BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1894|
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CONSENT
Bill No: AB 1894
Author: Committee on Agriculture
Amended: 5/18/16 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE AGRICULTURE COMMITTEE: 5-0, 6/21/16
AYES: Galgiani, Cannella, Berryhill, Pan, Wolk
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 4/21/16 (Consent) - See last page for
vote
SUBJECT: Food and agriculture: omnibus bill
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill updates frozen dairy dessert food safety
requirements to incorporate new technologies; clarifies the
authority of the California Department of Food and Agriculture
(CDFA) Dairy Marketing Branch to fund educational and research
activities; aligns citrus handler assessment fee due dates;
deletes term limits for members of the California Sheep
Commission (CSC); and clarifies Williamson Act contracted land
cancellation values and fees.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1) Prohibits the manufacturing and packaging of hard frozen
dairy products when the establishment is open to the public.
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Page 2
2) Requires manufacturers to post an ingredient list for frozen
yogurt on the premises if they sell directly to the public.
3) Requires ice cream mix, frozen dairy dessert mix, and frozen
dessert mix to comply with all the requirements for ice
cream, frozen dairy desserts, and frozen desserts,
respectively.
4) Authorizes CDFA to develop and maintain satisfactory
marketing conditions, bring about and maintain a reasonable
amount of stability and prosperity in the production of
market milk, and provide means for carrying on essential
educational activities.
5) Requires the payment of specified citrus assessment fees by
the 10th day of the month following the month for which the
assessment is payable.
6) Limits the number of terms held by members of the CSC to
four consecutive terms.
7) Requires the Department of Conservation to provide a
preliminary valuation of Williamson Act contracted land to
the county and city 60 days before the effective date of the
agreed upon cancellation valuation if the contract includes
an additional cancellation fee.
This bill:
1) Allows the manufacturing and packaging of hard frozen dairy
products when the establishment is open to the public.
2) Removes the requirement that manufacturers post an
ingredient list for frozen yogurt on the premises if they
sell directly to the public.
3) Requires frozen yogurt mix to comply with all state and
federal requirements for frozen yogurt.
4) Aligns citrus handler assessment fee due dates to that of
other commodity assessment fee due dates.
AB 1894
Page 3
5) Defines "educational and research activities" within milk
marketing code to mean any effort to develop and improve the
management practices of dairy producers and processors,
including environmental sustainability of land, air quality,
and water quality.
6) Clarifies the authority of CDFA's Dairy Marketing Branch to
fund educational and research activities.
7) Clarifies the authority of CDFA to use milk handler
assessment fees to administer and enforce milk marketing and
stabilization laws.
8) Removes term limits for members on the CSC.
9) Clarifies that the Department of Conservation shall provide
a preliminary valuation of Williamson Act contracted land to
the county and city if the contract includes an additional
cancellation fee only if the department and landowner first
agree upon a cancellation value.
10)Makes technical and conforming corrections.
Background
Dairy. CDFA's Dairy Marketing Branch is required to develop and
maintain satisfactory milk marketing conditions, bring about and
maintain a reasonable amount of stability and prosperity in the
production of market milk, and provide means for carrying on
essential educational activities. The authority to achieve
these goals is liberally construed.
California law requires that all milk and milk products be
pasteurized, processed, and packaged at a single site unless
otherwise exempted by law or by regulations as determined by the
secretary of CDFA (Food and Agriculture Code § 34008). The few
exceptions include licensed milk products plants that are used
exclusively for the production of ice cream or ice milk
manufactured from a mix or premix that is supplied by a separate
licensed milk products plant, and soft-serve products such as
frozen yogurt.
AB 1894
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Citrus. The California Citrus Advisory Committee was created
within CDFA to develop and make recommendations to the secretary
on all matters regarding the citrus program including the
assessment rate and inspection program. The assessment rate is
currently levied on producers per 40 pound carton of fruit and
set at a maximum $0.011 for navel oranges, $0.005 for lemons,
and $0.006 for Valencia oranges and mandarins. The assessment
is collected by handlers and remitted to CDFA by the 10th day of
the month. These funds are used for crop surveys and to
reimburse county agricultural commissioners, in specified
counties, for implementing the inspection program, which ensures
citrus product quality.
The California Citrus Pest and Disease Prevention Committee
(CCPDPC) within CDFA was created to advise the secretary on
efforts to prevent and manage citrus pests and diseases. An
assessment is levied on citrus producers and deposited into the
Citrus Disease Management Account for the sole purpose of
combating citrus-specific pests and diseases. The current
assessment rate is $0.09 per 40-pound carton and is due to CDFA
by the end of the month.
Sheep. The CSC was created in 1985 to address sheep and sheep
product advertising, promotion, marketing research, production
research, and sheep protection. The CSC may adopt and modify
rules and regulations, provide CSC administration and
enforcement, enter into contracts, collect industry information,
establish an assessment rate, expend funds, and investigate and
prosecute civil violations of CSC law. The CSC must also
undergo a mandatory referendum hearing conducted by CDFA every
five years to determine whether or not the commission shall
continue operating. The last referendum vote was successfully
conducted in 2014, extending the continuation of the CSC through
March 31, 2020.
