(

a) The CEC Action Fund is hereby established in the State Treasury. The state board shall administer the CEC Action Fund. (

b) All moneys deposited in the CEC Action Fund may be used, upon appropriation by the Legislature, in support of, but not limited to, all of the following:

(1) Costs associated with developing, maintaining, implementing, and administering the state board’s CEC efforts.

(2) Costs associated with establishing and maintaining the panel, developing a risk-based screening program, collecting occurrence data, and reporting on those activities.

(3) Costs associated with developing standardized analytical methods internally by the state board or through external contracts, direct expenditures, or grants.

(4) Costs associated with contracts, direct expenditures, or grants to public or private external research organizations to fill research gaps.

(5) Public participation and outreach efforts pursuant to

Section 116423.

(6) Other state board costs associated with implementing and administering the program, including monitoring pursuant to

Section and administrative costs.

(7) Costs associated with financial assistance provided to community water systems for monitoring CECs pursuant to

Section 116420.

(8) Costs associated with the state board’s research and scientific investigations related to perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances. (c)

(1) The state board may provide for the deposit into the CEC Action Fund of federal contributions, voluntary contributions, gifts, grants, bequests, transfers by the Legislature from the General Fund, and funding from authorized general obligation bond acts. All moneys remitted to the state board pursuant to this

section shall be deposited in the CEC Action Fund.

(2) Any federal contributions shall be subject to federal requirements and shall be used only for the permissible purposes allowed by the federal law or a federal grant deposited in the fund, to the extent authorized and funded by that grant. (

d) Contracts entered into pursuant to this

section are exempt from

Chapter 2 (commencing with

Section 10290) of Part of Division of the Public Contract Code and

Section of the Government Code, and may be awarded on a noncompetitive bid basis as necessary to implement the purposes of this section. (

e) Actions taken to implement, interpret, or make specific this section, including, but not limited to, the adoption of any plan, handbook, or map, are not subject to the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with

Section 11340),

Chapter 4 (commencing with

Section 11370),

Chapter 4.5 (commencing with

Section 11400), and

Chapter 5 (commencing with

Section 11500) of Part of Division of Title of the Government Code). (

f) The state board may, upon appropriation by the Legislature, expend moneys from the CEC Action Fund for reasonable costs associated with the administration of this article.