Existing law establishes the Department of Toxic Substances Control, which regulates the handling and management of hazardous waste and hazardous materials, and establishes the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and the State Air Resources Board. Existing federal law sets action levels for lead in dust and emission standards for asbestos, and existing state law sets workplace standards for asbestos. Existing law authorizes local health officers to take specified actions to protect public health and establishes procedures for the remediation of certain contaminated properties. This bill would require the Department of Toxic Substances Control, in consultation with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment and other relevant coordinating agencies, on or before December 31, 2028, to develop and adopt regulations pertaining to lead and asbestos testing, remediation, and restoration after a wildfire and, on or before December 31, 2029, to develop and publish guidance pertaining to specified other contaminants, as provided. The bill would require the State Air Resources Board, on or before December 31, 2028, to develop and publish guidance on indoor air contaminants following residential smoke damage from a wildfire, as provided. The bill would provide that, until the adoption of the regulations and guidance, specified lead and asbestos standards shall apply for wildfire-caused lead and asbestos remediation, as provided. The bill would require the department, in collaboration with the State Department of Education and other relevant state agencies, no later than July 1, 2028, to develop advisory, nonregulatory guidance for schools after a wildfire, as provided. The bill would exempt the regulations and guidance from the Administrative Procedure Act. The bill would become operative only if AB 1795 of the 2025–26 Regular Session is enacted and takes effect on or before January 1, 2027.
Sponsored bills
Existing law requires the Governor to proclaim various days as days of remembrance or recognition. This bill would require the Governor to annually proclaim September 25 as Dolly Parton Day. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law vests the Public Utilities Commission with regulatory authority over public utilities, including electrical corporations. Existing law requires electrical corporations to construct, maintain, and operate their electrical lines and equipment in a manner that will minimize the risk of catastrophic wildfire, as specified. Existing law requires electrical corporations to annually prepare and submit wildfire mitigation plans to the Office of Energy Infrastructure Safety for review and approval. This bill would require the commission, on or before January 1, 2028, to update a general order to require each electrical corporation to remove all permanently abandoned transmission facilities, as specified. This bill would require that an electrical corporation's wildfire mitigation plan also include an accounting of all transmission facilities, including permanently abandoned transmission facilities, as defined, and include a plan for how and when each permanently abandoned transmission facility will be removed and the wildfire mitigation measures that are being implemented to prevent hazards, as provided. Under existing law, a violation of any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because a violation of a commission action implementing this bill's requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, establishes, within the office of the Governor, the Office of Emergency Services (OES) under the supervision of the Director of Emergency Services. Existing law requires OES to establish a standardized emergency management system for use by all emergency response agencies. This bill would require certain electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities, in cooperation with OES and other emergency service agencies, to establish procedures for the coordination of efforts between electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities and their representatives and those of emergency response agencies. The bill would require these electrical corporations and local publicly owned electric utilities to assign liaison representatives to work with each local emergency operations center, as provided. By imposing new duties on local publicly owned electric utilities, 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 specified reasons.
