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 (EIR) 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 exempts specified projects from its requirements. Existing law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requires all groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins by the Department of Water Resources that are designated as basins subject to critical conditions of overdraft to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans by January 31, 2020, and requires all other groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans by January 31, 2022, except as specified. The act authorizes a local agency or combination of local agencies overlying a groundwater basin to elect to become a groundwater sustainability agency for that basin and authorizes that groundwater sustainability agency to adopt, implement, and enforce a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans. The act exempts the preparation and adoption of a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plan from the provisions of CEQA, but does not exempt a project that would implement actions taken pursuant to the plan. This bill would additionally exempt from the requirements of CEQA the formation of a groundwater sustainability agency, the amendment of a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plan, and the implementation of those plans, except to the extent that the implementation requires the construction or installation of a new facility. Because a lead agency would be required to determine the applicability of this exemption, 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.
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The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency charged with monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases. The state board is required to adopt a statewide greenhouse gas emissions limit equivalent to the statewide greenhouse gas emissions level in 1990 to be achieved by 2020, and to adopt rules and regulations in an open public process to achieve the maximum, technologically feasible, and cost-effective greenhouse gas emissions reductions. The act authorizes the state board to include the use of market-based compliance mechanisms. Existing state board regulations require specified entities to comply with a market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2013, and require additional specified entities to comply with that market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2015. This bill instead would exempt categories of persons or entities that did not have a compliance obligation, as defined, under a market-based compliance mechanism beginning January 1, 2013, from being subject to that market-based compliance mechanism through December 31, 2020. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
(1) Existing law states that the theft of a firearm is grand theft, punishable as a felony by imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months, or 2 or 3 years. The Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act, enacted by Proposition 47, as approved by the voters at the November 4, 2014, statewide general election, notwithstanding these provisions, instead requires the theft of property that does not exceed $950 to be considered petty theft, and makes the crime punishable as a misdemeanor, except in cases when the defendant has previously been convicted of one or more specified serious or violent felonies or an offense requiring registration as a sex offender. This bill would make the theft of a firearm grand theft in all cases, punishable by imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months, or 2 or 3 years. (2) Under existing law, every person who buys or receives any property that has been stolen, knowing the property to be stolen, is guilty of a misdemeanor or a felony, except that if the value of the property does not exceed $950, Proposition 47 makes the offense punishable as a misdemeanor if the defendant has not previously been convicted of one or more specified serious or violent felonies or an offense requiring registration as a sex offender. This bill would make buying or receiving a stolen firearm a misdemeanor or a felony. (3) The California Constitution authorizes the Legislature to amend or repeal an initiative statute by another statute that becomes effective when approved by the electors. This bill would provide that it would become effective only upon approval of the voters, and would provide for the submission of this measure to the voters for approval at the next statewide general election.
Existing law, inoperative due to a pending referendum election, would otherwise, as of July 1, 2015, prohibit stores that have a specified amount of sales in dollars or retail floor space from providing a single-use carryout bag to a customer, with specified exceptions. That law would also prohibit those stores from selling or distributing a recycled paper bag at the point of sale unless the store makes that bag available for purchase for not less than $0.10 and would allow those stores to distribute compostable bags at the point of sale only in jurisdictions that meet specified requirements and at a cost of not less than $0.10. This same law, on and after July 1, 2016, would additionally impose these prohibitions and requirements on convenience food stores, foodmarts, and entities that are engaged in the sale of a limited line of goods, or goods intended to be consumed off premises, and that hold a specified license with regard to alcoholic beverages. This inoperative law would require, on and after July 1, 2015, a reusable grocery bag sold by certain stores to a customer at the point of sale to be made by a certified reusable grocery bag producer and to meet specified requirements with regard to the bag's durability, material, labeling, heavy metal content, and, with regard to reusable grocery bags made from plastic film on and after January 1, 2016, recycled material content. Existing law, included in the bill that enacted the provisions currently inoperative due to the pending referendum election, but not included in the referendum election, and thus operative, appropriates $2,000,000 from the Recycling Market Development Revolving Loan Subaccount in the Integrated Waste Management Account to the department for the purposes of providing loans for the creation and retention of jobs and economic activity in California for the manufacture and recycling of plastic reusable grocery bags that use recycled content. Existing law, subject to the referendum election, requires the department, no later than March 1, 2018, to provide a status report to the Legislature on the implementation of all of these provisions. This bill would repeal the above provisions and related provisions. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law, the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, requires all groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins by the Department of Water Resources that are designated as basins subject to critical conditions of overdraft to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans by January 31, 2020, and requires all other groundwater basins designated as high- or medium-priority basins to be managed under a groundwater sustainability plan or coordinated groundwater sustainability plans by January 31, 2022, except as specified. Existing law authorizes a groundwater sustainability agency to require through its groundwater sustainability plan that the use of every groundwater extraction facility within the management area of the groundwater sustainablity agency be measured by a water-measuring device, but provides that these provisions do not apply to de minimis extractors. Existing law authorizes a groundwater sustainability agency to impose fees but prohibits a groundwater sustainability agency from imposing a fee to fund the costs of a groundwater sustainability program on a de minimis extractor unless the agency has regulated the users pursuant to the act. Existing law generally excepts a de minimis extractor from the requirement that a person who extracts groundwater from a probationary basin, as prescribed, or extracts groundwater on or after July 1, 2017, in an area within a basin that is not within the management area of a groundwater sustainability agency and where the county does not assume responsibility to be the groundwater sustainability agency has to file a report of groundwater extraction by December 15 of each year for extractions made in the preceding water year with the State Water Resources Control Board. Existing law defines a de minimis extractor for these purposes as a person who extracts, for domestic purposes, 2 acre-feet or less per year. This bill would define a de minimis extractor for the purposes of these provisions as a person who extracts, for domestic purposes, 10 acre-feet or less per year.
