ACWA Reports on Status of Significant Legislation
Following the June 5 deadline for bills to move out of their house of origin, ACWA has prepared a mid-session report on the status of significant legislation. The association has been heavily involved in advocating on behalf of its members both in opposition and in support of bills as they move through the legislative process.
AB 482 (Mendoza D) Employment: credit reports.
The bill would prohibit an employer, with the exception of certain financial institutions, from obtaining a consumer credit report for employment purposes unless the information is (1) substantially job-related, meaning that the position of the person for whom the report is sought has access to money, other assets, or confidential information, and (2) the position of the person for whom the report is sought is a position in the state Department of Justice, a managerial position, that of a sworn peace officer or other law enforcement position, or a position for which the information contained in the report is required to be disclosed by law or to be obtained by the employer.
Position: Not Favor unless Amended
Status: Senate Judiciary Committee
AB 1594 (Huber D) Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta: peripheral canal.
The bill would have prohibited the construction and operation of a peripheral canal from diminishing or negatively affecting the water supplies, water rights, or quality of water for water users within the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed, or imposing any new burdens on infrastructure within, or financial burdens on persons residing in, the Delta or the Delta watershed.
Position: Oppose
Status: DEAD
AB 1797 (Berryhill, Bill R) State Water Resources Development System: Delta Corridors Plan.
This bill would have required the department to undertake an expedited evaluation and feasibility study with regard to the implementation of a specified Delta Corridors Plan as part of the State Water Resources Development System. The bill would have required the department to consult with the Department of Fish and Game to study specified impacts and benefits of the Delta Corridors Plan and to include in the study an assessment of the incorporation of the Two-Gates Fish Demonstration Project managed by the United States Bureau of Reclamation into the Delta Corridors Plan. The department would have been required to prepare and submit to the Legislature, on or before January 1, 2012, a report that includes its feasibility findings. If the department determined that the implementation of the plan was feasible, the department would have bee required to include recommendations with regard to specific facilities to be constructed, and to identify potential funding sources, for the purposes of implementing the plan.
Position Not Favor
Status: DEAD
AB 1886 (Yamada D) Water use: Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed: report.
The bill would have required the Department of Water Resources in preparing and updating the California Water Plan to include a report on progress toward meeting the goals of reducing reliance on Delta water supplies as described in the bill.
Position Not Favor unless Amended
Status: DEAD
AB 1929 (Hall D) Invasive aquatic species: mussels.
The bill would provide that an operator of water delivery and storage facilities, who has prepared, initiated, and is in compliance with a plan to control and eradicate dreissenid mussels in accordance with the above existing provisions of law, would not be subject to any civil or criminal liability for the introduction of dreissenid mussel species as a result of operations of those facilities. The bill would provide that neither the director's enforcement activities, nor the prohibition on a person possessing, importing, shipping, or transporting dreissenid mussels in the state would apply to an operator who has prepared, initiated, and is in compliance with a plan to control and eradicate dreissenid mussels, unless the department had required the operator to update its plan and the operator failed to do so.
Position: Support/Sponsor
Status: Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee
AB 1955 (De La Torre D) Public officers: incompatible offices.
The bill would provide additional circumstances when 2 public offices are incompatible.
Position: Oppose
Status: Senate Local Government Committee
AB 2003 (Mendoza D) Legislative bodies: contracts and appointments.
The bill would have provided that any contract entered into by a legislative body of a local agency during the period after the close of the polls on election day for an election involving that legislative body and before a new member of the legislative body is sworn in to take office , shall not take effect until the legislative body, which includes the newly elected member, has reviewed and approved the contract or appointment. This bill would have provided an exception for a contract that has a value not to exceed $20,000 and that expires on or before the date that the incoming legislative body is sworn in.
Position: Oppose
Status: DEAD
AB 2049 (Arambula I) Transfers of water: agricultural use to municipal use.
The bill would have prohibited the Department of Water Resources, with respect to a contractual entitlement to water from the State Water Project, and the state board, with respect to any other transfer of water or water rights, from approving the transfer of surface water or water rights, or a portion of a contractual entitlement to water from the State Water Project, from agricultural use to municipal use for a period of 20 years or more, unless the water user provides to the department or the state board, as applicable, a written evaluation of the economic, social, and environmental effects of the transfer upon the service area from which the water is to be transferred. Would have prohibited a water user from replacing specified surface water that is transferred from agricultural use to municipal use with groundwater, unless the groundwater basin of the service area from which the water was to be transferred was monitored. The bill would have required the department and the state board to charge specified fees to a water user that is subject to these provisions.
