Existing law, the Knox-Keene Health Care Service Plan Act of 1975, provides for the licensure and regulation of health care service plans by the Department of Managed Health Care and makes a willful violation of the act a crime. Existing law also provides for the regulation of disability insurers by the Department of Insurance. Existing law, known as the California Mental Health Parity Act, requires every health care service plan contract or disability insurance policy issued, amended, or renewed on or after July 1, 2000, that provides hospital, medical, or surgical coverage to provide coverage for the diagnosis and medically necessary treatment of severe mental illnesses of a person of any age, and of serious emotional disturbances of a child under the same terms and conditions applied to other medical conditions, as specified. Existing law requires those benefits to include, among other things, outpatient services, inpatient hospital services, partial hospital services, and prescription drugs, if the plan contract or policy includes coverage for prescription drugs. This bill would revise and recast those provisions, and would instead require a health care service plan contract or disability insurance policy issued, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2021, to provide coverage for medically necessary treatment of mental health and substance use disorders, as defined, under the same terms and conditions applied to other medical conditions. The bill would prohibit a health care service plan or disability insurer from limiting benefits or coverage for mental health and substance use disorders to short-term or acute treatment. The bill would revise the covered benefits to include basic health care services, as defined, intermediate services, and prescription drugs. This bill would require a health care service plan or disability insurer that provides hospital, medical, or surgical coverage to base medical necessity determinations and the utilization review criteria the plan or insurer, and any entity acting on the plan's or insurer's behalf, applies to determine the medical necessity of health care services and benefits for the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental health and substance use disorders, on current generally accepted standards of mental health and substance use disorder care. The bill would require the health care service plan or insurer to apply specified clinical criteria and guidelines in conducting utilization review of the covered health care services and benefits and would prohibit the plan or insurer from applying different, additional, or conflicting criteria than the criteria and guidelines in the specified sources. The bill would authorize the Director of the Department of Managed Health Care or the Insurance Commissioner, as applicable, to assess administrative or civil penalties, as specified, for violation of the requirements relating to utilization review. The bill would make any provision in a health care service plan issued, delivered, amended, or renewed on or after January 1, 2021, that reserves discretionary authority to the plan, or an agent of the plan, to determine eligibility for benefits or coverage, interprets the terms of the contract, or provides standards of interpretation or review that are inconsistent with California law, void and unenforceable, as specified. The bill would declare that its provisions are severable. Because a willful violation of these requirements with respect to health care service plans would be a crime, 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 no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
Sponsored bills
Existing law, the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) , an initiative measure enacted by the voters as Proposition 63 at the November 2, 2004, statewide general election, funds a system of county mental health plans for the provision of mental health services, as specified. The act establishes the Mental Health Services Fund, which is continuously appropriated to, and administered by, the State Department of Health Care Services to fund specified county mental health programs. This bill would authorize the services for adults, older adults, and children, as well as innovative programs and prevention and early intervention programs that are provided by counties as part of the MHSA to include substance use disorder treatment for children, adults, and older adults with cooccurring mental health and substance use disorders who are eligible to receive mental health services pursuant to those programs. The bill would also authorize the use of MHSA funds to assess whether a person has cooccurring mental health and substance use disorders and to treat a person who is preliminarily assessed to have cooccurring mental health and substance use disorders, even when the person is later determined not to be eligible for services provided with MHSA funds. The bill would require a person being treated for cooccurring mental health and substance use disorders who is determined to not need the mental health services that are eligible for funding pursuant to the act, to be referred to substance use disorder treatment services in a timely manner. By authorizing the use of continuously appropriated funds for a new purpose, this bill would make an appropriation. This bill would require a county to report to the State Department of Health Care Services the number of people assessed for cooccurring mental health and substance use disorders and the number of people who were ultimately determined to have only a substance use disorder without another cooccurring mental health condition. The bill would also require the department, by January 1, 2022, and each January 1 thereafter, to publish on its internet website a report summarizing the county data for the prior fiscal year. By imposing a new duty on counties, 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 the statutory provisions noted above.
