SB 594 adds Section 40060.5 to the Public Resources Code and bars a state agency from issuing a waste discharge permit for a new Class III landfill until local authorities hold a separate publicly noticed hearing and certify the project will not disproportionately impact or harm an environmental justice community. The bill defines an environmental justice community as an area with a CalEnviroScreen Pollution Burden score in the 90th percentile and defines “new” landfills to exclude sites that had a permit or received waste on or before January 1, 2026.
The measure formalizes a local gatekeeping role: county boards or local enforcement agencies must evaluate consistency with an adopted county environmental justice element or, where none exists, use CalEnviroScreen and other community health metrics. It also requires counties to produce a hearing record and submit a summary and public comments to the regional water board, and it creates a potential state‑mandated local program subject to reimbursement if the Commission on State Mandates finds costs.
That shifts both process and political leverage into county hands and creates new procedural steps for applicants and permitting agencies.
At a Glance
What It Does
The bill prevents state issuance of a waste discharge permit for a new Class III landfill until a local enforcement agency holds a publicly noticed hearing and certifies no disproportionate harm to an environmental justice community, as measured by CalEnviroScreen’s 90th percentile. Counties must also hold a separate hearing on consistency with their environmental justice element, put an evaluation in the record, and submit that summary and public comments to the regional water board; if a county lacks an EJ element, the LEA must use available EJ indicators.
Who It Affects
Prospective operators of Class III (nonhazardous) landfills that did not hold a permit or receive waste by Jan 1, 2026; county boards of supervisors and local enforcement agencies required to hold hearings and prepare records; regional water boards and state permitting agencies receiving additional materials for permit review; and communities identified by CalEnviroScreen in the 90th percentile.
Why It Matters
SB 594 formally injects environmental‑justice review and local certification into the waste discharge permitting chain, elevating county documentation in state permit reviews and potentially changing siting outcomes. It also imposes new procedural obligations that can delay applications, create documentary requirements for regional boards, and trigger a state‑mandated local program analysis.
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What This Bill Actually Does
SB 594 creates a new hurdle for siting new, nonhazardous (Class III) landfills in California. The bill adds a statute that prevents a state agency from issuing a waste discharge permit for such a landfill until local officials have conducted a separately noticed public hearing and provided a certification that the project will not disproportionately impact or harm an “environmental justice community.” The statute borrows CalEnviroScreen’s notion of disproportionate burden by defining an environmental justice community as an area with a Pollution Burden score in the 90th percentile.
The bill sets out parallel local responsibilities. The county board of supervisors must hold a publicly noticed hearing to consider whether a proposed landfill aligns with the county’s environmental justice element (the planning document counties may adopt under Government Code Section 65302(h)).
That board must produce a summary of its evaluation and submit the summary and all public comments from the hearing to the relevant regional water quality control board as part of the permit application package. Where a county has not adopted an environmental justice element, the local enforcement agency must rely on CalEnviroScreen data and other community health metrics in assessing potential disproportionate impacts.Practically, applicants will need to calendar and complete separate local hearings and build the county record into their regional permit submissions; regional boards will receive and be expected to consider these local records during permit review.
The bill also includes a statutory hook for reimbursement: if the Commission on State Mandates finds the measure imposes state‑mandated costs on local agencies, those costs are subject to the existing reimbursement procedure. The text leaves open how agencies will operationalize the “certification” standard and how conflicts between a county’s evaluation and a regional board’s technical findings will be reconciled.
The Five Things You Need to Know
SB 594 adds Public Resources Code Section 40060.5 and conditions state issuance of a waste discharge permit for a new Class III landfill on a locally held, separately noticed hearing and a local certification regarding disproportionate impacts on environmental justice communities.
The bill defines “environmental justice community” by reference to CalEnviroScreen: areas with a Pollution Burden score in the 90th percentile.
A “new Class III landfill” is one that has not previously been issued a waste discharge permit or received waste on or before January 1, 2026.
The county board of supervisors must hold a hearing on whether the proposed landfill is consistent with the county’s environmental justice element, prepare an evaluation summary (including identified conflicts), and submit that summary and all public comments to the regional water board.
