BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 691
Page 1
Date of Hearing: May 11, 2011
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 691 (Perea) - As Amended: April 15, 2011
Policy Committee: AgricultureVote:9
- 0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable:
SUMMARY
This bill designates the Secretary of the California Department
of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) as an ombudsman responsible for
reviewing all regulations promulgated by the state and other
government agencies that affect agriculture. Specifically, this
bill:
1)Designates the CDFA Secretary as an agricultural ombudsman and
makes him or her responsible for providing assistance and
guidance to agricultural businesses that need to obtain state
permits.
2)Requires the CDFA Secretary to review and identify within the
state any agricultural related regulations that may have
negative impacts on agriculture.
3)Requires the CDFA Secretary to submit a report to the
Legislature on or before January 1, 2013, and annually
thereafter, making recommendations for eliminating duplicative
regulations and necessary changes to state statute or
regulations to alleviate any negative impacts.
4)Modifies the requirement that departments determine the
economic impact of proposed regulations on small businesses
and instead states that all proposed regulations need to
include a statement of the cumulative economic impact of the
proposed regulation and other existing regulations on all
businesses.
5)Defines "cumulative adverse economic impact" as the impact on
the economy resulting from incremental economic impact of
AB 691
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regulation when added to other past, present, and reasonably
foreseeable future regulations, regardless of which agency is
adopting those regulations. Additionally, "cumulative adverse
economic impact" may result from individually minor, but
collectively significant, regulations taking place over time.
6)Requires all agencies subject to Office of Administrative Law
(OAL) requirements, to include in their final statement of
reasons for adoption of regulations, an explanation of reasons
for rejecting any proposed alternatives that would lessen the
adverse economic impact on any business.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)Costs potentially in excess of $800,000 (GF) for the workload
associated with CDFA overseeing and evaluating all
agricultural-related regulations.
2)Unknown, likely significant costs in the range of several
million dollars cumulatively for departments to determine the
cumulative impact of every regulations package when combined
with all existing or future regulations throughout the state.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . The author's office contends that the absence of a
single oversight entity places California's agricultural
industry at a competitive disadvantage in comparison to other
states. California's permitting process for agriculture
requires compliance with multiple government agencies and as a
result, some agencies have overlapping regulations. The
author argues that, "Duplicative regulations increase costs,
making it difficult to comply with state law. Fines imposed
on the industry for non-compliance can force people out of
work or out of business. Agencies often impose regulations
without an analysis on the impacts of a new regulation, in
relation to all other existing regulations."
The author cites other states such as Michigan, Washington,
and Rhode Island as having simplified permitting processes,
and that Washington, having a single licensing agency that
oversees permits and fees for over 80% of all businesses, has
an unemployment rate of 9.1%, compared to California's 12.2%.
Accordingly, by authorizing CDFA to review regulations in
order to eliminate duplicative regulations and having agencies
responsible for conducting a cumulative impact report of
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proposed regulations, the author contends that California's
unemployment could be reduced.
2)Related Legislation . Over the last two years, dozens of bills
have been introduced in the Legislature that attempt to
change, streamline, or improve the regulations process. Among
the bills pending in the Assembly are AB 127 (Logue), AB 213
(Silva), AB 273 (Valadao), AB 338 (Wagner), AB 410 (Swanson),
AB 425 (Nestande), AB 429 (Knight), AB 530 (Smyth), AB 535
(Morrell), AB 586 (Garrick), AB 632 (Wagner), AB 1213
(Nielsen), and AB 1322 (Bradford).
Analysis Prepared by : Julie Salley-Gray / APPR. / (916)
319-2081