(1) 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 allows a lead agency to use a tiered environmental impact report when a prior environmental impact report has been prepared and certified for a program, plan, policy, or ordinance and a later project meets certain requirements. Existing law provides that the report on the later project is not required to examine those effects that the lead agency determines were, among other things, examined at a sufficient level of detail in the prior environmental impact report. This bill, until January 1, 2016, would provide that if a lead agency determines that a cumulative effect has been adequately addressed in a prior environmental impact report, in accordance with a specified procedure, that cumulative effect is not required to be examined in a later environmental impact report, mitigated negative declaration, or negative declaration. (2) CEQA imposes requirements for an attempted settlement upon a public agency that has been served a petition or complaint for noncompliance with CEQA. CEQA provides that the settlement meeting is intended to be conducted concurrently with any judicial proceedings. Existing law also provides that an action brought in a superior court relating to certain subjects, including an act or decision of a public agency made pursuant to CEQA, may be subject to a mediation proceeding. Existing law specifies procedures for bringing an action under CEQA for noncompliance with that act. An organization formed after the approval of a project is allowed to maintain an action for noncompliance if a member of that organization has presented the alleged grounds for noncompliance to the public agency in a specified manner. This bill, until January 1, 2016, would provide that a mediation proceeding also is intended to be conducted concurrently with any judicial proceedings. This bill, until January 1, 2016, would authorize a person wishing to bring an action or proceeding pursuant to CEQA to file with the lead agency and the real party in interest a notice requesting mediation within 5 business days from the date of the filing of a notice of determination occurring on or after July 1, 2011. The bill would provide that the notice for mediation is deemed to be denied if the lead agency fails to respond within 5 business days of receiving the request for mediation. The bill would authorize a court to impose a penalty on a party making a frivolous claim in the course of an action brought under CEQA on or before December 31, 2015. This bill, until January 1, 2016, additionally would require a member of that organization to have objected to the approval of the project orally or in writing. This bill, until January 1, 2016, also would authorize the Attorney General to file a motion with the court seeking an expedited schedule for resolution of an action or proceeding alleging noncompliance. This bill would make conforming changes. (3) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 21094 of the Public Resources Code proposed by this bill and AB 231, to be operative only if this bill and AB 231 are both enacted and become effective on or before January 1, 2011, and this bill is enacted last. (4) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Sponsored bills
Existing law, the Roman Reed Spinal Cord Injury Research Act of 1999, establishes the Spinal Cord Injury Research Fund, continuously appropriated to the University of California, for the purpose of awarding grants to perform spinal cord injury research projects. The fund consists of moneys from private entities, as specified, as well as public moneys transferred to the fund. Existing law, with the approval of the Regents of the University of California, also creates a Spinal Cord Injury Research Program in the University of California to promote spinal cord injury research in California. The program and the fund are repealed as of January 1, 2011. This bill would eliminate the Spinal Cord Injury Research Fund, and instead permit the University of California to establish a spinal cord injury research fund, independent of the State Treasury, to accept public and private funds for spinal cord injury research programs and grants, as prescribed. It would delete the repeal date of provisions relating to the Spinal Cord Injury Research Program thus indefinitely extending the duration of those provisions.
