This measure would recognize the month of January 2024 as National Human Trafficking Awareness Month.
This measure would designate, in perpetuity, the 4th week of January as Data Privacy Week and the last Sunday of January as Data Privacy Day.
Existing law requires the Department of Food and Agriculture to promote and protect the agricultural industry of the state. Existing law, the Cannella Environmental Farming Act of 1995, requires the department to establish and oversee an environmental farming program to provide incentives to farmers whose practices promote the well-being of ecosystems, air quality, and wildlife and their habitat. This bill would require the department to establish and administer a resilient and higher welfare grant program to support the implementation of higher standards of care and more climate-smart farming practices by providing education materials, outreach, and incentives to producers and processors seeking to improve farm animal welfare and increase capacity to meet growing demand for higher welfare and welfare-certified products, to comply with regulatory requirements, and to make necessary climate adaptations. The bill would require the department to establish an annual competitive grant application process that enables producers and processors seeking to improve farm animal welfare to apply to the department for financial assistance and to give priority to certain applications. The bill would require the department to conduct outreach and education to producers and processors with regard to the program and to publish a report on or before January 1, 2029, on its internet website summarizing the results of the program.
Existing law authorizes a peace officer to use reasonable force to effect the arrest, to prevent escape, or to overcome resistance of an individual. Existing law requires law enforcement agencies to maintain a policy on the use of force. Existing law prohibits the use of kinetic energy projectiles or chemical agents by any law enforcement agency to disperse any assembly, protest, or demonstration, except in compliance with specified standards. This bill would prohibit the use of an unleashed police canine by law enforcement to apprehend a person unless the person is being pursued for a felony that threatened or resulted in the death of or serious bodily injury to another person and the person poses an imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or to another person and any use of a police canine for crowd control. The bill would prohibit a police canine from being used to bite unless there is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or another person by the person against whom the canine is used. The bill would attribute the death of or serious bodily injury to a person caused by a police canine to the canine's handler as constituting deadly force. The bill would prohibit law enforcement agencies from authorizing any use or training of a police canine that is inconsistent with this bill.
The Emergency Services Act establishes in state government, within the office of the Governor, the Office of Emergency Services and makes the office responsible for the state's emergency and disaster response services for natural, technological, or man-made disasters and emergencies, as specified. This bill would enact the Emergency Fairgrounds Communications Grant Act and would require, on or before January 1, 2025, the office to establish a grant program to provide fairgrounds with grant funding for the purpose of building and upgrading communication and internet infrastructure on fairgrounds. The bill would require the office to establish standards to determine the awarding of grant funding that award funding based on a fairground's need for internet capabilities in order to service an emergency response operation. The bill would authorize the office to prioritize the order of grant disbursements based on prescribed criteria. The bill would also require the office to consult with the Department of Technology and the Department of Food and Agriculture to coordinate the statewide building and upgrading of communication and internet infrastructure on fairgrounds. The bill would provide that the program is operative only upon an appropriation by the Legislature for its purposes.
Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions. Existing law requires the department to establish the Medically Tailored Meals Pilot Program and the Short-Term Medically Tailored Meals Intervention Services Program, to operate in specified counties and during limited periods for the purpose of providing medically tailored meal intervention services to eligible Medi-Cal beneficiaries with certain health conditions, including congestive heart failure, cancer, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or renal disease. Existing law, subject to implementation of the California Advancing and Innovating Medi-Cal (CalAIM) initiative, authorizes a Medi-Cal managed care plan to elect to cover community supports approved by the department as cost effective and medically appropriate in a comprehensive risk contract that are in lieu of applicable Medi-Cal state plan services. Under existing law, community supports that the department is authorized to approve include, among other things, medically supportive food and nutrition services, including medically tailored meals. This bill would make medically supportive food and nutrition interventions, as defined, a covered benefit under the Medi-Cal program, upon issuance of final guidance by the department. The bill would require medically supportive food and nutrition interventions to be covered when determined to be medically necessary by a health care provider or health care plan, as specified. In order to qualify for coverage under the Medi-Cal program, the bill would require a patient to be offered at least 3 of 6 specified medically supportive food and nutrition interventions and for the interventions to be provided for a minimum duration of 12 weeks, as specified. The bill would only provide coverage for nutrition support interventions when paired with the provision of food through one of the 3 offered interventions. The bill would require a health care provider to match the acuity of a patient's condition to the intensity and duration of the medically supportive food and nutrition intervention and include culturally appropriate foods whenever possible. The bill would establish a medically supportive food and nutrition benefit advisory workgroup to advise the department in developing final guidance related to eligible populations, the duration and dosage of medically supportive food and nutrition interventions, the ratesetting process, determination of permitted providers, and continuing education for health care providers, as specified. The bill would require the workgroup to include certain stakeholders knowledgeable in medically supportive food and nutrition interventions and stakeholders from Medi-Cal consumer advocacy organizations. The bill would require the workgroup to meet at least quarterly and would require the department to issue final guidance on or before July 1, 2026. The bill would also include findings and declarations of the Legislature relating to the need for medically supportive food and nutrition intervention coverage under the Medi-Cal program.
Existing law, the California Safe Drinking Water Act, requires the State Water Resources Control Board to administer provisions relating to the regulation of drinking water to protect public health. The act requires the state board to establish a grant program, in consultation with the State Department of Education, to award grants to local educational agencies for the purposes of improving access to, and the quality of, drinking water in public schools serving kindergarten or any of grades 1 to 12, inclusive, and preschools and child daycare facilities located on public school property. This bill would require a community water system that serves a schoolsite, as defined, to test for lead in the potable water system outlets of the schoolsite before January 1, 2027, except as provided. The bill would require the community water system to report its findings to the applicable schoolsite or local educational agency and to the state board. The bill would require the local educational agency or schoolsite, if the lead level exceeds a specified level at a schoolsite, to notify the parents and guardians of the pupils who attend the schoolsite, take immediate steps to make inoperable and shut down from use all potable water system outlets where the excess lead levels may exist, and work to ensure that a lead-free source of drinking water is provided for pupils, as specified. The bill would require a community water system to test a potable water system outlet that replaces an outlet that is found to have excess levels of lead. The bill would require a community water system to prepare a sampling plan for each schoolsite where lead sampling is required under these provisions, as specified. The bill would require the schoolsite, local educational agency, and state board to make the results of schoolsite lead sampling publicly available by posting the results on its internet website. The bill would require a schoolsite and a local educational agency, if an internet website is not maintained, to provide the results upon request. By imposing additional duties on local agencies, 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services to establish and supervise a county- or county consortia-administered program to provide cash assistance for aged, blind, or disabled legal immigrants who are not citizens who, due to their immigration status, are not eligible for the Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Program for the Aged, Blind, and Disabled, also known as SSI/SSP benefits. Under existing law, an individual is eligible for this program if their immigration status meets SSI/SSP eligibility criteria but they are not eligible for those benefits solely due to their immigration status, as specified. Existing law also requires any person who is found to be eligible by the department for federally funded SSI to apply for SSI benefits. This bill would expand eligibility for that program to aged, blind, and disabled individuals regardless of immigration status if the individual meets the eligibility criteria for the program and is not eligible solely due to their immigration status. This bill would exempt individuals who are not qualified immigrants, as specified, from having to apply for SSI in order to receive benefits. The bill would also delete several inoperative provisions. The bill would make the implementation of these substantive changes contingent upon an appropriation for its express purposes. By expanding county duties under the program, 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