Position: Oppose
Status: DEAD
AB 2336 (Fuller R) Delta Stewardship Council.
The bill would require the council, in the course of developing and adopting the Delta Plan, to direct the board to conduct an assessment of certain stressors on populations of native fish species in the Delta, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, and the tributaries to those rivers below the rim dams of the central valley, and recommend changes in statute and actions by state agencies to remedy the situation in as timely a manner as possible.
Position: Support
Status: Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee
AB 2420 (Huffman D) Protected species: incidental take: consistency determinations.
The bill would have required the inclusion in the notice, additional information, including a copy of the biological opinion along with an incidental take statement or a copy of the conservation plan with an incidental take permit. The bill would have authorized the department to adopt regulations to implement those revised incidental take and consistency determination provisions.
Position: Oppose
Status: DEAD
AB 2583 (Hall D) Water treatment: hazardous materials.
The bill would have required Cal EMA, by January 1, 2013, to adopt regulations to require a public water system or wastewater treatment plant that is a stationary source and is required to prepare and submit an RMP to additionally consider the use of safer technologies by the public water system or wastewater treatment plant in that RMP. Because a violation of CalARP is a crime, the bill would have imposed a state-mandated local program by creating a new crime.
Position: Oppose
Status: DEAD
SB 565 (Pavley D) Water resources.
The bill would expand the exemption to other provisions relating to water use, including provisions that require the payment of fees to the State Water Resources Control Board (board) for official services relating to statements of water diversion and use.
Position: Oppose
Status: Assembly Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee
SB 972 (Wolk D) Indemnity: design professionals.
The bill would provide, for all contracts, and amendments to contracts, entered into on or after January 1, 2011, with a public agency for design professional services, all provisions, clauses, covenants, and agreements contained in, collateral to, or affecting these contracts or amendments to contracts that purport to require an immediate defense under an indemnity agreement are unenforceable . The bill would provide that a design professional is not required to defend or indemnify the indemnified party unless and until the indemnified party provides a written tender of the claim to the design professional, at which point the design professional may choose to either defend the claim with counsel of its choosing or pay a reasonable allocated share of the indemnified party's defense fees and costs. The bill would allow the indemnified party to recover damages from the design professional if it fails to timely and adequately perform these duties.
Position: Oppose
Status: Assembly Judiciary Committee
SB 1234 (Kehoe D) Water: unreasonable use.
The bill would have required the State Water resources Control Board, by January 1, 2012, to adopt regulations to identify unreasonable uses of water during various periods of water shortage, as specified, and would have set forth related legislative findings and declarations.
Position: Oppose
Status: DEAD
SB 1284 (Ducheny D) Water quality: mandatory minimum civil penalties.
The bill would provide that certain violations involving the failure to file a discharge monitoring report are not subject to those mandatory minimum penalties if certain requirements are met. The bill would provide that a failure to file a discharge monitoring report is not a serious waste discharge violation if the discharger submits a specified statement to the regional board. The bill, until January 1, 2016, would require, with respect to certain violations involving the failure to file a discharge monitoring report, the mandatory minimum penalty of $3,000 to be assessed only for each required report that is not timely filed, and not for each 30-day period following the deadline for submitting the report. This bill contains other related provisions and other existing laws.
Position: Support/Sponsor
Status: Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials and Judiciary Committees.
SB 1398 (DeSaulnier D) Property tax revenue allocations: public utilities: qualified property.
The bill would for the 2011-12 fiscal year and for each fiscal year thereafter, require that a specified amount of property tax revenues derived from applying a specified tax rate to qualified property, as defined, be allocated first to the county in which the qualified property is located and to all of the school entities located in that county and 2nd to the East Contra Costa Fire Protection District , with the balance allocated to the redevelopment agency governing the project area in which the qualified property is located. This bill would also require that a specified amount of property tax revenues derived from applying another specified tax rate to the qualified property be first allocated to taxing jurisdictions in those tax rate areas in the county in which the qualified property is located, with the balance allocated to taxing jurisdictions pursuant to a specified formula. The bill would require the Oakley Redevelopment Agency to reimburse the county auditor for the actual and reasonable costs incurred by the county auditor in administering these allocations.
Position: Oppose
Status: Assembly Local Government Committee
SB 1469 (Simitian D) Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta: California Water Plan: water quality.
The bill would require the board, by January 1, 2012, to identify all parties, including public and private parties that benefit from waters originating in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed and whose activities impact the Delta watershed. The bill would have also required the board, by that date, to develop a process for determining the degree of responsibility attributable to each of the identified parties for physical and environmental impacts on the Delta.
Position: Oppose Unless Amended
Status: DEAD