Williamson Act. The California Land Conservation Act of 1965,
also known as the Williamson Act, authorizes a city or county to
enter into 10-year contracts with agricultural landowners to
keep contracted land in agricultural production. The contracted
land is valuated accordingly for property tax purposes, thus
providing tax relief to property owners in exchange for not
developing the property for non-agricultural purposes.
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Comments
Frozen dairy desserts. This bill maintains current food safety
standards while incorporating new frozen dessert technologies.
Additionally, CDFA states that some of these requirements are
burdensome, unnecessary, and inconsistent with the dairy
industry's business model.
Dairy research. As environmental awareness grew in the 1990s,
environmental regulation of dairy farms followed. Concerns
regarding manure and dairy waste, water quality, land use, air
quality, and impacts of dairy processing plants needed to be
better understood. The dairy industry realized that regulations
would be extremely costly and that additional research, data,
and scientific evidence were needed. Regulators would then be
able to use this new information to identify what regulations
would be most effective and beneficial to the environment and
the industry. These research projects continue to be funded
today, although there is no expressed authority for CDFA to use
industry funds to support these activities. However, given
CDFA's statutory mandate to bring stability and prosperity to
the production of market milk and provide for essential
educational activities, this authority can be liberally
construed to include environmental research activities. This
bill clarifies the existing authority.
Citrus. This bill aligns the due date for assessment fees
collected from citrus producers and remitted to CDFA by citrus
handlers to that of other commodity assessment fees. Currently,
an assessment fee levied for an inspection program is due by the
10th day of the month. According to CDFA, a thorough review of
existing law identifies that citrus industry assessments are
payable on the tenth day of the following month from which the
citrus was received, giving the citrus industry only 10 days to
remit payment to the department. However, other programs, such
as the Standardization Program, are afforded 40 days.
Therefore, it would be unfair and without substantiation to
establish different payment standards for one program over
another. This bill clarifies the due date for a citrus
assessment and sets it for the end of the month.
AB 1894
Page 6
Sheep. The California sheep industry had an $82 million
agricultural commodity value in 2014. The total number of sheep
and lambs has remained relatively steady since 2005; however,
the industry has declined since the CSC was first created in
1985. As such, the decreasing size makes it more difficult for
the CSC to fill vacant board seats created by current term
limits. Nonetheless, the industry is supportive of the CSC and
has asked that it continue in operation until at least 2020.
This bill deletes term limits for CSC members.
Williamson Act. AB 707 (Wood, Chapter 631, Statutes of 2015)
required the Department of Conservation to provide a preliminary
valuation of Williamson Act contracted land to the county and
city 60 days before the effective date of the agreed upon
cancellation valuation if the contract includes an additional
cancellation fee. This bill clarifies that this would occur
only if the department and landowner first agree upon a
cancellation value.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: Yes Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified8/1/16)
California Department of Food and Agriculture
OPPOSITION: (Verified8/1/16)
None received
ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT: According to the author, the amendments
regarding frozen dairy desserts "is an appropriate change due in
the past 24 years, the improvements in machinery used, food
worker training and adoption of GMPs by most restaurants and
fast food chains, and the network of local public health
inspection and oversight all help provide the needed safeguards
for the making and selling of these products."
AB 1894
Page 7
According to CDFA, the broad interpretation of milk marketing
laws authorizes CDFA to fund environmental research projects,
such as projects helping "regulators better understand the
impacts of dairy on air and water quality issues. Continuing to
provide sound scientific data to regulators helps them focus
their enforcement activities in a manner that protects the
health of our citizens, while providing them with an ample
supply of dairy products. The ambiguous nature of current
statute does, however, bring into question the continued pursuit
of these research projects. [?] This bill would clarify the
Department's existing authority to fund these important
environmental research projects using existing funds."
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 79-0, 4/21/16
AYES: Achadjian, Alejo, Travis Allen, Arambula, Atkins, Baker,
Bigelow, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brough, Brown, Burke,
Calderon, Campos, Chang, Chau, Chávez, Chiu, Chu, Cooley,
Cooper, Dababneh, Dahle, Daly, Dodd, Eggman, Frazier, Beth
Gaines, Gallagher, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto,
Gipson, Gomez, Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Grove, Hadley, Harper,
Roger Hernández, Holden, Irwin, Jones, Jones-Sawyer, Kim,
Lackey, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, Maienschein, Mathis,
Mayes, McCarty, Medina, Melendez, Mullin, Nazarian, Obernolte,
O'Donnell, Olsen, Patterson, Quirk, Rodriguez, Salas,
Santiago, Steinorth, Mark Stone, Thurmond, Ting, Wagner,
Waldron, Weber, Wilk, Williams, Wood, Rendon
NO VOTE RECORDED: Ridley-Thomas
Prepared by: Anne Megaro / AGRI. / (916) 651-1508
8/3/16 18:54:26
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AB 1894
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