Existing law authorizes the Director of Forestry and Fire Protection to enter into an agreement, including a grant agreement, for prescribed burning operations or other hazardous fuel reduction efforts with any person for specified purposes. Existing law requires the agreement to designate an officer of the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection or a certified burn boss with the final authority regarding the prescribed burn operation and to specify the duties of, and the precautions taken by, the person contracting with the department and any personnel furnished by that person. Existing law requires the State Fire Marshal, with the involvement of the Statewide Training and Education Advisory Committee, to develop a curriculum for a certification program for burn bosses. This bill would provide that a private entity engaging in a prescribed burning activity that is supervised by a person certified as burn boss is liable for damages to a third party only if the prescribed burning activity was carried out in a grossly negligent manner.
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The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency charged with monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The act authorizes the state board to include in its regulation of those emissions the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from the auction or sale of allowances as part of a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. Existing law continuously appropriates 25% of the annual proceeds of the fund to the High-Speed Rail Authority for certain purposes. This bill would suspend the appropriation to the High-Speed Rail Authority for the 2023–24 and 2024–25 fiscal years and would require the transfer of those amounts from moneys collected by the state board to the General Fund. The bill would specify that the transferred amounts shall be available, upon appropriation, to augment funding for K–12 education and to support full-time in-person instruction for all students.
Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services, including clinical laboratory or laboratory services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed by, and funded pursuant to, federal Medicaid program provisions. Existing law requires the department to develop, subject to federal approval, reimbursement rates for clinical or laboratory services according to specified standards, such as requiring that reimbursement to providers for those services not exceed the lowest of enumerated criteria, including 80% of the lowest maximum allowance established by the federal Medicare Program for the same or similar services. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to these provisions.
Existing law, the Nursing Practice Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of nurses by the Board of Registered Nursing in the Department of Consumer Affairs. Existing law requires a licensee under the act to apply for renewal of their license every 2 years and allows an inactive license to be reactivated, as specified. This bill would authorize the board to reduce as prescribed the renewal fee for a licensee who meets certain age and practice qualifications.
The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law, in conformity with federal income tax law, generally define "gross income" as income from whatever source derived, except as specifically excluded, and provide various exclusions from gross income. Existing law, in conformity with the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) , and its subsequent amendments in the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act and the Paycheck Protection Program Flexibility Act of 2020, among other things, excludes any amounts of covered loans forgiven under the CARES Act from gross income for purposes of the Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law. Existing law reduces the amount of any credit or deduction otherwise allowed under the Personal Income Tax and the Corporation Tax Law for any amount paid or incurred by the taxpayer upon which this exclusion is based by the amount of the exclusion allowed. Existing law requires any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure to contain, among other things, specific goals, purposes, and objectives the tax expenditure will achieve, detailed performance indicators, and data collection requirements. Existing federal law, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, prohibits reductions in tax deductions, denials of basis adjustments, and reductions in tax attributes for federal income tax purposes based on the exclusion from gross income provided in the federal CARES Act and its subsequent amendments. This bill would adopt specified provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, prohibiting any reduction in tax deductions, denials of basis adjustments, and reductions in tax attributes based on the exclusion from gross income provided for any loan amount forgiven in modified conformity with the federal CARES Act and its subsequent amendments. This bill would provide findings to comply with the additional information requirement for any bill authorizing a new tax expenditure. This bill would also make findings and declarations related to a gift of public funds. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law establishes the Employment Development Department within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and sets forth its powers and duties, including administration of the unemployment and disability insurance programs for California. Existing law requires the department to pay unemployment compensation benefits to unemployed individuals meeting specified requirements, to periodically review policies and practices used to determine eligibility for and the amount of benefits in the unemployment insurance program, and to report to the Legislature, as specified. Under existing law, unemployment compensation benefits are paid from the Unemployment Fund, and the expenses for administering these provisions are paid from the Unemployment Administration Fund, which is continuously appropriated for these purposes. This bill would establish the Unemployment Insurance Reform Project to be administered by the Director of Employment Development. Under the bill, the Employment Development Department would be required to comply with various reporting and review processes. In this regard, the bill would require the department to report specified information regarding overpayments at least once every 6 months on its internet website, to immediately perform a risk assessment of its deferred workloads, and to develop a workload plan that prioritizes its deferred workloads based on that risk assessment. The bill would require the department to develop a recession plan so that it is well prepared to provide services during future economic downturns, as specified. The bill would require the department to, by March 1, 2021, revise its public dashboards with regard to the number of backlogged claims, as specified. This bill would require the department to convene a working group to assess the lessons learned from claim surges and identify the processes that the department can still improve and issue a report by January 1, 2022, as specified. The bill would require the department, by June 1, 2021, to determine the reasons that claimants cannot successfully complete their identity verification, as specified, and to identify the elements of the Benefit System Modernization that can assist the department in making timely payments. This bill would require the department to, by May 1, 2021, implement a formal policy that establishes a process for tracking and periodically analyzing the reasons why unemployment insurance claimants call for assistance and, by October 1, 2021, and every 6 months thereafter, to analyze this data to improve its call center. Because this bill would authorize the expenditure of funds from the Unemployment Administration Fund for new purposes, the bill would make an appropriation.
