Asm. Phil Ting

Existing law establishes various housing and home loan programs throughout the state to help low-income families and other specified groups. Existing law authorizes the governing board of any school district, when leasing a building for housing of school district employees, to lease the building for any period they deem necessary. This bill would authorize a school district to establish and implement programs, as provided, that address the housing needs of teachers and school district employees who face challenges in securing affordable housing.

Existing law prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, ethnic group identification, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, color, genetic information, or disability under any state program or activity. Existing law provides for officers and employees of the state, when away from their headquarters for state business, to receive travel expenses. This bill would prohibit a state agency and the Legislature from requiring any of its employees, officers, or members to travel to, or approving a request for state-funded or state-sponsored travel to, any state that, after June 26, 2015, has enacted a law that voids or repeals, or has the effect of voiding or repealing, existing state or local protections against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression or has enacted a law that authorizes or requires discrimination against same-sex couples or their families or on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression, as specified, subject to certain exceptions. The bill would require the Attorney General to develop, maintain, and post on his or her Internet Web site a current list of states that, after June 26, 2015, have enacted such a law. The bill would make it the responsibility of specified state entities to consult the list in order to comply with the travel and funding restrictions imposed by the bill.

(1) Existing law, on and after January 1, 2017, requires any person operating a modified limousine that is modified prior to July 1, 2015, to ensure that the vehicle is equipped with one or 2 rear windows that the rear seat passengers or all passengers of the vehicle may open from the inside of the vehicle in case of any fire or other emergency. This bill would extend the operative date of this requirement to January 1, 2018. (2) Existing law defines a tour bus to include any bus operated by or for a charter-party carrier of passengers or a passenger stage corporation, with a bus in this respect defined to mean any vehicle designed, used, or maintained for carrying more than 10 persons, including the driver. Existing law provides for the Department of the California Highway Patrol to regulate the safe operation of various classes of vehicles, including tour buses. A violation of various statutes and regulations governing tour buses and operators of tour buses is a crime. Existing law also requires the department, at least once every 13 months, to inspect every maintenance facility or terminal of any person who at any time operates any bus. Existing law requires that if the bus operation includes more than 100 buses, the inspection shall be without prior notice. This bill would require the department, if a tour bus has received an unsatisfactory compliance rating, to conduct a followup inspection between 30 and 90 days after the initial inspection during which the unsatisfactory rating was received. The bill would require the department to order a tour bus out of service upon determining during a terminal inspection or at any other time that the condition of a tour bus is such that it has multiple safety violations of a nature that operation of the tour bus could constitute an imminent danger to public safety. The bill would prohibit the tour bus from being operated with passengers until all of the safety violations have been corrected and the department has verified the correction of the safety violations upon a subsequent inspection by the department of the tour bus, which shall occur within five business days of the submission of a reinspection request from the tour bus carrier. By creating a new crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (3) 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 a specified reason.

Existing law requires the Department of the California Highway Patrol to regulate the safe operation of tour buses, as defined, and requires the department to adopt rules and regulations relating to the equipment and maintenance of tour buses. At least once every 13 months, existing law requires the department to inspect every maintenance facility or terminal of any person who at any time operates any bus, including a tour bus, and makes it unlawful for any person to operate a bus without this inspection having been conducted. In addition to the systematic inspection required of all motor carriers, existing law requires tour bus operators to require each tour bus to be inspected at least every 45 days, or more often if necessary to ensure safe operation. This bill would require the department to, upon the request of, and in consultation with, representatives of a local government in a jurisdiction where tour buses operate, develop protocols for entering into memoranda of understanding with local governments to allow the department to increase the number of the locally operating tour buses that are being inspected by the department. The bill would require a memorandum of understanding entered into with a local government pursuant to these provisions to include a provision that the local government will reimburse the department for all actual costs associated with conducting additional inspections. The bill would prohibit any inspection conducted pursuant to these provisions from being duplicative of any inspection conducted by the department to meet those specified existing inspection requirements.

Under existing law, entities offering electric services in California are required to disclose information on the sources of energy that are used to provide electric services. Existing law requires every retail supplier, as defined, that makes an offer to sell electricity that is consumed in California to disclose its electricity sources for the previous calendar year. These disclosures are required to be made to end-use consumers and potential end-use consumers. Existing law requires a retail supplier to disclose its electricity sources as a percentage of annual sales that is derived from specified sources of energy, including eligible renewable energy resources. Existing law requires that retail suppliers annually report to the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) certain information for each electricity offering from "specified sources," as defined, for the previous calendar year and authorizes the Energy Commission to verify environmental claims made by retail suppliers. This bill would, among other things, require the Energy Commission, in consultation with the State Air Resources Board, to adopt a methodology for the calculation of greenhouse gas emissions intensity for each purchase of electricity by a retail supplier to serve its retail customers. The bill would require a retail supplier, including an electrical corporation, local publicly owned electric utility, electric service provider, and community choice aggregator, to also disclose both the greenhouse gases emissions intensity of any electricity portfolio offered to its retail customers, as specified, and the Energy Commission's calculation of the greenhouse gas emissions intensity associated with all statewide retail electricity sales. The bill would require a retail supplier to annually report to the Energy Commission certain additional information for each electricity offering for the previous calendar year and would authorize the Energy Commission to verify procurement claims, in addition to environmental claims, made by retail suppliers. The bill would require the Energy Commission, on or before January 1, 2018, to adopt guidelines, through an open process, subject to public comment, and adopted by a vote of the Energy Commission, for the reporting and disclosure of greenhouse gas emissions intensity. The bill would require retail suppliers, beginning June 1, 2020, to report data on greenhouse gas emissions intensity associated with retail sales occurring after December 31, 2018, except as provided. The Public Utilities Act makes any public utility and any corporation other than a public utility guilty of a crime, if the public utility or corporation violates the act or fails to comply with any part of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission. Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and because a violation of an order or decision of the commission implementing its requirements by an electrical corporation or electric service provider would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by expanding what is a crime. By placing additional reporting duties upon local publicly owned electric utilities, 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.

