(1) The Administrative Procedure Act governs the procedure for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of regulations by state agencies and for the review of those regulatory actions by the Office of Administrative Law. The act requires that state agencies proposing to adopt, amend, or repeal any administrative regulation assess the potential for adverse economic impact on California business enterprises and individuals, as specified. This bill would require the standardized economic assessment to consider additional factors, such as the benefits of the regulation and the extent to which it will achieve regulatory and statutory objectives. The bill would require agencies preparing the economic assessment to request a review of the assessment by the University of California, and to include any review by the university with the assessment. The bill would require the Department of Finance to adopt regulations, on or before June 30, 2013, to guide agencies in conducting the standardized economic assessments, as specified. This bill, commencing January 1, 2014, would make the standardized economic assessment requirements applicable only to a proposed regulation that the agency has concluded may have an economic impact of more than $50,000,000. (2) The act requires an agency that seeks to adopt a regulation to issue a notice of proposed action that contains prescribed information, including an informative digest that includes, among other things, a policy statement overview explaining the broad objectives of the regulation. This bill would also require the policy statement to explain the specific benefits anticipated by the regulation and evaluate whether the proposed regulation is inconsistent or incompatible with existing regulations. (3) The act requires an agency to prepare and submit to the office with an adopted regulation a final statement of reasons that includes, among other things, a determination that no alternative considered by the regulation would be more effective, or equally effective and less burdensome, than the regulation, and an explanation setting forth reasons for rejecting alternatives that would lessen the adverse economic impact of the regulation. This bill would require this determination to be based, in part, on the economic impact assessment, if an assessment is required. The bill would also require that the economic impact assessment be included in the final statement of reasons as supporting information for an explanation for rejecting alternatives that would lessen the adverse economic impact of the regulation. (4) The act establishes a procedure for a priority review of existing regulations by the office, pursuant to a request by specified committees of the Legislature, to determine if a regulation continues to meet prescribed standards. This bill would authorize any interested person to petition an agency to perform an economic analysis on an existing regulation. The bill would require the agency to conduct the analysis, except in specified circumstances. (5) The act requires the office to approve, or disapprove and return to the agency, all regulations adopted pursuant to the act using specified standards. The act requires the office to return a regulation to the agency in specified circumstances, including failure to comply with the requirement to assess the economic impact of the proposed regulation. This bill would provide, for purposes of that provision, that noncompliance includes failing to complete an economic impact assessment, if one is required, as specified. The bill would specify additional criteria that would require the return of a proposed regulation, as specified. (6) The act exempts the Public Utilities Commission, the State Water Resources Control Board, and the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission from specified provisions of the act. This bill would revise the exemptions and require these entities to comply with specified requirements regarding the performance of the economic analysis. (7) Existing law authorizes the Joint Legislative Budget Committee to appoint a Legislative Analyst, who has specified duties. This bill would require the Legislative Analyst to prepare a benefit-cost analysis, as specified, of proposed legislation that he or she has identified as having a potential cost to the California economy of more than $50,000,000 in one year, or that would adversely affect in a material way the economy, a sector of the economy, productivity, competition, jobs, the environment, or the public health or safety.
Sponsored bills
Existing law creates the continuously appropriated Medical Providers Interim Payment Fund, for the purposes of paying Medi‑Cal providers, providers of drug treatment services for persons infected with HIV, and providers of services for the developmentally disabled, for services provided on or after July 1 of the fiscal year for which a budget has not yet been enacted, as specified, or if there is a deficiency in the Medi‑Cal budget in any fiscal year. Existing law transfers, for each fiscal year in which these payments are necessary, up to $1,000,000,000 from the General Fund, in the form of loans, and appropriates $1,000,000,000 from the Federal Trust Fund, to the Medical Providers Interim Payment Fund. This bill would, instead, transfer up to $2,000,000,000 from the General Fund, in the form of loans, and appropriate $2,000,000,000 from the Federal Trust Fund, to the Medical Providers Interim Payment Fund for each fiscal year in which these payments are necessary, as specified.
(1) Under the California Constitution, whenever the Legislature or a state agency mandates a new program or higher level of service on a local government, including school districts and other local educational agencies, the state is required to provide a subvention of funds to reimburse the local government for the costs of the program or increased level of service, with specified exceptions. This bill would enact the Streamlined Temporary Mandate Process Act of 2011 to be a voluntary, temporary, streamlined alternative mandate reimbursement process for local educational agencies, as defined, to be in operation from the 2011–12 fiscal year to the 2014–15 fiscal year, inclusive. If a governing board of a local educational agency chooses not to participate in this process, this bill would require the governing board to explain the reasons for its decision at a duly noticed public meeting, thereby imposing a state-mandated local program. The bill would list 38 mandates currently applicable to local educational agencies that would be suspended for the 2011–12 fiscal year to the 2014–15 fiscal year, inclusive. The bill would further provide that a local educational agency choosing to participate in the streamlined temporary mandate process would annually self-certify that it has complied with the underlying intentions of all statutes governing the operation of the mandates to which the bill applies, except for any requirements regarding compliance and claiming issues. The bill would require that a participating local educational agency be found by an auditor to be in material compliance with the requirements of the bill, as specified. The bill would require that funding for the streamlined temporary mandate process be based upon an equal amount per unit of prior-year enrollment for each of the participating local educational agencies, with the funding level to be determined by an appropriation made in the annual Budget Act. The bill would require that there be an appropriation, of no less than an unspecified amount, in each annual Budget Act during the term of this bill that would be adequate to encourage participation by eligible local educational agencies in the streamlined temporary mandate process. The bill would require the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish and convene a task force, including specified membership, charged with developing a permanent state process for mandate reimbursement that is cost effective for local educational agencies and responsive to state policy goals. These provisions would become inoperative on July 1, 2015, and would be repealed on January 1, 2016. (2) 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 these statutory provisions. (3) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law makes it unlawful for a person to evade or attempt to evade the payment of tolls or other charges on a vehicular crossing or toll highway and imposes a civil penalty for violation of this law. This bill would authorize a law enforcement officer to impound, or cause to be impounded, a vehicle that is registered to a chronic evader of toll payments, as defined, until all outstanding tolls and all required penalties are paid to the issuing agency.