Existing law establishes the Medi-Cal program, which is administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income persons receive health care benefits. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions. Existing law establishes a schedule of benefits under the Medi-Cal program and provides for various services, including behavioral and mental health services that are rendered by Medi-Cal enrolled providers. This bill would require the department, by July 1, 2022, subject to any necessary federal waivers or approvals, to establish statewide requirements for counties or their representatives to use in developing certification programs for the certification of peer support specialists, who are individuals who self-identify as having lived experience with the process of recovery from mental illness, substance use disorder, or both. The bill would authorize a county, or an agency that represents a county, to develop a peer support specialist certification program and certification fee schedule, both of which would be subject to department approval. The bill would require the department to seek any federal waivers it deems necessary to establish a demonstration or pilot project for the provision of peer support services in a county that agrees to participate in and fund the project, as specified.
Existing law requires certain transportation planning agencies to prepare and adopt a regional transportation plan directed at achieving a coordinated and balanced regional transportation system. Certain of these agencies are designated under federal law as metropolitan planning organizations. As part of a regional transportation plan, existing law requires a metropolitan planning organization to adopt a sustainable communities strategy or alternative planning strategy, which is designed to achieve certain targets for 2020 and 2035 established by the State Air Resources Board for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles and light trucks in the region. Before the adoption of a sustainable communities strategy or an alternative planning strategy, existing law requires a metropolitan planning organization to complete certain procedural requirements, including a requirement to conduct informational meetings, as specified, and a requirement to adopt a public participation plan that includes, among other things, workshops throughout the region and public hearings on the draft sustainable communities strategy or alternative planning strategy, as specified. The Ralph M. Brown Act, with specified exceptions, requires that all meetings of a legislative body of a local agency be open and public and that all persons be permitted to attend and participate. This bill, until January 1, 2023, would recharacterize the workshops as public engagement gatherings and would authorize these informational meetings, public engagement gatherings, and public hearings to be conducted by electronic means if a call-in telephonic option is also provided and the meeting is not required to be conducted pursuant to the Ralph M. Brown Act. The bill, until January 1, 2023, would make other related changes.
This measure would extend to the people of the regional states of Amhara, Oromia, Somali, the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region, and Tigray an invitation to join with California in sister state relationships.
Existing provisions of the California Constitution establish the University of California as a public trust under the administration of the Regents of the University of California. The California Constitution grants to the regents all the powers necessary or convenient for the effective administration of this public trust. Pursuant to the California Constitution, there are 7 ex officio members of the regents and 18 appointive members appointed by the Governor and approved by the Senate, a majority of the membership concurring. This measure would enact the University of California Equal Employment Opportunity Standards Act, which would, effective January 1, 2021, except as specified, require the regents to ensure that all contract workers, as defined, who are paid to perform support services for students, faculty, patients, or the general public at any campus, dining hall, medical center, clinic, research facility, laboratory, or other university location, are at all times subject to and afforded the same equal employment opportunity standards, as defined, as university employees performing similar services. The measure would authorize the regents, or any campus or other entity of the University of California, to contract for, or otherwise arrange to use, contract labor, as defined, to perform support services only under specified conditions, only if authorized to do so by statute, and only to the extent necessary to address one or more of prescribed needs. The measure would authorize the Legislature to enact statutes to further the purposes of, and to aid the enforcement of, this measure.
