(1) The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law allow credits against the taxes imposed under those laws. Existing law allows an earned income tax credit under the Personal Income Tax Law, beginning on or after January 1, 2015, in modified conformity with federal income tax laws. This bill would allow a small business or a nonprofit organization impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, as those terms are defined, an earned income tax credit for each taxable year beginning on and after January 1, 2020, in an amount equal to 20% of the taxpayer's annual revenue. The bill would specify that the credit is only operative for taxable years for which the Legislature appropriates from the General Fund to the Franchise Tax Board moneys to administer the credit. The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law also allow a credit against the taxes imposed under those laws, for each taxable year beginning on and after January 1, 2014, and before January 1, 2030, in an amount as provided in a written agreement between the GO-Biz and the taxpayer, agreed upon by the California Competes Tax Credit Committee, and based on specified factors, including the number of jobs the taxpayer will create or retain in the state and the amount of investment in the state by the taxpayer. This bill would, upon appropriation by the Legislature from the General Fund to the GO-Biz to administer this provision, require GO-Biz, when determining whether to enter into a written agreement with a taxpayer for allocation periods beginning with the 2020–21 fiscal year, to consider the overall economic impact in this state of the COVID-19 pandemic to the taxpayer's project or business. (2) Existing law establishes the Office of Small Business Advocate within the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, also known as GO-Biz, and prescribes the duties and functions of the Small Business Advocate, who is also the Director of the Office of Small Business Advocate. Among these duties, the director is to serve as the principal advocate in the state on behalf of small businesses and to represent the views and interests of small businesses before other state agencies whose policies and activities may affect small businesses. This bill would require, upon appropriation by the Legislature from the General Fund, the Small Business Advocate to convene a task force to research and provide a report to the Legislature, on or after the effective date of this bill, regarding the regulations or regulatory areas that most negatively impact small businesses in the state. (3) Existing law creates the Department of Human Resources, which succeeds to and is vested with all of the powers and duties exercised and performed by the Department of Personnel Administration. Existing law specifically grants the department the powers, duties, and authority necessary to operate the state civil service system in accordance with Article VII of the California Constitution, the Government Code, the merit principle, and applicable rules duly adopted by the State Personnel Board. Existing law requires the State Personnel Board to prescribe rules consistent with a merit-based civil service system to govern classification, examinations, probationary periods, disciplinary actions, and other matters related to the board's authority under the California Constitution. This bill would require the State Personnel Board to prescribe rules to include as a factor for recruitment, outreach, and hiring whether the person can demonstrate that they have become unemployed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as provided. (4) Existing law establishes in the Natural Resources Agency the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Under existing the law, the department is responsible for, among other things, the fire protection, fire prevention, maintenance, and enhancement of the state's forest, range, and brushland resources, and for maintaining an integrated staff to accomplish, among other things, fire protection and fire prevention activities as needed. Existing law requires the department, in accordance with a plan approved by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, to, among other things, provide fire prevention and firefighting implements and apparatus, organize fire crews and patrols, and employ people to effect the plan. This bill would, upon appropriation by the Legislature, require the department to establish new, or expand existing, entry-level positions within the department that are aimed at reducing and mitigating wildfire risk and to give priority, in hiring for these positions, to applicants who have lost their jobs due to the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, pandemic. (5) Existing law establishes the California Conservation Corps and requires that young people participating in the corps program generally be engaged in projects that, among other things, preserve, maintain, and enhance environmentally important lands and waters. Existing law authorizes the Director of the California Conservation Corps to adopt criteria for selecting applicants for enrollment in the corps program. This bill would authorize, notwithstanding any other law, a person who is over 25 years of age to serve as a corpsmember, require priority, in the selection of any corpsmember, to be given to applicants who have lost their jobs because of the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, pandemic, and require corpsmembers who join the corps because they lost their jobs due to the COVID-19 pandemic to be paid at least minimum wage pursuant to existing law. The bill would require these provisions to be implemented only upon appropriation by the Legislature. (6) Existing law establishes the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development in the California Health and Human Services Agency. The office is vested with all the duties, powers, purposes, responsibilities, and jurisdiction of the State Department of Public Health relating to health planning and research development. Existing law establishes various scholarship and training programs that are managed by the office to improve access to health care. These programs include, among others, the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program, which provides for the repayment of prescribed educational loans obtained by a physician and surgeon who practices in a medically underserved area of the state. Existing law also requires the office to establish a nonprofit public benefit corporation known as the Health Professions Education Foundation to perform various duties with respect to implementing health professions scholarship and loan programs. This bill would establish, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the Health Profession Economic Recovery Program to be administered by the office. The bill would require the program to accomplish various goals, including expanding the number of primary care physician and psychiatry residency positions and expanding and strengthening programs to recruit and prepare students from underrepresented and low-income backgrounds for health careers. (7) Existing law authorizes a person or gleaner engaged in the business of processing, distributing, or selling an agricultural product to donate, free of charge, a product that is in a condition that it may be used as food for human consumption to a nonprofit charitable organization within the state. For this purpose, existing law authorizes the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to divert agricultural products to nonprofit organizations, including food banks, and authorizes the board of supervisors of a county to establish a surplus food collection and distribution system. In order to qualify as a food bank, existing law requires an organization to meet certain