Existing law establishes in state government the Natural Resources Agency, consisting of various departments, including the Department of Conservation, the Department of Fish and Game, and the Wildlife Conservation Board. This bill would require the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to convene an advisory stakeholder committee to study and make recommendations to the Legislature and Governor with regard to actions to improve the state's management of fish and wildlife resources. The committee would be required to seek input from elected officials, governmental agencies, including the Department of Fish and Game, certain private entities, and other interested parties. The bill would require the committee to review, among other matters, options for securing stable, dedicated funding to support the state's changing fish and wildlife conservation needs.
Sponsored bills
Existing law requires a male defendant sentenced to death to be taken to the warden of the San Quentin State Prison. Existing law also provides that a condemned inmate may be housed at the California Medical Facility for medical or mental health treatment and may be housed at the California State Prison, Sacramento, for commission of specified offenses while in prison, and that in either case, he shall be subject to similar privileges and classifications as would be applied to him if he were housed at San Quentin State Prison. Existing law provides that no more than 15 condemned inmates may be rehoused at the California State Prison, Sacramento, for the commission of specified offenses while in prison. This bill would make the above provisions applicable to both male and female defendants sentenced to death. The bill would also provide that a condemned inmate shall be housed in any state prison that contains level 4 security or is a condemned facility subject to similar privileges and classifications as would be applied to him or her if he or she were housed at San Quentin State Prison, as specified. The bill would increase the number of condemned inmates that may be rehoused, as described above, at the California State Prison, Sacramento, from 15 to 30. The bill would also delete related provisions requiring female persons sentenced to death to be delivered to the warden of the Central California Women's Facility.
Existing law provides for the licensure of long-term health care facilities by the State Department of Public Health. Under existing law, the Long-Term Care, Health, Safety, and Security Act of 1973, the department may assess penalties for violation of prescribed state and federal requirements. Moneys collected as a result of the penalties imposed pursuant to these provisions are required to be deposited into either the State Health Facilities Citation Penalties Account or the Federal Health Facilities Citation Penalties Account, and used, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the protection of health or property of residents of long-term health care facilities, including reimbursing residents for personal funds lost and costs associated with informational meetings. Existing law establishes the Office of the State Long-Term Care Ombudsman in the California Department of Aging. Under existing law, the office is responsible for, among other things, investigating and resolving complaints and concerns communicated by or on behalf of patients, residents, or clients of long-term care facilities, as defined. Existing law authorizes the California Department of Aging to allocate all federal and state funds for local ombudsman programs according to a specified distribution schedule. This bill would require at least 12 of the funds in the State Health Facilities Citation Penalties Account and the Federal Health Facilities Citation Penalties Account be used to fund local ombudsman programs pursuant to the aforementioned distribution schedule.
Under existing law, various measures have been approved by the voters to provide funds for water protection, facilities, and programs. This bill would enact the Safe, Clean, Reliable Drinking Water Supply Act of 2010 which, if approved by the voters, would authorize, for the purposes of financing specified water supply reliability and water source protection programs, the issuance of bonds in the amount of $10,035,000,000 pursuant to the State General Obligation Bond Law. The act, if approved by the voters, would require the ____ to establish and impose a fee on users of water to be used for the purposes of the act, upon appropriation by the Legislature.
Under existing law, the State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs licenses adult alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facilities. Existing law permits a license to be issued to programs that meet criteria that include the filing of an application and an approved fire clearance. Existing law allows the department to issue a license to a facility wherein separate buildings or portions of a residential facility are integral components of a single alcoholism or drug abuse recovery or treatment facility and all of the components of the facility are managed by the same licensee if the applicant meets specified requirements. This bill would require the department to provide a specified notice to a city or county planning agency if the approval of a license would result in the licensure of a facility that has the same owner or manager as an existing facility that is within 300 feet of, and is operated as an integral component of, the proposed facility. The bill would authorize the department to, among other things, impose specified health and safety requirements or deny licensure based upon overconcentration of facilities or conditions of local need. The bill would enact procedures permitting the city or county to file objections to approval of the license.
Existing law provides that the Department of Transportation has full possession and control of all state highways. Existing law requires the department to prepare an annual report to the Legislature describing the status of the department's progress in locating, assessing, and remediating barriers to fish passage, as defined. Existing law requires the department to complete assessments of potential barriers to the passage of anadromous fish prior to commencing project design for any project using state or federal transportation funds that affects certain stream crossings. Existing law requires the department to submit the assessment to the Department of Fish and Game and to add it to the CALFISH database. Existing law requires new projects to be constructed without presenting barriers to fish passage. Existing law also requires the department to complete an assessment for any repair or construction project using those funds that affects those stream crossings. This bill would define the terms "barrier" and "project" for purposes of these provisions and would require the annual report submitted to the Legislature by the department to include the precise location of past, current, or future remediation projects and a schedule for the remediation of existing barriers to anadromous fish passage. The bill would repeal the provisions requiring the department to perform an assessment for repair or construction projects using state or federal transportation funds that affect those stream crossings. The bill would recast provisions that require the department to complete an assessment of potential barriers to the passage of anadromous fish prior to commencing the project design for any project, as defined, that affects a stream crossing and would require the assessment to include the status of barriers, as specified. The bill would require this assessment to be presented to the Department of Fish and Game and added to the California Fish Passage Assessment Database. The bill would require the department to remediate any barriers to fish passage associated with any project using state or federal transportation funds if the project affects a stream crossing on a stream where anadromous fish are, or historically were, found. The bill would require remediation costs for these projects to be programmed into the state transportation improvement program or the state highway operation and protection program. The bill wold require the department to provide notice to the Department of Fish and Game at least 6 month prior to initiating project design of any project and to post the notice in a conspicuous location on its Internet Web site. The bill would require the department to prioritize transportation projects that complement planned or active streambed remediation or restoration efforts. The bill would require the department and the Department of Fish and Game, by July 1, 2010, and annually thereafter, to jointly identify high-priority barriers in each district, as specified, and post a list of high-priority barriers in a conspicuous location on its Internet Web site. The bill would require the department to remediate barriers to fish passage using any federal funds received pursuant to the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, to the extent permitted by federal law.