The California Constitution establishes the Public Utilities Commission and authorizes the commission to exercise ratemaking and rulemaking authority over all public utilities, as defined, subject to control by the Legislature. The Public Utilities Act authorizes the commission to supervise and regulate every public utility, including electrical corporations, and to do all things that are necessary and convenient in the exercise of that power and jurisdiction. 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. Existing law authorizes the commission, in a proceeding on an application by an electrical corporation to recover costs and expenses arising from a catastrophic wildfire occurring on or after January 1, 2019, to allow cost recovery if the costs and expenses are just and reasonable, after consideration of the conduct of the utility, including consideration of specified factors. Existing law establishes the Wildfire Fund to pay eligible claims arising from a covered wildfire, as provided. Existing law requires the commission to initiate a rulemaking proceeding to consider using its existing authority to require certain electrical corporations to collect a nonbypassable charge from its ratepayers to support the Wildfire Fund, and requires the commission to direct those electrical corporations to collect that charge if the commission determines that the imposition of the charge is just and reasonable and that it is an appropriate exercise of its authority, as specified. This bill would enact the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Act of 2020 and would require the Natural Resources Agency, in consultation with the commission, to adopt an interim expenditure plan and an expenditure plan that are focused on reducing wildfire risk on the ground and in communities through activities such as defensible space implementation, home hardening, improved public safety, including expenditures to add trained emergency medical technicians to the workforce, and other authorized activities, as well as to prepare residents for wildfires through public education and outreach, as provided. The bill would establish the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Fund and, upon appropriation by the Legislature, would require moneys in the fund be used for the implementation of those plans. The bill would require the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency, upon the adoption of the interim plan, to notify the State Controller of the adoption. The bill would require, within 30 days of the notification, the transfer of $500,000,000 from the Surplus Money Investment Fund to the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Fund, and would appropriate the money to the Natural Resources Agency for the implementation of the interim expenditure plan. The bill would provide for the repayment of the moneys transferred from the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Fund to the Surplus Money Investment Fund, as provided. The bill would require the commission to require large electrical corporations, as defined, to collect, on and after a specified time, a nonbypassable charge from their ratepayers, as provided, to finance the bonds issued for the support of the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Fund, as described below. Existing law, until January 1, 2003, authorizes the Department of Water Resources to enter into contracts for the purchase of electric power. Existing law authorizes the department to sell power to retail end use customers and local publicly owned electric utilities under certain circumstances. Existing law authorizes the department to issue revenue bonds and entitles the department to recover, as a revenue requirement, amounts necessary to enable it to finance the bonds and purchase electric power pursuant to these provisions. Existing law authorizes the department to issue Wildfire Fund bonds on and after either the date on which the department legally defeases all of its remaining bonds under the provisions described above or the date on which it pays those obligations in full at maturity, whichever is earlier, to support the Wildfire Fund. Existing law entitles the department to recover, as a revenue requirement, amounts necessary to enable it to finance the bonds in support of the Wildfire Fund. Existing law requires those bond proceeds and revenues received by the department to be deposited in the Department of Water Resources Charge Fund. Existing law continuously appropriates the moneys in the Department of Water Resources Charge Fund to the department for specified purposes, including transfers to the Wildfire Fund and repayment of the bonds issued in support of the Wildfire Fund. This bill would authorize the department to issue bonds, in an aggregate amount of up to $3,000,000,000, the repayment of which, including interest, commences on the date on which the department has paid in full, at maturity, or legally defeases any outstanding bonds issued for the support of the Wildfire Fund or on January 1, 2036, whichever is later, to support the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Fund. The bill would entitle the department to recover, as a revenue requirement, amounts necessary to enable it to finance the bonds in support of the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Fund. The bill would require those bond proceeds and revenues received by the department to be deposited in the Department of Water Resources Charge Fund. The bill would continuously appropriate the moneys in the Department of Water Resources Charge Fund to the department for specified purposes, including transfers to the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Fund and repayment of the bonds issued for the support of the Wildfire Prevention and Community Resilience Fund. 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 certain of the above provisions would be codified in the act and would require action by the commission, a violation of which would be a crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 3289 of the Public Utilities Code proposed by SB 350 to be operative only if this bill and SB 350 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. 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 bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, the Stop Tobacco Access to Kids Enforcement (STAKE) Act, prohibits a person from selling or otherwise furnishing tobacco products, as defined, to a person under 21 years of age. Existing law also prohibits the use of tobacco products in county offices of education, on charter school or school district property, or near a playground or youth sports event, as specified. This bill would prohibit a tobacco retailer, or any of the tobacco retailer's agents or employees, from selling, offering for sale, or possessing with the intent to sell or offer for sale, a flavored tobacco product or a tobacco product flavor enhancer, as those terms are defined, except as specified. The bill would make a violation of this prohibition an infraction punishable by a fine of $250 for each violation. The bill would state the intent of the Legislature that these provisions do not preempt or prohibit the adoption and implementation of local ordinances that impose greater restrictions on the access to tobacco products than the restrictions imposed by the bill, as specified. The bill would state that its provisions are severable. By creating a new crime, 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.
