The Quentin L. Kopp Conflict of Interest Act of 1990 requires a member of the State Board of Equalization who has received a contribution or contributions within the preceding 12 months in an aggregate amount of $250 or more from a party or his or her agent, or from any participant or his or her agent, to, prior to rendering any decision in any adjudicatory proceeding pending before the board, disclose that fact on the record of the proceeding. A member is prohibited from making, participating in making, or in any way attempting to use his or her official position to influence, the decision in an adjudicatory proceeding pending before the board if the member knows or has reason to know that he or she received a contribution or contributions within the preceding 12 months in an aggregate amount of $250 or more from a party or his or her agent, or from a participant or his or her agent, and the member knows or has reason to know that the participant has a financial interest in the decision. The act also requires a party to, or a participant in, an adjudicatory proceeding pending before the board to disclose on the record of the proceeding any contribution or contributions in an aggregate amount of $250 or more made within the preceding 12 months by the party or participant, or his or her agent, to any member of the board. A person who knowingly or willfully violates any provision of the act is guilty of a misdemeanor. This bill would require the board, on or before January 1, 2018, to prepare a report analyzing the impact on the board and those making contributions to the board of lowering the monetary threshold that triggers the requirements of the Quentin L. Kopp Conflict of Interest Act of 1990 from $250 to $100.
Sponsored bills
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical and gas corporations. The California Constitution authorizes the commission to establish rules for electrical and gas corporations, subject to control by the Legislature. This bill would authorize the commission to establish procedures and processes to implement a confidential, nonpunitive, and independent close call reporting program for purposes of facilitating the identification of accident precursors by persons familiar with the operations of electrical or gas corporations and of collecting, analyzing, and disseminating unbiased safety information. The bill would authorize any person to voluntarily submit through the program a confidential close call report that both involves an electrical or gas corporation and relates to public, employee, or contractor safety. The bill would also require the commission to implement, through a proceeding, a close call reporting pilot program that would be consistent with the program described above.
This measure would recognize 2016 as the 150-year anniversary of public service and protection of state parks by state park rangers and would encourage the Department of Parks and Recreation, the California State Park Rangers Association, and the California State Parks Anniversary Committee to take all appropriate action to celebrate that anniversary.
This measure would urge the United States Congress to require the development of a proper conceptual foundation and framework for the Central Valley Project Improvement Act (CVPIA) , to require a full accounting of all CVPIA expenditures, and to require a full audit of the CVPIA Restoration Fund.
Existing law provides for the designation and disposition of certain categories of dogs as potentially dangerous or vicious dogs pursuant to a specified judicial process, and requires that designation to be included in the registration records of the dog. Existing law defines the term "vicious dog" to include, among others, dogs seized pursuant to specified animal cruelty laws. This bill would delete this category of dog from the above-specified definition of "vicious dog."
Existing law requires the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) , upon registering a vehicle, to issue to the owner 2 license plates, as specified. Existing law also requires vehicle dealers and lessor-retailers to attach a numbered report-of-sale form issued by the DMV to a vehicle at the time of sale, and to submit to the DMV an application for registration of the vehicle, and the applicable fees, within a specified period after the date of sale. Existing law authorizes a dealer, as specified, to assess a specified document processing charge on the purchaser or lessee of a vehicle for the preparation and processing of documents, disclosures, and titling, registration, and information security obligations imposed by state and federal law. Existing law generally makes a violation of the Vehicle Code an infraction, but makes counterfeiting a license plate a felony. Existing law requires the driver of a motor vehicle to present evidence of registration of a vehicle under the driver's immediate control upon demand by a peace officer. Existing law prohibits displaying or presenting to a peace officer specified indicia of vehicle registration that are not issued for that vehicle. Existing law authorizes the DMV to assess administrative fees on a processing agency for providing notices of delinquent parking violations or toll evasion violations to the offenders in connection with the collection of penalties for those violations, and authorizes the use of those administrative fees to support those collection procedures. Existing law requires license plates to be securely fastened to the vehicle for which they were issued for the period of validity of the license plates, and authorizes the use of a special permit in lieu of license plates for that purpose. This bill would require the DMV to develop an operational system, no later than January 1, 2019, that allows a dealer or lessor-retailer to electronically report the sale of a vehicle and provide a temporary license plate, as specified. The bill would, commencing January 1, 2018, authorize the DMV to assess specified administrative fees on parking and toll evasion processing agencies to support the administration of this system. The bill would also, commencing January 1, 2019, increase the document processing charge, as specified, that a dealer may impose on the purchaser or lessee of a vehicle and would authorize the imposition of a specified electronic filing charge for reporting vehicle sales and producing temporary license plates. The bill would authorize the DMV to establish contracts with qualified industry partners to provide these vehicle sale reporting and temporary license plate services. The bill would, commencing January 1, 2019, prohibit a person from displaying on a vehicle or presenting to a peace officer a temporary license plate that was not issued for that vehicle, as specified, and would make counterfeiting a temporary license plate a felony. The bill would, commencing January 1, 2019, require temporary license plates to be securely fastened to the vehicle for which they are issued, as specified, and would require a person upon receipt of permanent license plates to replace and destroy the temporary license plates. The bill would make additional conforming changes. By creating new crimes and expanding the scope of existing crimes, the 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 no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
This measure would urge the Congress of the United States to lift an existing prohibition against publicly funded scientific research on the causes of gun violence and its effects on public health, and to appropriate funds for the purpose of conducting that research.
