AB1642 - Wildfires: contamination standards.

Amended IN Senate August 28, 2026 Amended IN Senate July 02, 2026 Amended IN Senate June 22, 2026 Amended IN Assembly May 22, 2026 Amended IN Assembly May 18, 2026 Amended IN Assembly March 02, 2026 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION Assembly Bill No. 1642 Introduced by Assembly Member Harabedian (Principal coauthor: Senator Allen) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Irwin and Patel) (Coauthor: Senator Pérez) January 27, 2026 An act to add Part 3 (commencing with Section 13980) to Division 12 Chapter 6.9.2 (commencing with Section 25402.1) to Division 20 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to wildfires. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST AB 1642, as amended, Harabedian. Wildfires: contamination standards. Existing law establishes the Department of Toxic Substances Control, which regulates the handling and management of hazardous waste and hazardous materials, and establishes the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and the State Air Resources Board. Existing federal law sets action levels for lead in dust and emission standards for asbestos, and existing state law sets workplace standards for asbestos. Existing law authorizes local health officers to take specified actions to protect public health and establishes procedures for the remediation of certain contaminated properties. This bill would require the Department of Toxic Substances Control, in consultation with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and other relevant coordinating agencies, on or before December 31, 2028, to develop and adopt regulations pertaining to lead and asbestos testing, remediation, and restoration after a wildfire and, on or before December 31, 2029, to develop and publish guidance pertaining to specified other contaminants, as provided. The bill would require the State Air Resources Board, on or before December 31, 2028, to develop and publish guidance on indoor air contaminants following residential smoke damage from a wildfire, as provided. The bill would provide that, until the adoption of the regulations and guidance, specified lead and asbestos standards shall apply for wildfire-caused lead and asbestos remediation, as provided. The bill would require the department, in collaboration with the State Department of Education and other relevant state agencies, no later than July 1, 2028, to develop advisory, nonregulatory guidance for schools after a wildfire, as provided. The bill would exempt the regulations and guidance from the Administrative Procedure Act. The bill would become operative only if AB 1795 of the 2025–26 Regular Session is enacted and takes effect on or before January 1, 2027.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Existing law establishes the Office of the State Fire Marshal in the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and establishes the Deputy Director of Community Wildfire Preparedness and Mitigation within the office. Existing law makes the deputy director responsible for fire preparedness and mitigation missions of the department, as provided. The Department of Toxic Substances Control regulates the handling and management of hazardous waste and hazardous materials. This bill would establish a nonrebuttable presumption that a home, school, workplace, or other structure is safe for human occupancy after a wildfire only if the level of lead on an indoor surface meets specified conditions, as provided. The bill would require the Department of Toxic Substances Control to adopt, no later than July 1, 2027, emergency regulations specifying the science-informed, health-based standards for investigation, environmental testing, and clearance, to guide the removal of lead and asbestos inside and outside of homes, schools, workplaces, and other structures in residential areas after a wildfire, as provided. The bill would also require the department, in consultation with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, to adopt regulations by July 1, 2028, specifying science-informed, health-based standards for hazardous chemicals following a wildfire, and would require those standards to be established at chemical levels to ensure safe reoccupancy and reduce cancer and noncancer health risks attributable to such fires, as provided. The bill would define terms for purposes of these provisions, including “downward ash zone” and would require the department to determine the downwind ash zone for each WUI fire using methodologies and data sources from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as provided. Digest Key Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee: YES Local Program: NO Bill Text The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. This act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Wildfire Environmental Safety and Testing Act. SEC. 2. The Legislature finds and declares both of the following: (a) Wildfires are increasingly frequent and severe, exposing Californians to hazardous smoke, ash, debris, and toxic contamination that pose serious short- and long-term health risks. (b) Following wildfires, residents, workers, students, and vulnerable populations are often compelled to return to homes, schools, and workplaces without adequate environmental testing, remediation, or health-based clearance standards. (c) Existing law does not provide a uniform statewide framework to address postwildfire habitability and reoccupancy based on public health exposure. SEC. 3. Part 3 (commencing with Section 13980) is added to Division 12 of the Health and Safety Code , to read: 3. Wildfires Contamination 13980. For purposes of this part, the following definitions shall apply: (a) “Clearance” means a formal determination that a home, school, workplace, or other structure has been cleared of WUI debris and that any remaining hazardous chemicals meet the standards established pursuant to this part. (b) “Contamination” means property polluted by WUI debris. (c) “Department” means the Department of Toxic Substances Control. (d) “Downwind ash zone” means the geographic area downwind from the wildfire’s burn perimeter that the department determines pursuant to Section 13985 is reasonably likely to have received ash, soot, or char, or other WUI debris carried by wind. “Downwind ash zone” includes the structures within that geographic area. (e) “Hazardous chemical” means a chemical that is determined by the department to be toxic, carcinogenic, explosive, corrosive, or flammable. (f) “Office” means the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. (g) “TEM-identified asbestos” means Transmission Electron Microscopy-identified asbestos. (h) “WUI” means the term used by the United States Fire Administration and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to mean the wildland urban interface, or the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development. “WUI” includes the line, area, or zone where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels. (i) “WUI debris” includes, but is not limited to, ash, soot, or char, combustion byproducts, TEM-identified asbestos, CAM 17 heavy metals, cyanide, lithium, manganese, dioxins, furans, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and volatile organic compounds in indoor air. (j) “WUI fire” or “wildfire” means a fire in the WUI that may result in the release and deposit of WUI debris. (k) “WUI impact zone” means the area within the fire perimeter as determined and mapped by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the adjacent downwind ash zone, as defined by the department pursuant to Section 13985. 