Over the flip, you’ll find a list of the bills the speaker’s office finds most notable.

California Assembly Sends Governor 583 Bills this Legislative Session

The California Assembly ended the 2007 legislative session with a bang, sending to the Governor’s desk 234 bills during the last day-long stretch. In total, 383 assembly bills are pending enrollment (delivery) to the Governor, while 90 bills are currently on the Governor’s desk awaiting his consideration. So far this year, 583 bills have been enrolled to the Governor (including the 383 awaiting enrollment and the 90 currently on his desk).

Below is a partial list of bills that cleared the Assembly.

Air Quality

AB 233 (Jones) – Strengthens enforcement of diesel emission control rules for heavy-duty on-road and off-road vehicles and engines, including by increasing the minimum fine on idling violators from $100 to $300 and by prohibiting the new registration (renewals not affected) of a commercial diesel-powered vehicle manufactured before 1994 or if the owner has been cited for violating diesel emission rules.

Business and Enterprise

AB 610 (Price) – Enhances the Small Business Loan Guarantee Program’s ability to leverage existing program dollars resulting in the ability to serve more small businesses financial needs per year. Status: Pending in the Assembly for its concurrence vote.

AB 761 (Coto) – Requires each state agency awarding contracts that are financed with proceeds from the infrastructure bonds approved by voters in November, 2006, to establish a 25 percent small business participation goal for state infrastructure construction contracts awarded during the fiscal year.

AB 843 (Eng) – Amends the current rules for reporting changes of ownership of property, changes the maximum penalty that may be imposed for property not eligible for a homeowners’ exemption, and adds clear direction for mailing requests for unfilled change of ownership statements.

AB 969 (Eng) – Replaces permissive provisions with respect to reporting use tax liability on an acceptable tax return with mandatory provisions.

AB 1606 (Arambula) – Requires the development of a strategy to increase private investment in California’s historically under severed communities, also known as emerging domestic markets. The bill also centralizes the state’s existing economic development programs with the Economic Strategy Panel, in order to improve their coordination and impact on California communities.

Children and Families

AB 402 (Ma) – Extends change of ownership exclusion to transfers between foster parents and foster children, and enacts reporting requirements for residential cooperative housing.

Consumer Protection

AB 797 (Coto) – Creates a new insurance agent license that is limited to selling automobile insurance only. This will increase the number of insurance agents whose job is dedicated to marketing insurance to uninsured and underserved communities. This approach has proven successful in other states.

AB 1483 (Carter) – Requires an automotive repair dealer, when doing auto body or collision repairs to provide a written affirmation to the customer that the crash parts identified on the written estimate are the crash parts that were installed on the vehicle during repair.

AB 1618 (Feuer) – Repeals the interest offset provisions of the Corporation Tax Law to reflect the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Hunt v. Wesson.

Education

AB 665 (DeSaulnier) – Requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to produce an annual Growth Management Information Report and requests the University of California to produce a study on land use planning and growth management strategies.

Elections and Voter Protections

AB 288 (Price) – Allows a court to fine individuals who are convicted of intimidating voters, with the fine proceeds used for voter education campaigns to combat voter intimidation.

AB 404 (Ruskin) – Requires independent expenditures to contain a clear disclosure that candidates were not responsible for the advertisement.

AB 603 (Price) – Extends a program that allows victims of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault to have their voter registration information kept confidential.

AB 917 (Salas) – Requires elections officials to establish a back-up option so that if a polling place runs out of ballots, or if electronic voting systems fail, voters can cast a ballot without having to wait. Ensures that every voter will have the option of voting on a paper ballot. Requires election day monitoring of electronic voting machines to ensure that such machines are operating properly.

AB 1151 (Lieu) – Requires counties to establish web sites that voters can use to determine whether they are registered to vote.

AB 1167 (Nava) – Requires that voters be notified when more than one stamp is required to return an absentee ballot, and requires elections officials to work with the post office to ensure that completed absentee ballots that don’t have enough postage are nonetheless delivered to the elections officials.

Emergency Preparedness

AB 62 (Nava) – Adds the wildfires that occurred in Ventura County in 2006, in El Dorado County in June, 2007, and in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties in 2007, to the list of disasters eligible for full state reimbursement of local property tax losses, beneficial homeowners’ property tax exemption treatment, and favorable “carryforward” treatment of excess disaster losses.

Flood Package

AB 70 (Jones) – Establishes that a city or county may be required to contribute its fair and reasonable share for the property damage caused by a flood, to the extent that the city or county increases the state’s exposure to liability for property damage by unreasonably approving new development in a previously undeveloped area that is protected by a state flood control project, and if it is determined that the city or county failed to comply with other applicable provisions of existing law.