The Public Employees' Retirement Law (PERL) establishes the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS) to provide a defined benefit to members of the system based on final compensation, credited service, and age at retirement, subject to certain variations. Existing law creates the Public Employees' Retirement Fund, which is continuously appropriated for purposes of PERS, including depositing employer and employee contributions. Under the California Constitution, assets of a public pension or retirement system are trust funds. The California Public Employees' Pension Reform Act of 2013 (PEPRA) establishes a variety of requirements and restrictions on public employers offering defined benefit pension plans. In this regard, PEPRA restricts the amount of compensation that may be applied for purposes of calculating a defined pension benefit for a new member, as defined, by restricting it to specified percentages of the contribution and benefit base under a specified federal law with respect to old age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits. Existing law, the Teachers' Retirement Law, establishes the State Teachers' Retirement System (STRS) and creates the Defined Benefit Program of the State Teachers' Retirement Plan, which provides a defined benefit to members of the program, based on final compensation, creditable service, and age at retirement, subject to certain variations. This bill, for service performed on and after January 1, 2027, would prohibit the pensionable compensation for calendar year 2027 used to calculate the defined benefit paid to a new member of a retirement system subject to PEPRA who retires from the system from exceeding specified percentages of the contribution and benefit base under the specified federal law with respect to old age, survivors, and disability insurance benefits. The bill would make related, conforming changes to these provisions on pensionable compensation. The bill also would require a new member of STRS to be subject to specified limits of the Teachers' Retirement Law. PEPRA requires each retirement system that offers a defined benefit plan for safety members of the system to use one of 3 formulas for safety members, 2% at age 57, 2.5% at age 57, or 2.7% at age 57. This bill would establish new retirement formulas, for employees first hired on or after January 1, 2027, as 2.5% at age 55, 2.7% at age 55, or 3% at age 55, subject to certain exceptions. For new members hired on or after January 1, 2013, who are safety members, the bill would require employers to adjust the formulas for service performed on or after January 1, 2027, to offer the formula that has the same fraction at age 55 as the fraction at age 57 in the formula the employer offered pursuant to existing law. The bill would authorize a public employer and a recognized employee organization to negotiate a prospective increase to the retirement benefit formulas for safety members and new safety members, consistent with the formulas permitted under PEPRA, including the new formulas described above. This bill would authorize an employer and its employees to agree in a memorandum of understanding to be subject to a higher safety plan or a lower safety plan, subject to certain requirements, including that the memorandum of understanding is collectively bargained in accordance with applicable laws. By increasing the contribution to continuously appropriated funds, and by increasing expenditures from those funds, this bill would make an appropriation.
Existing law sets forth provisions, under the California Constitution, regarding the fundamental right to choose to have an abortion. Existing law, the Reproductive Privacy Act, prohibits the state from denying or interfering with a pregnant person's right to choose or obtain an abortion prior to viability of the fetus, or when the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the pregnant person. This bill, the Access to Safe Abortion Care Act, would make legislative findings about medication abortion, with a focus on use of the drugs mifepristone and misoprostol. Under the bill, the Legislature would reaffirm that it has been, and would continue to be, lawful to cause the delivery of, or mail, ship, take, receive, or otherwise transport, any drug, medicine, or instrument that can be designed or adapted to produce an abortion that is lawful in the State of California. The bill would set forth provisions regarding the lack of civil or criminal liability, or professional disciplinary action, for accessing or administering brand name or generic mifepristone or any drug used for medication abortion that is lawful under the laws of the state, on or after January 1, 2020, with this provision applied retroactively, as specified. The bill would make its provisions severable.
Existing law creates within the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, under the Undersecretary for Operations, the Division of Adult Institutions, among others, and requires each division to be headed by a director, who is appointed by the Governor, as specified. Existing law also requires the Governor to appoint 4 subordinate officers to the division, as specified. Existing law requires each subordinate officer appointed to oversee an identified category of adult institutions, one of which oversees female offender facilities. This bill would instead require the Governor to appoint 3 subordinate officers, as specified, who would oversee an identified category of male adult institutions, and one subordinate officer, as specified, who would oversee female adult institutions. The bill would create within the department, and under the Undersecretary for Operations, the Division of Female Programs and Services. The bill would require the director of this division to be responsible solely for female adult institutions and community facilities housing female offenders. The bill would require the director to report to the undersecretary and to have a minimum of 5 years of experience serving a female correctional population in a custody setting. The bill would also require this new division to manage and provide oversight of adult female programs, including prisons, conservation camps, and parole and community programs and to develop gender-responsive, trauma-informed, culturally sensitive approaches to program and policy development. Existing law