Sen. Melissa Hurtado

This measure would declare the month of September 2023 as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.

This measure would proclaim the month of October 2023 as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

This measure would declare the month of September 2023 as California Emergency Preparedness Month.

Existing law provides that all property has an owner, whether that owner is the state, and the property is public, or the owner is an individual, and the property is private. Existing law requires the Department of Food and Agriculture to promote and protect the agricultural industry of the state. Existing law requires the department to enhance, protect, and perpetuate the ability of the private sector to produce food and fiber in a way that benefits the general welfare and economy of the state. This bill would prohibit a hedge fund from purchasing, acquiring, leasing, or holding a controlling interest, as defined, in agricultural land within the State of California. The bill would define a "hedge fund," for these purposes, to mean a privately offered investment vehicle, foreign or domestic, that pools the contributions of private investors in order to invest in a variety of asset classes, such as securities, futures contracts, options, bonds, currencies, real estate, agricultural land, water, energy, and other resources or commodities. This bill would exempt from this prohibition any agricultural land held by a hedge fund before the bill's effective date. The bill would make land transferred in violation of these provisions subject to divestiture, as specified. Existing federal law requires any foreign person, defined to include foreign governments, who acquires or transfers any interest, other than a security interest, in agricultural land to submit to the United States Secretary of Agriculture a report containing specified information relating to, among other things, the type of interest the foreign person acquired or transferred and their legal name, address, and citizenship or country in which they are created or organized. Existing federal law requires the secretary every 6 months to transmit to each state department of agriculture a copy of each report that was submitted to the secretary in the most recent 6-month period and that involved agricultural land located in that state. This bill would require the Department of Food and Agriculture, in consultation with the appropriate boards or departments and based on the above-described reports from the United States Secretary of Agriculture, and other information the department deems appropriate, to compile an annual report containing, among other information, the total amount of agricultural land that is under hedge fund ownership, how that land is currently being put to use, and any legislative, regulatory, or administrative policy recommendations in light of the information from the annual report. This bill would require the department to publish the inaugural annual report on its website by December 31, 2025, and by March 31 every year thereafter. The bill would require the department to deliver copies of any recommendations for legislative policy changes contained in the report to the Governor and the Assembly and Senate Committees on Agriculture. The bill would require the department to be reimbursed for costs incurred for compiling data, printing, and mailing the report, as specified. The bill would make its provisions operative upon appropriation by the Legislature. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

This measure would recognize the month of January 2024 as National Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

This measure would designate, in perpetuity, the 4th week of January as Data Privacy Week and the last Sunday of January as Data Privacy Day.

Existing law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requires all groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins by the Department of Water Resources that are designated as basins subject to critical conditions of overdraft to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans by January 31, 2020, and requires all other groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans by January 31, 2022, except as specified. The act authorizes the State Water Resources Control Board to designate specified basins as probationary basins if certain conditions are met, including, but not limited to, that the department, in consultation with the board, determines that a groundwater sustainability plan is inadequate or that the groundwater sustainability program is not being implemented in a manner that will likely achieve the sustainability goal. Existing law requires the board, if it designates a basin as a probationary basin pursuant to specified conditions, to identify the specific deficiencies and potential remedies. Existing law authorizes the board to request the department, within 90 days of the designation, to provide technical recommendations to local agencies to remedy the deficiencies and to develop an interim plan for the probationary basin one year after the designation, as specified. This bill would require any groundwater sustainability agency that hires a third-party consulting firm to ensure that the integrity of the science being used to develop a groundwater sustainability plan is protected and the data is not sold. The bill would delete the authorizations for the board to request technical recommendations from the department. The bill would additionally place various requirements on the board in working with a groundwater sustainability agency, including, among other things, requiring the board to provide clear benchmarks and guidance for groundwater sustainability agencies to improve their groundwater management plans. This bill would require the Sustainable Groundwater Management Grant Program to allocate at least $50,000,000 of existing funds for a Critical Facilities Subsidence Mitigation subprogram, to be used for groundwater sustainability agencies that meet certain criteria and for certain purposes.

The Water Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014, approved by the voters as Proposition 1 at the November 4, 2014, statewide general election, authorizes the issuance of general obligation bonds in the amount of $7,545,000,000 to finance a water quality, supply, and infrastructure improvement program. The bond act provides that the sum of $260,000,000 is to be available for grants and loans for public water system infrastructure improvements and related actions to meet safe drinking water standards, ensure affordable drinking water, or both, as specified. Existing law requires the State Water Resources Control Board to deposit up to $2,500,000 of the $260,000,000 into the Drinking Water Capital Reserve Fund, to be available upon appropriation by the Legislature. Existing law requires the state board to administer the Drinking Water Capital Reserve Fund for the purpose of serving as matching funds for disadvantaged communities and requires the state board to develop criteria to implement this provision. This bill would require the state board to provide an analysis of the criteria to implement that provision to the Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Water and Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife on January 1, 2025, and every 2 years thereafter.