AB 2157 requires the California department that ran the displaced oil and gas worker pilot to contract—after the Legislature appropriates funds—with the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education to evaluate the pilot and produce a recommended design for a permanent program. The contract must be executed within 120 days of appropriation and the completed assessment delivered to the Legislature no later than 18 months after the contract is signed.
The bill spells out evaluation benchmarks (for example, how many workers were served, speed of service delivery, and the quality of supports such as career navigation, wage replacement, retirement assistance, wraparound services, and training/certification access). It also requires a detailed program design that reviews best practices, proposes wage-replacement and bridge-to-retirement approaches, maps transition pathways for at-risk occupations, sets grantee criteria, estimates likely demand and costs, and recommends implementation and staffing models.
At a Glance
What It Does
On appropriation, the department must contract with UC Berkeley CLRRE within 120 days to assess the displaced oil and gas worker pilot and draft a recommended permanent program design. The assessment must measure specified benchmarks and produce cost, demand, and implementation estimates.
Who It Affects
Directly affects displaced oil and gas workers in California, the state department that ran the pilot, UC Berkeley CLRRE as the contracted researcher, local workforce boards and training providers who would implement a permanent program, and legislators and budget staff who will use the report to shape appropriations.
Why It Matters
The bill turns a short-term pilot into a defined process for evidence-based program scaling: it forces concrete estimates of worker need, program costs, and staffing, and it embeds wage-replacement and retirement design into the discussion—issues that determine whether a permanent program can realistically support workers through the energy transition.
More articles like this one.
A weekly email with all the latest developments on this topic.
What This Bill Actually Does
AB 2157 does two things in sequence. First, it requires the responsible department to hire the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education (CLRRE) to conduct a formal assessment of the displaced oil and gas worker pilot.
That contracting step is contingent on the Legislature providing funds; once appropriated, the department has 120 days to sign the contract. The bill then requires CLRRE, working with the department, to analyze how the pilot performed against a set of benchmarks focused on reach, timeliness, and the quality of comprehensive supports.
Second, the bill asks CLRRE and the department to turn the assessment into a usable program blueprint. The required program design is not a high-level recommendation: it must include a review of federal, state, and regional best practices; concrete proposals for wage-replacement and bridge-to-retirement mechanics; pathways for the occupations the bill labels “most at-risk”; grantee selection criteria; estimates of how many workers will need services statewide; cost projections; and staffing and implementation recommendations.
The language explicitly couples individual services (training, credentialing, career navigation) with macro design questions (cost, timelines, and program structure).The bill sets a clear paced deliverable: the department and CLRRE must submit the completed assessment and program design to the Legislature within 18 months of contract execution, and that submission must follow Government Code 9795 (which governs how reports are filed). Practically, that creates a finite window for data collection, stakeholder interviews, modeling of demand and cost, and drafting of implementation-ready recommendations.
For agencies and providers, the report will become the primary basis for deciding whether the pilot becomes a permanent, statewide program and what form that program will take.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The department must sign a contract with UC Berkeley CLRRE within 120 days after the Legislature appropriates funds to carry out the assessment and design work.
The assessment must evaluate pilot performance against benchmarks that include number of workers served, speed of service delivery, and quality of supports such as career navigation, wage replacement, retirement assistance, wraparound services, and access to training and certifications.
The required program design must include a review of federal, state, and regional best practices and concrete proposals for wage-replacement and bridge-to-retirement strategies alongside training, credentialing, and wraparound services.
The design must identify transition pathways for the pilot’s most at-risk fossil fuel occupations, name industries aligned with displaced workers’ skills, and set criteria for future program grantees.
The completed assessment and recommended program design must be submitted to the Legislature no later than 18 months after the contract is executed, in compliance with Government Code section 9795.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
Every bill we cover gets an analysis of its key sections.
Contracting requirement and timeline
This subsection conditions the work on an appropriation and obliges the department to contract with UC Berkeley CLRRE within 120 days of the appropriation. That clause makes the assessment dependent on a budget action while imposing a short procurement window once funding exists—pressuring the department to move quickly but also tying the study’s start to the Legislature’s budget calendar.
Benchmarks and the focus of the assessment
The bill specifies benchmarks the assessment must analyze, explicitly focusing on reach (how many workers were supported), speed (service delivery timelines), and the quality of comprehensive supports. By enumerating examples—career navigation, wage replacement, retirement help, wraparound services, and access to training and certifications—the statute narrows the evaluator’s scope and signals which program outcomes the Legislature cares about.