13981. (a) There is a nonrebuttable presumption that a home, school, workplace, or other structure is safe for human occupancy after a wildfire only if the level of lead is less than, or equal to, 5 micrograms per square foot on floors, and less than, or equal to, 40 micrograms per square foot on window sills. (b) The department may adopt nonemergency regulations pursuant to Section 13984 for science-informed, health-based standards for lead that are stricter than those specified in subdivision (a). Upon adoption of those nonemergency regulations, this section shall become inoperative. 13982. (a) The department, in consultation with relevant coordinating agencies, shall, no later than July 1, 2027, adopt emergency regulations specifying the science-informed, health-based standards for investigation, environmental testing, and clearance, to guide the adequate removal of lead and TEM-identified asbestos inside and outside of homes, schools, workplaces, and other structures in residential areas after a wildfire. (b) The adoption and readoption of regulations consistent with this section shall be deemed to be an emergency and necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety, or general welfare for purposes of Sections 11346.1 and 11349.6 of the Government Code, and the department is hereby exempted from the requirement that it describe facts showing the need for immediate action. 13983. Emergency regulations adopted by the department pursuant to Section 13982, in order to protect the public health of residents of standing homes, schools, workplaces, or other structures after a WUI fire and to reduce cancer and noncancer health risks attributable to a WUI fire, shall include all of the following: (a) A rebuttable presumption that if WUI debris is present in a surviving home, school, workplace, or other structure after a WUI fire, any identified hazardous contamination in the WUI impact zone is the result of that WUI fire. (b) (1) Requirements for testing for lead and TEM-identified asbestos in a surviving home, school, workplace, or other structure that include, at a minimum, testing of all of the following locations: (A) Indoor floors, window sills, and interior horizontal hard surfaces. (B) Garage floors and garage horizontal hard surfaces. (C) Attics, and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems. (2) Testing standards shall also include conditions in which testing behind drywall is required. (c) (1) Requirements for preremediation testing to understand where contaminants are present to guide appropriately licensed cleanup efforts and ensure worker safety. (2) Requirements for postremediation testing after debris cleanup to confirm that lead and TEM-identified asbestos have been removed from the home, school, workplace, or other structure and that clearance has been achieved, or to determine that further remediation efforts are required. (3) Requirements for postremediation testing after debris cleanup to confirm whether remediation reduced the levels of chemicals identified in subparagraphs (C) to (F), inclusive, of paragraph (4). (4) Preremediation and postremediation testing guidelines that shall establish specific protocols and methodologies used to evaluate known WUI fire hazards, which include, but are not limited to, all of the following: (A) Lead. (B) TEM-identified asbestos. (C) Combustion byproducts. (D) CAM 17 heavy metals. (E) Cyanide, lithium, manganese, dioxins, furans, and PAHs. (F) Volatile organic compounds in indoor air. (d) The standards set forth in the department’s Residential Soil Evaluation Guidance for the 2025 Los Angeles Wildfires, including the standards for soil sampling based on property damage levels. (e) Guidance on the use of other restoration strategies, including, but not limited to, the repair or replacement of damaged structures if remediation cannot achieve clearance. (f) Guidance on methods and routines to reduce indoor exposure to the contamination of hazardous chemicals, or any residual contamination following remediation, resulting from a WUI fire. 13984. (a) The department shall, no later than July 1, 2028, adopt regulations specifying science-informed, health-based standards for hazardous chemicals, including levels for these chemicals that are required to achieve clearance for a home, school, workplace, or other structure, as well as standards for investigation, environmental testing, and to guide the removal of hazardous chemicals inside and outside of a home, school, workplace, or other structure in a residential area after a wildfire. The adopted science-informed, health-based standards for hazardous chemicals shall be established at levels intended to ensure that residents can safely reoccupy their homes, schools, workplaces, and other structures and to reduce cancer and noncancer health risks attributable to a WUI fire. The department shall develop these standards in consultation with the office. (b) Regulations adopted by the department pursuant to this section, in order to protect the public health of residents of standing homes, schools, workplaces, or other structures after a WUI fire, shall include all of the following: (1) Adoption of nonemergency regulations from regulations adopted pursuant to Sections 13982 and 13983, and standards for levels of lead on an indoor surface pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 13981, if applicable and appropriate. (2) A rebuttable presumption that if WUI debris is present in a surviving home, school, workplace, or other structure after a WUI fire, any identified hazardous contamination in the WUI impact zone is the result of that WUI fire. (3) (A) Requirements for testing in a surviving home, school, workplace, or other structure that include, at a minimum, testing of all of the following locations: (i) Indoor floors, window sills, and interior horizontal hard surfaces. (ii) Garage floors and garage horizontal hard surfaces. (iii) Attics and heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems. (B) Testing standards shall also include conditions in which testing behind drywall is required. (4) (A) Requirements for preremediation testing to understand what hazardous chemicals are present to guide appropriately licensed cleanup efforts and ensure worker safety. (B) Requirements for postremediation testing after debris cleanup to confirm that WUI debris and contamination have been removed from the home, school, workplace, or other structure, or to determine that further remediation efforts are required. (C) Preremediation and postremediation testing standards shall include testing and health-based thresholds for known WUI fire hazards, including, but not limited to, all of the following: (i) TEM-identified asbestos. (ii) Combustion byproducts. (iii) CAM 17 heavy metals. (iv) Cyanide, lithium, manganese, dioxins, furans, and PAHs. (v) Volatile organic compounds in indoor air. (5) Standards to ensure that individuals can inhabit a home, school, workplace, or other structure safely. The standards shall include steps to ensure that a home, school, workplace, or other structure is habitable to prefire conditions and that the home, school, workplace, or other structure has reached clearance before a resident is required to move back into the resident’s home or return to a structure. 13985. The department shall determine the downwind ash zone for e [Text truncated for display. Full text available on Congress.gov.]