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

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