Required program design components
This subsection requires the department and CLRRE to produce a recommended design to convert the pilot into a permanent program. The bill lists minimum elements the design must cover: a review of best practices; wage-replacement and retirement-bridge design; transition pathways for at-risk occupations; grantee criteria; estimates of worker demand, costs, and timelines; and implementation and staffing recommendations. That level of granularity pushes the assessment beyond evaluation into actionable program planning.
Deadline and reporting compliance
The statute sets a hard delivery date: the assessment and program design must be submitted to the Legislature within 18 months of contract execution, and the submission must comply with Government Code section 9795 (procedures for legislative reports). That deadline creates a finite window for data gathering and modeling and makes the report a timed input into subsequent budget and policy decisions.
This bill is one of many.
Codify tracks hundreds of bills on Employment across all five countries.
Explore Employment in Codify Search →Who Benefits and Who Bears the Cost
Every bill creates winners and losers. Here's who stands to gain and who bears the cost.
Who Benefits
- Displaced oil and gas workers — The bill targets services they rely on (wage replacement, career navigation, training, retirement assistance) and requires a program design aimed at preserving economic well-being during transitions.
- Unions and worker advocates — The mandated evaluation and specified benchmarks produce documented evidence they can use to negotiate program design, benefit levels, and implementation priorities.
- Local workforce boards and training providers — The report will supply criteria and implementation guidance that clarifies potential funding streams, acceptable training pathways, and performance expectations for future grants.
- State policymakers and budget staff — The bill forces concrete estimates of demand and cost, giving legislators and budget analysts the empirical basis they need to decide on funding and program scope.
Who Bears the Cost
- State departments (the contracting department and implementing agencies) — They must manage the contract, collaborate on the assessment, and later absorb administrative responsibilities if the program scales up.
- California’s Legislature/state budget — The project is explicitly appropriation-dependent and the permanent program design will likely increase future budgetary obligations for wage replacement and staffing if adopted.
- UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education — CLRRE will carry the research workload under contract; while paid, it will face tight deadlines and must deliver policy-ready products rather than academic-style studies.
- Existing workforce program operators and prospective grantees — They may face new selection criteria, reporting requirements, or designs that require operational changes and potential upfront investments to meet the proposed standards.
- Employers in fossil fuel and receiving industries — Employers may face new expectations to participate in transition pathways, offer training slots, or coordinate on credentialing, potentially creating near-term costs or administrative burdens.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between designing a generous, multi-component permanent program that actually preserves displaced workers’ incomes and retirement prospects—and therefore carries significant fiscal cost—and producing a lean, affordable program that can scale quickly but may fall short of meeting workers’ comprehensive needs during the clean energy transition.
The bill ties the evaluation to a legislative appropriation and requires a rapid contracting schedule; that makes the study vulnerable to budget timing and political priorities. If funding is delayed or reduced, the 120-day procurement window and the 18-month delivery timetable will compress data collection and stakeholder engagement, raising the risk the assessment relies on limited or incomplete information.
Methodologically, the statute asks for both outcome measurement (who was served, service speed, service quality) and forward-looking modeling (estimates of worker demand, costs, and timelines). Those two tasks draw on different data and analytical techniques.
Counting "workers supported" and measuring "quality" require consistent definitions across pilot sites; modeling statewide demand requires assumptions about plant closures, layoffs, retirement timelines, and labor market absorptive capacity. The bill does not specify data sources or dispute-resolution mechanisms for contested estimates, which creates implementation risk when supply-constrained agencies or interested parties disagree on numbers.
The decision to contract with a single research center (UC Berkeley CLRRE) offers convenience and subject-matter expertise but concentrates influence over framing and methods. That concentration can speed work and improve coherence, yet it raises questions about peer review, transparency of modeling, and the inclusion of regional perspectives (for instance, heavy impacts in Kern County versus the Bay Area).
Finally, embedding wage-replacement and bridge-to-retirement design into the mandate forces a political and fiscal choice: rich benefits and retirement bridges are costly and complicate statewide rollout, while leaner designs minimize short-term expenditures but risk leaving at-risk workers without adequate support.
Try it yourself.
Ask a question in plain English, or pick a topic below. Results in seconds.