If a jurisdiction lacks an adopted environmental justice element, the local enforcement agency must use CalEnviroScreen data and other community health indicators when evaluating potential disproportionate impacts.
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Definitions: CalEnviroScreen, environmental justice community, new Class III landfill
This subsection sets terms the rest of the section uses. It imports CalEnviroScreen as the screening tool and fixes the threshold for an environmental justice community at the 90th percentile of Pollution Burden. It also creates a bright‑line definition of “new” for Class III landfills by reference to whether a site had a waste discharge permit or received waste by January 1, 2026—an explicit cutoff that determines which projects fall under the new procedural rules.
Permit prohibition and local hearing, certification, and submission requirements
This is the operative text that prevents state agencies from issuing the permit until local steps occur. It mandates a separate publicly noticed hearing by the local enforcement agency and requires the county board of supervisors to hold its own hearing assessing consistency with the county’s environmental justice element. The county must put an evaluation summary and any conflicts in the hearing record and forward that summary and all public comments to the regional water board for consideration during the permit review. If a county lacks an EJ element, the LEA must rely on CalEnviroScreen and other health metrics instead. The mechanics are procedural—document, certify, submit—but the certification language introduces a discretionary determination that permitters and agencies will need to operationalize.
State‑mandated local program and reimbursement
The bill adds a reimbursement clause: if the Commission on State Mandates finds that the new duties constitute state‑mandated costs, local agencies and school districts must be reimbursed under the standard Part 7 procedures of the Government Code. That clause does not itself allocate funding; it only preserves the existing reimbursement process and acknowledges that the statute could trigger a mandate claim.
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Explore Environment 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
- Communities in the CalEnviroScreen 90th percentile — the bill gives them formal procedural protection by requiring local hearings and a certification process aimed at preventing disproportionate landfill impacts.
- County boards of supervisors and local enforcement agencies — the statute grants them an explicit, documented role in landfill siting decisions and ensures their findings become part of the state permit record.
- Community and environmental advocates — the requirement for separately noticed local hearings and a submitted hearing record expands opportunities to create a contemporaneous administrative record and influence permit reviewers.
- Regional water boards — they receive a structured local evaluation and public‑comment package to incorporate into technical permit assessments, which can improve the administrative record for decisions.
Who Bears the Cost
- Landfill project proponents and operators — they must complete additional hearings, produce documentation, secure local certification, and face potential delays or denials tied to local findings.
- Counties and local enforcement agencies — required to hold hearings, prepare evaluation summaries, and manage public comment, creating administrative workload and potential unfunded expenses.
- Regional water boards and state permitting staff — must integrate local hearing records into permit reviews and reconcile possibly divergent technical and policy judgments.
- State and local taxpayers — if the Commission on State Mandates finds a reimbursable mandate, the state may owe reimbursement; if not, counties could bear costs absent dedicated funding.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The central dilemma is between strengthening environmental‑justice protections by giving local bodies a formal role to block or condition landfills that would burden high‑impact communities, and preserving a predictable, technically grounded statewide permitting regime; the bill hands more stopping power to local entities and procedural requirements to applicants, which enhances local control but risks inconsistent outcomes, delay, and legal battles over undefined certification standards.
SB 594 mixes procedural protections with an imprecise substantive standard. The requirement that a local agency “certify” a project will not disproportionately impact or harm an environmental justice community creates uncertainty: the bill does not define the evidentiary standard for that certification, the metrics beyond CalEnviroScreen it expects counties to use, or how to reconcile a local certification with technical findings from a regional board.
That gap invites variability across counties and likely invites litigation over what constitutes adequate evaluation and proof.
The Jan 1, 2026 cutoff for defining a “new” landfill creates practical incentives and loopholes. Projects that accelerate permitting or receive waste before that date could avoid the new rules, while applicants that file later face the enhanced local process.
CalEnviroScreen’s 90th percentile threshold targets the highest‑burden communities but excludes many communities with significant cumulative impacts; reliance on that single percentile may both over‑ and under‑identify communities of concern. Finally, the bill imposes operational burdens on counties and LEAs without specifying funding, creating a classic unfunded mandate situation unless the Commission orders reimbursement—and even then reimbursement often lags and does not eliminate implementation friction.
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