requires the department to create a Female Offender Reform Master Plan and present it to the Legislature by a specified date. Existing law requires the department to, among other things, create policies and operational practices that are designed to ensure a safe and productive institutional environment for female offenders. This bill would require the department to provide a report to the Legislature on the implementation of the plan, and update statistics contained in the plan, by March 1, 2027, and every 3 years thereafter. The bill would require the department to maintain the plan, including subsequent updates and reports, in consultation with the commission and others, as specified. The bill would also require the department to post the plan, any reports, and any updates to the plan to the department's internet website. This bill would require the department to establish the Gender Responsive Strategies Commission (GRSC) to develop active partnerships and to support successful implementation of gender responsive practices and rehabilitation programs for incarcerated individuals. The bill would require the GRSC to be composed of 19 representatives, as specified, and would require the department, by June 1, 2027, and annually thereafter, to provide a written report to the Legislature on appointments to the GRSC and the department's response and progress toward implementing the GRSC's recommendations. Existing law also requires the department to contract with nationally recognized gender-responsive experts in prison operational practices, staffing, classification, substance abuse, trauma treatment services, mental health services, transitional services, and community corrections to, among other things, conduct a staffing analysis of all current job classifications assigned to each prison that houses only females, as specified, and develop programs and training for department staff in correctional facilities. This bill would require the department, through this contract, no later than March 1, 2027, and every 3 years thereafter, to prepare and submit to the Legislature an updated staffing analysis and would require a comprehensive review of the office's policies and practices and other aspects of women-centered corrections developed to enhance safety and rehabilitative efforts, as specified. The bill would also require the training program to include training at the academy and, for those working in a female prison, 40 hours of initial training with a curriculum specifically focused on working with the population within female institutions and an 8-hour annual training thereafter. Existing law requires the secretary of the department to expand the existing prison ombudsperson program to ensure the comprehensive deployment of ombudspersons throughout the state prison system with specific focus on the maximum security institutions. This bill would instead require the Undersecretary for Operations to perform this duty and would require the undersecretary to appoint an ombudsperson solely assigned to adult female institutions.
Existing law, the California Public Records Act, requires each state or local agency, upon a request for a copy of records that reasonably describes an identifiable record or records, to make the records promptly available to any person upon payment of fees covering direct costs of duplication, or a statutory fee if applicable, except with respect to public records exempt from disclosure by express provisions of law. Existing law requires, upon request, an exact copy to be provided unless it is impracticable to do so. This bill would specify that a recording of a call or a written communication that is maintained by a state or local agency that reports or describes an incident, as defined, occurring at a private detention facility, and specified records relating to that call or communication in the possession of a law enforcement agency, are not confidential, and would require an agency to disclose those records upon request to any member of the public. By requiring agencies to disclose certain records to the public, the bill would increase the duties of local officials and create a state-mandated local program. Existing law specifies that, except as provided, the act does not require the disclosure of records of complaints to, or investigations conducted by, or records of intelligence information or security procedures of, the office of the Attorney General and the Department of Justice, the Office of Emergency Services and any state or local police agency, or any investigatory or security files compiled by any other state or local police agency, or any investigatory or security files compiled by any other state or local agency for correctional, law enforcement, or licensing purposes. This bill would also except the above-described requirements relating to records relating to private detention facilities from that provision, but would specify that those requirements do not apply to the office of the Attorney General, the Department of Justice, the Department of Consumer Affairs, or any state entity within the Department of Consumer Affairs, as specified. The California Constitution requires local agencies, for the purpose of ensuring public access to the meetings of public bodies and the writings of public officials and agencies, to comply with a statutory enactment that amends or enacts laws relating to public records or open meetings and contains findings demonstrating that the enactment furthers the constitutional requirements relating to this purpose. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. 