AB 156 (Laird) – Makes changes to flood protection and emergency flood response related to Central Valley flood protection and the management of the system by the Department of Water Resources, the Reclamation Board, and local agencies.

AB 162 (Wolk) – Requires cities and counties to increase their attention to flood-related matters in the land use, conservation, safety, and housing elements of their general plans, and update specified elements.

Green Building/Energy

AB 35 (Ruskin) – Enacts the sustainable Building Act of 2007 which requires all state agencies that begin construction or renovation to a state building, as defined, on and after July 1, 2010, to design, construct, and operate that state building to meet minimum standards as described in the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for a gold rating.

AB 118 (Núñez) – Promotes energy efficiency through promoting alternative energy research by collecting revenue from smog checkups and vehicle registrations.

AB 236 (Lieu) – Makes several changes to current policies regarding the purchase of vehicles for state and local government fleets in order to increase fuel efficiency and the use of alternative fuels.

AB 532 (Wolk) – Extends the requirement that the Department of General Services, in consultation with the California Energy Commission, ensure that solar energy equipment is installed on all state buildings, state parking facilities, and state owned swimming pools.

AB 609 (Eng) – Allows green building equipment, energy conservation measures and energy service contracts for existing state buildings to be approved by the State Public Works Board if it has been found to be cost effective over the life of the equipment installed or over the term of the energy service contract.

AB 785 (Hancock) – Makes numerous legislative findings and declarations regarding the urban heat island effect, directs the Contractors State License Board, the State Air Resource Board, and the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to submit specified reports to the Legislature relating to the urban heat island effect, and changes the definition of energy efficient vehicles to include highly reflective colored vehicles that meet the current Department of General Services requirements for the California energy-efficient vehicle group purchase program.

AB 868 (Davis) – Requires the California Energy Commission, in partnership with the Department of Food and Agriculture and the Air Resources Board, to conduct a survey on the effect of temperatures on fuel deliveries and to report the survey findings, including recommended legislation and regulations, to the Legislature, for purposes of ensuring that consumers do not receive less fuel than they are paying for.

AB 888 (Lieu/Laird) – Requires new commercial buildings for which a public agency deems the application for a development project complete on or after July 1, 2013, and that are 50,000 feet or greater be designed constructed and operated to meet the applicable standards described in the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design gold rating or its equivalent, unless the state adopts specified minimum green building standards, in which case those commercial buildings will be required to meet the adopted standards.

AB 1058 (Laird) – Requires the Department of Housing and Community Development and ultimately the Building Standards Commission to adopt best practices and building related to green building.

AB 1109 (Huffman) – Prohibits the manufacturing for sale or the sale of certain general purpose lights that contain hazardous substances. Requires the California Energy Commission (CEC) to adopt energy efficiency standards for all general purpose lights on a schedule specified in regulations.

AB 1470 (Huffman) – Creates the Solar Water Heating and Efficiency Act of 2007, a $250 million subsidy program for solar hot water heaters with the goal of promoting the installation of 200,000 solar hot water systems in California by 2017.

AB 1560 (Huffman) – Requires the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to develop regulations in order to add water conservation design standards to the existing energy conservation design standards for new residential and new nonresidential buildings.

Health Care

AB 8 (Núñez) – Extends health care coverage two two-thirds of Californians currently uninsured, including all children.

AB 12 (Beall) – Establishes the Adult Health Coverage Expansion Program to provide health care coverage to eligible adults with incomes of up to 350 percent of the federal poverty level, living and employed in Santa Clara County, who are without health care coverage.

AB 28 (Huffman) – Extends the sunset date for the California Breast Cancer Research Fund from January 1, 2008, to January 1, 2013.

AB 720 (De Leon) – Enables insurance companies to better serve modest income communities by creating a specific agent license to sell life insurance, and other agent license to sell health insurance.

AB 986 (Eng) – Encourages the practice of optometry at temporary locations such as nursing homes.

AB 1073 (Nava) – Fixes a problem with the workers’ compensation law. The reforms of 2004 (SB 899 – Poochigian) went too far by placing strict limits on physical therapy. The strict rule now prevents many injured workers from receiving necessary physical therapy after necessary surgery.

AB 1113 (Brownley) – Makes permanent a Medi-Cal program for the working disabled by repealing its sunset date, and makes specified changes in the eligibility criteria.

AB 1224 (Hernandez) – Authorizes optometrists to practice telemedicine for purposes of overcoming barriers to access to health services in medically underserved rural and urban areas.

