Legislative Updates | February 2, 2018

Many Two-Year Bills Meet Their Fate in Legislature

This Wednesday marked the deadline for the Legislature to advance bills introduced in 2017 out of their house of origin to keep them in play. Early this week, the Senate and Assembly moved a number of of two-year measures to the next house while leaving many more behind, rendering them dead bills. The Legislature continues with bill introductions and increasing committee activity in what is already shaping up to be a busy spring ahead.

There are a handful of public health-related informational hearings that have been scheduled for the coming weeks. These hearings include:

  • Assembly Select Committee on Health Care Delivery Systems and Universal Coverage
    • Monday, February 5 – Implementation Challenges for Universal Coverage
    • Wednesday, February 7 – Options for Universal Coverage
  • Assembly Committee on Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials
    • Tuesday, February 13 – Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program and the Status of Testing Low-Income Children for Lead Exposure

Below, we detail several bills of interest to CHEAC Members. Our weekly CHEAC Bill Chart is available here.

Environmental Health

AB 626 (E. Garcia) as amended 01/22/2018 – Oppose

Assembly Member Eduardo Garcia’s AB 626 was passed out of the Assembly and to the Senate this week. The measure would create a new type of food facility defined as “microenterprise home kitchens” in the California Retail Food Code. Individuals would be allowed to operate these new entities in private home kitchens and sell potentially-hazardous food products. Local health departments would be required to permit and inspect these entities.

CHEAC and our county partners, including HOAC, CSAC, UCC, and RCRC, maintain a joint opposition to the measure over concerns of increased risks of foodborne illness and increased regulatory and enforcement measures beyond the scope and ability of local health departments. AB 626 will be assigned to a Senate policy committee in the coming weeks.

AB 1964 (Maienschein) as introduced 01/30/2018 – Pending

For several years, there have been legislative efforts to define “day camps” in statute under existing law for organized camps. CHEAC has opposed such efforts as an expansive new mandate on local health departments to regulate a broad new type of camp at the local level.

Assembly Member Brian Maienschien (San Diego) introduced a new Day Camps bill this week.  It mirrors previous efforts; however, it does include new language defining two types of day camps (Tier 1 and Tier 2) with the difference being between those camps providing food services and those not.

CHEAC’s Legislative Committee will be reviewing the bill in depth during next week’s Committee meeting and will formulate CHEAC’s official position on AB 1964; however, we ask local health departments to review the new language and provide comments to CHEAC staff by COB on Wednesday, February 7 in order to help inform our Legislative Committee discussion.

Health Coverage/Health Reform

AB 11 (McCarty) as amended on 01/10/2018 – Support

Assembly Member Kevin McCarty’s AB 11 was passed from the Assembly to the Senate this week. The measure would require screening services under the Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) Program to include developmental screening services for individuals zero to 3 years of age.

Tobacco Control

AB 1097 (Levine) as revised on 01/18/2018 – Support

This week, AB 1097 by Assembly Member Marc Levine was advanced from the Assembly to the Senate. The measure would ban smoking on state beaches and parks and impose a $50 violation fine. Despite Governor Brown vetoing previous measures which proposed the same ban, the Assembly once again passed the measure for the third year in a row.