BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1432
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB
1432 (Bonta)
As Amended May 11, 2016
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: | | |SENATE: |29-7 |(May 26, 2016) |
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(vote not relevant)
Original Committee Reference: HEALTH
SUMMARY: Establishes a navigation technology surcharge for
commercial vessels calling on ports (inbound and outbound
transits) in San Francisco, San Pablo, Suisun, and Monterey
Bays, including the Sacramento River to the Port of Sacramento
and the San Joaquin River to the Port of Stockton.
The Senate amendments delete the Assembly version of the bill
and instead:
1)Reinstitute, until January 1, 2021, a navigation technology
surcharge for the purchase or lease by the pilots of new
navigation hardware and software to enhance navigation safety.
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2)Prohibits the cumulative amount of the surcharge collected
from exceeding $1.2 million.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Provides for the regulation and licensure of pilots for
Monterey Bay and the Bays of San Francisco, San Pablo, and
Suisun by the Board of Pilot Commissioners (Board) within the
California State Transportation Agency.
2)Specifies that the Board shall consist of seven members
appointed by the Governor and one ex-officio non-voting member
(the Secretary of the Transportation Agency). Two members are
pilots licensed by the Board; two are industry members (one
from the tanker industry and one from the dry cargo industry);
and, three public members who are neither pilots nor work for
companies that use pilots.
3)Prescribes the rates of pilotage fees required to be charged
by pilots and paid by vessels.
4)Requires that the Board recommend that the Legislature, by
statute, adopt a schedule of pilotage rates providing fair and
reasonable return to pilots engaged in ship movements or
special operations.
5)Provides for a movement fee as necessary and authorized by the
Board to recover a pilot's costs for the purchase, lease, or
maintenance of navigation software, hardware, and ancillary
equipment purchased after November 5, 2008 and before January
1, 2011.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY, this bill required the State
Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to submit an
application to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
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Services for a waiver to implement a demonstration project to
accomplish specified goals and requires DHCS to submit an
implementation plan to the Legislature prior to implementing an
approved waiver.
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, no direct state impacts, but the bill would result in
unknown indirect surcharge revenue gains to the Board of Pilot
Commissioners' Special Fund.
COMMENTS: Bar pilots have been guiding ships into San Francisco
Bay, one of the most treacherous passages in the world, since at
least 1835. The work that bar pilots performed was so important
that one of the first legislative enactments by the newly formed
California Legislature that met in San Jose in 1850 was to
address the regulation of bar pilots.
California's history of piloting parallels to a large extent the
history of pilotage throughout the United States. Prior to the
American Revolution, pilotage was regulated by colonial
legislatures. They generally provided for the commissioning of
pilots, apprenticeship requirements to become a pilot, specified
the type and size of pilot boats used in the service, and
established fees to be charged. When the United States
Constitution was adopted, it recognized that pilotage fell
within the domain of the federal government because it involved
regulation of instruments of foreign commerce. One of the first
acts of the newly formed Congress in 1789 was to recognize the
existing state laws regulating pilots and delegate to the states
the authority to continue to regulate pilotage because of its
unique character.
Bar pilots are responsible for steering an arriving vessel
through the Golden Gate of San Francisco Bay, the Bay waters and
adjoining navigable waters, which include San Pablo Bay, Suisun
Bay, the Sacramento River and its tributaries. When a vessel
approaches the "SF" buoy several miles west of the Golden Gate
Bridge, a bar pilot boards the ship and takes navigational
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control. (Pilots in San Francisco are called "Bar Pilots"
because they board and disembark ships just beyond a treacherous
sand bar which provides a natural obstacle to shipping.) It
becomes the pilot's responsibility to guide the ship to its
berth. The bar pilots provide service to all types of vessels,
from 100-foot tugs to 1000-foot supertankers.
Pilots are generally mandatory in every major port throughout
the world and their pilotage service is paid for by the vessel
owner/agent. As noted above, the San Francisco Bar Pilots have
been state regulated and licensed since 1850 to pilot vessels to
various ports in the Bay Area such as San Francisco, Oakland,
Redwood City, Martinez, Richmond, Pittsburgh, Vallejo, Rodeo,
Antioch, Stockton, Sacramento and more recently including
Monterey.
This bill reinstitutes a navigation technology surcharge for the
purchase or lease by the pilots of new navigation hardware and
software to enhance navigation safety. This surcharge was
initially used from 2010 to 2011 to upgrade pilots' navigation
safety equipment in the wake of the Cosco Busan oil spill.
Under this bill, the Board would have a window of time to
approve new equipment for purchase or lease by pilots that would
be paid for by the surcharge, which would then sunset in 2021.
The surcharge and the cap on how much may be collected are the
result of negotiations between the pilots and the shipping
industry and reflect a safety issue that both groups agree is
worth paying for.
Analysis Prepared by:
Justin Behrens / Victoria Alvarez / TRANS. /
(916) 319-2093 FN: 0002970
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