Sen. Robert M. Hertzberg

Existing law prohibits a provision in a settlement agreement that prevents the disclosure of factual information relating to certain claims of sexual assault, sexual harassment, or harassment or discrimination based on sex, that are filed in a civil or administrative action. Existing law provides that a court may consider the pleadings and other papers in the record, or any other findings of the court, in determining the factual foundation of the causes of action specified in these provisions. This bill would delete the specific authorization that a court may consider other findings of the court.

Existing federal law allows deductions from gross income for attorney fees and court costs in connection with an action involving a claim of specified provisions. The End Double Taxation of Successful Civil Claims Act would allow deductions from gross income for attorney fees and court costs in connection with any action. This measure would urge the Congress and the President of the United States to enact the End Double Taxation of Successful Civil Claims Act.

Existing law requires litter receptacles to be placed in all public places in the state, as specified, and provides that any person owning or operating any establishment or public place in which litter receptacles are required to be placed shall procure, place, and maintain those receptacles at that person's own expense on the premises. This bill would make nonsubstantive changes to those provisions.

(1) Existing law requires a person engaged in a trade or business who negotiates primarily in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, or Korean, before entering into specified contracts or agreements, to deliver to the other party a translation of the contract or agreement in the language in which the contract or agreement was negotiated, including a loan or extension of credit secured other than by real property, or unsecured, for use primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. This bill would specify that "loan or extension of credit" includes a contract or agreement to finance or secure a bail bond or immigration bond for the release of a detained individual. (2) Existing law, the Consumers Legal Remedies Act, makes unlawful certain acts identified as unfair methods of competition and unfair or deceptive acts or practices undertaken by a person in a transaction for the sale or lease of goods or services to a consumer, and defines "services" and "consumer" for purposes of those provisions. This bill would include within the definition of "services" the securing or financing of a bail bond or immigration bond for the release of an individual from detention and would define "consumer" to include an individual who, for the purpose of their release or another person's release from detention, seeks or acquires services to finance or secure a bail bond or immigration bond. (3) Existing law, the Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, prohibits debt collectors from engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the collection of consumer debts and defines "consumer debt" and "consumer credit" for purposes of that act. This bill would include within the definition of "consumer debt" money owing from a transaction for services to finance or secure a bail bond or immigration bond for the release of a detained individual. (4) Existing law requires a creditor to deliver to a person a specified notice before the person is obligated on a consumer credit contract, and defines "consumer credit contract" for those purposes to include loans or extensions of credit secured by other than real property, or unsecured, for use primarily for personal, family, or household purposes. This bill would specify that "loans or extensions of credit" includes an agreement or contract between an individual and another party to finance or secure a bail bond or immigration bond for the release of an individual from detention. (5) This bill would declare that the changes are declaratory of existing law and would make a legislative finding to that effect.

Existing law, the Financial Institutions Law, regulates the activities of various financial entities, including commercial banks, industrial banks, trust companies, credit unions, and savings and loan associations. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation that would enable individuals who are unbanked or underbanked to gain better access to banking and related financial services.

Existing law, the Veterinary Medicine Practice Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of veterinary medicine by the Veterinary Medical Board in the Department of Consumer Affairs. Existing law authorizes the Veterinary Medical Board to deny, revoke, or suspend a license or registration or assess a fine for a violation of specified acts, including the employment of anyone but a veterinarian licensed in this state to demonstrate the use of biologics in the treatment of animals. A violation of the act is a crime. Existing law prohibits a person from engaging in the production of animal blood and blood component products, as defined, for retail sale and distribution except in a commercial blood bank for animals licensed by the Secretary of Food and Agriculture and requires the secretary to license commercial blood banks for animals that meet specified requirements. Existing law exempts licensed private veterinarians who collect blood or blood products solely for use in their own practice from these provisions regulating and licensing commercial blood banks for animals and biologics. Existing law defines animal, for the purposes of these provisions, as any domesticated fowl or nonhuman mammal and any wild fowl, bird, or mammal that is reduced to captivity. A violation of these provisions is a crime. This bill, not withstanding any law, commencing January 1, 2022, would prohibit a person from engaging in the production of canine blood and blood component products or biologics for retail sale and distribution unless that person is licensed as a canine blood bank by the Secretary of Food and Agriculture, among other specified requirements, including the requirement that the operations are performed under the direct supervision of a licensed veterinarian or board-certified specialist. The bill would prohibit a canine blood bank from paying a person for canine blood or blood component products and would require a canine blood bank to keep specified records. By expanding the scope of existing crimes, 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.

