The Story of the Fourth of July

 by: Dennis Albiani, Legislative Advocate

Groundwater Bills Mandating Regulation Advance

Two bills that would require the creation of local groundwater regulatory districts and providing significant additional authority to the State Water Resources Control Board advanced through the second house policy committees this week. AB 1739 (Dickinson) sponsored by the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA) and SB 1168 (Pavley) sponsored by the Water Foundation both promise significant regulatory frameworks on California groundwater users, requiring the creation of local groundwater management districts, mandating sustainable yield, authorizing additional fee authority, and expanding sanctions for non compliance. The association advocate Dennis Albiani lead the opposition testimony to the legislation but offered alternative principles that would offer local control, protect overlying water rights, mandate privacy for well and groundwater extraction information, prohibit crop dictation and limit state authority to regulate basins except under extreme circumstances. This issue will continue to be a major point of concern this legislative session and we encourage all farmers and business persons to review the legislation, visit the Governor's Office of Planning and Research website and review the Governor's proposal and review the agricultural community's principles for groundwater policy.

• Link to Governor's OPR proposal: (click)    
• Link to Agricultural Principles of Groundwater (click)

Labor Bills Face Hurdles This Week

There are several problematic labor bills moving through the legislature and several were heard in various committees this week. Many of these bills will add regulatory burdens, costs and liability to agricultural employers. Below is a synopsis of the legislation and the outcome.

AB 1522 (Gonzalez) Sick Leave Mandate. AB 1522 proposes to require all employers to provide up to 3 paid sick leave days to all workers on the job. Employers who fail to meet face new statutory penalties and threat of new lawsuits for failure to comply. The mandate would cover all workers-- public and private sector--and apply to all full-time, part-time and seasonal workers.  

Sick leave can be used by the employee for any of the following reasons: Being physically or mentally unable to work due to an illness, injury, or a medical condition of the employee; obtaining professional diagnosis of treatment for a medical condition of the employee; other medical reasons of the employee, such as pregnancy or obtaining a physical examination; or to attend to an illness of a child, parent, spouse, or domestic partner of the employee.   The bill passed the Senate Labor Committee 5-2 referred next to Appropriations.

AB 1897 (Roger Hernandez) New Joint Liability: Contracting Businesses. AB 1897 imposes new joint liability on any private sector contracting entity for any business they might contract with should their contractor fail to properly pay wages or overtime pay, did not ensure employees had required rest or meal breaks, let a workers' compensation insurance policy lapse or failed to remit employee contributions.

AB 2416 (Mark Stone) New Ability for Unproven Wage Liens. AB 2416 allows employees to file liens on all an employer's real or personal property, or property of a third party where work was provided. The bill permits any employee, governmental agency, to record unproven, priority liens against an employer's real or personal property or any property where an employee "performed work" for an alleged wage claim. Wage liens would be permitted whenever an employee believes they have not received the correct wages, including overtime pay; meal periods; rest periods; vacation pay; commission; tips; piece rate; bonuses; split shift pay; reporting time pay; shift differential pay; on-call pay; stand-by pay; meals and lodging credit violations; expense reimbursements; compensation for tools, uniforms, and equipment; and, compensation for normal wear and tear of uniforms, tools, and equipment.

Property-related transactions could come to a complete halt in the state if AB 2416 is enacted. That is why AB 2416 is opposed by nearly every business organization as these new liens have the potential to completely disrupt commercial and personal real estate markets.

Extensive testimony was taken last week on the bill by the Senate Judiciary Committee, held one week and passed the bill on a 4-1 vote.

SB 935 (Leno) Minimum Wage Increase. SB 935 seeks to increase the minimum wage to $13 by 2017 and then automatically increased annually to any rise in the Consumer Price Index.

Next week, current state law raises the minimum wage to $9 on July 1, 2014 and to $10 per hour on January 1, 2016. SB 935 seeks to override these already scheduled increases and instead ratchet up the wage in three big jumps. First, SB 935 override current set increases by requiring the minimum wage to be not less than $11 per by January 1, 2015. Next, the bill increases the wage to not less than $12 per as of January 1, 2016. The third increase places California's minimum wage to not less than $13 per for all industries on January 1, 2017. Last, the minimum wage in indexes automatically January 1 of each year commencing in 2018.  The author chose to hold the bill in Committee this week.

Anti GMO Bill Revived

Senator Noreen Evans continued her anti GMO crusade by using an extreme parliamentary procedure to revive her anti GMO bill requiring labeling of all foods containing GMO ingredients. The Senator "gut and amended" SB 1040, a bill regulating wine that had passed over to the Assembly and replaced the language with an almost exact version of her mandatory labeling legislation that failed the Senate last month. Advocates opposing the legislation quickly responded encouraging the bill be referred to Assembly Ag and Health Committees for hearing. The bill was referred to Assembly Ag where the author chose to hold the bill since it was clear there were not enough votes in support. However, the Senator has announced an intention to keep up her fight against this technology.

Gas prices will jump 9% and diesel fuel costs will increase 14% by 2017, all due to the federal Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), says a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released this week. To meet mandated RFS levels, CBO say, gasoline and diesel refiners will have to more than triple their use of advanced biofuels (biodiesel, non-corn ethanol), while the blend rate for corn ethanol would have to be drastically increased.

For its part, EPA will likely keep RFS mandates relatively unchanged through 2017 because increasing them means higher advanced biofuels use and a higher percentage blend rate on gasoline. CBO said it's unlikely food prices would change a great deal by 2017 if the RFS is repealed because fuel refiners would continue using the same amount of corn ethanol until alternative non-corn fuels were produced in sufficient amounts to meet their needs.

Court Imposes Some Limits on EPA Climate Authority --The U.S. Supreme Court this week upheld most of EPA's authority to regulate air emissions, but said the agency can't require industrial pollution sources to get Clean Air Act (CAA) permits based solely on their potential to emit greenhouse gases (GHG). The decision came in the Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, which challenged the agency's authority to force companies to get permits when they build new plants or modify existing facilities. The ruling seems to protect current White House carbon capture actions under certain circumstances. While the GHG-only permitting action was thrown out, the high court in its 5-4 decision said it's different if the new or modified facility will emit other pollutants, such as sulfur dioxide. In such cases, the court said, EPA is well within its authority to require the facility use "best available technology" to limit all regulated emissions, including GHG. Reaction to the decision was split, with both sides of the GHG regulation issue claiming victory. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) called the court action a correction to "EPA's misreading of the CAA." "The ruling preserves EPA's ability to regulate GHG from motor vehicles, but will prevent the agency from sweeping in thousands of small businesses and factories," said ACC President Cal Dooley.