(1) Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical, gas, water, and telephone corporations. Existing law authorizes the commission to establish rules for all public utilities, subject to control by the Legislature. Existing law directs the commission to require every electrical, gas, water, and telephone corporation with annual gross revenues exceeding $25,000,000, and their regulated subsidiaries and affiliates, to implement a program developed by the commission to encourage, recruit, and utilize minority-, women-, and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises, as defined, in the procurement of contracts from those corporations or from their regulated subsidiaries and affiliates, and to require the reporting of certain information. The commission, by rulemaking, has adopted General Order 156, applicable to certain electrical, gas, and telephone corporations, to effectuate these requirements. This bill would extend the minority-, women-, and disabled veteran-owned business enterprises procurement requirements to wireless telecommunications service providers with gross annual revenues of more than $25,000,000 and would encourage each electrical, gas, water, wireless telecommunications service provider, and telephone corporation that is not required to submit a plan to voluntarily adopt a plan for increasing women, minority, and disabled veteran business enterprise procurement in all categories. (2) Existing law requires the commission to recommend a program and legislation for carrying out the policy of aiding the interests of women, minority, and disabled veteran business enterprises in order to preserve specified objectives. This bill would require the commission, in regards to disabled veteran business enterprises, to ensure that those recommended programs and legislation are consistent with the disabled veteran business enterprise certification eligibility requirements imposed by the Department of General Services and that the recommendations include only those disabled veteran business enterprises certified by the Department of General Services. (3) Existing law requires the commission, by rule or order, to adopt criteria for verifying and determining eligibility of women, minority, and disabled veteran business enterprises for procurement contracts. This bill would instead require the commission to adopt the Department of General Services' disabled veteran business enterprise certification eligibility requirements for verifying and determining eligibility of disabled veteran business enterprises for procurement contracts and would prohibit the commission from deeming eligible those disabled veteran business enterprises that are not certified by the Department of General Services. (4) Existing law requires any person or corporation that falsely represents a business as a women, minority, or disabled veteran business enterprise in the procurement of, or the attempt to procure, contracts from certain electrical, gas, water, or telephone corporations to receive a prescribed punishment. This bill would add wireless telecommunications service providers to that list of corporations and would instead require the punishment for falsely representing a business as a disabled veteran enterprise to conform to penalties imposed pursuant to specified law. (5) This bill would incorporate additional changes in Sections 8281 and 8283 of the Public Utilities Code proposed by AB 2758 of the 2009–10 Regular Session that would become operative only if AB 2758 and this bill are both enacted and become effective before January 1, 2011, and this bill is enacted after AB 2758. (6) Under existing law, a violation of any rules or orders of the commission is a crime. In addition, any person or corporation who falsely represents a business as a woman, minority, or disabled veteran business enterprise for the purposes of the programs discussed above is subject to criminal penalties. Because a violation of the requirements of the bill would be a crime under those provisions, 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 requires an additional county penalty of $7 for every $10, or part of $10, to be levied upon every fine, penalty, or forfeiture imposed and collected by the courts for all criminal offenses, for deposit into specified county funds relating to the construction of courthouses, criminal justice facilities, and forensic laboratories, and the support of emergency medical services. Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which health care services, including medical transportation services, are provided to qualified low-income persons. The Medi-Cal program is partially governed and funded under federal Medicaid provisions. Existing law, the Emergency Medical Services System and the Prehospital Emergency Medical Care Personnel Act, authorizes each county to designate an emergency medical services agency, for the establishment and administration of an emergency medical services program in the county. Existing law also establishes the Emergency Medical Services Authority, which, among other things, adopts regulations governing the provision of emergency medical services. This bill, which would be known as the Emergency Medical Air Transportation Act, would impose an additional penalty of $4 upon every conviction for an offense involving a vehicle violation, except certain parking offenses. This bill would require each county board of supervisors to establish in the county treasury an emergency medical air transportation act fund into which the penalty collected pursuant to this bill would be deposited. This bill would require, within 30 days following the last day of each calendar quarter of the year, the county treasurer to transfer moneys in the county's emergency medical air transportation act fund to the Controller for deposit into the Emergency Medical Air Transportation Act Fund, which would be established by the bill. The bill would authorize the county treasurer, prior to transferring the moneys in the county fund to the Controller, to withhold a sufficient amount from being transferred to reimburse the county and the courts for their actual, reasonable, and necessary costs associated with administering the bill. Moneys in the Emergency Medical Air Transportation Act Fund would be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to the department for the purposes of offsetting the state portion of the Medi-Cal reimbursement rate for emergency medical air transportation services and augmenting emergency medical air transportation reimbursement payments made through the Medi-Cal program, as specified. This bill would terminate assessment of the penalties commencing July 1, 2016, and would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2018, as provided. The bill would require that any moneys in the Emergency Medical Air Transportation Act Fund that remain unexpended and unencumbered on June 30, 2017, shall be transferred to the General Fund to be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the purposes of augmenting Medi-Cal reimbursement of emergency medical air transportation and related costs, generally. By requiring counties to create emergency medical air transportation act funds and then deposit the levy imposed by this bill into those funds, this bill would create 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 recognizes various holidays, including November 11, known as Veterans Day. Existing law requires that public offices of the state and state institutions, except for the University of California, be closed on Veterans Day. This bill would require that public offices of the state and state institutions, including, but not limited to, all state agencies and the Legislature, be closed on November 11 for Veterans Day, except as specified. The bill would also state the Legislature's intent that the University of California also be closed on November 11, Veterans Day.
