(a) (1) The department shall adopt regulations to ensure that trade secrets designated by a generator in all or a portion of the review and plan or the report required by this article are utilized by the director, the department, the unified program agency, or the appropriate local agency only in connection with the responsibilities of the department pursuant to this article, and that those trade secrets are not otherwise disseminated by the director, the department, the unified program agency, or any authorized representative of the department, or the appropriate local agency, without the consent of the generator.
(2) Any information subject to this section shall be made available to governmental agencies for use in making studies and for use in judicial review or enforcement proceedings involving the person furnishing the information.
(3) As provided by Section 25159.5, the regulations adopted pursuant to this subdivision shall conform with the corresponding trade secret regulations adopted by the Environmental Protection Agency pursuant to the federal act, except that the regulations adopted by the department may be more stringent or more extensive than the federal trade secret regulations.
(4) “Trade secrets,” as used in this section, may include, but are not limited to, any formula, plan, pattern, process, tool, mechanism, compound, procedure, production data, or compilation of information that is not patented, that is known only to certain individuals within a commercial concern who are using it to fabricate, produce, or compound an article of trade or a service having commercial value, and that gives its user an opportunity to obtain a business advantage over competitors who do not know or use it.
(b) The department, the unified program agency, and the appropriate local agency shall protect from disclosure any trade secret designated by the generator pursuant to this section. The department shall make available information concerning pollution prevention approaches that have proved successful, and that do not constitute a trade secret, when carrying out subdivision (c) of Section 25244.17.
(c) This section does not permit a generator to refuse to disclose the information required pursuant to this article to the department, the unified program agency, or the appropriate local agency, an officer or employee of the department, the unified program agency, or the appropriate local agency, in connection with the official duties of that officer or employee under this article.
(d) Any officer or employee of the department, the unified program agency, or the appropriate local agency, or any other person, who, because of his or her employment or official position, has possession of, or has access to, confidential information, and who, knowing that disclosure of the information to the general public is prohibited by this section, knowingly and willfully discloses the information in any manner to any person not entitled to receive it, is guilty of a misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding six months, by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars ($1,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.
(Amended by Stats. 2012, Ch. 39, Sec. 57. (SB 1018) Effective June 27, 2012.)