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, including, but not limited to, property tax law, the Sales and Use Tax Law, the Personal Income Tax Law, the Corporation Tax Law, the Motor Vehicle Fuel Tax Law, the law governing the taxation of insurers, the Use Fuel Tax Law, and the Diesel Fuel Tax Law, provides for tax expenditures, including exemptions, deductions, exclusions, and credits against the taxes imposed by those laws. The bill would require the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) to comprehensively assess the major tax expenditures, as defined, of the state, write and publish a report on each major tax expenditure, and make a recommendation to the Legislature based on each report. In this regard, the bill would require LAO, as part of the comprehensive assessments, to identify any savings that the Legislature can realize by reducing or limiting the major tax expenditures, and require them to consider certain criteria when finalizing each report, including the extent to which the major tax expenditure is a cost-effective use of resources compared to other options to address the same purpose, intent, or goal. The bill would require LAO to complete and publish on its internet website its first report on a major tax expenditure by January 1, 2028, and to complete and publish on its internet website each subsequent report on a major tax expenditure annually in a sequence determined by the office thereafter until the fifth and final report is submitted on January 1, 2032. The bill would require the Senate Committee on Revenue and Taxation and the Assembly Committee on Revenue and Taxation, to hold a joint public hearing on these reports by each August 15 of the second year of the legislative session, as specified. To the extent that LAO needs access to taxpayer data and information, the bill would require the Franchise Tax Board, the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration, and the Employment Development Department to ensure that relevant anonymized taxpayer data is made available and ensure that appropriate levels of data security and privacy protections are in place for transferred or sensitive data. The bill would repeal its provisions on January 1, 2033. The bill would make findings and declarations relating to these provisions.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA defines various terms, including "natural and protected lands" for its purposes. This bill would revise the definition of that term to include habitats for protected species identified as candidate, sensitive, or species of special status by state or federal agencies. CEQA exempts from its requirement projects that consist exclusively of a day care center that is not located in a residential area and projects that consist exclusively of an advanced manufacturing facility located on a site zoned exclusively for industrial uses. This bill would additionally exempt projects consisting exclusively of a family day care home, as defined. The bill would, for the exemption for the day care center and family day care home, instead require the projects for those facilities not be located in an area zoned for industrial use or within 3,200 feet of a facility that actively extracts or refines oil or natural gas in order for the exemption to apply. The bill would revise the exemption for advanced manufacturing facility projects to require those projects to be used exclusively for final tier manufacturing, as defined. The bill would require an applicant of an advanced manufacturing project that is exempted from CEQA under the bill's requirement to enter into a bona fide community benefits agreement, as provided, and to comply with certain labor requirements, as provided. The bill would require the lead agency, before determining that an advanced manufacturing project is exempt from CEQA, to hold at least one public hearing on the project and to ensure that the applicant complies with the requirement to enter into a bona fide community benefits agreement and the labor requirements. CEQA exempts from its requirements a rezoning that implements the schedule of actions contained in an approved housing element. CEQA specifies that this exemption does not apply to a rezoning that would allow for the construction of certain facilities, including oil and gas infrastructure. CEQA also specifies that this exemption does not apply rezoning that would allow for construction to occur within the boundaries of any natural and protected lands, except as provided. This bill would repeal the exception from the CEQA exemption for rezoning that would allow for oil and gas infrastructure. The bill would specify that the definition of "natural and protected land" does not include habitats for protected species that would be added to that definition by this bill for purposes the exception for rezoning that would allow for construction to occur within the boundaries of any natural and protected lands to the CEQA exemption. CEQA specifies, for a proposed housing development project that would otherwise be exempt from its requirements but for a single condition required for the exemption to apply, that the application of CEQA is limited to the effects upon the environment that are caused by that single condition. CEQA provides that this limited application of CEQA does not apply if the proposed housing project is located on natural and protected land, but does not include "natural and protected land" that is a site within a very high fire hazard severity zone or within the state responsibility area, except as provided. This bill would additionally specify that "natural and protected land" does not include habitats for protected species that would be added to that definition by this bill. Because the bill would imposes additional duties on a lead agency, 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.
Existing law establishes the California State University, under the administration of the Trustees of the California State University, the University of California, under the administration of the Regents of the University of California, the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, and independent institutions of higher education, as defined, as 4 segments of postsecondary education in the state. This bill, upon appropriation, would establish the Designation of California Hispanic-Serving Institutions to recognize campuses of those segments of postsecondary education that excel at providing academic resources to Latino students. The bill, upon appropriation, would establish a Designation of California Hispanic-Serving Institutions governing board to designate colleges and universities as California Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The bill, upon appropriation, would designate the office of the Chancellor of the California State University as the managing entity and would require it to, among other duties, develop the application processes and to process and present initial and renewal applications to receive this designation to the governing board, as specified, and would make an initial and renewal designation valid for 5 years.