(1) The federal Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) requires every state regulatory authority with respect to each electric utility, as defined, for which it has ratemaking authority, to determine whether to adopt certain federal standards if consistent with otherwise applicable state law. The federal standards include that no electric utility may recover from any person other than the shareholders or other owners of the utility, any direct or indirect expenditure by the electric utility for promotional or political advertising, as defined. This bill would require the commission to institute a rulemaking proceeding by March 1, 2012, for the purpose of considering and adopting a code of conduct, associated rules, and enforcement procedures, to govern the conduct of an electrical corporation relative to the consideration, formation, and implementation of community choice aggregation programs and to implement the code of conduct, associated rules, and enforcement procedures by January 1, 2013. The bill would require the code of conduct, associated rules, and enforcement procedures to do the following: (A) ensure that an electrical corporation does not market against a community choice aggregation program, except through an independent marketing division that is funded exclusively by the electrical corporation's shareholders, (B) limit the electrical corporation's independent marketing division's use of support services from the electrical corporation's ratepayer funded divisions, (C) ensure that the electrical corporation's independent marketing division does not have access to competitively sensitive information, (D) incorporate rules that the commission finds to be necessary or convenient in order to facilitate the development of community choice aggregation programs, to foster fair competition, and to protect against cross-subsidization paid by ratepayers, and (E) provide for other matters that the commission determines to be necessary or advisable to protect a ratepayer's right to be free from forced speech or to implement that portion of PURPA that establishes the federal standard that no electric utility may recover from any person other than the shareholders or other owners of the utility, any direct or indirect expenditure by the electric utility for promotional or political advertising. (2) Existing law authorizes a community choice aggregator to aggregate the electrical load of interested electricity consumers within its boundaries and requires a community choice aggregator to file an implementation plan with the commission. Existing law requires an electrical corporation to cooperate fully with any community choice aggregator that investigates, pursues, or implements community choice aggregation programs, including providing appropriate billing and electrical load data. This bill would expand the entities that are permitted to undertake community choice aggregation. The bill would require that the electrical load data to be supplied by an electrical corporation as part of its duty to cooperate fully with any community choice aggregator, include electrical consumption data, as defined. The bill would, if the commission finds that an electrical corporation has violated the requirement to cooperate fully with a community choice aggregator, require that the commission consider the impact of the violation upon community choice aggregators. The bill would revise certain resource adequacy requirements as they relate to community choice aggregators. The bill would require that any program funded through a nonbypassable charge be administered on a nondiscriminatory basis so that the electric service customers of a community choice aggregator may participate in the program on an equal basis with the customers of an electrical corporation. The bill would require the commission to authorize a community choice aggregator to elect to become a 3rd-party administrator of funds collected from the aggregator's electric service customer and collected through a nonbypassable charge authorized by the commission for cost-effective energy efficiency and conservation programs, except those funds collected for broader statewide and regional programs authorized by the commission. The bill would require the governing body of a community choice aggregator to adopt a policy that expressly prohibits the dissemination by the community choice aggregator of any statement relating to the community choice aggregator's rates or terms and conditions of service that is untrue or misleading, and that is known, or that, by the exercise of reasonable care, should be known, to be untrue or misleading. (3) The bill would provide that nothing in Division 1 of the Public Utilities Code, which includes the Public Utilities Act, prohibits payment pursuant to an agreement authorized by the National Labor Relations Act or federal Labor Management Cooperation Act of 1978 or restricts the use permitted by federal law of money paid pursuant to those acts. (4) Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because this bill would expand the duties owed by an electrical corporation pursuant to the act, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime or expanding the definition of an existing crime. 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.
