The Sales and Use Tax Law imposes taxes on retailers measured by the gross receipts from the sale of tangible personal property sold at retail in this state, or on the storage, use, or other consumption in this state of tangible personal property purchased from a retailer for storage, use, or other consumption in this state. That law provides various exemptions from those taxes. This bill would, until January 1, 2017, exempt from those taxes the sale of, and the storage, use, or other consumption in this state of, specified tangible personal property purchased by a biomass energy facility, as defined, to be used primarily for the production of electrical energy from biomass materials, as defined, and to maintain and repair that property. The Bradley-Burns Uniform Local Sales and Use Tax Law authorizes counties and cities to impose local sales and use taxes in conformity with the Sales and Use Tax Law, and existing law authorizes districts, as specified, to impose transactions and use taxes in accordance with the Transactions and Use Tax Law, which conforms to the Sales and Use Tax Law. Exemptions from state sales and use taxes are incorporated in these laws. This bill would specify that this exemption does not apply to local sales and use taxes, transactions and use taxes, and state taxes from which revenues are deposited into the Local Public Safety Fund, the Local Revenue Fund, or the Fiscal Recovery Fund. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy, but its operative date would depend on its effective date.
Sponsored bills
Existing law establishes the Department of Veterans Affairs, which is responsible for administering various programs and services for the benefit of veterans. This bill would appropriate the sum of $7,300,000 from the General Fund to the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide for specified veterans' services.
Existing law prohibits a person from disposing of human remains unless a death certificate has been obtained and filed with a local registrar and a permit for disposition has been obtained from a local registrar. This bill would deem a permit for the disposition of human remains to have been issued if no action has been taken within 3 weeks after a permit for disposition has been requested from the local registrar.
Existing law authorizes the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to use or cause to be used prisoners of the state prison to perform labor at permanent, temporary, and mobile camps, including fire suppression. Existing law requires the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to determine which prisoners shall be eligible for employment at those camps. Existing law also establishes conservation centers for the employment of inmates in custody of the secretary to perform public conservation projects, including forest fire prevention and control. This bill would, if a prisoner is under consideration for assignment to a camp to perform fire suppression, including an assignment to perform forest fire prevention and control in a conservation center, require the secretary to contact the local law enforcement agency responsible for the arrest of the prisoner for the offense for which he or she is currently serving his or her sentence and inform the agency that it may provide the secretary additional information regarding the background of the prisoner for consideration by the secretary in determining the prisoner's eligibility for that assignment, including information relating to any other criminal activity and any mental health issues. The bill would require the secretary to inform the agency that it has 10 business days to respond to the department and object to the placement of the prisoner in the camp or conservation center. If the law enforcement agency files such an objection with the department within 10 business days, the bill would prohibit the placement of the prisoner in the camp or conservation center.
Existing law establishes a workers' compensation system, administered by the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers' Compensation, to compensate an employee for injuries sustained in the course of employment. Existing law requires statutory death benefits to be paid to the employee's dependents, or, if there are no dependents, to the personal representative of the deceased employee, heirs, or other persons entitled to compensation, as prescribed. Under existing law, when benefits are due to a deceased employee and the employee has no one surviving to whom the benefit should be paid, the compensation is required to be paid to the Department of Industrial Relations for reimbursement of other injury claims, as specified. This bill would prohibit the department from seeking payment of an amount owed pursuant to this provision by obtaining a lien on writ of execution relating to a judgment obtained by a member of the immediate family of the deceased employee, unless the member of the immediate family is the employer for whom the deceased employee was working at the time of the fatal injury.
