New Pavley Laws to Ring in the New Year
Contact: Elizabeth Fenton
(916) 651-4023 cell: (916) 248-3229
Elizabeth.Fenton@sen.ca.gov
14 bills authored by Sen. Pavley will be effective January 1, 2012
SACRAMENTO – Legislation authored by Senator Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills) and signed by Governor Brown will become law on January 1, 2012. Senator Pavley’s bills address important statewide issues, including removing regulatory obstacles thwarting business development in the state, protecting consumers’ purchases of energy efficiency appliances, ensuring court-ordered parole for the most serious sex offenders and giving law enforcement the tools to stop the cycle of domestic violence.
“My legislative package was aimed at helping Californians,” said Pavley, “whether through encouraging business growth in the state, providing additional tools to law enforcement to protect our residents or encouraging the adoption of energy efficiency measures. I’m pleased the Governor signed these important pieces of legislation.”
Of the 16 bills Senator Pavley authored that passed the Legislature, two were vetoed by Governor Brown, including a measure that would have doubled the fines for all elder and dependent adult abuse and impose protections for the issuance of signature stamps that have been misused by caregivers to defraud seniors. Senator Pavley had introduced the legislation at the request of a Woodland Hills constituent whose mother lost her live savings after being preyed upon by her in-home caregiver.
“Much of last year’s legislative business in Sacramento was correctly focused on our state budget and the difficult challenges that needed to be addressed to keep California moving forward,” said Pavley, “but at the same time, I continued to work on legislation to respond to the needs of my constituents.”
Below is a synopsis of Senator Pavley’s 14 bills that will go into law on January 1, 2012:
• SB 61 - Wiretap Extension – Sponsored by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, the law ensures the continuation of California’s wiretap program, which includes both telephonic and electronic technology, to January 2015. Last year, Pavley updated and expanded the state’s program to include electronic communications to help solve the state’s most serious and difficult crimes such as organized crime and large scale narcotic seizures.
• SB 152 - Rent Equity – Repeals California’s existing law which prohibited from charging for any private recreation pier that is constructed on state lands for the use of landowner. Requires the State Lands Commission to charge appropriate and fair rents for all private recreational piers built over state land.
• SB 170 - SCAQMD: air pollution – Gives local air districts the option to negotiate for a share of revenues with entities that provide research and development for new technologies that reduce pollution and have other public benefits.
• SB 179 - Sex Offender Parole - Ensures that sex offenders identified as Sexually Violent Predators serve their court-ordered parole after their release from state hospitals into the community. A previous glitch in the law was allowing serious sex offenders, to be released from state hospitals directly to the streets, without any parole supervision. The law is designed to protect communities, particularly vulnerable populations, such as children and the elderly, by adequately supervising dangerous predators.
• SB 224 - DWR Contracting Authority - Provides a limited exemption from the Department of General Services’ review of specified contracts. This bill will eliminate costly contract delays and duplicative and unnecessary bureaucratic review.
• SB 233 - Physician Assistants/Emergency Rooms – Removes barriers to physician assistants working in Emergency Rooms. Allows PA’s and other mid-level healthcare providers to continue to provide services in emergency department across the state. This clarifies an ambiguity in the code that has wrongfully limited PA’s rightful scope of practice in certain instances, to the detriment of timely care in several ER’s in Southern CA.
• SB 381 - Inter-District School Transfers – Ensures that California students continue to be allowed to attend school in the district where a parent or guardian is employed, rather than where the student resides (until 2017).
• SB 454 - CEC: Energy Efficiency Standards – Ensures that consumers are getting what they paid for when purchasing energy efficiency appliances. The new law gives the CEC the ability to enforce efficiency code violations for appliances, and requires permits before energy efficiency rebates can be disbursed by investor-owned utilities.
• SB 502 - Hospital Infant Feeding Protection Act – Seeks to improve infant nutrition in California hospitals. Requires all general acute care hospitals with a perinatal unit to have a posted infant feeding policy that promotes breastfeeding and other feeding guidance.
• SB 617 - Regulatory Reform – Seeks to improve California’s business climate by implementing regulatory reform. Bill requires agencies to more rigorously assess the economic impacts, including the benefits of major regulations before they are adopted. The economic analysis will not only look at compliance costs for business, but also environmental and public health benefits.
• SB 646 - Lead in Jewelry Enforcement – Closes an enforcement loophole in California’s lead-containing jewelry law to ensure that large companies are unable to evade enforcement of the state’s law banning lead in jewelry designed for children and adults. Over three years of enforcement data show that multiple vendors and retailers had repeatedly violated the law – with some large companies racking up over 100 violations while incurring few penalties.
• SB 679 - Energy Conservation Projects – Reallocates $25 million of the PACE money to the Energy Conservation Assistance Account (ECAA) at the CEC to provide revolving loans at low interest to local governments for energy efficiency retrofits.
• SB 723 - Domestic Violence Prevention – Intended to provide increased public safety to families and children who are victims of domestic violence. Allows criminal courts to issue protective orders for up to 10 years based on any domestic violence misdemeanor or felony conviction. The Department of Justice reports more than 600 incidents of domestic violence every day in California.
• SB 913 - Medical Exams for Juvenile Offenders – Gives probation officers and county medical staff the legal authority to consent to and provide medical care to juvenile detainees when the parent or legal guardian cannot be found. The bill is designed to ensure that minors, who have been taken into custody and placed in juvenile facilities, receive physical examinations in an effort to prevent the spread of TB, whooping cough, diabetes, etc. The bill would prevent unnecessary court and emergency room costs that can spiral out of control when child does not receive early intervention.