Existing law places various duties upon the Public Utilities Commission with respect to distributed generation and requires each electrical corporation to submit to the commission for its approval a distribution resources plan proposal to identify optimal locations for the deployment of distributed resources, as defined. Pursuant to existing law, the commission has established operational and metering requirements for a generation facility to be interconnected to an electrical corporation's distribution grid. This bill would authorize the commission to establish an expedited distribution grid interconnection dispute resolution process, as specified, with the goal of resolving disputes over interconnection applications within the jurisdiction of the commission in no more than 60 days from the time the dispute is formally brought to the commission. The bill would require the commission to appoint a qualified electrical systems engineer with substantial interconnection expertise to advise the director of the energy division and to provide adequate commission staff to assist in resolving interconnection disputes.

(1) Existing law establishes the Aid to Families with Dependent Children-Foster Care (AFDC-FC) program, under which counties provide payments to foster care providers on behalf of qualified children in foster care. Existing law establishes a schedule of basic rates to be paid for the care and supervision of each foster child. Existing law also establishes the Kinship Guardianship Assistance Payment Program (Kin-GAP) , which provides aid on behalf of eligible children who are placed in the home of a relative caretaker. Existing law requires, when a child is living with a parent who receives AFDC-FC or Kin-GAP benefits, that the rate paid to the foster care provider on behalf of the parent include an additional amount, known as an infant supplement, for the care and supervision of the child. This bill would make a pregnant minor or nonminor dependent eligible for the infant supplement for a specified period before the expected date of birth, subject to a verification of pregnancy, as specified. Because counties would administer these extended benefits, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) This bill would incorporate changes to Section 11465 of the Welfare and Institutions Code proposed by both this bill and AB 1997, which would become operative only if both bills are enacted and become effective on or before January 1, 2017, and this bill is chaptered last. (3) 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 a specified reason.

Existing law requires any state agency, board, or commission that directly or by contract collects demographic data as to the ancestry or ethnic origin of Californians to use separate collection categories and tabulations for specified Asian groups and Pacific Islander groups, and requires a state agency, board, or commission to include data on specified collection categories and tabulations in every demographic report on ancestry or ethnic origins of California residents that it publishes or releases. Existing law requires specified agencies to use additional separate collection categories and other tabulations for major Asian groups and Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander groups, and also requires those agencies to take additional actions, including, among other things, posting, and annually updating, the demographic data collected on their Internet Web sites, and updating the reporting categories to reflect these Asian and Pacific Islander groups as they are reported for the 2020 decennial census. This bill would require the updating of the reporting categories for future decennial censuses. The bill would require the State Department of Public Health to use the additional separate collection categories and other tabulations for specified Asian groups and Pacific Islander groups, and to take additional actions as specified above, under certain circumstances.

The Permit Streamlining Act within the Planning and Zoning Law requires the lead agency that has the principal responsibility for approving a development project, as defined, to approve or disapprove the project within 180 days from the date of certification of an environmental impact report. Existing law requires approval or disapproval within 90 days from the date of certification if at least 49% of the units within the development project are affordable to very low or low-income households. Existing law also requires approval or disapproval within 60 days from the date of the adoption of a negative declaration, or the determination by the lead agency that the project is exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act. This bill would require approval or disapproval within 120 days from the date of certification of an environmental impact report when the development project consists of either residential units only or mixed use development in which the nonresidential uses are less than 50% of the total square footage of the development, among other conditions. The Planning and Zoning Law requires any public agency that is a responsible agency for a development project to approve or disapprove a development project that has been approved by the lead agency within the longer of 180 days from the date on which the lead agency has approved the project or within 180 days of the date on which the completed application for the development project has been accepted as complete by that responsible agency. This bill would, for a public agency other than the California Coastal Commission, reduce each time period to within 90 days when the development project consists of either residential units only or mixed use development in which the nonresidential uses are less than 50% of the total square footage of the development and other conditions are met. By increasing the duties of local officials, this 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 a specified reason.

Existing law regulates the existence and disclosure of specified chemicals and components in consumer products, including phthalates and bisphenol A. Existing law also provides for the licensing and regulation of nail salons and manicurists by the State Board of Barbering and Cosmetology within the Department of Consumer Affairs. This bill would require the Department of Toxic Substances Control to publish guidelines for cities, counties, and cities and counties to voluntarily implement local healthy nail salon recognition (HNSR) programs. The bill would allow the guidelines to include, but not be limited to, specified criteria, such as the potential for exposure of nail salon workers and customers to chemicals. The bill would also require the department to develop a consumer education program, present the guidelines to local health officers, local environmental health departments, and other local agencies, and post specified information on its Internet Web site.