Asm. Jesse Gabriel

Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) , in partnership with the State Air Resources Board, and in consultation with the State Water Resources Control Board, the Department of Food and Agriculture, and other relevant state agencies, to develop and adopt a state plan to increase the use of alternative transportation fuels, which include hydrogen and electricity. This bill would require the Energy Commission, in coordination with the state board and the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, and in consultation with local air districts and local governments, to, upon appropriation by the Legislature, conduct a study on the transitioning of retail gasoline fueling stations to provide alternative fuels, as defined, by a specified date and to convene, before initiating the study, specified state and local agencies, and other relevant stakeholders, to determine the scope of the study. The bill would require the study to include an assessment of opportunities for, and barriers to, deploying alternative fueling infrastructure at retail gasoline fueling stations and identify the potential financial incentives and regulatory barriers for retail gasoline fueling stations to install, or replace gasoline fueling infrastructure with, alternative fueling infrastructure. The bill would require the Energy Commission to deliver the study to the Legislature no later than January 1, 2027. The bill would repeal its provisions on January 1, 2030.

Existing law, the Sargent Shriver Civil Counsel Act, requires the appointment of legal counsel to represent low-income parties in civil matters involving critical issues affecting basic human needs in courts selected by the Judicial Council. The act requires the Judicial Council to develop one or more programs to provide competitive grants to provide legal counsel to low-income persons who require legal services in civil matters involving specific types of civil matters, including, among others, housing-related matters, probate conservatorships, guardianships, and domestic violence and civil harassment restraining orders. Existing law requires the Judicial Council to consider various factors, including, among others, the unmet need for legal services in the geographic area to be served, in selecting and renewing participating programs. Existing law requires program applicants, among other things, to describe how the program would be administered and the means by which the program would serve the particular needs of the community, such as by providing representation to limited-English-speaking clients. Commencing January 1, 2025, this bill would require courts to report specified information to the Judicial Council each month regarding unlawful detainer cases, aggregated by ZIP Code. The bill also would require courts to report to the Judicial Council case summary data on COVID-19 Rental Debt in Small Claims Court, aggregated by ZIP Code. The bill would require the Judicial Council, every 4 months, to post all information received about unlawful detainer cases in a publicly available electronic spreadsheet that may be downloaded from its internet website.

Existing law, enacted to implement a specified low-income housing tax credit established by federal law, requires the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee to annually determine and allocate the state ceiling in accordance with those provisions and in conformity with federal law. Existing law authorizes the committee to adopt, amend, or repeal rules and regulations for the allocation of housing credits. Existing law requires that specified amounts of the low-income housing tax credits be set aside for allocation to rural areas, small developments, and farmworker housing, as specified. This bill would require the committee to revise its regulations to increase the housing type goal for senior developments to 20 percent. 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.

Existing law establishes the California Department of Aging in the California Health and Human Services Agency. Existing law requires the department to designate various private nonprofit or public agencies as area agencies on aging to work for the interests of older Californians within a planning and service area and provide a broad array of social and nutritional services. Existing law requires the area agencies on aging to develop systems of home- and community-based services that maintain individuals in their own homes or least restrictive homelike environments and to function as the community link at the local level for the development of those services. Existing law requires each area agency on aging to maintain a professional staff that is supplemented by volunteers, governed by a board of directors or elected officials, and whose activities are reviewed by an advisory council consisting primarily of older individuals from the community. Existing federal law defines continuums of care as the groups organized to carry out specified responsibilities, including responsibilities related to homelessness, including certain nonprofit entities, victim service providers, faith-based organizations, governments, businesses, and advocates. Existing state law establishes specified grants and programs available to continuums of care. Existing law requires the Governor to create the Interagency Council on Homelessness for specified purposes, including to create partnerships among various entities for the purpose of arriving at specific strategies to end homelessness, including participants in the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development's Continuum of Care program and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, and to identify mainstream resources, benefits, and services that can be accessed to prevent and end homelessness in California. This bill would require the council to coordinate with the California Department of Aging, the California continuums of care, and the area agencies on aging to convene a working group no later than March 1, 2024, to develop recommendations on best practices for assisting older adults to prevent and overcome homelessness and for training those who assist older adults to prevent and overcome homelessness. The bill would require the working group to develop a training for those who assist older adults with housing needs to help those individuals access resources to prevent and overcome homelessness, as specified, no later than March 1, 2025. The bill would require the working group, on or before March 1, 2025, to report to specified committees of the Legislature on their recommendations.