The California Constitution requires that the water resources of the state be put to beneficial use to the fullest extent of which they are capable and that the waste or unreasonable use or unreasonable method of use of water be prevented. Existing law declares that the use of potable domestic water for certain nonpotable uses is a waste or an unreasonable use of water if recycled water is available, as determined by the State Water Resources Control Board, and other requirements are met. Under existing law, the state board and the 9 California regional water quality control boards prescribe waste discharge requirements in accordance with the federal national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit program established by the federal Clean Water Act and the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act. This bill would declare, except in compliance with the bill's provisions, that the discharge of treated wastewater from ocean outfalls is a waste and unreasonable use of water. The bill would require each wastewater treatment facility that discharges through an ocean outfall and affiliated water suppliers to reduce the facility's annual flow as compared to the average annual dry weather wastewater discharge baseline volume, as prescribed, by at least 50% on or before January 1, 2030, and by at least 95% on or before January 1, 2040. The bill would subject the owner or operator of a wastewater treatment facility, as well as the affiliated water suppliers, to a civil penalty of $2,000 per acre-foot of water above the required reduction in overall volume discharge for the failure to meet these deadlines. The bill would require a holder of a NPDES permit authorizing the discharge of wastewater through an ocean outfall and affiliated water suppliers to submit and update a plan to meet these requirements to the executive director of the state board, as specified. The bill would also require this NPDES permitholder and affiliated water suppliers to submit on or before January 1, 2027, and by January 1 every 5 years thereafter, to the executive director of the state board a certain report containing, among other things, the progress toward meeting the reduction in annual flow deadlines. The bill would subject a permitholder and affiliated water suppliers to a penalty of up to $10,000 for failing to submit a plan or report by the deadline for the plan or report. The bill would require the state board to submit a report to the Governor and the Legislature on or before January 1, 2026, and by January 1 every 5 years thereafter, on the implementation of these provisions. The bill would make a permitholder and affiliated water suppliers that fail to timely submit a report ineligible for a state loan or grant until the delinquent report has been submitted.