Existing law governing the state acquisition of telecommunication services and goods, generally requires contracts for the acquisition of those goods and services, whether by lease or purchase, to be made by, or be made under the supervision of, the Department of Technology. This bill would, on and after January 1, 2016, require any contract for the acquisition of telecommunications services, or any renewal of a contract for telecommunications services, for a state agency, as defined, that interacts with, or receives inquiries from, the general public to provide for a queue callback feature, as described.
Existing law requires the Department of Fish and Wildlife, when income is derived directly from real property acquired and operated by the state as a wildlife management area, as defined, to pay annually to the county in which the property is located an amount equal to the county taxes levied upon the property at the time title to the property was transferred to the state, and any assessments levied upon the property by any irrigation, drainage, or reclamation district. This bill would appropriate $19,000,000 from the General Fund to the department to make payments to counties for unpaid amounts under these provisions. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
Existing law requires the State Department of Social Services to license and regulate transitional housing placement providers. Existing law requires transitional housing providers to provide supervised transitional housing services to foster children who are at least 16 years of age and not more than 18 years of age, nonminor dependents, or both. Existing law provides that transitional housing includes, among others, programs in which a participant lives independently in certain types of housing owned or leased by the provider either with an adult employee of the provider or in a building in which one or more adult employees of the provider reside and provide supervision. Transitional housing may, if the State Department of Social Services provides approval, include programs in which a participant lives independently in certain types of housing owned or leased by provider under the supervision of the provider. This bill would delete the requirement that the housing be owned or leased by the provider and would instead require that a provider be responsible for the payment of any contracted rental fees and any penalties for late payment to the property owner. The bill would also, with regards to the latter program described above, delete the requirement that the department provide approval for the program and delete the requirement that participants live under the supervision of the provider.
Existing law makes it a crime to violate various provisions prohibiting certain actions against a peace officer or his or her family, other first responders, or public officials, including, but not limited to, removing an officer's firearm while resisting arrest, maliciously disclosing specified personal information about the officer with the intent to obstruct justice or the due administration of the laws, and using a stun gun against a peace officer or firefighter. Existing law generally makes the violation of these provisions misdemeanors or felonies punishable in a county jail, as specified, or both a misdemeanor or a felony, commonly referred to as a wobbler. This bill would revise these provisions to make all of the misdemeanors instead punishable as wobblers, the wobblers instead punishable as felonies in county jail, as specified, and make all of the felonies punishable in county jail instead punishable in state prison, as specified. By increasing the punishment for a crime, 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 property tax law provides, pursuant to the authority of a specified provision of the California Constitution, for a homeowners' exemption in the amount of $7,000 of the full value of a "dwelling," as defined, and authorizes the Legislature to increase this exemption. This bill, beginning with the lien date for the 2016–17 fiscal year, would increase the homeowners' exemption from $7,000 to $25,000 of the full value of a dwelling. This bill would also require, for the 2017–18 fiscal year and for each fiscal year thereafter, the county assessor to adjust the amount of the homeowners' exemption by the percentage change in the House Price Index for California for the first 3 quarters of the prior calendar year, as specified. The California Constitution requires the Legislature, whenever it increases the homeowners' property tax exemption, to provide a comparable increase in benefits to qualified renters. The Personal Income Tax Law authorizes various credits against the taxes imposed by that law, including a credit for qualified renters in the amount of $120 for married couples filing joint returns, heads of household, and surviving spouses if adjusted gross income is $50,000 or less, and in the amount of $60 for other individuals if adjusted gross income is $25,000 or less. Existing law requires the Franchise Tax Board to annually adjust for inflation these adjusted gross income amounts. This bill would, for taxable years beginning on and after January 1, 2016, increase this credit for a qualified renter to $428 for married couples filing joint returns, heads of household, and surviving spouses if adjusted gross income is $50,000 or less, as adjusted for inflation, and to an amount equal to $214 for other individuals if adjusted gross income is $25,000 or less, as adjusted for inflation. The bill would also require, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2017, the Franchise Tax Board to annually adjust for inflation, based upon the California Consumer Price Index, the amount of these credits. The bill would also make technical, nonsubstantive changes to the renters' credit. The California Constitution requires the Legislature, in each fiscal year, to reimburse local governments for the revenue losses incurred by those governments in that fiscal year as a result of the homeowners' property tax exemption. 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. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.