Legislation column: End of a legislative year
| Monday, Nov 09 2009 02:57 PM
Last Updated Monday, Nov 09 2009 02:57 PM
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Nick Ortiz
The California Legislature’s 2009 season “officially” drew to a close in September, but lawmakers have actually been in overtime for almost two months, negotiating critical issues such as education funding, tax policy and most critical to the valley — water. This month we’ll take a look at where things stand at the close of a busy legislative year.
First, in the waning days of the 2008-2009 legislative session, only three Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce-opposed bills passed the Legislature. We’re proud to report that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed all three:
AB 793 (Dave Jones; D-Sacramento). Proposed expansions of employer workplace liability far beyond federal guidelines.
AB 838 (Sandre Swanson D-Oakland). Proposed unnecessary regulations for controlling the risk of heat illness where employees work indoors.
SB 242 (Leland Yee; D-San Francisco/San Mateo). Proposal to codify “limiting the use of a native language” in an establishment as a civil rights violation.
In the last issue, I discussed the Commission on the 21st Century Economy, charged with developing proposals for a reformed state tax system. The commission — a bipartisan panel with appointees of both the governor and the Assembly speaker — released its plan in late September.
The plan proposes shrinking the number of personal income tax brackets; eliminating corporate income tax; eliminating the state’s sales and use taxes; and imposing a business net receipts tax on all companies doing business in California. The proposal has not been met with open arms by legislators; in fact, the most interesting thing about the report is not the recommendations, but the coalition opposing it.
In early October, Schwarzenegger appealed to lawmakers to begin working earnestly on a comprehensive water solution, which includes a fix for the troubled Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The Delta is the source of drinking and agricultural water for millions of Californians, and its fragile ecosystem threatens the ability to pump water out of the estuary consistently. Over the course of October, legislators, administration and federal officials and interest groups worked toward a sweeping reform of our state water system. During the first week of November, state lawmakers finally approved a long-overdue state water package.
The Delta plan is a package of five bills, approved by both houses of the Legislature, and as of this writing, expected to receive the governor’s signature. Aspects of the plan include new groundwater monitoring regulations and reporting requirements for local water districts, new authority for the State Water Resources Control Board to reduce illegal diversions of Delta water, and improve Delta water quality.
The centerpiece of the plan is its conservation element. The plan calls for urban municipal users to reach a 20 percent reduction in use by 2020; industrial users are given a 10 percent reduction target for 2020; and agricultural users will be required to develop and implement water management plans with higher efficiency standards.
For the Central Valley, the two most important aspects of the package are the Delta Governance legislation and the $11.4 billion bond approved by the Legislators. The reform of Delta Governance paves the way for a peripheral canal that could move water around the fragile Delta.
The legislation calls for a comprehensive plan to restore the Delta to be developed by a Delta Stewardship Council by 2012. This plan will in all likelihood include a canal. Furthermore, the legislation makes it almost impossible for state agencies to revise or refuse implementation of the Council’s Delta plan.
The future sticking point will be if proponents of the canal can prove under certain federal guidelines that a conveyance system provides a certain level of environmental benefits that facilitate a Delta restoration. Furthermore, no bond funds are allocated to build a canal; Southern California water districts, and ultimately their ratepayers, plan to finance construction.
Finally, the bond approved by the Legislature must also be approved by voters in 2010. Though the bond doesn’t include funds for the peripheral canal, it does provide benefits to Central California. Valley legislators were able to rally to ensure that the bond included $3 billion for underground and above ground storage — enhancing and expanding our water storage system is critical to water management in the Valley in drought years.
Furthermore, the bond provides funds for the restoration of the Delta, setting up the conditions under which the construction of a canal is proven to provide critical environmental enhancements, and thus be allowed to proceed.
The approval of the comprehensive water package represents a triumph of bipartisanship and a spirit of problem-solving — we at the Chamber hope it lasts.
Nick Ortiz is the government affairs manager for the Greater Bakersfield Chamber of Commerce. The chamber, founded in 1920, is a member-driven business association representing nearly 1,500 California businesses.