AB 1269 (Hernandez) – Provides relief for burn centers. The workers’ compensation reforms of 2004 (SB 899 – Poochigian) went too far. Burn centers – which are critical to the health of Californians – are going out of business, and one of the reasons is that they get paid less than actual costs for workers compensation cases. AB 1269 requires the Administration to revise the fee schedule.

Labor Rights

AB 338 (Coto) – Increases the period of time during which injured workers may collect temporary disability benefits from two years to five years. Existing law (the workers’ compensation reforms of 2004) harms injured employees who try to return to work, but who have a relapse, or the conservative treatment preferred by the 2004 reforms, fails to work. These employees are no longer eligible for benefits even though they have not used up their 104 weeks of benefits, and even though they face a post-surgical recovery period.

AB 650 (Lieu) – Requires employers to notify employees that they may qualify for the federal earned income tax credit.

Public Safety

AB 508 (Swanson) – Repeals the lifetime ban from food stamps for persons convicted of specified felonies involving controlled substances. Federal welfare reform imposed a requirement on states to affirmatively opt out of a ban on food stamps for all individuals convicted of drug-related felonies. The federally-funded Food Stamp program is a crucial support for low-income working people and those trying to make a better way in life via rehabilitation. This legislative proposal has been attempted nearly every year since the 1996 passage of federal welfare reform.

AB 587 (Karnette) – Appropriates $5 million dollars from the Antiterrorism Fund to develop antiterrorism training courses and to reimburse local public safety agencies for antiterrorism training activities.

Public Records

AB 1393 (Leno) – AB 1393 expands upon the Public Records Act (PRA) by requiring every State Agency with a website to accept electronically submitted PRA requests on-line. It also requires the agency to provide contact information to an individual who can assist in the submission of a PRA request.

Toxics

AB 48 (Saldaña) – Expands the prohibition on the sale of all electronic devices in California that are prohibited from sale in the European Union by the Reduction of Hazardous Substances directive. The regulations adopted to implement the bill would become effective January 1, 2010.

AB 833 (Ruskin) – Enacts the California Toxic Release Inventory Program Act of 2007 to require the Department of Toxic Substances Control to develop and implement, by January 1, 2009, the California Toxic Release Inventory Program to require a facility to submit a toxic chemical release form to the department, if the facility is not required to submit a toxic chemical release form containing that same information pursuant to the existing federal regulations, as specified.

AB 1108 (Ma) – Prohibits the use of phthalates in toys and childcare products designed for babies and children under three years of age.

Transportation

AB 1091 (Bass) – Expands the distance requirement between eligible projects and transit stations for the Transit-Oriented Development Implementation Program from one-quarter mile to one-half mile thereby, providing a slightly wider radius would likely allow more communities to qualify under this program.

Water /Water Quality

AB 422 (Hancock) – Requires any corrective action taken in response to an unauthorized release from an underground storage tank intended to address potential human health and ecological hazards to also be consistent with, and no less stringent than, the response action requirements for hazardous substance releases imposed under the California Superfund Act. This bill contains other related provisions and other existing laws.

AB 739 (Laird) – establishes criteria for the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Resources Control Board to award Proposition 1E and Proposition 84 stormwater grants. Additionally, this bill requires the state board to develop and adopt a framework for assessing the effectiveness of municipal storm water programs and would require municipalities to comply with that framework. This bill creates a stormwater management task force and requires it to submit a stormwater management program report, no later than January 1, 2009, to the Ocean Protection Council.

AB 1420 (Laird) – Requires urban water suppliers to implement their water demand management measures in order to qualify for future grants or loans from the Department of Water Resources, the State Water Resources Control Board, or the Bay-Delta Authority. Non-compliant urban water agencies will still qualify for funds if they provide a schedule and budget for implementation of all measures.

Wildlife

AB 828 (Ruskin) – Requires the Wildlife Conservation Board and the Department of Fish and Game to study and identify the state’s critical wildlife corridors and natural habitat lands.

AB 1032 (Wolk) – Seasonally restricts and temporarily closes certain salmon spawning and wild trout streams in the state to instream motorized suction dredge gold mining for a period of up to three years, or until the Department of Fish and Game (DFG) completes a court-ordered environmental review and updates DFG’s existing suction dredge regulations, whichever occurs first. Increases existing fees for suction dredge permits, and authorizes existing funds in the Salmon and Steelhead Trout Restoration Account to be used by DFG to conduct the court-ordered environmental review and to promulgate regulations, as necessary, to protect Coho salmon and other species listed as threatened or endangered or as special status species.

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