Asm. Jimmy Gomez

This measure would proclaim the month of June 2016 as PTS Awareness Month.

This measure would designate June 2016 as California Fairground Appreciation Month and commend the directors, volunteers, staff, local agencies, nonprofits, and Californians who support and attend fairground events.

This measure would declare June 27, 2016, as Robotics Technology Day.

Existing law establishes the State Department of Public Health, within the California Health and Human Services Agency, vested with certain duties, powers, functions, jurisdiction, and responsibilities over specified public health programs. This bill, among other things, would create the Community-based Health Improvement and Innovation Fund in the State Treasury, and the moneys in the fund would be available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for certain purposes, including, but not limited to, reducing health inequity and disparities in the rates and outcomes of priority chronic health conditions, as defined, preventing the onset of priority chronic health conditions using community-based strategies in communities statewide and with particular focus on health equity priority populations, as defined, and strengthening local, regional, and state level collaborations between public health jurisdictions and health care providers, and across government agencies and community partners to create healthier communities, using a health-in-all-policies approach. The department would be required to use a specified percentage of moneys from the fund for certain public health and administrative activities and would be required to award a specified percentage of moneys from the fund to local health jurisdictions and as competitive grants to eligible applicants to be used to improve health and health equity, as provided. This bill would create the 13-member Community-based Health Improvement and Innovation Fund Advisory Committee to, among other things, advise the department with respect to policy development, integration, and evaluation of community-based chronic disease and injury prevention activities funded under these provisions, and for development of a master plan of recommendations and proposed strategies for the future implementation of those activities. The bill would require the advisory committee, based on the results of programs supported by these provisions, to produce a comprehensive set of recommendations and proposed strategies for advancing chronic disease and injury prevention throughout the state, to include implementation strategies in the recommendations for each priority chronic health condition throughout the state and identification of areas where innovative solutions are especially needed, and to submit the recommendations and proposed strategies to the Legislature triennially.

Existing law establishes the Capital Access Loan Program to assist small businesses in financing the costs of complying with environmental mandates and the remediation of contamination on their properties, as specified. Existing law establishes within the program the California Americans with Disabilities Act Small Business Capital Access Loan Program (ADA program) to assist small businesses in financing the costs of projects that alter or retrofit existing small business facilities to comply with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. Existing law, for the purposes of the ADA program, defines a small business as a business that has less than $1,000,000 in total gross annual income and meets other requirements and requires moneys in the ADA program fund, which is continuously appropriated, to be used for contributions in support of qualified loans, costs to educate the small business community and participating lenders about the program, and administrative expenditures, as specified. Existing law also establishes within the Capital Access Loan Program the California Seismic Safety Capital Access Loan Program to assist residential property owners and small business owners in seismically retrofitting residences and small businesses by covering losses on qualified loans for those purposes. Under existing law, the California Pollution Control Financing Authority administers all of these programs and is authorized to establish small business assistance funds for certain purposes, including, among others, funding the programs. This bill would expand the definition of small business for the purposes of the ADA program to include businesses with less than $5,000,000 in total gross annual income. The bill would authorize moneys in the ADA program fund to be used for payments to participating financial institutions or borrowers to provide incentives to participate in the ADA program, as specified, would require the authority to adopt related regulations, and would authorize small business assistance funds to include contributions and nonreimbursable payments made directly to borrowers or participating financial institutions in furtherance of the ADA program, the Capital Access Loan Program, or other programs administered by the authority as part of the Capital Access Loan Program. By expanding the authorized uses of moneys in a continuously appropriated fund, the bill would make an appropriation. Existing law, for the purposes of the California Seismic Safety Capital Access Loan Program, requires the authority to adopt regulations that limit the term of loss coverage for each qualified loan to no more than 10 years and that provide for recapture from the loss reserve account of the authority's contribution for each enrolled loan upon maturation or after 10 years from the date of enrollment, whichever happens first. This bill would shorten the 10-year period for loss coverage and recapture to 5 years. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

Existing law provides for the California Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC Program) administered by the State Department of Public Health and counties, under which nutrition and other assistance is provided to eligible low-income postpartum and lactating women, infants, and children under 5 years of age. 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 breastfeeding services, are provided to qualified low-income persons. Existing law requires the State Department of Health Care Services to streamline and simplify existing Medi-Cal program procedures in order to improve access to lactation supports and breast pumps among Medi-Cal recipients. This bill would require the State Department of Public Health to coordinate with the State Department of Health Care Services and Covered California to develop processes, procedures, and an electronic interface for eligibility-related information sharing to streamline enrollment into the WIC Program as part of the application process for Medi-Cal and health plans offered through the California Health Benefit Exchange. The bill would require the California Healthcare Eligibility, Enrollment, and Retention System (CalHEERS) and the Statewide Automated Welfare System (SAWS) to identify individuals who may be eligible for the WIC Program and, by certain dates, provide electronic access to program applications in a certain format, as specified, if an electronic application is available. The bill would require that these provisions be implemented only to the extent that funding is available, as specified. This bill would also require the State Department of Public Health to coordinate with the State Department of Health Care Services, through a stakeholder engagement process, as specified, to develop measures and outcomes for breastfeeding rates, as specified. The bill would require the recommendations from the stakeholder engagement process to be posted on the departments' Internet Web sites by January 1, 2018.

The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 establishes 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. 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 requires the Department of Finance to annually submit a report to the appropriate committees of the Legislature on the status of the projects funded with moneys from the fund. This bill would require the department to include additional information in its annual report to the Legislature, including, among other things, the greenhouse gas emissions reductions attributable to each project and the geographic location, industry sector, and number of employees of the business entities, as defined, receiving moneys from the fund. The bill would require state agencies expending moneys from the fund to condition the acceptance of those moneys on the recipient providing information necessary to meet the reporting requirements.

This measure would encourage the Department of Consumer Affairs and its boards, bureaus, and committees to create policies that promote fairness and equity to guarantee that each licensee pays a fair amount, especially in regard to initial and ongoing license fees.

This measure would recognize the legendary career of Vincent Edward "Vin" Scully.