Legislative Update | Agricultural Council of California

With early May deadlines approaching for policy committees to hear and report bills, the State Legislature continues to consider an onslaught of legislation in its policy committee hearing process.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas announced four new select committees on affordability on April 23 to address cost of living in California. The select committees will cover the following issues: 1) childcare costs, 2) CalFresh enrollment and nutrition, 3) housing finance and affordability, and 4) transportation and the Low Carbon Fuel Standard. Speaker Rivas also touted nine Assembly bills on affordability and measures to accelerate affordable housing construction in his announcement.

Notable Legislation in the State Legislature

SB 628 (Grove), a measure to provide a tax credit for farmers paying overtime to farmworkers failed on a partisan vote on April 23 in the Senate Labor Committee with Democrats opposing and the lone Republican on the committee voting in favor. Ag Council and other ag organizations supported the measure and spoke in favor of SB 628. The measure would have helped both ag employers and ag workers through a tax credit for overtime wages paid – similar to action taken in New York and Oregon.

A positive water measure, SB 72 (Caballero), to require the state to set an interim water supply planning target of nine million-acre-feet by 2050 passed policy committee earlier in April. Ag Council supports SB 72, and it awaits action in the Senate Appropriations Committee where the bill author is the chair.

A bill to provide flexibility and clarity in the state’s packaging and recycling regulations is not moving forward at this time. The measure, AB 473 (Wilson), would allow producers trending toward recyclability to continue to make recyclability claims on packaging. Unfortunately, some groups vehemently opposed AB 473, which was supported by business and agricultural organizations. This issue is important to multiple Ag Council members, and we will continue working on a path forward.

Legislation up for committee consideration this week includes AB 942 (Calderon), a measure allowing existing on-farm and ag processing solar energy contracts to be broken by investor-owned utilities, and a bill to define and regulate ultra processed food, AB 1264 (Gabriel).

Please click HERE for a legislative overview, including Ag Council’s position and the status of bills.