BILL ANALYSIS 1
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SENATE ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
MARTHA M. ESCUTIA, CHAIRWOMAN
SB 1010 - Florez Hearing Date:
January 10, 2006 S
As Amended: January 4, 2006 FISCAL B
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DESCRIPTION
This bill declares:
1. Railroads may have sufficient California capacity to permit
additional trains to operate over their lines without
unreasonably interfering with existing rail traffic.
2. It is state policy for railroads to use their lines to move
traffic via rail rather than via highway so that congestion and
pollution are reduced.
3. It is in the public interest for railroads to allow others
rail carriers to use surplus capacity so that port and highway
congestion is reduced.
This bill authorizes the City of Shafter to:
1. Establish a separate governing body for purposes of operating an
intermodal rail facility with the City of Shafter;
2. Obtain financing, or enter into leases or contracts, relating to
the construction of such an intermodal rail facility.
This bill requires all revenues received from the operation of such
facility to be used solely for public or municipal purposes.
This bill requires all freight railroads to report annually track
utilization and capacity to the California Public Utilities
Commission (CPUC), the California Department of Transportation and
the California Air Resources Board in a manner determined by those
agencies.
BACKGROUND
The author has observed that the major Southern California ports are
congested with greater congestion forecast. Conversely Oakland, the
major Northern California port, has capacity to expand. The author
believes that expansion is constrained by the rail capacity for
moving containers to and from the port.
The Port of Oakland, the City of Shafter (in the author's district,
15 miles northwest of Bakersfield, between I-5 and Highway 65), and
a privately-owned company, Northwest Container Services, Inc., have
formed a partnership to increase that rail capacity through the
creation of the California Integrated Logistics Center (CILC). The
CILC is an inter-modal facility intended to encourage greater use of
the Port of Oakland by creating an alternative way of getting
containers into the greater Los Angeles area. Rather than using the
heavily congested Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, container
ships could go instead to the Port of Oakland, where a railroad
shuttle would ferry containers to Shafter. Once in Shafter, those
containers would be trucked to their destinations in Southern
California. Exports could also be trucked into Shafter whereupon
the process would be reversed for shipping out of the Port of
Oakland.
Project proponents argue that the CILC will:
Improve air quality and reduce road congestion as rail
transport is substituted for trucks;
Create jobs in Oakland due to increased port traffic;
Relieve congestion in the Southern California ports,
improving efficiency.
AB 1768 (Oropeza), Chapter 1127, Statutes of 2002, provided $5
million from the State Transportation Fund to the Department of
Transportation for local assistance to the City of Shafter for the
Southern San Joaquin Valley Inter-modal Facility, a part of the
CILC. Last month ground was broken on the switching and rail spur
for that project.
COMMENTS
This bill requires railroads to report to the CPUC on their track
utilization and capacity. The CPUC and the Department of
Transportation are to develop appropriate definitions and reporting
procedures. Understanding if and where slack rail capacity exists
will help in the formulation of policy for utilizing that capacity.
Relieving choke points in the transportation infrastructure will
facilitate growth of California ports and support the more efficient
conduct of commerce.
The declarations in the bill regarding state policy to encourage
rail line owners to permit other users on those lines are
uncodified.
POSITIONS
Sponsor:
City of Shafter
Support:
Tejon Ranch Company
Oppose:
None on file
Randy Chinn
SB 1010 Analysis
Hearing Date: January 10, 2006