(1) The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. Existing law authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and to be available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law continuously appropriates 35% of the annual proceeds of the fund for transit, affordable housing, and sustainable communities programs and 25% of the annual proceeds of the fund for certain components of a specified high-speed rail project. This bill would continuously appropriate $480,000,000 and $20,000,000 to the Department of Forestry and Fire Prevention and the California Conservation Corps, respectively, for fire prevention activities, as provided. (2) The Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973 prohibits a person from conducting timber operations unless a timber harvesting plan prepared by a registered professional forester has been submitted to, and approved by, the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Existing law, until January 1, 2022, authorizes the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to exempt from the requirements of that act a person engaged in forest management whose activities are limited to the cutting or removal of trees on the person's property that eliminates the vertical continuity of vegetative fuels and the horizontal continuity of tree crowns for the purpose of reducing flammable materials and maintaining a fuelbreak for a distance of not more than 300 feet on each side from an approved and legally permitted habitable structure, when that cutting or removal is conducted in compliance with certain requirements. This bill would extend the state board's authorization to provide for the above exemption indefinitely. The bill would extend the distance of the fuelbreak to not more than 500 feet. (3) 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 exempt from the requirements of CEQA projects or activities related to forest health and fuel reduction that involve thinning overgrown brushes or trees 10 inches or less in diameter by mechanical thinning, pile burning, prescribed fire, and grazing. Because a lead agency would be required to determine the applicability of this exemption, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (4) 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 establishes various housing programs administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development, including, among others, the CalHome Program to enable low- and very low income households to become or remain homeowners and the California Emergency Solutions Grants Program the purpose of addressing the crisis of homelessness in California. This bill would require the department to establish and administer a progress payment option for grants distributed pursuant to any program administered by the department that relates to the development of affordable housing, including, among other, the CalHome Program and the California Emergency Solutions Grants Program described above. The bill would authorize a grant award recipient of a program subject to these provisions to, upon request, receive the award pursuant to that progress payment option. The bill would require the department to require a grant award recipient that elects to use the progress payment option to submit a claim for reimbursable work or progress at least once every 6 months and would prohibit the department from disbursing any portion of a grant award until the department verifies that the claim seeks reimbursement for eligible costs under the applicable program.
Existing law requires the director of the Department of Motor vehicles to determine the date when the department's inventory of driver's license and identification card forms, as that inventory existed in accordance with the law on December 31, 1998, has been depleted, and inform the Secretary of State and Legislature, as specified. This bill would repeal that provision.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The act authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms in regulating greenhouse gas emissions. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the state board from a market-based compliance mechanism to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and to be available to the state upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law continuously appropriates 35% of the annual proceeds of the fund for transit, affordable housing, and sustainable communities programs and 25% of the annual proceeds of the fund for certain components of a specified high-speed rail project. Existing law also annually appropriates, through the 2023–24 fiscal year, $165,000,000 from the fund to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for healthy forest and fire prevention projects that improve forest health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by uncontrolled wildfires and $35,000,000 to the department for prescribed fire and other fuel reduction projects through proven forestry practices. This bill would continuously appropriate, beginning in the 2021–22 fiscal year and ending in the 2028–29 fiscal year, $200,000,000 of the annual proceeds from the fund to the department for (1) healthy forest and fire prevention programs and projects that improve forest health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by uncontrolled wildfires and (2) prescribed fire and other fuel reduction projects through proven forestry practices consistent with the recommendations of the California Forest Carbon Plan, including the operation of year-round prescribed fire crews and implementation of a research and monitoring program for climate change adaptation.