(1) The Habitat Restoration and Enhancement Act authorizes a project proponent to submit a habitat restoration or enhancement project to the Director of Fish and Wildlife for approval. Under the act, a habitat restoration or enhancement project is a project with the primary purpose of improving fish and wildlife habitat. The act requires the director to approve a habitat restoration or enhancement project if the director determines that specified conditions are met. Under the act, the director's approval of a habitat restoration or enhancement project is in lieu of any other permit, agreement, license, or other approval issued by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. The act makes moneys in the Habitat Restoration and Enhancement Account available to the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the purposes of administering and implementing the act. Existing law repeals the act on January 1, 2022. This bill would extend the operation of the act until January 1, 2027, and would require the department to submit a report on the implementation of the act to the Legislature no later than December 31, 2025. (2) Under the Planning and Zoning Law, if a state or local agency requires a project proponent to transfer property to mitigate any adverse impact upon natural resources caused by permitting the development of a project or facility, the agency may authorize a governmental entity, special district, a nonprofit organization, a for-profit entity, a person, or another entity to hold title to and manage that property. Under existing law, if a state or local agency, in the development of its own project, is required to protect property to mitigate an adverse impact upon natural resources, the agency is authorized to take any action that the agency deems necessary in order to meet its mitigation obligations, including holding an endowment, as provided. Existing law provides that an endowment may be held by the same governmental entity, special district, or nonprofit organization that holds the property held for mitigation purposes, except as specified. Existing law requires the holder of an endowment to certify to the project proponent or the holder of the mitigation property or a conservation easement and the local or state agency that required the endowment that it meets specified requirements. Existing law repeals these provisions on January 1, 2022. This bill would instead repeal those provisions on January 1, 2027.
Sponsored bills
Existing law requires the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to, among other duties, establish standards for the issuance and renewal of credentials, certificates, and permits. Existing law requires the commission to develop, adopt, and administer a reading instruction competence assessment consisting of one or more instruments to measure an individual's knowledge, skill, and ability relative to effective reading instruction, as provided. Existing law requires the requirements for the issuance of the preliminary multiple subject teaching credential to include successful passage of one of specified components of the reading instruction competence assessment. This bill would additionally authorize the passage of a combination of those specified components, as approved by the commission to meet that requirement, and would extend these requirements to the issuance of a preliminary education specialist credential. The bill would impose these requirements relating to the reading instruction competence assessment, as revised by this bill, until the commission ensures that an approved teaching assessment assesses candidates for a preliminary multiple subject credential and a preliminary education specialist credential for competence in instruction in literacy. The bill would authorize a holder of a preliminary multiple subject credential or a preliminary education specialist credential, who was unable to take the reading instruction competence assessment due to the closure of assessment centers during the COVID-19 pandemic and who must complete this requirement in order to earn a professional clear credential, if the reading instruction competence assessment is no longer being administered, to complete this requirement through successful completion of an assessment required by another state that is identified by the commission as meeting certain requirements. Existing law requires, as a minimum requirement for a preliminary multiple or single subject teaching credential, the satisfactory completion of a program of professional preparation that includes a teaching performance assessment that meets specified requirements and has been approved by the commission. Existing law requires an internship program to provide interns who meet entrance criteria and are accepted to a multiple subject teaching credential program, a single subject teaching credential program, or a level 1 education specialist credential program that provides instruction to individuals with mild to moderate disabilities the opportunity to choose an early program completion option, culminating in a 5-year preliminary teaching credential. Existing law requires that this early program completion option be made available to interns who meet specified requirements, including, among others, that the intern pass the teaching performance assessment. This bill would require the commission, by July 1, 2025, to ensure that an approved teaching performance assessment assess all candidates, including intern candidates, for a preliminary multiple subject credential and a preliminary education specialist credential for competence in instruction in literacy, including, but not limited to, evidence-based methods of teaching foundational reading skills, as specified. The bill would make other revisions relating to those internship programs, as provided. Existing law specifies the minimum requirements for the preliminary multiple or single subject teaching credential, including, among other things, a baccalaureate degree or higher degree from a regionally accredited institution of higher education, demonstration of basic skills proficiency, satisfactory completion of a program of professional preparation, verification of subject matter competence, and the study of alternative methods of developing English language skills, including the study of reading, among all pupils, including those for whom English is a second language, in accordance with the commission's standards of program quality and effectiveness. This bill would extend all of those requirements to the education specialist teaching credential, as specified. The bill would change the requirement of the study of alternative methods of developing English language skills to a requirement of the study of effective means of teaching literacy to all pupils, as specified. The bill would allow coursework completed at a community or junior college that is regionally accredited by specified accrediting agencies to count towards the verification of subject matter competence requirement. The bill would require the commission to ensure that its standards of program quality and effectiveness and the teaching performance expectations for the preparation of candidates for the preliminary multiple subject credential, the preliminary English language arts credential, and the preliminary education specialist credential include the study of effective means of teaching literacy, as specified.
