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The 2021-2022 California Legislative Session concluded August 31, leaving Governor Gavin Newsom until the end of September to sign or veto the hundreds of bills that reached his desk in the final weeks of the session. The following measures, actively lobbied or tracked by CSDA, have passed the State Legislature and await action by Governor Gavin Newsom. A comprehensive report of all CSDA lobbied bills will be distributed next month in CSDA’s Annual Year-End Legislative Report following the Governor’s signature deadline.

The Governor may sign these bills into law or return them to the Legislature without his signature (veto) by September 30. Unless otherwise stipulated within the legislation, signed bills will take effect January 1, 2023.

AB 1711 (Seyarto) Website Posting Mandate – OPPOSE 

Requires a public agency to post a link on its website, if one is maintained, to a notice of security breach, as specified, provided by a person or business operating a system on behalf of an agency (e.g., a vendor), when that third party is required to disclose a breach of that system potentially involving personal information. This bill will require the agency to also disclose that breach by conspicuously posting for a minimum of 30 days on the agency’s website, if one is maintained, the notice provided by the third party. This is satisfied through posting a link to the notice on the homepage or first significant page, according to font and text placement standards, as specified, that call attention to the link.

CSDA and its coalition partners were successful in gaining an amendment providing that the disclosure shall be posted in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay, consistent with the legitimate needs of law enforcement, as provided for elsewhere in specified law, or any measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach and restore the reasonable integrity of the data system.

However, CSDA remains opposed to this bill because it has not been amended to remove the agency website posting requirement and, instead, simply require the third party to list the agency it was contracting with at the time of the breach if the third party is providing the notification of breach to impacted parties. Such an amendment would have allowed recipients to understand the significance of the communication from the third party and take appropriate action without expending public resources in connection with agency website mandates.

AB 1776 (Gallagher) Resource Conservation Districts: California Prompt Payment Act – SUPPORT 

This bill would include resource conservation districts within the list of entities entitled to a certain late payment penalty pursuant to contracts with the state, as specified, and with specified exceptions.

AB 1817 (Ting) Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Product Safety – SUPPORT 

This bill would prohibit the manufacturing, distribution, or selling in the state of any new, not previously used, textile articles that contain regulated per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) after January 1, 2025. This bill would specifically exempt outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions from this prohibition until January 1, 2027. Additionally, the bill would require, commencing January 1, 2025, outdoor apparel for severe wet conditions that contain regulated PFAS must be sold with a legible and easily discernable disclosure with the statement “Made with PFAS chemicals.”  

When these garments are washed, the chemicals are released into wastewater systems and will impact the watershed and potentially may end up in groundwater. Managing PFAS contamination is important for special districts. Remediation and treatment are difficult and costly, and source control is critical to deal with PFAS on the front end.

AB 2142 (Gabriel) Income taxes: Turf Replacement Water Conservation Program – SUPPORT 

This bill, for state income tax purposes, would provide an exclusion from gross income for any amount received as a rebate, voucher, or other financial incentive issued by a public water system, as defined, local government, or state agency for participation in a turf replacement water conservation program. Sunsets January 1, 2027.

AB 2247 (Bloom) Perfluoroalkyl and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) Data – SUPPORT     
This bill would require the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to work with the Interstate Chemicals Clearinghouse to establish on or before July 1, 2026, a publicly accessible reporting platform to collect information about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and products or product components containing intentionally added PFAS being sold, offered for sale, distributed, offered for promotional purposes, or imported into the state.  Additionally, this bill requires a manufacturer of PFAS of a product or product component containing intentionally added PFAS to register the product in the registry.

AB 2771 (Friedman) Cosmetic Products: Safety – SUPPORT 

This bill would prohibit, beginning January 1, 2025, the manufacture, sale, delivery, holding, or offering for sale in commerce, cosmetic products containing intentionally added PFAS, as defined. PFAS contamination is of great concern to many water districts, which have had to take steps to address this contaminant in water supply -- often incurring significant cost to do so.

SB 931 (Leyva) Deterring union membership: violations – OPPOSE 

Permits an employee organization (union) subject to the jurisdiction of the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) to bring a claim before PERB alleging a violation of existing law prohibiting a public employer from deterring or discouraging union membership and related activities. Upon a finding by PERB that the public employer violated the law, the employer will be subject to a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per each affected employee, not to exceed one hundred thousand dollars $100,000 in total, payable to the state General Fund.

CSDA and its coalition partners have succeeded in gaining significant amendments, including the requirement that assessed penalties be paid to the state General Fund instead of to PERB, and that, in assessing the penalty, PERB shall consider the public employer’s annual budget; the severity of the violation; and, any prior history of violations by the public employer. However, CSDA remains opposed to this bill because it has not been amended to provide for reciprocal prevailing party attorneys’ fees and costs awards, and instead only allows such awards to the union as prevailing party, and the bill has not been amended to require a notice to the employer relating to the PERB action.

SB 1127 (Atkins) Workers’ compensation: liability presumptions – OPPOSE 

Alters rules and timeframes for determining eligibility for workers’ compensation claims and cuts the amount of time that California employers have to investigate whether certain claimed workplace injuries subject to existing presumptions are related to work by reducing the investigation period from 90 days to 75 days. However, the bill does not address other workers’ compensation procedural requirements which do not allow claims investigations to be completed within 75 days. This is especially concerning because the bill expands penalties on employers when liability has been unreasonably rejected for claims of injury or illness covered by certain legal presumptions, as specified. The amount of the penalty will be five times the amount of the benefits unreasonably delayed due to the rejection of liability, capped at $50,000. This provision is applied retroactively.