Existing law prohibits, subject to certain exceptions, an employer from requiring an employee to work more than 5 hours per day without providing a meal period and, notwithstanding that provision, authorizes the Industrial Welfare Commission to adopt a working condition order permitting a meal period to commence after 6 hours of work if the order is consistent with the health and welfare of affected employees. Existing law exempts from these provisions employees in a construction occupation, commercial drivers, employees in the security services industry employed as security officers, and employees of electrical and gas corporations or local publicly owned electric utilities, as defined, if those employees are covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement containing specified terms, including meal period provisions. This bill would add employees employed in the transportation industry, as defined, to the list of employees exempt from the above provisions.
(1) Existing law requires, if a person is convicted of a specified driving-under-the-influence (DUI) offense and the offense occurred within 10 years of 2, or 3 or more prior specified DUI offenses that resulted in a conviction, that the person be punished by enhanced penalties, and that the person's privilege to operate a motor vehicle be revoked by the department for a period of 2, 3, 4, or 5 years, as applicable. This bill would delete the 10-year limitation. In addition, the bill would increase the punishment for driving under the influence of alcohol or a drug without causing bodily injury with 2 prior separate convictions for specified DUI offenses, from imprisonment in a county jail for not less than 120 days nor more than one year, to imprisonment in the state prison, nor in a county jail for not less than 180 days no more than one year. (2) Existing law requires the driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to a person, other than himself or herself, or in the death of a person to immediately stop the vehicle at the scene of the accident and provide specified personal information to the injured person or the occupants of the other vehicle and to any traffic or police officer at the scene of the accident. In the case of the death of any person and the absence of a traffic or police officer at the scene of the accident, the driver of the vehicle is required to report the accident to the nearest office of the Department of the Highway Patrol or office of a duly authorized police authority and submit the required personal information. Existing law requires, among other things, that a person who flees the scene of the crime after committing vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence, vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, or gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, upon conviction of any of those crimes, in addition and consecutive to the punishment prescribed, be punished by an additional term of imprisonment of 5 years in the state prison. This bill would add murder to the above-described crimes, thereby subjecting a person who flees the scene of the crime after committing murder, upon a conviction, to an additional 5-year state prison term.
Existing law, the California Community Care Facilities Act, provides for the licensure and regulation of community care and residential facilities by the State Department of Social Services. This bill would make technical, nonsubstantive changes to these provisions.
Existing law creates various regulatory boards within the Department of Consumer Affairs. Existing law authorizes health-related boards to adopt regulations requiring licensees to display their license or registration in the locality in which they are treating patients and to make specified disclosures to patients. This bill would make nonsubstantive, technical changes to that provision.
Existing law, the Veterinary Medicine Practice Act, provides for the licensure and registration of veterinarians and registered veterinary technicians by the Veterinary Medical Board and makes a violation of the act a crime. Under existing law, a person practices veterinary medicine when he or she, among other things, represents himself or herself as engaged in the practice of veterinary medicine.This bill would additionally provide that a person practices veterinary medicine when he or she advertises himself or herself as engaged in the practice of veterinary medicine.Existing law makes it unlawful for any person to practice veterinary medicine without a license and prohibits a person from using the title "registered veterinary technician" unless he or she has satisfied the requirements for registration. Existing law requires the board to prioritize its investigative and prosecutorial resources to ensure that disciplinary cases against veterinarians and registered veterinary technicians are handled expeditiously.This bill would provide that, if upon completion of an inspection or investigation, the board's executive officer has probable cause to believe that an unlicensed person acting as a veterinarian or registered veterinarian technician has violated the act, he or she may issue a civil citation, as specified, and would provide for the person cited to contest the citation. The bill would also authorize the executive officer to seek injunctive relief, as specified. The bill would also provide that failure to comply with a citation is a misdemeanor, and would designate the distribution of fine moneys collected through convictions of that crime.By changing the definition of a 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.
Existing law prescribes, in accordance with federal law, the powers of the protection and advocacy agency, which is a private, nonprofit corporation charged with protecting and advocating for the rights of persons with developmental disabilities and mental disorders. This bill would make a technical, nonsubstantive change to the law relating to the protection and advocacy agency.