Sen. María Elena Durazo

Existing law establishes various environmental and economic policies and programs. This bill, upon appropriation by the Legislature, would establish the Nature and Parks Career Pathway and Community Resiliency Act of 2020, which would require state conservancies and the Wildlife Conservation Board to establish independent grant programs to fund climate mitigation, adaptation, or resilience, natural disaster, and other climate emergency projects, as specified.

(1) Existing law makes any operator or excavator who violates provisions relating to the protection of underground infrastructure subject to a civil penalty, as provided. Existing law authorizes specified entities to impose those civil penalties and requires, under certain circumstances, moneys derived from those civil penalties to be deposited in the Safe Energy Infrastructure and Excavation Fund. Existing law makes the moneys in the fund available, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for purposes of the California Underground Facilities Safe Excavation Board and to fund public education and outreach programs designed to promote excavation safety around subsurface installations, as specified. This bill would make any contractor that causes damage to a subsurface installation as a result of failing to provide notice of the need for a gas corporation to locate and mark its subsurface installations or commencing excavation before a gas corporation marks its subsurface installations subject to a civil penalty in an amount not to exceed $100,000 and possible suspension or revocation of the contractor's license if specified conditions are met. The bill would require all moneys collected pursuant to these civil penalties, including all of the civil penalties in existing law described above, to be deposited in the Safe Energy Infrastructure and Excavation Fund. (2) Under existing law, the Public Utilities Commission has regulatory authority over public utilities, including gas corporations. Existing law requires the commission to require each gas corporation to provide bundled basic gas service to all core customers in its service territory unless the customer chooses or contracts to have natural gas purchased and supplied by another entity. This bill would require the commission to require each gas corporation to establish gas service, reconnect gas service, and respond to leak reports within specified timeframes, as provided. The bill would require each gas corporation to ensure it has an adequately sized, qualified, and properly trained gas corporation workforce, as defined, to carry out those requirements. (3) Existing law, the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 2011, within the Public Utilities Act, requires each gas corporation, twice per year, or as determined by the commission, to file with the commission a gas transmission and storage safety report, as provided. Existing law also requires the commission to require a gas corporation to file a one-time report on methane leaks, as specified. This bill would also require each gas corporation, twice per year, or as determined by the commission, to file an analogous leak report with the commission. (4) The Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act of 2011 requires each gas corporation to develop a plan for the safe and reliable operation of its commission-regulated gas pipeline facility, as defined. The act requires the commission to accept, modify, or reject the plan for each gas corporation by December 31, 2012. The act requires the plan to ensure that an adequately sized, qualified, and properly trained gas corporation workforce carries out the plan's provisions. This bill would require the commission to review and republish those safety plans of each gas corporation not later than June 30, 2021. The bill would require each gas corporation to develop, sponsor, and conduct formal training, apprenticeship, and journeyworker-upgrade programs to recruit and train employees in the skills needed for the work traditionally performed by its employees. (5) Under existing law, a violation of the Public Utilities Act or any order, decision, rule, direction, demand, or requirement of the commission is a crime. Because provisions of this bill would be a part of the act and because a violation of an order or decision of the commission implementing its requirements would be a crime, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (6) 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 requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to establish the capacity to provide transition services to individuals with exceptional needs and requires those transition services to include, among other things, systematic and longitudinal vocational education curriculum that includes instructional strategies that will prepare pupils with severe disabilities to make a successful transition to supported employment and the community. This bill would instead require those instructional strategies to prepare pupils with severe disabilities to make a successful transition to competitive integrated employment or supported employment. (2) Existing law requires the State Council on Developmental Disabilities to form a standing Employment First Committee to, among other responsibilities, identify strategies and recommend legislative, regulatory, and policy changes to increase integrated employment, self-employment, and microenterprises for persons with developmental disabilities, as specified. Existing law also establishes the Employment First Policy, which provides that opportunities for integrated, competitive employment be given the highest priority for working age individuals with developmental disabilities, regardless of the severity of their disabilities. Existing law defines "integrated employment" and "competitive employment" for these purposes. Existing federal law, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, provides federal funding to states that provide rehabilitation and vocational services to individuals with disabilities in accordance with guidelines established pursuant to the act. Existing state law establishes the Department of Rehabilitation in the California Health and Human Services Agency to provide vocational rehabilitation services to individuals with disabilities. Existing law requires an individualized written rehabilitation program to be developed for each individual who has been determined to be eligible for these services and requires the individualized plan for employment to, among other things, include placement in integrated settings to the maximum extent appropriate. This bill would replace inconsistent terminology with the term "competitive integrated employment" and define "competitive integrated employment" for these purposes.

Existing law, the Gender Tax Repeal Act of 1995 (the act) , prohibits a business establishment from discriminating against a person because of the person's gender with respect to the price charged for services of similar or like kind and specifies that this prohibition does not apply to price differences based specifically upon the amount of time, difficulty, or cost of providing the services. The California Fair Employment and Housing Act protects and safeguards the right and opportunity of all persons to seek, obtain, and hold employment without discrimination, abridgment, or harassment on account of various personal characteristics. Under existing law, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing is responsible for receiving, investigating, conciliating, mediating, and prosecuting complaints alleging violations of specified civil rights. This bill would prohibit a business establishment from discriminating against a person because of a person's gender with respect to the price charged for any 2 consumer products from the same manufacturer that are substantially similar if those products are priced differently based on the gender of the individuals for whose use the products are intended or marketed, as specified. The bill would make the department responsible for receiving, investigating, conciliating, mediating, and prosecuting complaints alleging violations of these provisions.