The California Land Conservation Act of 1965, otherwise known as the Williamson Act, authorizes a city or county to contract with a landowner to limit the use of agricultural land located in an agricultural preserve designated by the city or county, whereby the landowner agrees to continue using the property for that purpose, and the city or county agrees to value the land accordingly for purposes of property taxation, as specified. Existing law authorizes the cancellation of a Williamson Act contract under certain circumstances, as provided. Under the act, the board of supervisors or city council may grant tentative approval for a cancellation by petition of a landowner as to all or any part of land subject to a contract, as specified. Prior to any action by the board or council giving tentative approval to the cancellation of any contract, the county assessor is required to determine the current fair market value of the land as though it were free of the contractual restriction, and requires the assessor to send the fair market value to the Department of Conservation, hereafter department, at the same time the assessor sends the value to the landowner. Existing law provides for a certificate of tentative cancellation upon tentative approval of a petition by a landowner accompanied by a proposal for a specified alternative use of the land, as provided. Existing law requires the board of supervisors or city council to provide notice to the department related to cancellation of the contract as well as in other specified instances. This bill would revise and recast these provisions to no longer require the assessor to provide notice to the department and to require the board of supervisors or city council to provide notice to the department if the certificate of tentative cancellation is withdrawn, as specified. The bill would remove various other requirements to provide the department with notice, except as provided. Under existing law, if either the landowner or the city or county desires in any year not to renew the contract, that party is required serve written notice of nonrenewal of the contract upon the other party in advance of the annual renewal date of the contract under specified timelines. The city or county is required to serve notice on the department, as specified, in the case of nonrenewal by a landowner or expiration of a contract. This bill would, similarly, remove the requirement to serve notice on the department of nonrenewal by a landowner or expiration of a contract. Existing law authorizes the department and the landowner to agree on a cancellation value of the land and requires the agreement to be transmitted to the county board of supervisors or the city council as specified. This bill would remove that provision. Existing law requires the department to submit a report to the Legislature on or before May 1 of every other year regarding the implementation of the act, and containing specified information required to be provided to the Legislature. This bill would revise and recast that provision to require the department to, on or before May 1, post information regarding the implementation of the act on its internet website instead of providing a report to the Legislature, and would revise the specified information required. Existing law requires each city or county in which an agricultural preserve is located to provide the department with a map of the location of all agricultural preserves. This bill would revise and recast that provision to instead require the city or county to provide the department with GIS data files, by January 30 of each year, of all agricultural preserves and Williamson Act contracted land. Existing law requires that a board of supervisors or city council provide the director of the department with a sample of a form contract when a new contract is used. This bill would remove that provision. Existing law authorizes the department to approve cancellation of a farmland security contract, as provided. This bill would remove that provision. Existing law authorizes enforcement of certain provisions of the act by mandamus proceedings by the local governing body or by the department. The bill would remove the reference to the department. Existing law provides that if the landowner wishes to pay a cancellation fee when a formal review has been requested, that the landowner pay the fee required in the current certificate of cancellation and provide security determined to be adequate by the department for 20% of the cancellation fee based on the assessor's valuation. The bill would remove the reference to the department. This bill would make other conforming changes.
(1) Existing law requires the regulation of health insurance policies by the Department of Insurance under the guidance of the Insurance Commissioner. Under existing law, the department regulates individual, small employer, and large employer health insurance policies, as defined. Existing law requires an individual or small group health insurance policy issued to include coverage for essential health benefits, as defined. This bill would require a large group health insurance policy issued, amended, or renewed on or after July 1, 2022, to cover medically necessary basic health care services, as defined. The bill would authorize the commissioner to adopt regulations to implement these provisions. The bill would require these provisions to apply to an individual, group, or blanket disability insurance policy if a specified condition is met. (2) Existing law prohibits a health insurer or agent or broker from, directly or indirectly, from among other things, employing marketing practices or benefit designs that will have the effect of discouraging the enrollment of individuals with significant health needs or discriminating based on an individual's race, color, national origin, present or predicted disability, age, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, expected length of life, degree of medical dependency, quality of life, or other health conditions. This bill would, with respect to large group health insurance, prohibit an insurer and its officials, employees, agents, and representatives from directly or indirectly employing marketing practices or benefit designs that have the effect of discouraging the enrollment of individual on the above-described protected classifications. An insurer that violates this provision would be liable for an administrative penalty of not more than $2,500 for the first violation, and not more than $5,000 for the second. The bill would also subject an insurer that violates this provision with a frequency that indicates a general practice or commits a knowing violation to an administrative penalty of not less than $15,000, and not more than $100,000 for each violation.