(1) Existing law requires the Director of Forestry and Fire Protection to identify areas of the state as very high fire hazard severity zones based on specified criteria. Existing law requires a local agency, within 30 days after receiving a transmittal from the director that identifies very high fire hazard severity zones, to make the information available for public review, as provided. This bill, among other things, would also require the director to identify areas of the state as moderate and high fire hazard severity zones and would require a local agency to make this information available for public review and comment, as provided. By expanding the responsibility of a local agency, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) Existing law requires a person who owns, leases, controls, operates, or maintains an occupied dwelling or structure in, upon, or adjoining a mountainous area, forest-covered land, brush-covered land, grass-covered land, or land that is covered with flammable material that is within a very high fire hazard severity zone, as designated by a local agency, or a building or structure in, upon, or adjoining those areas or lands within a state responsibility area, to maintain a defensible space of 100 feet from each side and from the front and rear of the structure, as specified. Existing law authorizes a greater distance than specified above on the specified land in a very high fire hazard severity zone. Existing law specifies that clearance beyond the property line may only be required if state law, local ordinance, rule, or regulation includes certain findings and specifies that clearance on adjacent property shall only be conducted following written consent by the adjacent landowner. This bill, among other things, would instead provide that fuel modification beyond the property line may only be required by state law, local ordinance, rule, or regulation in order to maintain the 100 feet of defensible space. This bill would also require the Director of Forestry and Fire Protection to establish a statewide program to allow qualified entities, as defined, to support and augment the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection in its defensible space and home hardening assessment and education efforts and to establish a common reporting platform for participating qualified entities to report defensible space and home hardening assessment data to the department. The bill would repeal this provision on January 1, 2025. Existing law requires the Office of the State Fire Marshal to develop a model defensible space program that is required to be made available for use by a city, county, or city and county in the enforcement of the above defensible space provisions. The program is required to have specified components, including general guidelines for creating and maintaining defensible space around structures, as provided. This bill would also include as a component of the model defensible space program, provisions for fuel modifications beyond the property line, as provided. The California Building Standards Law provides for the adoption of building standards by state agencies by requiring all state agencies that adopt or propose adoption of any building standard to submit the building standard to the California Building Standards Commission for approval or adoption. In the absence of a designated state agency, the commission is required to adopt specific building standards, as prescribed. Existing law requires the State Fire Marshal, in consultation with the Director of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Director of Housing and Community development, to propose specified fire protection building standards in fire hazard severity zones, including very high fire hazard severity zones, in state responsibility areas. This bill would require the State Fire Marshal and the Department of Housing and Community Development to propose, and the State Building Standards Commission to adopt, expanded application of the above-described specified building standards to high fire hazard severity zones. The bill would also require the State Fire Marshal and the Department of Housing and Community Development to consider, if it is appropriate, expanding application of these building standards to moderate fire hazard severity zones. This bill would also make other related changes. (3) Existing law appropriates specified moneys to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection for purposes of healthy forest and fire prevention programs and projects that improve forest health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by uncontrolled wildfires and to complete prescribed fire and other fuel reduction projects, as provided. This bill would require, on or before January 1, 2022, the department, in consultation with the State Air Resources Board and the California Forest Management Task Force, to report to the relevant fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature on moneys spent pursuant to the above provision, as provided. (4) Existing law requires the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to establish a local assistance grant program for fire prevention activities in the state. Existing law requires the local assistance grant program to establish a robust year-round fire prevention effort in and near fire threatened communities. Exiting law requires that the eligible activities include, among other things, fire prevention activities, as provided. Existing law permits the Director of Forestry and Fire Protection to authorize advance payments, not exceeding 25% of the total grant award, from a grant awarded pursuant to the local assistance grant program. Existing