minimum standards. This bill would require the Department of Food and Agriculture, upon appropriation by the Legislature from the General Fund, to create a grant program to provide grants to food banks to contract labor to harvest produce from farms willing to donate produce and to transport the produce to the food bank for distribution to the public. (8) Under existing law, the Department of Housing and Community Development Department administers various grant programs to local governments to fund housing and community development projects. This bill would require the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature from the General Fund, to create a grant program to award grants to local governments for shovel-ready housing and community development projects. (9) Existing law vests the Department of Transportation with full possession and control of the state highway system and associated property. Existing law provides various sources of funding to local governments for transportation projects and operations. This bill would require the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature from the General Fund, to create a grant program to award grants to local governments for shovel-ready transportation projects. (10) The Alfred E. Alquist Hospital Facilities Seismic Safety Act of 1983 establishes a program of seismic safety building standards for certain hospitals. The act requires the office to observe the construction of, or addition to, a hospital building or the reconstruction or alteration of a hospital building, as it deems necessary to comply with the act for the protection of life and property. This bill would establish, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the Economic Recovery Seismic Retrofitting Program to be administered by the office. The bill would require the office to provide loans to hospitals to fund seismic retrofit construction, as defined. The bill would also establish the Economic Recovery Seismic Retrofitting Program Fund to fund loans made under the program.
Sponsored bills
Existing law, the Planning and Zoning Law, which is administered by the Director of State Planning and Research, requires a local planning agency to prepare, and a local legislative body to adopt, a long-term general plan that includes prescribed elements, including a housing element. Existing law prescribes certain methods pursuant to which the Department of Housing and Community Development may determine the existing and projected need for housing by region. Existing law authorizes the County of Napa and the City of Napa to reach a mutually acceptable agreement to allow one of those jurisdictions to report on its annual housing production report to the Department of Housing and Community Development, entitlements, building permits, and certificates of occupancy issued by the other jurisdiction for the development of housing if certain conditions are met. This bill would authorize 2 cities that meet specified requirements to enter into a memorandum of understanding to build a housing project in one jurisdiction and share the credit associated with the housing project for purposes of satisfying their regional housing needs allocation requirements. The bill would require the cities to be adjacent and that one city face prohibitive obstacles in the development of affordable housing in its jurisdiction, own land in the 2nd city suitable for the development, and have fiscal resources to finance the housing project. Among other things, the bill would require the memorandum of understanding to provide for the creation of housing for households of low income and very low income and provide for an explicit, mutual agreement for distribution of the credit associated with the housing project in connection with regional housing needs allocation requirements. The bill would condition the validity of the memorandum of understanding upon approval by the Department of Housing and Community Development.
Existing law establishes the State Department of Education, under the administration of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, and assigns to the department numerous duties relating to the financing, governance, and guidance of the public elementary and secondary schools in this state. Existing law requires the governing board of a school district to give diligent care to the health and physical development of pupils. This bill would appropriate $6,000,000 from the General Fund to the department for the administration of a grant program for purposes of improving the capacity of local educational agencies to provide culturally focused trauma-informed training to pupils and school staff. The bill would require a local educational agency that applies for a grant to identify a nonprofit organization that will provide culturally focused trauma-informed training to the local educational agency's pupils and school staff and a culturally focused wellness plan that the local educational agency will implement with the grant funds received, as provided.
Existing law prohibits a person from acting as a dealer, remanufacturer, manufacturer, or transporter, or as a manufacturer branch, remanufacturer branch, distributor, or distributor branch of a vehicle without having first been issued a license. Existing law exempts a dealer who does not have an established place of business in this state but is authorized in another state if the business transacted in California is limited to the importation of vehicles for sale to, or the export of vehicles purchased from, persons licensed in California. Existing law makes a violation of these provisions a crime under other provisions of existing law. This bill would prohibit a dealer from selling, or a vehicle from being sold at an auto auction, to an export buyer if the vehicle does not meet the criteria for import to the country where the vehicle will be imported. The bill would require a dealer to ask an export buyer where the vehicle is intended to be exported and send a record of those answers to the Department of Motor Vehicles no later than December 1 of each year. The bill would prohibit an export buyer from selling a vehicle purchased for export to a California resident in the state. Because a violation of this prohibition would be a crime under other provisions of existing law, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime. 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 makes engaging in specified acts an unlawful trust and an unlawful restraint of trade, and authorizes any person who is injured in their business or property by that act to sue for damages and injunctive relief. Existing law defines the term "person" for purposes of these provisions as including corporations, firms, partnerships, and associations, as specified. This bill would expand the definition of the term "person" to include a federally recognized California Indian tribe. Existing law authorizes a court of competent jurisdiction to make injunctive orders or judgments as may be necessary to prevent the use by any person of any practice that constitutes unfair competition, as defined, or as may be necessary to restore to a person in interest money or property that may have been acquired by means of unfair competition. Existing law, for these purposes, defines the term "person" to mean and include natural persons, corporations, firms, partnerships, joint stock companies, associations, and other organizations of persons. This bill would expand the definition of the term "person" for purposes of these provisions to include a federally recognized California Indian tribe. Existing law establishes that a private person may maintain an action for public nuisance only if the nuisance is especially injurious to them. This bill would define the term "private person" to include a federally recognized California Indian tribe.
