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 also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. This bill would exempt from the provisions of CEQA a project, or the issuance of a permit for a project, that consists of the inspection, maintenance, repair, rehabilitation, replacement, or removal of, or the addition of an auxiliary lane or bikeway to, existing transportation infrastructure and that meets certain requirements. The bill would require the public agency carrying out the project to take certain actions.
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The Personal Income Tax Law allows various credits against the taxes imposed by that law, including certain credits that are allowed in modified conformity to credits allowed by federal income tax laws. Federal income tax laws allow a refundable earned income tax credit for certain low-income individuals who have earned income from wages, salaries, tips, and other employee compensation plus net earnings from self-employment and who meet certain other requirements. The Personal Income Tax Law, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2015, in modified conformity with federal income tax laws, allows an earned income credit against personal income tax, which is only for earned income from wages, salaries, tips, and other employee compensation, and a payment in excess of that credit amount, to an eligible individual that is equal to that portion of the earned income tax credit allowed by federal law as determined by the earned income tax credit adjustment factor as set forth in the annual Budget Act which, unless otherwise specified in that act, is 0%. This bill, for taxable years beginning on and after January 1, 2017, would expand the earned income credit allowed by the Personal Income Tax Law by providing additional conformity with federal income tax law to include specified net earnings from self-employment in earned income, thus allowing an earned income credit for taxpayers for those earnings. This bill would additionally set the earned income tax credit adjustment factor as 85%. Existing law establishes the continuously appropriated Tax Relief and Refund Account and provides that payments required to be made to taxpayers or other persons from the Personal Income Tax Fund are to be paid from that account, including any amount allowable as an earned income credit in excess of any tax liabilities. By authorizing new payments from that account for additional amounts in excess of personal income tax liabilities, this bill would make an appropriation. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law generally makes it a felony for any person, firm, or corporation to possess a silencer within this state. Existing law exempts from that prohibition the sale to, purchase by, or possession by certain law enforcement agencies of a silencer for use in the discharge of their official duties, or possession by peace officers employed by those law enforcement agencies. This bill would make the crime of possessing a silencer inapplicable to the sale or other transfer in interstate or foreign commerce by registered dealers or manufacturers when the sale or other transfer is in accordance with federal law.
Existing law, the California High-Speed Rail Act, creates the High-Speed Rail Authority to develop and implement a high-speed rail system in the state, with specified powers and duties. Existing law requires the authority, on a biennial basis, to prepare a business plan containing specified elements and also requires the preparation of various other reports. This bill would require the business plan to identify projected financing costs for each segment or combination of segments of the high-speed rail system, if financing is proposed by the authority. The bill would require the authority to identify in the business plan and in another report any significant changes in scope for segments of the high-speed rail system identified in the previous version of each report and to provide an explanation of adjustments in cost and schedule attributable to the changes.
The California Constitution provides that the electors may propose a statute or an amendment to the California Constitution by initiative and approve or reject a statute by referendum. An initiative measure may be proposed by presenting to the Secretary of State a petition that sets forth the text of the proposed statute or amendment to the Constitution, and is certified to have been signed by the required number of electors, as prescribed. A referendum measure may be proposed by presenting to the Secretary of State a petition that sets forth the statute or part of the statute to be submitted to the electors, and is certified to have been signed by the required number of electors. Before the circulation of an initiative or referendum petition for signatures, the California Constitution requires that a copy of the petition be submitted to the Attorney General, who must prepare a title and summary of the measure. Existing statutory law also directs the Attorney General to prepare the ballot label, and the ballot title and summary that is included in the state voter information guide, for each measure that appears on a statewide ballot. This measure would transfer from the Attorney General to the Legislative Analyst the duty of preparing the title and summary for a proposed initiative or referendum. The measure would also require, for each measure that appears on a statewide ballot, that the Legislative Analyst to prepare the ballot label, and the ballot title and summary for the ballot pamphlet.
This measure would proclaim the period of October 23, 2017, to October 31, 2017, inclusive, as Red Ribbon Week and would encourage all Californians to help build drug-free communities and to participate in drug prevention activities.
The Horse Racing Law provides that any unallocated balance from the total revenue received by the Department of Food and Agriculture pursuant to that law, except as specified, is hereby appropriated without regard to fiscal years for allocation by the Secretary of Food and Agriculture for capital outlay to California fairs, including state-designated fairs, for among other things, fair projects involving public health and safety, and projects that are required to protect fair property. That law also provides that a portion of these funds may be allocated to California fairs for general operational support. This bill would, beginning July 1, 2018, require a return filed with the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration (CDTFA) to report gross receipts for sales and use tax purposes to segregate the gross receipts of the seller and the sales price of the property on a line or a separate form as prescribed by the CDTFA when the place of sale in this state or for use in this state is on or within the real property of a state-designated fair, as defined, or any real property of a state-designated fair that is leased to another party. The bill would require the CDTFA to report the amount of the total gross receipts segregated on the returns filed pursuant to these provisions to the Department of Finance on or before November 1 of each year. The bill would require the CDTFA to estimate the total gross receipts segregated for the 2019–20 fiscal year by January 31, 2019, based on the 3rd quarter of 2018, and would require that an amount equal to 34 of 1% of this estimated amount be included in the Governor's revised budget in May 2019 for allocation to fairs pursuant to the provisions described above. The bill would require the CDTFA to reconcile this first-year estimate with actual return data from the full 2018–19 fiscal year, and to then adjust this figure as appropriate as the amount to be reported to the Department of Finance on November 1, 2019. The bill would require that an amount equal to 34 of 1% of the total amount of gross receipts reported to the Department of Finance be included in the next annual Governor's Budget for the Department of Food and Agriculture for allocation to fairs pursuant to the provisions described above. The bill would require, upon the enactment of the annual Budget Act, that this amount be transferred by the Controller to the Fair and Exposition Fund, which is continuously appropriated, and would allocate these moneys to state-designated fairs for specified fair projects and subject to certain conditions. The bill would require the CDTFA to be paid the actual cost for administering those provisions, as specified. By creating a new source of revenue to be deposited into a continuously appropriated fund, the bill would make an appropriation.
Existing law provides that an inmate who has committed certain specified offenses and is released on parole shall not be returned to a location within 35 of miles of the residence of a victim of or witness to that offense if the victim or witness makes such a request and the Board of Parole Hearings or the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation finds that the placement is necessary to protect the victim or witness. This bill would add certain sexual penetration offenses as well as several sexual assault offenses in which the victim is unconscious or unable to give consent to the list of offenses to which this release restriction applies. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 3003 of the Penal Code proposed by AB 1408 to be operative only if this bill and AB 1408 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.
This measure would recognize September 11, 2017, as a day of solemn commemoration and extend the Legislature's deepest sympathies to the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
This measure would recognize the importance of civic engagement across the State of California.