This bill would make appropriations for the support of state government for the 2024–25 fiscal year. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a Budget Bill.

Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law also provides for the regulation of health insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law prohibits the copayment, coinsurance, or any other form of cost sharing for a covered outpatient prescription drug for an individual prescription from exceeding $250 for a supply of up to 30 days, except as specified. Existing law requires a health care service plan contract or health insurance policy for a nongrandfathered individual or small group product that maintains a drug formulary grouped into tiers, and that includes a 4th tier, to define each tier of the drug formulary, as specified. Existing law defines Tier 4 to include, among others, drugs that are biologics. Existing law repeals these provisions on January 1, 2024. This bill would delete drugs that are biologics from the definition of Tier 4. The bill would require a health care service plan or a health insurer, if there is a generic equivalent to a brand name drug, to ensure that an enrollee or insured is subject to the lowest cost sharing that would be applied, whether or not both the generic equivalent and the brand name drug are on the formulary. The bill also would delete the January 1, 2024, repeal date of the above provisions, thus making them operative indefinitely. Because extension of the bill's requirements relative to health care service plans would extend the existence of 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 a specified reason.

The Planning and Zoning Law requires each county and city to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for its physical development, and the development of certain lands outside its boundaries, that includes, among other mandatory elements, a housing element. That law allows a development proponent to submit an application for a development that is subject to a specified streamlined, ministerial approval process not subject to a conditional use permit, if the development satisfies certain objective planning standards. Existing law, the Zenovich-Moscone-Chacon Housing and Home Finance Act, establishes the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee within the Department of Housing and Community Development. Existing law requires the committee to allocate state low-income housing tax credits in conformity with state and federal law that establishes a maximum rent that may be charged to a tenant for a project unit constructed using low-income housing tax credits. This bill would require that a housing development project be a use by right upon the request of an applicant who submits an application for streamlined approval, on any land owned by an independent institution of higher education or religious institution on or before January 1, 2024, if the development satisfies specified criteria, including that the development is not adjoined to any site where more than one-third of the square footage on the site is dedicated to industrial use. The bill would define various terms for these purposes. Among other things, the bill would require that 100% of the units, exclusive of manager units, in a housing development project eligible for approval as a use by right under these provisions be affordable to lower income households, except that 20% of the units may be for moderate-income households, and 5% of the units may be for staff of the independent institution of higher education or the religious institution that owns the land, provided that the units affordable to lower income households are offered at affordable rent, as set in an amount consistent with the rent limits established by the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, or affordable housing cost, as specified. The bill would authorize the development to include ancillary uses on the ground floor of the development, as specified. This bill would specify that a housing development project that is eligible for approval as a use by right under the bill is also eligible for a density bonus, incentives, or concessions, or waivers or reductions of development and parking standards, except as specified. The bill would require a development subject to these provisions to provide off-street parking of up to one space per unit, unless a state law or local ordinance provides for a lower standard of parking, in which case the law or ordinance applies. The bill would prohibit a local government from imposing any parking requirement on a development subject to these provisions if the development is located within one-half mile walking distance of public transit, either a high-quality transit corridor or a major transit stop, as those terms are defined, or it is within one block of a car share vehicle. This bill would require a local government that determines a proposed development is in conflict with any objective planning standards, as specified, to provide the developer with written documentation explaining those conflicts under a specified timeframe. The bill would provide that the development shall be deemed to satisfy the required objective planning standards if the local government fails to provide the requisite documentation explaining any conflicts. The bill would authorize a local government to conduct a design review, as described, only if the design review focuses on compliance with the requisite criteria of a streamlined, ministerial review process. The bill would prohibit a local government from using a design review, as specified, from inhibiting, chilling, or precluding a streamlined, ministerial approval. The bill would require a local government to issue a subsequent permit for developments approved under the provisions of this act. The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities. 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 does not apply to the ministerial approval of projects. This bill, by requiring approval of certain development projects as a use by right, would expand the exemption for ministerial approval of projects under CEQA. The bill would repeal its provisions as of January 1, 2036. By adding to the duties of local planning officials with respect to approving certain development projects, 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.