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Past Legislative Successes

Leg Year - 2019-2020

Expands the existing crime of inflicting injury on a guide, signal, or service dog to include situations where the dog is being trained to be a guide, signal, or service dog, and authorizes an order of victim restitution for such expenses and lost wages or income as a direct result of the criminal injury.

AB 317: Department Motor Vehicles: Appointments: Unlawful Sale

Prohibits a person from selling or offering for sale an appointment provided by the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for in-person service.  Shuts down third parties that acquire DMV appointments during a wait time crisis for the purpose of selling access to government.

AB 320: Pest Control: Mosquito Abatement

Establishes the “California Mosquito Surveillance and Research Program” at the University of California, Davis to manage a website containing mosquito-borne virus and surveillance control data, work with mosquito abatement and vector control districts on related research, and share information with relevant stakeholders. Makes the Program contingent upon federal or state grants or private donations or grants.

AB 419: Food And Agriculture

Extends the sunsets, including existing fees, for various agricultural programs including:  (1) California’s standardization program for fruit and vegetables, (2) California’s Seed Law Local Inspection program, and (3) California’s Inedible kitchen grease (IKG) enforcement program.

AB 450: Bees: Apiary Protection Act

Applies to apiary owners for movement within the same county the existing notification requirements that currently apply to apiary owners relocating a colony of bees from a registered apiary in one county to another county. Requires apiary owners moving a colony of bees within a county to notify the county agricultural commissioner within 72 hours. Delays all relevant notification requirements until January 1, 2021.

AB 466: Interstate Shipments: Market Milk: 6 Percent Milk: Office Of Farm To Fork: Report

Extends for five years, from January 2020 to January 2025, a requirement that the Office of Farm to Fork (OF2F) within the Department of Food and Agriclulture (CDFA) submit a report to the Legislature that includes an overview of its operating account’s income and expenditures. Allows CDFA to enter into place of origin inspection agreements for all items requiring entry inspection for plant pests. Defines 6% milk products and authorizes CDFA to establish milk standards for 6% milk products sold in California.

AB 590: Milk

Revises and recasts a number of laws relative to the state’s milk marketing order, Milk Producers Security Trust Fund, and Dairy Council of California that are necessary changes as a result of a recently enacted Federal Milk Marketing Order which supersedes state laws. Authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Food and Agriculture to adjust, up or down, the fees on milk producers based on the costs of administering the milk marketing order.

AB 614: Income Taxes: Credits: Food Banks

Expands the food items that qualify for the existing income tax credit for donations made to food banks.  Includes raw agricultural products or processed food, and allows the grower, processor, or wholesaler to benefit from the credit.

AB 651: Air Ambulance Services

Requires health plan contracts and health insurance policies to provide that if an enrollee, insured, or subscriber receives covered services from a noncontracting air ambulance provider, the individual shall pay no more than the same cost sharing that the individual would pay for the same covered services received from a contracting air ambulance provider. Requires, to the extent that federal financial participation is available and necessary federal approvals have been obtained, the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to set and maintain the Medi-Cal fee rate for air ambulance services provided by either fixed or rotary wing aircraft that is equal to a percentage of the rural Medicare rates for those services.

AB 1257: Sales And Use Taxes: Exemption: Vehicle Modifications: Physically Handicapped Persons: Veterans. Tax Levy

Specifies that veterans with severe burn injuries qualify for the sales and use tax exemption for modifications made to vehicles.

AB 1377: CalFresh

Requires the CA Dept. of Education (CDE), the Dept. of Health Care Services (DHCS), and the Dept. of Social Services (DSS) to work together and with stakeholders to develop a proposed statewide process for using data collected for welfare programs to increase enrollment in the CalFresh program. Targets the process toward families of pupils who are eligible for free and reduced price school meals in order to increase enrollment of those families in the CalFresh program and to simplify and accelerate the CalFresh enrollment process to the greatest extent possible. Requires CDE, DHCS, and DSS to submit recommendations to the Legislature by 8/31/20, making recommendations for changes that must be made to facilitate increasing enrollment in CalFresh by those who are eligible to do so.

AB 1596: Hazardous Substances: Contaminated Property: Fentanyl Cleanup

Adds “fentanyl laboratory activity” to the existing law requiring property contaminated by “methamphetamine laboratory activity” to be closed for access by a local health officer (LHO) and requiring the property owner to fully remediate the property before it is returned to use, subject to LHO oversight. Imposes liens, restraints, and fees on fentanyl-contaminated properties until remediated; subjects property trespassers or violators of the remediation law to civil penalties up to $5,000; requires owners to repay government costs for clean-up; and creates an interim clean-up target of no detectable fentanyl unless and until a state or federal agency develops a final standard.

AB 1597: Hazardous Waste: Transportation: Electronic Manifests

Allows parties involved in the transportation of hazardous waste to use the new United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) electronic manifest (e-Manifest) system.  Makes other minor changes to state hazardous waste control manifest laws, including applying existing manifest fees to e-Manifests.