Cost Drivers Held in Assembly Appropriations
A number of bills identified by the California Chamber of Commerce as Cost Drivers that would have made the state less affordable for businesses and consumers failed to move out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee last week.
Held in Assembly Appropriations on May 14 were bills that would have hampered the ability of businesses to use technology in employment or health care settings, expanded the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), exposed employers to costly litigation, hurt supply chains, and increased food costs.
The committee delayed action on legislation watched closely by international companies because of its impact on tax liabilities.
The bills not moving are as follows:
Labor and Employment
• AB 1898 (Schultz; D-Glendale) Onerous Notice Requirement. Requires public and private employers of all sizes to issue a voluminous number of notices regarding even the most routine technologies and for those notices to include confidential and proprietary information. The bill also effectively gives all employees and independent contractors veto power over the employer deploying new technology.
• AB 2027 (Ward; D-San Diego) Creates Barriers to Technology Investment and Job Growth. Its sweeping provisions effectively prohibit creating or improving technology used in the workplace, impacting everything from simple scheduling tools to life-saving technology developments in health care.
• AB 2064 (Sharp-Collins; D-San Diego) Significantly Limits Ability to Consider Criminal History in Employment. Exposes California employers to costly litigation and liability by adding “criminal history” as a protected class under both the Unruh Civil Rights Act and the Fair Employment and Housing Act, stripping businesses of the ability to make reasonable hiring and customer-service decisions based on an individual’s past criminal conduct.
Product Regulation
• AB 2034 (Addis; D-Morro Bay) New Costly Regulatory Structure. Establishes extensive, state-specific regulatory structure regarding food additives that will significantly impact supply chains and increase food costs.
CEQA
• AB 2170 (Boerner; D-Encinitas) CEQA Expansion. Proposes to eliminate CEQA exemptions and ministerial review processes if certain types of projects are sited near “overburdened communities” and forces all environmental review documents to be translated into other languages, thereby exposing lead agencies and project applicants to new litigation liability.
• AB 2569 (Hart; D-Santa Barbara) CEQA Expansion. Significantly expands California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) environmental impact report requirements, which will increase litigation exposure and costs for a permitting process that already causes some of the longest and most costly project delays in the country.
Food and Agriculture
• AB 2447 (Bauer-Kahan; D-Orinda) Infeasible Mandates on Nitrogen Fertilizer Application. Imposes scientifically unsupported, legislatively mandated deadlines on California farmers before the State’s own expert panel has finished determining what is even achievable — threatening thousands of agricultural jobs, driving up food costs for California families, and dismantling the very programs currently providing safe drinking water to affected communities.
Taxation
Assembly Appropriations postponed a hearing on a bill that will increase taxes significantly for international businesses, AB 1790 (Connolly; D-San Rafael). The bill remains eligible for a vote at a later time.
If adopted, AB 1790 would eliminate the water’s-edge election, forcing all taxpayers to file on a worldwide combined reporting basis. Requiring businesses to report revenues from international affiliates would subject income generated in foreign countries to taxes and risk retaliation by trading partners.