Under the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, the State Water Resources Control Board and the California regional water quality control boards are the principal state agencies with regulatory authority over water quality. Under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, each state is required to identify those waters for which prescribed effluent limitations are not stringent enough to implement applicable water quality standards and to establish, with regard to those waters, total maximum daily loads, subject to the approval of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, for certain pollutants at a level necessary to implement those water quality standards. Existing law, inoperative due to a pending referendum election, would prohibit certain stores from providing a single-use carryout bag to a customer and prohibit those stores from selling or distributing a recycled paper bag to a customer at the point of sale unless the store makes that bag available for purchase, as specified. This bill would suspend the operation of certain amendments to water quality control plans relating to the total maximum daily load for trash unless and until the provisions inoperative due to a pending referendum election become effective. This bill would require the state board to revisit and revise water quality control plans to address impaired water quality due to trash if the law pending referendum is defeated at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election.
Sponsored bills
Existing law establishes the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training in the Department of Justice and requires the commission to adopt rules establishing minimum standards regarding the recruitment of peace officers. Existing law requires the commission to develop guidelines and implement courses of instruction regarding racial profiling, handling domestic violence, hate crimes, and human trafficking, among others. This bill would require the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training to ensure that the profiling of motorcycle riders is addressed in the course of basic law enforcement training and offered to law enforcement officers in conjunction with existing training regarding profiling. The bill would require all local law enforcement agencies to adopt a written policy designed to condemn and prevent the profiling of motorcycle riders and to review and audit any existing policies to ensure that those policies do not enable or foster the practice of profiling motorcycle riders. Because this bill would impose additional duties on local law enforcement agencies, 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, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to these statutory provisions.
Existing law establishes the University of California, under the administration of the Regents of the University of California, the California State University, under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University, and the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, as the 3 segments of public postsecondary education in this state. This bill would require the trustees and the board of governors, and would request the regents, to do all of the following regarding the respective segment's student code of conduct: (a) make it available to prospective students before enrollment, (b) develop a method of testing prospective students' knowledge of it before, or as a condition of, enrollment, and (c) set a standard for a prospective student to demonstrate proficient knowledge of it before beginning classes. The bill would require the trustees, and urge the regents and each community college district, to require each student to demonstrate proficient knowledge of the applicable code of conduct before the student begins classes.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 authorizes the State Air Resources Board to adopt greenhouse gas emissions limits and emission reduction measures by regulation to achieve the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in furtherance of achieving the statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit. The act authorizes the board, in the regulations adopted, to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. This bill would prohibit the board, on and after January 1, 2016, from adopting or amending regulations pursuant to the act. The bill would authorize the board to submit to the Legislature recommendations on how to achieve the goals of the act.
Existing law authorizes the plaintiff, in an action for the breach of an obligation not arising from contract, when it is proven by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant has been guilty of oppression, fraud, or malice, to recover damages for the sake of example and by way of punishing the defendant in addition to the actual damages. Existing law authorizes the court, for good cause, to grant a defendant a protective order requiring the plaintiff to produce evidence of a prima facie case of liability for exemplary damages prior to the introduction of certain evidence. This bill would make a nonsubstantive change to those provisions.
Under existing law, the Corporate Securities Law of 1968, the Commissioner of Business Oversight regulates the activities of a broker-dealer which is defined as, among other things, any person engaged in the business of effecting securities transactions in California for the account of others or his or her own account, and it specifies those persons or entities excluded from the definition. Existing law requires, among other things, that a broker-dealer apply for and secure a certificate authorizing that person to act in that capacity, unless the person is exempted from this requirement, as prescribed. Existing law prohibits a person acting on behalf of a licensed broker-dealer or an issuer, from effecting any transaction in, or inducing or attempting to induce the purchase or sale of, any security in this state unless the broker-dealer and agent have complied with certain rules. This bill would exempt from those provisions an individual who is a finder, as defined, who satisfies specified requirements, including, among other things, filing an initial statement of information with the Commissioner of Business Oversight and paying a filing fee.