Existing law generally provides for the release of inmates from prison on parole. Existing law requires, in the case of any inmate sentenced pursuant to any provision of law other than specified provisions of law providing for determinate sentences, that a panel of 2 or more commissioners or deputy commissioners of the Board of Parole Hearings meet with an inmate one year prior to the inmate's minimum eligible parole release date to set a parole release date. Existing law requires the panel, or the board if sitting en banc, to set a release date at the meeting unless it determines that the gravity of the current convicted offense or offenses, or that the timing and gravity of current or past convicted offense or offenses, is such that consideration of the public safety requires a more lengthy period of incarceration, and that a parole date cannot be fixed at the meeting. This bill would instead require the panel or board to deny parole for this class of inmate unless the inmate proves that the gravity of the current convicted offense or offenses, or that the timing and gravity of current or past convicted offense or offenses, is such that consideration of the public safety does not require a more lengthy period of incarceration, and that a parole date can be fixed at the meeting. The bill would also make a related technical, nonsubstantive change. The bill would authorize the board to base its decision to deny parole solely upon the circumstances of the current convicted offense or offenses or the inmate's past criminal history, and would require the board to give greater weight and consideration to those factors than those of institutional behavior or psychiatric evaluations in determining whether the inmate has proven that he or she does not pose an unreasonable risk of danger to society if released from prison. The bill would provide that the facts of the commitment offense or offenses alone may support the ultimate conclusion that the inmate has not proven that he or she does not pose an unreasonable risk to public safety if released on parole. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law requires that all expenses authorized and necessarily incurred in the preparation for, and conduct of, elections be paid from the county treasuries, except when an election is called by the governing body of a city. This bill would provide that expenses authorized and necessarily incurred for elections proclaimed by the Governor to fill a vacancy in the office of State Senator or Assembly Member, or to fill a vacancy in the office of United States Senator or Representative in the Congress, are to be paid by the state. When an election proclaimed by the Governor is consolidated with a local election, the bill would provide that the state shall pay only those additional expenses directly related to the election proclaimed by the Governor.
Existing law provides that specified persons may observe and challenge the manner in which vote by mail ballots are handled and processed by county elections officials and that vote by mail voter observers be permitted sufficiently close access to observe vote by mail ballot return envelopes and the signatures thereon. This bill would make a nonsubstantive change to these provisions.
(1) Existing law prohibits a person, a state or local governmental agency, or a public utility from substantially diverting or obstructing the natural flow of, or substantially changing or using any material from the bed, channel, or bank of, any river, stream, or lake, or depositing or disposing of debris, waste, or other material containing crumbled, flaked, or ground pavement where it may pass into any river, stream, or lake, unless prescribed requirements are met, including written notification to the Department of Fish and Game regarding the activity. Existing law requires the department to determine whether the activity may substantially adversely affect an existing fish and wildlife resource and, if so, to provide a draft lake or streambed alteration agreement to the person, agency, or utility. Existing law prescribes various requirements for lake and streambed alteration agreements. Existing law also establishes various exemptions, including exemptions for specified emergency work and certain agreements relating to water supply, drainage, flood control, or waste treatment and disposal facilities attained prior to January 1, 1977, after the initial notification and agreement. This bill would modify that prohibition to prohibit the installation of a new diversion or means of diversion, or the substantial alteration of an existing means of diversion, that will substantially affect a river, stream, or lake as described above, unless prescribed requirements are met. The bill would delete that exemption for pre-1977 agreements, and, instead exempt from the notice and agreement requirements, after the initial notification and agreement, an activity that involves the routine maintenance and operation of water supply, drainage, flood control, or waste treatment and disposal facilities constructed and in existence before 2000, unless the work has substantially changed or conditions affecting fish and wildlife resources have substantially changed, and those resources may be adversely affected by the activity conducted under the agreement. The bill would require the department to contact the entity performing the activity and suggest alternative means of maintaining and operating the facilities consistent with maintaining the full use and function of the facilities and the full use of any water diverted or used by or through those facilities. The bill would establish enforcement procedures if no agreement is reached. The bill would also exempt immediate emergency work necessary to maintain the use of facilities employed and regularly used for the diversion or discharge of water. (2) The California Endangered Species Act, until January 1, 2014, exempts from its provisions the accidental take of candidate, threatened, or endangered species resulting from acts that occur on a farm or a ranch in the course of otherwise lawful routine and ongoing agricultural activities. This bill would expand the exemption to include all acts in the course of otherwise lawful routine and ongoing agricultural activities, without regard to location. The bill would specify that those acts include the diversion of water and use of water for agricultural purposes.
Existing law authorizes the Department of Water Resources to make examinations of lands subject to inundation and overflow by flood waters and of the waters causing the inundation or overflow and authorizes the department to make plans and estimates of the cost of works to regulate and control the flood waters. This bill would make technical, nonsusbtantive changes to this provision.