law requires the grantee to expend these funds from the advance payment within 6 months of receipt, as provided. This bill, among other things, would specify that the above-described fire prevention effort in and near fire threatened communities focus on increasing the protection of people, structures, and communities, as provided. The bill would define "fire threatened communities" as provided. The bill would specifically include vegetation management along roadways and driveways to reduce fire risk, public education outreach regarding making homes and communities more wildfire resilient, projects to reduce the flammability of structures and communities to prevent their ignition from wind-driven embers, and developing a risk reduction checklist for communities as part of the eligible activities, among other things, as provided. The bill would instead authorize an advance payment not exceeding 50% of the total grant award and would instead require the grantee to expend these funds within 12 months. This bill would require the department to develop and implement a training program, as provided, to train individuals to support and augment the department in its defensible space and home hardening assessment and public education efforts. The bill would require the department to issue a certification of completion to individuals who have successfully completed the training program. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2025. (5) Existing law requires the Director of Forestry and Fire Protection to provide grants to, or enter into contracts or other cooperative agreements with, specified entities for the implementation and administration of projects and programs to improve forest health and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Existing law requires all moneys, except for fines and penalties, collected by the State Air Resources Board, as part of a market-based compliance mechanism to reduce air emissions, to be deposited in the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and to be available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law requires that any project or program described above that is funded with moneys from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund complies with all statutory and program requirements applicable to the use of moneys from the fund. This bill would require the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, under Good Neighbor Authority agreements entered into between the state and the federal government, as provided, to establish a program for purposes of conducting landscape scale ecological restoration and fire resiliency projects on national forest lands, including the development of specified federal and state environmental protection documents for landscape scale ecological restoration and fire resiliency projects on national forest lands that are at least 25,000 acres. The bill would authorize the department to contract with Native American tribes, local governments, forest collaboratives, and qualified nongovernmental organizations to conduct restoration activities on federal forest lands and to develop the federal documents. (6) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Sections 51182 and 51189 of the Government Code and Section 4291 of the Public Resources Code proposed by AB 3074 to be operative only if this bill and AB 3074 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. (7) 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 the statutory provisions noted above.
Existing law establishes, among other housing programs, the Workforce Housing Reward Program, which requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to make local assistance grants to cities, counties, and cities and counties that provide land use approval to housing developments that are affordable to very low and low-income households. This bill, upon appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or other statute, would require the department to administer a program to provide incentives in the form of grants allocated as provided to local governments that rezone idle sites used for a big box retailer or a commercial shopping center to instead allow the development of workforce housing. The bill would define various terms for these purposes. In order to be eligible for a grant, the bill would require a local government, among other things, to apply to the department for an allocation of grant funds and provide documentation that it has met specified requirements, including certain labor-related requirements. The bill would make the allocation of these grants subject to appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or other statute. The bill would require the department to issue a Notice of Funding Availability for each calendar year in which funds are made available for these purposes. The bill would require that the amount of grant awarded to each eligible local government be equal to 7 times the average amount of annual sales and use tax revenue generated by each idle site identified in the local government's application over the 7 years immediately preceding the date of the local government's application, subject to certain modifications, and that the local government receive this amount in one lump-sum following the date of the local government's application. The bill, upon appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or other statute, would authorize the department to review, adopt, amend, and repeal guidelines to implement uniform standards or criteria that supplement or clarify the terms, references, or standards for this program and exempt those guidelines from the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act.