Existing law provides that persons whose specified actions cause an incident resulting in an appropriate emergency response are liable for the expenses of an emergency response by a public agency to the incident, up to $12,000 per incident. Existing law provides that the board of supervisors of a county may authorize the sheriff to search for and rescue persons, and that the expenses incurred by the sheriff in the performance of those duties are a proper county charge. Existing law also requires the county or city and county of residence of a person, searched for or rescued by a sheriff, to pay to the county or city and county conducting the search or rescue all of the reasonable search or rescue expenses in excess of $100 within 30 days after the submission of a reimbursement claim. This bill, notwithstanding the existing provisions relating to liability for specified emergency response expenses, would provide that whenever a county or city and county either receives a reimbursement claim from another county or city and county for a search or rescue, or conducts its own search or rescue, of one of its residents who is 16 years of age or older, the county or city and county may in turn seek reimbursement for the actual costs incurred from that resident, if the need for the search or rescue necessitated the use of extraordinary methods and was caused by an intentional act in knowing violation of any federal or state law or local ordinance that resulted in a criminal conviction of that person for that act. The bill would require the resident to pay within 30 days after being billed. This bill would prohibit the county or city and county from collecting reimbursement from persons whom the county or city and county determines are unable to pay the charges. The bill would prohibit a county or city and county from billing a resident more than $12,000, adjusted annually for inflation as determined by the Department of Industrial Relations, for a search or rescue, unless the search or rescue was caused by an act that resulted in a felony conviction of that resident under federal or state law. This bill would provide that the county or city and county may only seek reimbursement if the board of supervisors of that county or city and county passes an ordinance consistent with this bill.
Existing law requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to immediately suspend a person's privilege to operate a motor vehicle for a specified period of time if the person has driven a motor vehicle when the person had a certain blood-alcohol concentration. Existing law authorizes certain individuals, whose privilege is suspended pursuant to that provision to receive a restricted driver's license if specified requirements are met, including the completion of specified periods of license suspension or revocation. Existing law also requires the department to immediately suspend or revoke a person's privilege to operate a motor vehicle if the person has been convicted of violating specified provisions prohibiting driving a motor vehicle under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or drug or the combined influence of an alcoholic beverage and drug, or with 0.08% or more, by weight, of alcohol in his or her blood or while addicted to the use of any drug, with or without bodily injury to another. Existing law authorizes certain individuals whose privilege is suspended or revoked pursuant to that provision to receive a restricted driver's license if specified requirements are met, including the completion of specified periods of license suspension or revocation and, in some instances, the installation of an ignition interlock device on the person's vehicle. Existing law does not permit a person who has been convicted of a first offense of driving a motor vehicle under the influence, with injury, to receive a restricted driver's license. Existing law also requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to establish a pilot program from July 1, 2010, to January 1, 2016, inclusive, in the Counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and Tulare that requires, as a condition of being issued a restricted driver's license, being reissued a driver's license, or having the privilege to operate a motor vehicle reinstated subsequent to a conviction for any violation of the above offenses, a person to install for a specified period of time an ignition interlock device on all vehicles he or she owns or operates. This bill would extend the operation of that pilot program until July 1, 2017. This bill would make these provisions relating to the pilot program inoperative on July 1, 2017, and would repeal them as of January 1, 2018.
Under existing law, in any action for damages for the publication of a libel in a newspaper or of a slander by a radio broadcast, the plaintiff is required to recover no more than special damages unless a correction is demanded and the correction is not published or broadcast. If a correction is demanded and the correction is not published or broadcast in a specified manner in the newspaper or on the broadcasting station, existing law authorizes the plaintiff to recover general, special, and exemplary damages provided certain requirements are met. The bill would revise these provisions relating to libel to provide that the publication of a libel be in a daily or weekly news publication, as defined. This bill would also make legislative findings regarding libel.