BILL ANALYSIS AB 388 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 388 (Strom-Martin) As Amended June 12, 2002 Majority vote ----------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: | |(June 6, 2001) |SENATE: |22-10|(August 8, | | | | | | |2002) | ----------------------------------------------------------------- (vote not relevant) Original Committee Reference: NAT. RES. SUMMARY: Requests the University of California (UC) to assess the economic opportunities of production of specialty or alternative fiber crops, including industrial hemp, kenaf, and flax through information from other states and countries. This research is to include market demand, identifying potential barriers, production, processing, legal and marketing issues. The report is due from UC by January 1, 2004, and is to be given to the Assembly Committee on Agriculture and the Senate Agriculture and Water Resources Committee. The Senate amendments delete the Assembly version of this bill, and instead: 1)Request UC to conduct an assessment on the economic opportunities of growing specialty and alternative fiber crops in California. The assessment is to include industrial hemp, kenaf, and flax, and to extrapolate from existing data on productivity and costs of other states and countries, to California's conditions. 2)Require the report is to include, but not be limited to, estimating the demand and likely crop prices, identify potential barriers to profitability, identify production, processing, legal and marketing issues that need to be addressed for future demonstration research or pilot commercial trials. 3)Request the report to be completed by January 1, 2004, and be given to the Assembly Committee on Agriculture and the Senate Agriculture and Water Resources Committee. AB 388 Page 2 AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill required an annual appropriation of $125,000 for expenditures to the Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response (OSPR) to develop and conduct training of staff and other personnel to respond to toxic spills requiring the rescue of wildlife. This bill appropriated $135,000 to OSPR for allocation to the nonprofit, Marine Mammal Center (Center), for research into the effects of toxic substances on marine mammals. FISCAL EFFECT : This bill passed out of the Senate Appropriations Committee under Senate Rule 28.8, as determined by the Chair of that committee, that any additional state costs are not significant and do not and will not require the appropriation of additional state funds, and this bill will cause no significant reduction in revenues. COMMENTS : This bill was substantially amended in the Senate and the Assembly-approved provisions of the bill were deleted. AB 448 (Strom-Martin) dealt with establishing rules and regulations for the licensure and growing of industrial hemp; it failed passage in the Assembly Committee on Agriculture (May 21, 2001). This bill takes a different tack in preparing background and data to discover if such fiber crops as industrial hemp and others would be viable if grown in California. The market for products made from such alternative fiber crops has grown in recent years and other agricultural producing regions of the world have expanded their production. Analysis Prepared by : Jim Collin / AGRI. / (916) 319-2084 FN: 0005764