(1) Existing law, the California Beverage Container Recycling and Litter Reduction Act, requires the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery to annually designate convenience zones and requires that at least one certified recycling center that meets certain requirements be located within every convenience zone. Existing law authorizes the department to grant a convenience zone an exemption from certain redemption requirements, including certain dealer and recycling center redemption requirements, based on certain factors. Existing law limits the total number of exemptions that may be granted to 35% of the total number of convenience zones identified as having one or more of those factors applicable. This bill would increase the total number of exemptions that may be granted to 50% of the number identified as eligible. The bill would require the department to review exemptions every 5 years to determine if each exemption still meets the prescribed exemption criteria. (2) The act requires dealers within a convenience zone where no recycling location has been established, or within a convenience zone that is unserved for 60 days and not exempt from convenience zone requirements, to submit an affidavit to the department stating that the dealer has met specified standards for redemption, including, among others, that the dealer is redeeming all empty beverage container types at all open cash registers or at one designated location on the dealer's premises, during all hours that the dealer is open for business. If the dealer does not submit that affidavit, existing law requires the dealer to pay $100 per day to the department, for deposit in the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund, a continuously appropriated fund described in (3) , until a recycling location is established or until the dealer meets the standards for redemption specified in the affidavit provision. This bill would revise these convenience zone redemption duties and exempt from those duties dealers with gross annual sales of less than $2,000,000 and dealers that are not supermarkets and that have less than 5,000 square feet of interior retail space. The bill, until January 1, 2022, would also exempt certain other dealers from these requirements. (3) The act establishes the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund and, except for administrative costs, continuously appropriates moneys in the fund to the department for specified purposes, including the amount necessary to pay handling fees to certain types of recyclers to provide an incentive for the redemption of empty beverage containers in convenience zones. This bill would require the department to offer a handling fee payment from the fund to certain certified recyclers within unserved convenience zones. The bill would make an appropriation by changing the terms and conditions under which the department is authorized to make payments from a continuously appropriated fund. The bill, until July 1, 2022, would require the handling fee to be set at the rate in effect on July 1, 2015. The bill would authorize the department, until July 1, 2022, to annually expend $3,000,000 from the fund for specified supplemental handling fee payments to low-volume recycling centers. By authorizing the expenditure of a continuously appropriated fund for new purposes, this bill would make an appropriation. The bill would require the department to develop and submit to the Legislature recommended revisions to the handling fee provisions, as specified. (4) The act also continuously appropriates from the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund $10,500,000 annually for payments to cities and counties for beverage container recycling and litter cleanup activities. The act authorizes the department to withhold those payments to any city, county, or city and county that has restricted or prohibited the siting of a supermarket site, as provided. This bill would require the department, on or before July 1, 2020, to convene a public hearing, as specified, for purposes of discussing and receiving public testimony on the development of guidelines for evaluating the circumstances that might prompt the department to withhold beverage container recycling and litter cleanup activities payments to any city, county, or city and county that has restricted or prohibited the siting of a supermarket site. (5) The act requires the department to pay a market development payment to a reclaimer, as defined, for empty plastic beverage containers that have been collected for recycling in the state, and that the reclaimer washes and processes into flake, pellet, sheet, or any other form that is then usable as input for the manufacture of new plastic products, as defined, by product manufacturers in the state. The act also requires the department to pay a market development payment to a product manufacturer, as defined, for plastic flake, pellet, sheet, or any other form of plastic purchased from a reclaimer and used by that product manufacturer to manufacture a plastic product in the state. The act makes these provisions inoperative on July 1, 2022. This bill would delay the inoperative date of these provisions from July 1, 2022, to July 1, 2023. The act authorizes the department, for the 2019–20 fiscal year to the 2021–22 fiscal year, inclusive, to expend up to $10,000,000 each fiscal year from the fund for market development payments to reclaimers and product manufacturers. This bill would additionally authorize the department to expend up to $10,000,000 from the fund for those purposes for the 2022–23 fiscal year, thereby making an appropriation. (6) Under the act, the department is required to calculate a processing fee for each beverage container with a specified scrap value, which is required to be paid by beverage manufacturers for each beverage container sold or transferred to a distributor or dealer. The department is required to calculate the processing fee in a specified manner, so that the processing fee generally equals 65% of the processing payment that the department is required to pay to processors if the scrap value of the container having a refund value pursuant to the act is less than the cost of recycling. The department is required to determine the statewide weighted average cost to recycle each beverage container type by conducting a survey, as specified. The department is required to establish a processing fee account in the continuously appropriated California Beverage Container Recycling Fund for each material type and to deposit processing fees and other amounts in the applicable account. This bill would, for purposes of calculating processing payments, require the department, until January 1, 2022, to use the actual cost of recycling that was in effect on December 30, 2015, adjusted as specified. The bill would make an appropriation by changing the terms and conditions under which the department is authorized to make payments from a continuously appropriated fund. The bill would provide that the processing fees established by the department between the effective date of the bill and December 31, 2019, inclusive, shall not be higher than they would be absent these new provisions. The bill would require the department to suspend usage of surveys and calculations of recycling costs until at least January 1, 2021, and would authorize the department to redirect any contract funds for cost surveys and calculations to provide for a specified assessment and to utilize any contract funds available for the development of amendments to be recommended to the Legislature regarding specified provisions of the act. (7) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.

This measure would name the public street, circle, and plaza at 914 and 915 Capitol Mall in the City of Sacramento as the Willie L. Brown, Jr. Circle and Plaza. The measure would request the Department of General Services to determine the cost of erecting the appropriate signage commemorating this special designation and, upon receiving donations from nonstate sources, to cover that cost to erect that signage.

Existing law establishes in state government the Natural Resources Agency, consisting of various departments, including the Department of Parks and Recreation, the California Coastal Commission, and the State Coastal Conservancy. Existing law, the State Urban Parks and Healthy Communities Act, requires the Director of Parks and Recreation to develop a competitive grant program to assist state parks, specified state conservancies, urbanized and heavily urbanized local agencies, and community-based organizations within those jurisdictions to provide outdoor educational opportunities to children. This bill would require the Natural Resources Agency to develop and implement a community access program focused on engagement programs, technical assistance, or facilities that maximize safe and equitable physical admittance, especially for low-income and disadvantaged communities, to natural or cultural resources, community education programs, or recreational amenities. The bill would authorize the agency, in consultation with certain state entities, to develop a grant program within a state department for innovative transportation projects that provide disadvantaged and low-income youth with access to outdoor experiences, as specified.