Existing law requires the Natural Resources Agency, in collaboration with the Ocean Protection Council, to create, and update biannually, a Planning for Sea Level Rise Database describing steps being taken throughout the state to prepare for, and adapt to, sea level rise. This bill would establish the Climate Adaptation Center and Regional Support Network in the Ocean Protection Council to provide local governments facing sea level rise challenges with information and scientific expertise necessary to proceed with sea level rise mitigation.
Existing federal law provides for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , known in California as CalFresh, under which supplemental nutrition assistance benefits allocated to the state by the federal government are distributed to eligible individuals by each county. The federal Older Americans Act provides grants to states to help support nutrition services for seniors at least 60 years of age throughout the country, including congregate and home-delivered meals. Existing state law authorizes the California Department of Aging to make available state funds to fund senior nutrition programs that complement programs implemented pursuant to the Older Americans Act. Existing law specifies the duties of the California Commission on Aging, including serving as the principal advocate body in the state on behalf of older individuals, actively participating and advising the department in the development and preparation of the State Plan on Aging, and performing other duties as may be required by statute, regulation, or resolution. This bill would additionally require the commission to study the impact of malnutrition on older adults in all health care settings in this state and to monitor the influence of malnutrition on older adults' health care costs and outcomes and quality indicators, among other duties related to the prevention of malnutrition in older adults.
Existing law establishes in the Resources Agency the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, consisting of 5 members appointed by the Governor, as specified. Existing law requires the commission to undertake a continuing assessment of trends in the consumption of electrical energy and other forms of energy and analyze the social, economic, and environmental consequences of these trends, and to carry out, or cause to be carried out, under contract or other arrangements, research and development into alternative sources of energy, improvements in energy generation, transmission, and siting, fuel substitution, and other topics related to energy supply, demand, public safety, ecology, and conservation that are of particular statewide importance. This bill would require, on or before March 1, 2021, the commission to establish and convene the Blue Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction in California, with specified members appointed as prescribed. The bill would require the Blue Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction in California to review, investigate, and analyze certain issues regarding lithium extraction and use in California, and to consult, if feasible, with the United States Environmental Protection Agency in performing these tasks. The bill would require the Blue Ribbon Commission on Lithium Extraction in California to submit, on or before October 1, 2022, a report to the Legislature discussing and documenting its findings and recommendations.
The Subletting and Subcontracting Fair Practices Act generally prohibits a prime contractor whose bid is accepted by an awarding authority from substituting a person as subcontractor in place of the subcontractor listed in the original bid, except that the awarding authority may consent to the substitution of another person as a subcontractor in specified situations. This bill would provide that only a prime contractor may request and initiate the substitution of a subcontractor listed in the original bid and that these provisions do not prevent an awarding authority from pursuing contractual remedies against a prime contractor.
Existing law requires an owner or operator of a motor vehicle to maintain liability insurance coverage for the named insured and any other person using the vehicle with permission in the amount of $15,000 for the bodily injury or death of any one person, $30,000 for the bodily injury or death of all persons, and $5,000 for damage to the property of others resulting from any one accident. Existing law defines "proof of financial responsibility" for purposes of provisions requiring an owner or operator of a motor vehicle to maintain proof of financial responsibility in these amounts, as specified. Under existing law, a violation of the Vehicle Code is a crime. This bill would increase the amount of liability insurance coverage an owner or operator of a motor vehicle is required to maintain to $30,000 for bodily injury or death of one person, $60,000 for bodily injury or death of all persons, and $25,000 for damage to the property of others as a result of any one accident. This bill would make conforming changes to the definition of "proof of financial responsibility" for purposes of the provisions described above. This bill would, beginning on January 1, 2026, and every 5 years thereafter, adjust the amount of required liability insurance coverage by any increase in the California Consumer Price Index, as specified. Because this bill would expand the application of an existing crime, it 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.