Sponsored bills
(1) Existing law, known as the Donahoe Higher Education Act, establishes the missions and functions of the state's 3 segments of public postsecondary education, which are the University of California, the California State University, and the California Community Colleges. The provisions of the Donahoe Higher Education Act apply to the University of California only to the extent that the Regents of the University of California, by resolution, make them applicable. Existing provisions of the Donahoe Higher Education Act require the Regents of the University of California, the Trustees of the California State University, and the governing boards of community college districts to adopt or provide for the adoption of rules and regulations governing student behavior, known as rules of student conduct. This bill would request the Trustees of the California State University, the Regents of the University of California, and the governing board of each community college district to adopt and publish policies on harassment, intimidation, and bullying to be included within the rules of student conduct governing their respective segments of public postsecondary education. The bill would express the intent of the Legislature that rules and regulations governing student conduct be published, at a minimum, on the Internet Web sites of each public postsecondary educational campus and as part of any printed material covering those rules and regulations within the respective public postsecondary education systems. (2) The Equity in Higher Education Act, a part of the Donahoe Higher Education Act, provides that it is the policy of the state to afford all persons, regardless of disability, gender, nationality, race or ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or other specified bases, equal rights and opportunities in the postsecondary educational institutions of the state. For these purposes, the act defines "gender" to include gender identity. This bill would revise the definition of gender to include "gender expression" for purposes of the Equity in Higher Education Act. The bill would request the Trustees of the California State University, the Regents of the University of California, and the governing board of each community college district to designate an employee at each of their respective campuses as a point of contact to address the needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender faculty, staff, and students. The bill would request each segment to collect aggregate demographic information regarding sexual orientation and gender identity of staff and students within other aggregate demographic data collected, and would require annual transmittal of any report to the Legislature, as specified, and posting of the information on the Internet Web site of each respective institution. The bill would encourage the Legislative Analyst to conduct an assessment of the campuses of each of the segments of public postsecondary education to develop recommendations to improve the quality of life on those campuses for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender faculty, staff, and students, and to publish a summary of those recommendations on its Internet Web site. The bill would make various conforming changes to existing nondiscrimination laws affecting postsecondary educational institutions and programs, and requirements related to reporting hate violence, as defined, to additionally include sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression within the scope of those programs and requirements.
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including gas corporations, as defined. Existing law authorizes the commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility, and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. The Public Utilities Act authorizes the commission to ascertain and fix just and reasonable standards, classifications, regulations, practices, measurements, or services to be furnished, imposed, observed, and followed by specified public utilities, including gas corporations. Existing federal law requires the United States Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) to adopt minimum safety standards for pipeline transportation and for pipeline facilities, including an interstate gas pipeline facility and an intrastate gas pipeline facility, as defined. Existing law authorizes the United States Secretary of Transportation to prescribe or enforce safety standards and practices for an intrastate pipeline facility or intrastate pipeline transportation to the extent that the safety standards and practices are regulated by a state authority that annually submits to the secretary a certification for the facilities and transportation or, alternatively, authorizes the secretary to make an agreement with a state authority authorizing it to take necessary action to meet certain pipeline safety requirements. Existing federal law prohibits a state authority from adopting or continuing in force safety standards for interstate pipeline facilities or interstate pipeline transportation, but permits a state authority that has submitted a specified certification to adopt additional or more stringent safety standards for intrastate pipeline facilities and intrastate pipeline transportation only if those standards are compatible with the minimum standards prescribed by PHMSA. This bill would require each gas corporation to develop a plan, as specified, for the safe and reliable operation of its commission-regulated gas pipeline facility. The bill would require the commission to accept, modify, or reject the plan for each gas corporation by December 31, 2012, and to build into an approved plan sufficient flexibility to redirect activities to respond to safety requirements. The bill would require that the plan be periodically reviewed and updated. The bill would declare that it is the policy of the state to place safety of the public and gas corporation employees as the top priority and require the commission to require that the distribution rate of a gas corporation include sufficient revenues and employee staffing to provide for prompt provision of service to the public consistent with this policy. The bill would require the plan, discussed above, to set forth the manner in which the gas corporation will implement this policy and achieve specified objectives. The bill would require the commission to take all reasonable and appropriate actions to carry out that policy, as specified. Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because the provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and because a violation of an order or decision of the commission implementing its requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime. 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.
(1) Existing law establishes a workers' compensation system, administered by the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers' Compensation, to compensate an employee for injuries sustained in the course of his or her employment. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to prohibit the use of risk factors and specified characteristics to deny an injured worker his or her rightful benefit when disabled in the workplace. The bill would also state the intent of the Legislature to prohibit the apportionment of risk factors and characteristics without prohibiting the apportionment of documentable preexisting nonindustrial causes of disability or holding an employer liable for any percentage of permanent disability not directly caused by an injury arising out of and occurring in the course of employment. (2) Existing law requires any physician who prepares a report addressing the issue of permanent disability due to a claimed industrial injury to address the issue of causation of the permanent disability, and requires that the report include an apportionment determination in order to be considered complete on the issue of permanent disability. Existing law requires a physician to make an apportionment determination by finding what approximate percentage of the permanent disability is caused by the direct result of injury arising out of and occurring in the course of employment and what approximate percentage is caused by other factors. This bill would prohibit the approximate percentage of the permanent disability caused by other factors from including consideration of race, religious creed, color, national origin, age, gender, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, or genetic characteristics.