Existing law requires, for all contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2018, a direct contractor, as defined, making or taking a contract in the state for the erection, construction, alteration, or repair of a building, structure, or other work, to assume, and be liable for, specified debt owed to a wage claimant that is incurred by a subcontractor, at any tier, acting under, by, or for the direct contractor for the wage claimant's performance of labor included in the subject of the original contract. Existing law authorizes the Labor Commissioner to bring an action under specified statutes or in a civil action to enforce this liability, and authorizes a third party owed fringe or other benefits, or a joint labor-management cooperation committee, as defined, to bring a civil action to enforce the liability against a direct contractor under these provisions, as specified. Existing law provides that the obligations and remedies under these provisions are in addition to any obligations and remedies otherwise provided by law, except that the provisions are not to be construed to impose liability on a direct contractor for anything other than unpaid wages and fringe or other benefit payments or contributions, including interest owed. This bill would, for specified contracts, extend a direct contractor's liability under these provisions to also include penalties and liquidated damages. The bill would also make the direct contractor liable for the failure to obtain valid workers' compensation coverage. The bill would authorize the Employment Development Department to obtain against a direct contractor, any relief it could obtain against any subcontractor at any tier for the failure of that subcontractor to report and pay all required employer contributions, including the failure to report and pay all required employer contributions, worker contributions, and personal income tax withholding as required by the Unemployment Insurance Code. Existing law requires employers to provide itemized statements to employees at the time wages are paid that show, among other things, gross wages earned and total hours worked. Existing law requires the itemized statements for employees who are compensated on a piece-rate basis to state separately the total hours of compensable rest and recovery periods, the rate of compensation, and the gross wages paid for those periods during the pay period, among other things. Existing law requires those employees to be compensated for rest and recovery periods and other nonproductive time at or above specified minimum hourly rates, separately from any piece-rate compensation. This bill would exempt any work performed pursuant to a contract for construction from these piece-rate provisions.

Existing law authorizes the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development to develop content on its internet website or through other mediums to be used for public dissemination, through outreach activities, in order to provide information and resources to inform the general public about place-based and other geographically targeted economic development programs, including California promise zones and California opportunity zones. Existing law requires the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development to convene, at least annually, representatives from various programs and agencies across the state and from various federal programs and agencies for the purpose of discussing how California can leverage promise zones and opportunity zones to meet state and local community and economic development needs. Existing law, the Planning and Zoning Law, among other things, requires the legislative body of each county and city to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the county or city and of any land outside its boundaries that relates to its planning. That law authorizes the legislative body of any county or city, pursuant to specified procedures, to adopt ordinances that, among other things, regulate the use of buildings, structures, and land as between industry, business, residences, open space, and other purposes. That law also requires public agencies to compile lists that specify in detail the information that will be required from any applicant for a development project. This bill, until January 1, 2025, would require the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, in cooperation with the Office of Planning and Research, to track specified information regarding California opportunity zone investments and to post some of that information on the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development's internet website. The bill, for purposes of those provisions, would require, until January 1, 2025, public agencies that are required to compile the development project lists described above to include specified information about all development projects funded by an opportunity zone fund in those lists, and to submit that information to the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, as provided. The bill would authorize public agencies to charge a reasonable regulatory fee, not to exceed the costs of complying with these provisions, as part of the application fee charged for the development permit. This bill would require, on or before January 1, 2022, the Office of Planning and Research, in consultation with the Department of Housing and Community Development and the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development, among others, to publicly issue a report to the Legislature that summarizes and explicates data on California opportunity zones and answers specified questions relating to opportunity zones. This bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities. 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 vests in the State Department of Developmental Services jurisdiction over various state hospitals, referred to as developmental centers, for the provision of care to persons with developmental disabilities. Existing law authorizes the director of a developmental center to establish a sheltered workshop to provide residents with remunerative work performed, as specified, and requires funds from the center's sheltered workshop fund to be used for payment of remuneration to residents engaged in work at the workshop, among other things. This bill would prohibit the payment of remuneration to residents engaged in work at a developmental center shelter workshop from being less than the rate required under specified federal, state, or local minimum wage law, whichever is higher.

Existing law establishes procedures for an initial petition hearing by the juvenile court if a child is being taken into temporary custody. Existing law requires a social worker to report to the court the reasons the child was removed from the parent's, guardian's, or Indian custodian's physical custody and the need, if any, for continued detention, available services, and if there are any relatives who are willing and able to take temporary physical custody of the child. Under existing law, if the court orders a child detained, the court shall state the facts upon which the determination was made and, among other things, order services to be provided as soon as possible to reunify the child and their family, if appropriate. Existing law requires an order to place a child in foster care to provide for visitation between the child and the parent or guardian as frequently as possible, consistent with the well-being of the child. This bill would, in the event a court orders a child detained, prohibit the court from restricting visitation between a parent and child any more than necessary to ensure the child's safety and well-being and would specify facts that do not constitute a basis for requiring supervised visits, including the fact that a parent was previously a noncustodial parent of the child. The bill would, if a court orders a child into foster care, require the court to consider specified factors in making a visitation plan, including the quality and length of an established parent-child relationship, the age of the child, and the flight risk posed by a parent or child.