Existing law creates, in the Labor and Workforce Development Agency, the Employment Development Department, which is vested with the duties, purposes, responsibilities, and jurisdiction with respect to job creation activities. The department is authorized to study and make recommendations as to actions that might tend to do several things, including, but not limited to, promoting the prevention of unemployment and the stabilization of employment, reducing and preventing unemployment, and establishing the most effective methods of providing economic security through all forms of social insurance. This bill would require the department to develop and, upon appropriation by the Legislature, implement a recession plan to prepare for an increase in unemployment insurance compensation benefits claims due to an economic recession. The bill would require the plan to detail how to respond to economic downturns with a predetermined strategy that has considered the full effect on the department's operations, and include, but not be limited to, identifying the lessons learned from previous economic downturns, identifying ways to improve self-serve services to avoid long wait times to speak to staff, and enhancing claims processing tools to ensure that the department's identity verification processes are as robust as possible. The bill would require the department to provide a copy of the recession plan to specified legislative committees and the Department of Finance by March 1, 2022, and to update the recession plan and provide a copy to specified legislative committees and the Department of Finance every 2nd year thereafter.
Existing law, the Control, Regulate and Tax Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA) , approved by the voters at the November 8, 2016, statewide general election, regulates the cultivation, distribution, transport, storage, manufacturing, testing, processing, sale, and use of marijuana for nonmedical purposes by people 21 years of age and older. The existing Medicinal and Adult-Use Cannabis Regulation and Safety Act (MAUCRSA) , among other things, consolidates the licensure and regulation of commercial medicinal and adult-use cannabis activities. MAUCRSA prohibits cannabis and cannabis products from being sold unless a representative sample of specified batches has been tested by a licensed testing laboratory. MAUCRSA requires the testing laboratory to issue a certificate of analysis for selected lots of each batch to report specified information, including the content of specified compounds and contaminants. AUMA authorizes the Legislature to amend by majority vote certain provisions of the act to implement specified substantive provisions, provided that the amendments are consistent with and further the purposes and intent of AUMA. This bill would implement the above provisions of AUMA by requiring the Department of Cannabis Control, on or before January 1, 2023, to establish one or more standardized cannabinoids test methods to be used by all testing laboratories.
Existing law requires the State Air Resources Board to complete, approve, and implement a comprehensive strategy to reduce emissions of short-lived climate pollutants in the state to achieve, among other things, a reduction in the statewide emissions of methane by 40%. Existing law requires the methane emissions reduction goals to include specified targets to reduce the landfill disposal of organics. Existing law requires the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery, in consultation with the state board, to adopt regulations to achieve those targets for reducing organic waste in landfills, and authorizes those regulations to require local jurisdictions to impose requirements on generators or other relevant entities within their jurisdiction, to authorize local jurisdictions to impose penalties on generators for noncompliance, and to include penalties to be imposed by the department for noncompliance. This bill would authorize a local jurisdiction facing continuing violations that commence during the 2022 calendar year of those regulations to submit to the department no later than March 1, 2022, a notification of intent to comply, as prescribed. For violations of the regulations that are disclosed in a notification that is approved by the department, the bill would require the department to waive administrative civil penalties for the violations if the local jurisdiction implements the actions proposed in the notification to remedy the violations. The bill would authorize the department, notwithstanding those regulations, to establish any maximum compliance deadline in a corrective action plan that it determines to be necessary and appropriate under the circumstances for the correction of a violation of the regulations. The bill would authorize the department to adopt emergency regulations it determines to be necessary to implement and enforce these provisions.