Existing law establishes a workers' compensation system, administered by the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers' Compensation, to compensate an employee for injuries sustained in the course of his or her employment. Existing law requires the administrative director to develop a cost-efficient workers' compensation information system and requires the administrative director to adopt regulations specifying the data elements to be collected by electronic data interchange. Existing law establishes the Workers' Compensation Administration Revolving Fund in the State Treasury. Money in the fund may be expended by the Department of Industrial Relations, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the administration of the workers' compensation program, except as provided, and for the Return-to-Work Program. This bill would require the administrative director to assess an administrative penalty against a claims administrator for a violation of data reporting requirements. This bill would require the administrative director to promulgate a schedule of penalties providing for an assessment of no more than $5,000 against a claims administrator in any single year, calculated by violation type and excluding threshold rates of violations, as prescribed. This bill would provide that any penalty is to be deposited in the Workers' Compensation Administration Revolving Fund. Existing law provides that a person who, or public or private entity that, is not a party to a claim for workers' compensation benefits may not obtain individually identifiable information, as defined, that is obtained or maintained by the division on that claim, except as specified. This bill would require the administrative director to publish an annual report disclosing the compliance rates of claims administrators and would authorize the administrative director to publish the identity of claims administrators for this purpose.
Existing law establishes a workers' compensation system, administered by the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers' Compensation, to compensate an employee for injuries sustained in the course of his or her employment. Existing law provides that in the case of active firefighting members of certain fire departments and in the case of certain peace officers, a compensable injury includes cancer that develops or manifests itself during the period when the firefighter or peace officer demonstrates that he or she was exposed while in the service of the public agency to a known carcinogen, as defined. Existing law establishes a presumption that the cancer in these cases arose out of, and in the course of, employment, unless the presumption is controverted by evidence that the primary site of the cancer has been established and that the carcinogen to which the member has demonstrated exposure is not reasonably linked to the disabling cancer. This bill would extend this presumption to active firefighting members of a fire department serving a National Aeronautics and Space Administration installation who adhere to specified training standards.
Existing law prohibits employment discrimination based on sex or disability. Existing law prohibits an employer from refusing to allow a female employee disabled by pregnancy, childbirth, or a related medical condition to take a leave for a reasonable time of up to 4 months before returning to work. This bill would also prohibit an employer from refusing to maintain and pay for coverage under a group health plan for an employee who takes that leave, as specified. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 12945 of the Government Code proposed by AB 592, to be operative only if AB 592 and this bill are both enacted, both bills become effective on or before January 1, 2012, and this bill is enacted last.
Existing law gives control of the state park system to the Department of Parks and Recreation. Existing law authorizes the department to enter into agreements with an agency of the United States, a city, county, district, or other public agency or any combination thereof, for the care, maintenance, administration, and control by a party to the agreement of lands under the jurisdiction of a party to the agreement, for the purpose of the state park system. This bill would authorize the department to enter into an operating agreement for the development, improvement, restoration, care, maintenance, administration, or operation of a unit or units, or portion of a unit, of the state park system, as identified by the director, with a qualified nonprofit organization, as provided. This bill would require the operating agreement to include, among other things, a requirement that the nonprofit organization annually submit a report to the department, to be available on the Internet Web site of both the department and the nonprofit organization. The bill would require the nonprofit organization and the district superintendent for the department to hold a joint public meeting for discussion of the report. The bill would require the department to notify a Member of the Legislature of an intention to enter into an operating agreement relating to a park in the member's district, as well as notify specified committees of the Legislature. The bill would also require the department to report to the Legislature, on a biennial basis, the status of any operating agreement. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2019.