The California Integrated Waste Management Act of 1989, administered by the California Integrated Waste Management Board, is required to reduce, recycle, and reuse solid waste generated in the state to the maximum extent feasible in an efficient cost-effective manner to conserve water, energy, and other natural resources. This bill would create the California Product Stewardship Act of 2009 and would require the board to administer the program. The bill would require the board to adopt regulations by July 1, 2011, in order to implement the program to provide environmentally sound product stewardship protocols that encourage producers to research alternatives during the product design and packaging phases to foster cradle-to-cradle producer responsibility and reduce the end-of-life environmental impacts of the product. The bill, on and after January 1, 2012, would require the board to select covered products, as defined, according to certain requirements. The bill would exempt the selection of covered products from the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act. On and after July 1, 2012, a covered product would be prohibited from being sold or used for promotional purposes unless the producer or product stewardship organization, as defined, of the covered product, submits a product stewardship plan to the board that meets certain timelines and content requirements, including, but not limited to, a description of the system for collecting discarded covered products, methods proposed to maximize the recycling of packaging, a description of the processing and disposal system, and strategies for managing and reducing the life cycle impacts of covered products and packaging such as through redesign. The bill would establish an annual reporting requirement for producers or stewardship organizations, require administrative fees to be set by the board, and authorize civil penalties of up to $50,000 to be imposed by the board. The bill would require that the administrative fees be deposited into the Extended Producer Responsibility Account and that the penalties be deposited into the Extended Producer Responsibility Penalty Subaccount that the bill would create in the Integrated Waste Management Fund. The bill would authorize the fees and penalties to be expended, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to cover the board's program implementation costs and as incentives to enhance recyclability and redesign efforts and to reduce environmental and safety impacts of covered products.
Existing law requires a person conducting timber operations to prepare and submit to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection a timber harvesting plan, and authorizes a person who intends to become a nonindustrial tree farmer to file with the department a nonindustrial management plan, prepared by a registered professional forester. This bill would require the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, on or before July 1, 2010, to establish a uniform searchable database on its Internet Web site containing timber harvest plans and nonindustrial timber management plans submitted to the department for logging projects proposed to be conducted on nonfederal and private land in the state. The department would be required to post any comment letters on those plans from relevant state agencies or departments no later than 7 days after receipt. The bill would also require the department, by January 1, 2011, to post past timber harvest plans dating back to those approved in 2005 for all regions on its Internet Web site. The bill would require by January 1, 2012, the department to report to the Legislature on the feasibility of posting timber harvesting plans approved in 2004 and earlier on its Internet Web site.
Existing law requires each person between the ages of 6 and 18 years of age, who is not otherwise exempt, to attend the public full-time day school in the school district in which his or her parent or guardian is a resident. The governing board of a school district is authorized to accept interdistrict transfers by admitting pupils residing in other school districts to attend its schools, subject to specified conditions. A school district that elects to accept interdistrict transfers is required to keep an accounting of all requests made for alternative attendance and records of all dispositions of those requests and to report this information to the Superintendent of Public Instruction who is required to make this information available to the Governor, the Legislature, and the public on an annual basis. The bill would require the State Department of Education to prepare and submit to the Legislature a census report evaluating interdistrict transfer options within the state that includes specified information. Existing law makes the provisions authorizing a school district to accept interdistrict transfers inoperative on July 1, 2009, and repeals those provisions on January 1, 2010. This bill would extend the inoperative and repeal dates of those provisions to July 1, 2014, and January 1, 2015, respectively. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
(1) Existing law allows a person with an instructional permit issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles to generally operate a motor vehicle when accompanied and supervised by a California licensed driver who, among other things, is 18 years of age or over and whose driving privilege is not on probation. A violation of these provisions is an infraction. This bill would additionally require that the supervising licensed driver have held his or her license for at least one year. (2) Existing law requires the department, upon proper application, to issue driver's licenses to persons 18 years of age or older who meet specified criteria. This bill would require, on and after January 1, 2011, for a driver's license to be issued to a person at least 18 years of age but under 25 years of age, the person to complete 50 hours of supervised driving practice, not less that 10 of which is required to include driving during darkness. The bill would require the person to record and maintain a supervised driving log, provided by the department, in the vehicle while the person is practicing. Upon application for a driver's license, the person would be required to submit to the department the supervised driving log, certifying that the applicant has completed the required amount of driving practice and is prepared to take the department's driving test. (3) Existing law, the Brady-Jared Teen Driver Safety Act of 1997, allows for the issuance of a driver's license to a person at least 16 years of age but under 18 years of age pursuant to the provisional licensing program. Under the act, licensees are required to meet specified requirements, driver education, and training, and are prohibited during the first 12 months after issuance of a license from driving during the hours of 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. or from transporting passengers who are under 20 years of age, except as provided. A violation of these provisions is an infraction. This bill would require a person at least 16 years of age but under 18 years of age who is eligible for a driver's license issued pursuant to the provisional licensing program to record and maintain a supervised driving log in the vehicle while the person is practicing. Because these provisions would create new crimes, the 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.