Existing law provides for the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , under which food stamps are allocated to the state by the federal government and are distributed to eligible households by each county. Existing law provides for the payment of unemployment compensation benefits to eligible individuals who are unemployed through no fault of their own. This bill would require a county to take into consideration unemployment compensation benefits of an applicant or recipient of food stamp benefits for the purposes of determining eligibility and the benefit amount only if the county obtains a report from the applicant income and eligibility verification system, containing specified information relating to the applicant's unemployment compensation benefits. Existing law requires that county welfare departments have access to computer information maintained by the Employment Development Department relating to unemployment. This bill would require the county to provide a copy of the applicant income and eligibility verification system report to the applicant or recipient if the county takes any action based on that report. The bill would specify that its requirements would not preclude a county from obtaining official Employment Development Department documentation from the applicant or recipient, if the applicant or recipient already has possession of that verification, as specified. This bill would require the department to implement the bill by all-county letters issued by the department, and thereafter to adopt implementing regulations, as specified.
Existing law establishes the California State University and its various campuses under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University. Existing law requires the California State University to offer undergraduate and graduate instruction through the master's degree in the liberal arts and sciences and professional education, including teacher education. This bill, until July 1, 2018, would authorize the California State University to establish a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree pilot program at 3 campuses chosen by the Board of Trustees to award the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree. The bill would distinguish the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree from the doctor of philosophy degree offered at the University of California. The bill would require the Doctor of Nursing Practice degree pilot program to be designed to enable professionals to earn the degree while working full time, train nurses for advanced practice, and prepare clinical faculty to teach in postsecondary nursing programs. The bill would require the California State University to enroll and maintain no more than 90 full-time equivalent students in the degree pilot program at all 3 campuses combined. The bill would require initial funding to come from existing budgets, without diminishing the quality of undergraduate programs or reducing enrollment therein. The bill would require the California State University, the Legislative Analyst's Office, and the Department of Finance to jointly conduct a statewide evaluation of the degree pilot program and report the results to the Legislature and the Governor on or before January 1, 2017.
Existing law, until January 1, 2014, allows certain state and local transportation entities, if authorized by the California Transportation Commission, to use a design‑build process for contracting on transportation projects, as specified. This bill would authorize the Riverside County Transportation Commission, if authorized by the commission, to utilize this design-build procurement process for the State Route 91 Corridor Improvements Project on the state highway system. The bill would make the Department of Transportation responsible for the performance of construction inspection services for the project, as specified, and would require the commission to report on the progress of the project and related matters to specified legislative committees. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law provides for the regulation of various professions and vocations, including those of an athlete agent. This bill would make it unlawful for any person to hold himself or herself out as a certified athletic trainer unless he or she has been certified by the Board of Certification, Inc., and has either graduated from a college or university, after completing an accredited athletic training education program, as specified, or completed requirements for certification by the Board of Certification, Inc., prior to January 1, 2004. The bill would make it an unfair business practice to violate these provisions.
This measure would recognize March 31, 2010, as the anniversary of the birth of César Chávez, and would call upon all Californians to participate in appropriate observances to remember César Chávez as a symbol of hope and justice to all persons.