The California Constitution provides that the Legislature may by statute prohibit retirement board investments if it is in the public interest to do so, and providing that the prohibition satisfies specified fiduciary standards. The California Public Divest from Iran Act prohibits the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) and the State Teachers' Retirement System (STRS) from investing public employee retirement funds in a company with business operations in Iran that is invested in or engaged in business operations with entities in the defense or nuclear sectors of Iran, or the company is invested or engaged in business operations with entities involved in the development of petroleum or natural gas resources of Iran, and that company is subject to sanctions under federal law, as specified, or the company is engaged in business operations with an Iranian organization that has been labeled as a terrorist organization by the United States government. Existing law requires the Board of Administration of PERS and the Teachers' Retirement Board of STRS to sell or transfer any investments in a company with business operations in Iran, until Iran is removed from the United States Department of State's list of countries that have been determined to repeatedly provide support for acts of international terrorism and the President of the United States determines and certifies that Iran has ceased its efforts to design, develop, manufacture, or acquire a nuclear explosive device or related materials and technology, as specified. Existing law requires the boards of PERS and STRS, on or before June 30, 2008, to determine the companies that are subject to divestment and to notify those companies and request that those companies take substantial action to curtail or end business operations, as described above, in Iran. Existing law provides that the board is not required to divest if the board determines that the company has taken substantial action in a 90-day period to curtail or end those operations. Existing law excepts certain investments from these requirements, including those in companies providing humanitarian relief and promoting health, education, journalistic, religious, or welfare activities. Existing law provides that nothing in those provisions requires the Board of Administration of PERS or the Teachers' Retirement Board of STRS to take action as described in those provisions unless the board determines, in good faith and based on specified information, that the action is consistent with the fiduciary responsibilities of the board as described in a specified provision of the California Constitution. This bill would prohibit the boards from investing in a company that has an investment of $20,000,000 or more in the energy sector of Iran, as defined, including in a company that provides oil or liquefied natural gas tankers, or products used to construct or maintain pipelines used to transport oil or liquefied natural gas. The bill would require the boards to review their investments annually and would require that the boards' determinations that a company is taking substantial actions to end or curtail its operations, as described above, be supported by findings adopted by a rollcall vote of the boards following a presentation and discussion of the findings in open session, during a properly noticed public hearing of the full board. The bill would require all proposed findings to be made public 72 hours before they are considered by the board, and that the board maintain a list of interested parties to be notified of proposed findings 72 hours before the board's consideration. The bill would require the findings and any public comments regarding the adopted findings and determinations to be included in a report to the Legislature. The bill would make the same notice, rollcall vote, and public hearing requirements for adopted findings and determinations of the boards regarding divestments that are found to disadvantage the retirement funds. The bill would eliminate the exception provided for investments in certain companies providing humanitarian relief and promoting health, education, journalistic, religious, or welfare activities. The bill would revise the circumstances under which these provisions would cease to be operative to conform with current federal law. The bill would make findings regarding the California Public Divest from Iran Act and would provide that its provisions are severable.
Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, administered by the State Department of Health Care Services, under which health care services are provided to qualified low-income recipients. Existing law also creates the Healthy Families Program, administered by the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board (MRMIB) , to arrange for the provision of health care services to children less than 19 years of age who meet certain eligibility requirements. Existing law, the County Health Initiative Matching Fund, establishes a fund that is administered by MRMIB in collaboration with the department to accept intergovernmental transfers to be used to increase the state's ability to use federal funds for programs to improve and expand access to health care. Under existing law, a county, a county agency, a local initiative, or a county organized health system that will provide an intergovernmental transfer may apply to MRMIB for funding to provide health care coverage to eligible children whose family income is at or below 300% of the federal poverty level or eligible adults whose family income does not exceed 200% of the federal poverty level. Existing law requires that persons receiving this coverage be ineligible for the Healthy Families Program and no share of cost Medi-Cal coverage. This bill would allow a county, a county agency, a local initiative, or a county organized health system that will provide an intergovernmental transfer to apply to MRMIB for funding to provide health care coverage to eligible children whose family income is at or below 400% of the federal poverty level, as specified, and would require persons receiving this coverage be ineligible for no share of cost Medi-Cal coverage and either ineligible for the Healthy Families Program or unable to enroll in the program as a result of specified enrollment policies due to insufficient funds. The bill would specify that implementation of these provisions is conditioned on MRMIB obtaining necessary federal approval thereof.