Existing law, the End of Life Option Act, until January 1, 2026, authorizes an adult who meets certain qualifications, and who has been determined by their attending physician to be suffering from a terminal disease, as defined, to make a request for an aid-in-dying drug for the purpose of ending their life. Existing law establishes the procedures for making these requests, including that 2 oral requests be made a minimum of 15 days apart, specified forms to request an aid-in-dying drug be submitted, under specified circumstances, and a final attestation be completed. Existing law requires specified information to be documented in the individual's medical record, including, among other things, all oral and written requests for an aid-in-dying drug. This bill would allow for an individual to qualify for aid-in-dying medication by making 2 oral requests a minimum of 48 hours apart. The bill would eliminate the requirement that an individual who is prescribed and ingests aid-in-dying medication make a final attestation. The bill would require that the date of all oral and written requests be documented in an individual's medical record and would require that upon a transfer of care, that record be provided to the qualified individual. The bill would extend the operation of the act until January 1, 2031, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program by extending the operation of crimes for specified violations of the act. Existing law makes participation in activities authorized pursuant to the act voluntary, and makes individual health care providers immune from liability for refusing to engage in activities authorized pursuant to its provisions, including providing information about the act or referring an individual to a provider who prescribes aid-in-dying medication. This bill would require a health care provider who is unable or unwilling to participate under the act to inform the individual seeking an aid-in-dying medication that they do not participate, document the date of the individual's request and the provider's notice of their objection, and transfer their relevant medical record upon request. Existing law authorizes a health care provider to prohibit its employees, independent contractors, or other persons or entities, including other health care providers, from participating under the act, including acting as a consulting physician, while on the premises owned or under the management or direct control of that prohibiting health care provider, or while acting within the course and scope of any employment by, or contract with, the prohibiting health care provider. This bill would instead authorize a health care entity to prohibit employees and contractors, as specified, from participating under the act while on the entity's premises or in the course of their employment. The bill would prohibit a health care provider or health care entity from engaging in false, misleading, or deceptive practices relating to their willingness to qualify an individual or provide a prescription for an aid-in-dying medication to a qualified individual. The bill would require a health care entity to post its current policy regarding medical aid in dying on its internet website. 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 prohibits a state agency from sending any outgoing United States mail, as defined, to an individual that contains personal information about that individual, including, but not limited to, the individual's social security number, unless that personal information is contained within sealed correspondence and cannot be viewed from the outside of that sealed correspondence. Existing law also prohibits, commencing on or before January 1, 2023, a state agency from sending any outgoing United States mail to an individual that contains the individual's social security number, except as provided. Existing law requires state agencies that are unable to comply with this prohibition to submit an annual corrective action plan to the Legislature until it is in compliance. Existing law makes the corrective action plan and related correspondence confidential and prohibits their public disclosure. This bill would require an annual corrective action plan to contain specified information and to be submitted to the Legislature every December 15. If the Employment Development Department fails to comply by January 1, 2023, the bill would require, upon appropriation by the Legislature, the department to provide access to and pay for identity theft monitoring for any individual who receives outgoing United States mail from the department that contains full social security numbers in violation of the bill's provisions. (2) Existing law establishes the department within the Labor and Workforce Development Agency and sets forth its powers and duties, including administration of the unemployment and disability insurance programs for California. Existing law requires the department to pay unemployment compensation benefits to unemployed individuals meeting specified requirements, to periodically review policies and practices used to determine eligibility for and the amount of benefits in the unemployment insurance program, and to report to the Legislature, as specified. Under existing law, unemployment compensation benefits are paid from the Unemployment Fund, and the expenses for administering these provisions are paid from the Unemployment Administration Fund, which is continuously appropriated for these purposes. This bill would require the department, for purposes of unemployment compensation, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to comply with various reporting and review processes. The bill would set forth a timeline for the department to follow in implementing these tasks. In this regard, the bill would require the department, among other things, to report specified information regarding overpayments at least once every 6 months on its internet website, to immediately perform a risk assessment of its deferred workloads, and to develop a workload plan that prioritizes its deferred workloads based on that risk assessment. The bill would require the department to immediately begin modeling workload projections that account for possible scenarios that would cause a spike in unemployment insurance claims, as provided. This bill would require the department to revise its public dashboards with regard to the number of backlogged claims, as specified. The bill would require the department to determine the reasons that claimants cannot successfully complete their identity verification, as specified, and to identify the elements of the Benefit System Modernization that can assist the department in making timely payments. The bill would require the department to implement a formal policy that establishes a process for tracking and periodically analyzing the reasons why unemployment insurance claimants call for assistance and to regularly analyze this data, as specified, to improve its call center. This bill would require the department, by March 1, 2022, to designate a unit as responsible for coordinating all fraud prevention and detection, as specified. Existing law requires the Director of Employment Development to report to various committees of the Legislature by June 30 of each year on the department's fraud deterrence and detection activities. This bill would require that report to include an assessment of the effectiveness of the department's system of cross matching claims against information about incarcerated individuals, as specified. The bill would authorize the department to generalize, exclude, or redact details on fraud methods and tools to protect the fraud deterrence practices of the department. The bill would also remove an obsolete reference to a predecessor committee and would instead refer to the Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement. This bill would also require the department to request any personal identification information required from the claimant in accordance with the most recent federal National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800-63 standards, as specified. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.
(1) Existing law prohibits, during the prosecution of specified sex crimes, the admission of evidence of the manner in which the victim was dressed, when offered by either the prosecution or the defendant on the issue of consent, unless the court finds the evidence relevant and admissible in the interests of justice. This bill would prohibit the court from admitting evidence, in the above circumstances, of the manner in which the victim was dressed, upon a finding that the evidence is relevant and admissible in the interests of justice. (2) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 1103 of the Evidence Code proposed by AB 1171 to be operative only if this bill and AB 1171 are enacted and this bill is enacted last. (3) The California Constitution provides that relevant evidence shall not be excluded in any criminal proceeding except as provided by statute enacted by a 23 vote of the membership of each house of the Legislature. Because this bill would limit the admissibility of evidence in criminal proceedings, it would require a 23 vote.