Legislative Appropriations Committees Address Bills and Send Over 500 Measures Forward

Another legislative “milestone” was passed this week when the two Appropriations committees took up what is referred to as the “Suspense file”. The Assembly held about 32% of the Senate measures it reviewed, above the average of 25% . The Senate completed its review of the Assembly Bills in their possession and held about 34% of the measures, well above the normal hold rate. With that, over 500 measures are headed to the legislative floors for consideration over the next two weeks for dispensation by August 31 before those approved head to Governor Newsom’s desk. 

Among these bills, those of particular interest to RCRC are the following: 

• AB 2330 (Holden) - Approved. Supported by RCRC. This measure streamlines the process for fuels treatment projects for local governments that require an incidental take of a candidate species. 

 

• AB 2421 (Low) – Held. RCRC opposed. This bill would restrict an employer’s ability to conduct internal investigations to the detriment of employees and the public’s safety and well-being, adding new costs and liability for public employers. AB 2421 creates an employee-union representative privilege in the context of California public employment which could compromise the ability of employers to conduct investigations into workplace safety, harassment and other allegations.  

 

• AB 2469 (Emergency Management Committee) - Approved. Supported by RCRC. This measure extends the sunset of the California Wildfire Mitigation Program from July 1, 2025 to July 1, 2030.  

 

• AB 2557 (Ortega) - Held. RCRC opposed. This measure mandated new contracting and posting requirements for local agencies that are overly burdensome, exceptionally costly, and inappropriately inflexible, likely resulting in worse outcomes for vulnerable communities and diminished local services for our residents and students. With the proposed requirements of AB 2557 for local agencies with represented workforces and for their contractors, we anticipate (1) fewer non-profit providers, community-based organizations, and other private service providers willing to engage with local agencies, (2) exacerbated already-demanding caseloads and workloads for our existing staff, and (3) increased costs for local agencies.  

 

• AB 2882 (McCarty) – Held. RCRC opposed. This measure reprioritized an existing Proposition 30-protected community corrections revenue stream to address the behavioral health treatment needs of those in county jail settings. The measure expands local requirements – by amending Penal Code section 1230.1 – the elements of the local community corrections plan by requiring new comprehensive and in-depth analyses and recommendations about how criminal justice funds might be used as matching funds for other sources; quantifiable goals for improving the community corrections systems; and specific targets for each goal. These new duties represent a higher level of service in the context of a realigned program and are duplicative of reporting mandates recently enacted by Proposition 1.  

 

• AB 2902 (Wood) - Approved. Sponsored by RCRC, this bill would require CalRecycle to evaluate ways for the organic waste regulations to incentivize carbon farming; develop training and technical assistance materials to assist local governments in expanding community composting operations; create a model ordinance and franchise provisions that exempt small-scale community composting operations from specific regulatory and exclusivity provisions; and evaluate ways to maximize the local benefits of edible food recovery programs and explore circumstances in which recovered food may be more suitable for use in local animal feed operations. 

 

• SB 504 (Dodd) - Approved. Supported by RCRC. This measure specifies that existing structures won’t have to comply with the 5-foot ember resistant zone (Zone Zero) regulations for three years after they are finalized. 

 

• SB 542 (Dahle) - Approved. Supported by RCRC. This bill provides income tax exclusions for settlements related to the Dixie Fire and the Mill Fire.  

 

• SB 610 (Wiener) – Held. This measure would have revised the current state fire responsibility process and obligations, including many provisions related to housing, land use and building permitting, shifting these from the Board of Forestry (BOF) to the Office of the State Fire Marshall (OSFM). This bill was introduced as a gut and amend on June 11, 2024. RCRC, along with our local government partners, CSAC and Cal Cities, had a “concerns” position on the bill. 

 

• SB 945 (Alvarado-Gil) - Held. Supported by RCRC. This measure would have created an integrated, statewide database for wildfire and health data.  

 

• SB 946 (McGuire) - Approved. Supported by RCRC. This measure would exempt recipients of home retrofit grants from the California Wildfire Mitigation Program.  

 

• SB 1057 (Menjivar) – Held. RCRC opposed. This measure would dramatically recast the composition of multiagency juvenile justice coordinating councils (JJCC), which are designed to develop and implement a continuum of county-based responses to addressing the needs of justice system-involved youth.  

 

• SB 1064 (Laird) – Approved. Sponsored by RCRC. This bill seeks to reduce unnecessary complexity and duplication within the cannabis regulatory environment which is impeding government’s ability to license businesses in a reasonable timeframe and complicating efforts to enforce the law.  

 

• SB 1101 (Limon) - Approved. Supported by RCRC. This bill streamlines the process for CAL FIRE to enter into contracts to perform prescribed fire operations. 

 

• SB 1402 (Min) - Held. Concerns expressed by RCRC. This measure would have required all state departments and agencies to consider the state’s 30x30 goal when adopting, revising, or establishing plans, policies, or regulations that directly affect the use of coastal waters or land, management of natural resources, or biodiversity conservation. 

 

Bills that got the ax included a handful of high-profile crime measures: 

• Sexual violence: A bill by Senate GOP leader Brian Jones of San Diego would have ensured that public safety is a priority for the State Department of State Hospitals when considering the conditional release of sexually violent predators. After it was nixed, Jones said that Assembly Democratic leaders are “now complicit in helping the Newsom Administration protect these predators over families.” 

 

• Fentanyl and threats: Two bills by former-Democratic-now-Republican Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil of Modesto would have classified two crimes as felonies: Carrying a loaded firearm while in possession of fentanyl and making general threats against a school or a place of worship. 

 

Among the proposals that did survive are two items of note: 

• Octopus farming: Bans commercial octopus farming and the sale of the farmed creature. Animal rights activists say the practice is inhumane, even though it hasn’t started yet in California. 

 

• Youth treatment: Expands reporting requirements for state-run facilities that treat young adults over the use of restraints and “seclusion rooms.” In response to its passage out of the appropriations committee, media personality Paris Hilton, a proponent of the bill, says it is critical “to hold these facilities accountable and increase transparency.”