Pesticides.

(1) Existing law prohibits a person from advertising, soliciting, or operating as a pest control business, unless the person has a valid pest control business license issued by the Director of Pesticide Regulation and has registered with the county agricultural commissioner. Existing law exempts from this prohibition persons engaged in specified activities, including household or industrial sanitation services. This bill would exempt from that prohibition persons engaged in sanitation services for the collection, disposal, and treatment of wastewater, refuse, or sewage, rather than household or industrial sanitation services, persons engaged in pool cleaning services, unless the person is selling, applying, using, or distributing a restricted material, and persons engaged in the live capture and removal or exclusion of mice, rats, and pigeons. (2) Existing law requires a licensed pest control dealer to report quarterly to the director the total dollars of sales and total pounds or gallons sold into or within this state of each pesticide labeled for agricultural use that are subject to the assessments described below. This bill would require the above-described report to instead include each pesticide subject to the assessments described below, rather than only those pesticides labeled for agricultural use. (3) Existing law requires every manufacturer of, importer of, or dealer in any pesticide, except as specified, to obtain a certificate of registration from the Department of Pesticide Regulation before the pesticide is offered for sale. Existing law requires the director to establish, by regulation, fees for the department's registration program. Existing law requires the director to endeavor to eliminate from use in the state specified pesticides, and in carrying out this responsibility, to develop an orderly program for the continuous evaluation of all pesticides actually registered, as specified. This bill would require the department, on or before May 1, 2025, and annually thereafter until May 2, 2028, to report the average processing times to review and evaluate, and issue final decisions on applications to register new pesticide products or to amend existing product registrations for the prior calendar year. The bill would require the department, on or before January 31 of each year, to post on its internet website a determination that it might increase certain registration fees during the calendar year, as provided. The bill would require the department, on and after July 1, 2027, to meet certain timelines to review and evaluate, and issue final decisions on applications to register new pesticide products or amend existing pesticide product registrations, except as provided. The bill would require the department, on or before May 1, 2029, and annually thereafter, to report the average processing times for applications to register new pesticide products or amend existing pesticide product registrations for the prior calendar year, as specified. This bill would require the department, on or before July 1, 2025, and each year thereafter, until July 2, 2029, to annually identify and initiate the reevaluation of potential adverse effects of at least one pesticide in addition to those already under reevaluation and would, on or before July 1, 2029, and each year thereafter, require the department to annually identify and initiate the reevaluation of potential adverse effects of at least 2 pesticides in addition to those already under reevaluation. The bill would also specify timelines for mitigation measures if the department identifies potential adverse effects for a pesticide pursuant to the above-described provisions. (4) Existing law requires every person who sells a pesticide product for use in this state that has been registered by the director to pay an assessment on all sales of the pesticide product, and requires the director to establish by regulation a mill assessment rate, not to exceed $0.021. Existing law requires the revenues from the assessment to be deposited into the Department of Pesticide Regulation Fund, with $0.0076 per dollar of sales for all pesticides sales for use in this state distributed by the director to the counties as reimbursement for costs incurred in the administration and enforcement of provisions relating to pesticides, and the remainder available for expenditure, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to support the Department of Pesticide Regulation's operations. Existing law authorizes the director to collect an additional assessment of up to $0.00075 per dollar of sales for all pesticide sales for use in this state, except as specified, if necessary to fund, or augment the funding for, an appropriation to the Department of Food and Agriculture to provide pesticide consultation to the Department of Pesticide Regulation. This bill would instead require the assessments to be paid by the person or entity that first sold the pesticide for use in this state. The bill would increase, beginning July 1, 2024, the mill assessment rate for registered pesticides. The bill would increase the maximum amount of the additional assessment to $0.00104 per dollar of sales. This bill would include a change in state statute that would result in a taxpayer paying a higher tax within the meaning of Section 3 of Article XIIIA of the California Constitution, and thus would require for passage the approval of 23 of the membership of each house of the Legislature. (5) Existing law authorizes the director, after a hearing, to cancel the registration of, or refuse to register, a pesticide if one or more specified conditions apply, including that the pesticide has demonstrated serious uncontrollable adverse effects either within or outside the agricultural environment. This bill would revise those specified conditions, including by revising the above-described condition to instead apply when the pesticide has significant adverse environmental effects for which there is no feasible mitigation available. (6) Existing law requires an action brought pursuant to specified laws relating to pesticides to be commenced by the director, the commissioner, the Attorney General, the district attorney, the city prosecutor, or the city attorney within 2 years of the occurrence of the violation. This bill would instead require an action to be brought within 3 years of the occurrence of the violation. Existing law requires an action brought by the director to collect unpaid mill assessments and delinquent fees or to collect civil penalties for a violation of mill assessment requirements and other specified pesticide provisions to be commenced within 4 years of the occurrence of the violation. This bill would require specified actions for the above-described violations that are discovered during the course of an audit to be commenced within 2 years from the date of the audit's completion and would authorize those actions to be brought for a violation occurring within 4 years of the commencement of the audit. (7) Existing law authorizes an interested person to request the county agricultural commissioner to review their action in issuing, refusing, revoking, suspending, or conditioning a permit to use or possess a restricted material and authorizes the commissioner to affirm, modify, or cancel the permit action reviewed. Existing law authorizes a directly affected person to appeal to the director to review the commissioner's action. Existing law requires, before conducting a public review, the director to notify directly affected persons at least 72 hours in advance of the location and time of the public review. This bill would instead authorize an interested person to appeal to the director to review the commissioner's action within 30 days of the date of receiving the commissioner's written decision. The bill would delete the above-described 72-hour notice requirement for a public review. The bill would also require the commissioner and the department to report certain information regarding these reviews and appeals. (8) The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. This bill would expressly exempt from CEQA an approval by the Department of Pesticide Regulation of a pesticide emergency exemption pursuant to specified federal laws. Because a lead agency would be required to determine whether a project qualifies for this exemption, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (9) Under existing law, a violation of specified provisions of the Food and Agricultural Code relating to pest control and pesticides is a misdemeanor. Because a violation of certain of the above provisions would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for specified reasons. (10) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.