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HOT ISSUES for the Weeks of July 1 – July 12, 2019
Monday, July 1
Climate Change
OPPOSE UNLESS AMENDED SB 59 (Allen; D-Santa Monica): Threatens Development of New Technology — Threatens jobs by setting zero-emission technology as the main priority in automated vehicle technology. Fails to include industry in working group setting state policy on the intersection of greenhouse gas emissions and the future of shared/automated vehicle transportation. Assembly Transportation Committee.
Tuesday, July 2
Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources
OPPOSE SB 347 (Monning; D-Carmel) Warning Labels — Increases frivolous liability claims and exposes beverage manufacturers and food retailers to fines and penalties by mandating state-only labeling requirements for sugar-sweetened drinks. Assembly Health Committee.
Wednesday, July 3
Banking/Finance
OPPOSE AB 857 (Chiu; D-San Francisco): Significant Risk to Taxpayer Dollars and Community Investment — Before amendments, jeopardized taxpayer dollars, community banks, and funding for small businesses that create jobs in local communities, by allowing the creation of local public banks which will impose significant costs and risks to taxpayer revenue for operations and capital, as well as unfairly compete with local community banks. Job Killer tag removed due to recent amendments but CalChamber still opposes. Senate Governance and Finance Committee.
Climate Change
OPPOSE AB 1046 (Ting; D-San Francisco): Increased Costs — Increases the cost of doing business in California by creating arbitrary goals that choose one technology over another. Conflicts with other laws that provide for flexibility in meeting climate goals and duplicates recently enacted study requirements. Senate Environmental Quality Committee.
Environmental Regulation
OPPOSE AB 161 (Ting; D-San Francisco): Paper Receipt Ban — Would mandate most businesses in California offer electronic or paper receipts, or an option to opt out of any receipt at all, for every customer. California businesses would be forced to replace all of their receipt paper with BPA/BPS-free paper and to waste more paper by printing separate coupons not on the actual receipt. The bill would disrupt how retailers manage returns by allowing the customers to opt out of receiving any receipt at all. Senate Environmental Quality Committee.
Health
OPPOSE AB 731 (Kalra; D-San Jose): Large Group Rate Review — Threatens employers with higher premiums by driving up administrative costs and imposing a burdensome rate review process for health plans and insurers in the large group market. Senate Health Committee.
Recycling
OPPOSE AB 1080 (Gonzalez; D-San Diego) JOB KILLER: Unprecedented Product Regulation In California — Would substantially increase the cost to manufacture and ship consumer products sold in California by providing CalRecycle with broad authority to develop and impose costly and unrealistic new mandates on manufacturers of all single-use packaging and certain single-use plastic consumer products under an unrealistic compliance time frame that fails to address California’s lack of recycling and composting infrastructure. Senate Environmental Quality Committee.
Monday, July 8
Environmental Regulation
OPPOSE SB 1 (Atkins; D-San Diego ) JOB KILLER: Negatively Impacts Water Management and Increases Litigation — Creates significant regulatory uncertainty and litigation risks to regulated entities by giving certain state agencies unfettered authority to adopt rules and regulations without any of the Administrative Procedure Act safeguards when the agency, in its discretion, determines that the federal rules and regulations in effect on January 19, 2017 are “less protective” than existing federal law. It also undermines current state efforts to utilize science-based decision-making to manage and provide reliable water supplies for California and protect, restore, and enhance the ecosystems of the Bay-Delta and its tributaries. It further increases the potential for costly litigation by creating new private rights of action under California law. Assembly Natural Resources Committee.
Recycling
OPPOSE SB 54 (Allen; D-Santa Monica) JOB KILLER: Unprecedented Product Regulation In California — Would substantially increase the cost to manufacture and ship consumer products sold in California by providing CalRecycle with broad authority to develop and impose costly and unrealistic new mandates on manufacturers of all single-use packaging and certain single-use plastic consumer products under an unrealistic compliance time frame that fails to address California’s lack of recycling and composting infrastructure. Assembly Natural Resources Committee.
Tuesday, July 9
Other
OPPOSE AB 516 (Chiu; D-San Francisco): Parking Laws Repeal — Causes loss of revenue to businesses and potentially leads to community blight by allowing prolonged parking on public streets. Senate Public Safety Committee.
Wednesday, July 10
Housing and Land Use
SUPPORT SB 330 (Skinner; D-Berkeley): Streamlines Housing Development — Incentivizes more housing development by providing fee certainty for housing development projects by prohibiting local jurisdictions from changing fees midway through the development permitting process. Assembly Local Government Committee.
Keep Up the Pressure
Privacy
SUPPORT AB 25 (Chau; D-Monterey Park): Will help to clarify that employees or job applicants to a business are not included as “consumers” in the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) – something that was never intended by this law. Senate Judiciary Committee; No hearing date set.
SUPPORT AB 846 (Burke, D-Inglewood; Low, D-Campbell; Mullin, D-South San Francisco): Clarifies the law to ensure that loyalty and rewards programs can continue by fixing language in the CCPA that could make them unlawful. Senate Judiciary Committee; No hearing date set.
SUPPORT AB 873 (Irwin; D-Thousand Oaks): Ensures that businesses do not need to collect MORE personal information from consumers and keep it all in one place (which makes it more vulnerable to hackers) in order to respond to CCPA requests. Senate Judiciary Committee; No hearing date set.
SUPPORT AB 874 (Irwin; D-Thousand Oaks): Clarifies the definition of “publicly available” information. The CCPA limits businesses’ distribution of “information lawfully made available from federal, state or local government records.” This limitation is unconstitutional and it also creates practical problems for businesses that rely on the free flow of public records information, including those involved with real estate, journalism, credit reporting, and many more. Senate Judiciary Committee; No hearing date set.
SUPPORT AB 1416 (Cooley; D-Rancho Cordova): Ensure businesses can continue to prevent identity theft and other crimes and without this fix could have a profoundly negative impact on many crucial government services, including reuniting foster youth with relatives as well as fraud prevention in governmental benefits programs. Senate Judiciary Committee; No hearing date set.
SUPPORT AB 1564 (Berman; D-Palo Alto): Under the new law, all businesses must staff a 1-800 number and an email address for consumers to exercise their privacy rights. AB 1564 removes the requirement that businesses provide both, and instead only requires businesses with a website to ensure consumers can exercise their CCPA rights via email. Senate Judiciary Committee; No hearing date set.