(1) Existing law generally prohibits the possession or transfer of assault weapons, except for the sale, purchase, importation, or possession of assault weapons by specified individuals, including law enforcement officers. Under existing law, "assault weapon" means, among other things, a semiautomatic centerfire rifle or a semiautomatic pistol that has the capacity to accept a detachable magazine and has any one of specified attributes, including, for rifles, a thumbhole stock, and for pistols, a second handgrip. This bill would revise this definition of "assault weapon" to mean a semiautomatic centerfire rifle, or a semiautomatic pistol that does not have a fixed magazine but has any one of those specified attributes. The bill would also define "fixed magazine" to mean an ammunition feeding device contained in, or permanently attached to, a firearm in such a manner that the device cannot be removed without disassembly of the firearm action. By expanding the definition of an existing crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) Existing law requires that any person who, within this state, possesses an assault weapon, except as otherwise provided, be punished as a felony or for a period not to exceed one year in a county jail. This bill would exempt from punishment under that provision a person who possessed an assault weapon prior to January 1, 2017, if specified requirements are met. (3) Existing law requires that, with specified exceptions, any person who, prior to January 1, 2001, lawfully possessed an assault weapon prior to the date it was defined as an assault weapon, and which was not specified as an assault weapon at the time of lawful possession, register the firearm with the Department of Justice. Existing law permits the Department of Justice to charge a fee for registration of up to $20 per person but not to exceed the actual processing costs of the department. Existing law, after the department establishes fees sufficient to reimburse the department for processing costs, requires fees charged to increase at a rate not to exceed the legislatively approved annual cost-of-living adjustment for the department's budget or as otherwise increased through the Budget Act. Existing law requires those fees to be deposited into the Dealers' Record of Sale Special Account. Existing law, the Administrative Procedure Act, establishes the requirements for the adoption, publication, review, and implementation of regulations by state agencies. This bill would require that any person who, from January 1, 2001, to December 31, 2016, inclusive, lawfully possessed an assault weapon that does not have a fixed magazine, as defined, and including those weapons with an ammunition feeding device that can be removed readily from the firearm with the use of a tool, register the firearm with the Department of Justice before January 1, 2018, but not before the effective date of specified regulations. The bill would permit the department to increase the $20 registration fee as long as it does not exceed the reasonable processing costs of the department. The bill would also require registrations to be submitted electronically via the Internet utilizing a public-facing application made available by the department. The bill would require the registration to contain specified information, including, but not limited to, a description of the firearm that identifies it uniquely and specified information about the registrant. The bill would permit the department to charge a fee of up to $15 per person for registration through the Internet, not to exceed the reasonable processing costs of the department to be paid and deposited, as specified, for purposes of the registration program. The bill would require the department to adopt regulations for the purpose of implementing those provisions and would exempt those regulations from the Administrative Procedure Act. The bill would also make technical and conforming changes. (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.
Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations, as defined. Existing law authorizes the Public Utilities Commission to fix the rates and charges for every public utility, and requires that those rates and charges be just and reasonable. Existing law requires the Public Utilities Commission to require each electrical corporation under the operational control of the Independent System Operator as of January 1, 2001, to modify tariffs so that all customers that install new distributed energy resources, as defined, in accordance with specified criteria are served under rates, rules, and requirements identical to those of a customer within the same rate schedule that does not use distributed energy resources, and to withdraw any provisions in otherwise applicable tariffs that activate other tariffs, rates, or rules if a customer uses distributed energy resources. Existing law provides, notwithstanding these requirements, that a customer that installs new distributed energy resources not be exempted from (1) reasonable interconnection charges, (2) charges imposed pursuant to the Reliable Electric Service Investment Act, and (3) charges imposed to repay the Department of Water Resources for electricity procurement expenses incurred in response to the electricity crisis of 2000–01. Existing law requires the Public Utilities Commission, in establishing the rates applicable to customers that install new distributed energy resources, to create a firewall that segregates distribution cost recovery so that any net costs, taking into account the actual costs and benefits of distributed energy resources, proportional to each customer class, as determined by the Public Utilities Commission, resulting from the tariff modifications granted to members of each customer class may be recovered only from that class. This bill would, to the extent authorized by federal law, require the Public Utilities Commission, by July 1, 2017, to do both of the following for those customers of the state's 3 largest electrical corporations that install clean distributed energy resources, as defined, after January 1, 2016: (1) require those electrical corporations to collect all applicable nonbypassable charges fixed, implemented, administered, or imposed by the Public Utilities Commission based only on the actual metered consumption of electricity delivered to the customer through the electrical corporation's transmission or distribution system, which charges are to be at the same rate per kilowatthour as paid by other customers that do not employ a clean distributed energy resource, and (2) calculate a reserve capacity for standby service, if applicable, based on the capacity needed by the electrical corporation to serve a customer's electrical demand during an outage of the clean distributed energy resource providing electric service for that customer. The bill would require the state's 3 largest electrical corporations to identify the total amount of nonbypassable charges that would be collected each year from customers served by clean distributed energy resources installed after January 1, 2016, based on gross consumption without any adjustment for the generation of the clean distributed energy resources. The bill would require that this total amount be fully recovered from customers in the same customer class as those customers served by clean distributed energy resources installed after January 1, 2016, and would prohibit any amount from being shifted to any other customer class. The bill would require a customer served by a clean distributed energy resource to provide relevant data to the Public Utilities Commission and the State Air Resources Board annually. The bill would provide that the facility is subject to onsite inspection to verify equipment operation and performance, including capacity, thermal output, and usage, to verify applicable criteria air pollutant and greenhouse gases emissions performance. The bill would require the Public Utilities Commission to suspend the eligibility of new customers to receive service pursuant to the rate program established pursuant to the bill on December 31, 2020. Existing law requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, beginning November 1, 2003, and every 2 years thereafter, to adopt an integrated energy policy report which includes an overview of major energy trends and issues facing the state, including supply, demand, pricing, reliability, efficiency, and impacts on public health and safety, the economy, resources, and the environment. The bill would require the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission, in consultation with the Public Utilities Commission, to report on the impacts of the rate program established pursuant to the bill in the integrated energy policy report to be filed on or before November 1, 2017, and November 1, 2019. 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.
Existing provisions of the Warren-911-Emergency Assistance Act, establishes the number "911" as the primary emergency telephone number for use in the state and requires the providing of enhanced service capable of selective routing, automatic number identification, or automatic location identification. The act requires a telephone corporation serving rural telephone areas that cannot provide enhanced 911 emergency telephone service capable of selective routing, automatic number identification, or automatic location identification to present to the Office of Emergency Services a comprehensive plan detailing a schedule by which their facilities will be converted to be compatible with the enhanced emergency telephone system. This bill would require a facilities-based provider of telecommunications services that the Federal Communications Commission requires to provide access to 911 service to provide responder outage notification by email to the Office of Emergency Services whenever there is a rural outage, as defined, within 60 minutes of discovering the rural outage. The bill would make the Office of Emergency Services responsible for notifying any applicable county office of emergency services and the sheriff of any county affected by the outage. The bill would require the responder outage notification to the Office of Emergency Services to include the telecommunications provider's contact name and calling number with a description of the estimated area affected by the outage. The bill would require the telecommunications services provider to notify the Office of Emergency Services of the estimated time to repair the outage and when service is restored. The bill would require that the telecommunications service provider ensure that the calling number provided to the Office of Emergency Services with the responder outage notification be staffed by the indicated contact person, or by a person qualified to respond to inquiries about the outage, at all times until the provider notifies the office that service has been restored.