floor schedules consumes legislative resources that could be used elsewhere.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The core tension is between the value of having an accurate, error-free statutory text (which supports clear citation and reduces clerical risk) and the legislative and administrative costs of passing even trivial amendments—plus the remote possibility that altering statutory wording, however minor, invites interpretive scrutiny or inconsistent publication if updates aren't universally applied.
On its face this is a routine, low-stakes change, but small textual edits are not always risk-free. The primary implementation risk is purely clerical: if publishers or repositories fail to synchronize versions, some users may continue to encounter the duplicated words, maintaining the original problem.
That risk is manageable but does require predictable administrative follow-through.
A second tension concerns legislative resource allocation and precedent. Legislatures routinely pass technical corrections, but each such bill consumes drafting, committee, and floor time.
Repeated use of standalone technical bills can be inefficient compared with bundling noncontroversial code maintenance into omnibus cleanup measures. Finally, while this edit is intended as non-substantive, any statutory amendment—however minor—creates a potential, if remote, opening for litigants to argue over legislative intent or to scour textual changes for implied meaning; here the unchanged section number and the clarity of the edit minimize that possibility.
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