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This year, AB 2447 (Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan), titled the Water Supply Protection Act, and sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council, was introduced to replace the current Central Valley and Central Coast Irrigated Lands Regulatory Programs. The bill would require the State Water Resources Control Board to direct regional boards to update the Irrigated Lands Regulatory Program with an expedited timeline to lower nitrate leaching into groundwater. The bill explicitly demands revised orders by Jan. 1, 2028, and establishes a statewide methodology for calculating and reporting field-level nitrogen balances. Critically, it mandates that the field-level data generated from this reporting be made publicly available.

AB 2447 also considers “quantitative limits on nitrogen fertilizer application and nitrogen discharge,” implemented through adaptive irrigation and nutrient management plans. These plans may include verification, cross-referencing fertilizer application data with sales records and testing. To be clear, what the bill intends to mandate is individual reporting by all farmers of their application rates, fertilizer purchases and from whom they purchased fertilizers; individual on-farm monitoring of nitrogen availability; and individual reporting of those results.

Essentially, all nutrient management decisions made by individual farms will become publicly available to competitors, nongovernmental organizations and regulatory agencies.

This isn’t a minor change. It represents the destruction of the current grower coalition system that Central Valley farmers and the Central Valley Regional Water Board have built over the past two decades. Additionally, it will eliminate the chance for farmers on the Central Coast to develop monitoring and groundwater-testing cooperatives to cost-effectively oversee and report their efforts to reduce nitrate impacts on groundwater.

Coalitions and Compliance
For those unfamiliar with farmer coalitions, they were created to address agricultural water quality issues. Destroying these coalitions means the elimination of groups that develop systems and reports documenting farmer nutrient practices, ensure all farmers in their areas participate in nutrient reporting programs and offer nutrient education programs for farmers. They also document that coalition member farmers participate in ongoing education programs, develop statistical information that demonstrates that farmers are making progress in mitigating water quality issues, create additional mechanisms to meet water board goals, and collate all this information for submission to water board staff. This system is funded and managed by farmers and overseen by water board staff, which allows the water board’s resources to be used to support its mission of addressing and improving water quality.

AB 2447 represents a substantial increase in regulatory authority and reporting requirements, which will hit farmers and advisers the hardest, especially in regions already heavily regulated for water quality. However, it does not address how this will be funded. The answer is obviously higher fees for farmers to cover the huge increase in water board staff needed to review and organize all this individual farm data. And, if history is any guide, the real outcome will be thousands of reports left unchecked by water board staff, who, despite their best efforts, are overwhelmed by the volume of reports generated.

These costs will have even greater effects on the economic sustainability of small farms or disadvantaged farmers. Small farms lack the profit margins to hire employees or consultants to prepare detailed management reports. Instead, the bill will force all farmers into a one-size-fits-all cost system, where small farmers must compete with larger ones, rather than being able to operate within a system that meets reporting requirements.

Oh, and guess what: this new compliance system and documentation of groundwater improvements must happen by 2031. That’s four years from the date the bill takes effect. Failure to meet these goals will result in even more restrictions, which is what the sponsors are counting on.

Task Force and Broader Risks
AB 2447 would also establish a new State Water Board advisory committee called the Safer Fertilizer Task Force, or SFTF. The SFTF will consist of organizations representing climate-resiliency groups, water quality protection interests, public health and environmental justice groups, along with academic institutions and undefined agricultural producers, fertilizer industry, and state agency representatives. They will advise CDFA’s Fertilizer Research and Education Program Technical Advisory Committee on fertilizer efficiency technologies, life-cycle and field performance of fertilizers, and, notably, how to achieve the greatest reductions of nitrate leaching and reductions in nitrous oxide emissions from fertilizers to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

The Fertilizer Research and Education Program has been around for more than 35 years and is responsible for most of the scientifically sound research on the environmentally safe use of fertilizers, especially nitrogen-based fertilizers, and spends millions of dollars each year educating farmers and farm advisers on how to implement this research in an agronomically sound and environmentally protective manner. The State Water Board already stated during a Second Expert Panel hearing that it lacks the resources to fund this kind of task force. We all know what will happen: CDFA will be called upon to finance this new task force, and funds that are now aimed at reducing nitrogen leaching or emissions will be redirected to pay for the sponsors of AB 2447’s vanity task force.

Why was this bill introduced? Because the bill’s sponsors are unhappy with the direction that the State Water Board’s Second Expert Panel is heading in its recommendations. Instead of waiting for recommendations from the Second Expert Panel, which carefully considers both environmental and agronomic factors of nitrogen fertilizer practices to truly improve groundwater quality, NRDC is trying to make sure its political agenda, which appears to be punishing farmers who don’t meet its definition of what a farmer should be, is driven out of existence. The problem is, AB 2447 is so poorly written that it will first put out of business the small and disadvantaged farmers whom the sponsors should be most concerned about.

‘AB 2447 is a high-risk bill that could drive major new costs, increase enforcement liabilities, and make routine farming decisions vulnerable to public mischaracterization and regulatory overreach.’

Here are some of the key risks facing agriculture:

Enforceable nitrogen caps that may not account for agronomic realities, crop variability or region-specific conditions.

Public release of individual field-level data, which invites misinterpretation, politicization and activist targeting.

Data without context becomes a weapon.

Increased compliance costs due to reporting, verification and monitoring requirements will affect labor budgets, consultant fees and operational time.

Elimination of farmer coalition models and coordinated compliance systems that currently help growers meet requirements efficiently.

A pathway to new input restrictions through best available technology standards and advisory structures that can be influenced by non-farm stakeholders.

Bottom Line
The NRDC presents AB 2447 as a measure to promote clean water and public health. Agriculture agrees with the goal of safe drinking water. The disagreement centers on the approach, feasibility and potential side effects. Recent reports mention that AB 2447 would bypass ongoing regulatory efforts regarding the scientific viability of nitrogen caps, making it a major conflict between farm groups and environmental advocates.

Bottom line: AB 2447 is a high-risk bill that could drive major new costs, increase enforcement liabilities, and make routine farming decisions vulnerable to public mischaracterization and regulatory overreach.

California agriculture operates under the most regulated environment in the country. The industry can meet high standards, but it cannot sustain policies based on assumptions, punitive reporting requirements, and increasing compliance costs that are out of touch with farming realities. The wise approach is to push back early, not after the narrative has been established.