Senate Standing Committee on Transportation

Okay, so while we're waiting good afternoon, everyone. While we're waiting for authors, the Senate Transportation Committee will continue to welcome the public in person and via the Teleconference service. For individuals who would like to provide public comment for today's meeting, you can use the participant number, which is 8772-268-1633, and the access code is 736-2834. We are holding our Committee hearings again here in the O Street Building, as we all know, in room 1200.

So hopefully that's a signal to authors, and I see one now that they can come and present their bills. And first, we've also got a few other announcements. Two of our Members are out today, Senator Wahhab and Senator Dodd. So we'll have two replacements, Senator Laird and Senator Durazo. The second announcement is that three bills on today's agenda will not be heard. They've all been pulled by the authors. The three items are item number three, which is AB 73.

Item five, AB 295, and item 15, AB 833. All three of which, again, will not be heard and off the agenda. All right, so I think we can formally do a Subcommittee at this point. And we'll begin with our first author. We have assemblymember. Friedman.

Hello, Ms. Chair and Members. I want to thank you and your Committee for working with us on this Bill. AB Seven codifies guiding principles for our state transportation planning and guideline processes, and requires transparency for how the state is achieving these principles. California spends approximately $35 billion annually on our transportation infrastructure, and we're set to receive another $40 billion over the next five years from the federal government.

The transportation sector, however, remains the state's largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the sources is on the rise despite statewide GHG emission reduction efforts and increasingly ambitious targets. According to CARB's GHG Emission Inventory, the transportation sector has grown to 41% of California's total emissions. AB Seven ensures our climate equity, jobs and maintenance goals are accounted for in the program planning and guidelines process.

As the Committee analysis points out, the principles of the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure, hereafter, forever known as Capti, are already being implemented. In June, the Transportation Commission approved SB One funding for a suite of projects that include managed lanes, freight corridors, bike lanes, zero emission vehicles, and transit infrastructure, all based on the balance of Captain principles. AB Seven ensures that this balance is maintained for years to come.

Captain is based on an Executive order, and AB Seven ensures that California remains serious about tackling climate in the transportation sector, no matter who is Governor. AB Seven also ensures consistent reporting and analysis within the California transportation plan, including basic transparency for the public about how we are achieving state and federal goals. Example projects that adhere to these goals and how applicable programs benefit disadvantaged communities. This provides consistency and works to provide more transparency to the transportation system for all Californians.

We will not achieve our stated goals. If they remain theoretical plans on the shelves as they are now, AB Seven starts to make those plans a reality. And with that, I would respectfully request an Aye vote on AB Seven. In support today are Sarah Olsen with the greenlining Institute and Sophia Rakovia with the Coalition for Clean Air.

Thank you. Are your witnesses here? There they are. Come forward. Welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Sarah Olson, speaking on behalf of the Greenlining Institute in support of AB Seven. Greenlining works to build a future where communities of color can build wealth, live in healthy places filled with economic opportunity, and are ready to meet the challenges posed by climate change. The 2050 California Transportation Report identifies climate and equity among the state's top priorities.

However, there is a clear gap between these priorities and current practices, which has been documented by the Strategic Growth Council. By continuing to invest in projects that expand highways, increase VMT, and create greater car dependency, we undermine the state's ability to hit climate targets and perpetuate transportation inequity. As Low income communities of color continue to pay the highest cost for these investments. Captive began to move the needle on this by laying out a plan to guide more sustainable equitable investments.

But currently the plan's impact is limited. Captive only concerns a portion of discretionary funds to make climate and equity goals a reality, they must be embedded in all investments. Secondly, there's a lack of data on how and where transportation dollars are being spent. And lastly, it is not yet in statute, making it vulnerable to leadership changes. AB Seven would provide the much needed clarity and accountability.

Incorporating Captive will not block projects, but will encourage that all dollars be spent in a way that reflects the state's priorities and communities needs. Additionally, the data requirements will enable the state to effectively identify and address transportation disparities, ultimately moving this legislation forward, actualizes the state's commitment to building a transportation system that reflects our state's priorities. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this issue, and I respectfully request your I vote.

Thank you very much and please come forward.

Dear Chair Gonzalez and Committee Members, I'm Sophia Aficova. I'm policy advocate with the Coalition for Clean Air, speaking today in support of AB Seven and urge your I vote today. Climate change is a pressing issue in our state. From heat waves to droughts, to rising sea levels and smoggy skies, climate change threatens our health, environment and quality of life.

This transportation sector is the largest contributor to climate change, as it represents nearly 50% of the state's greenhouse gas emissions. When upstream emissions are included, transportation is also the leading cause of air pollution, which can lead to lung cancer, asthma, heart attacks, and even premature death. Disadvantaged communities are especially affected as they're more likely to live near areas impacted by unhealthy air, such as near highways and freight corridors. While California has been focused on combating climate change.

Multiple reports have come out saying that our efforts in the transportation sector are not enough. In particular, SB 150 report highlights that nearly all MPO regions have experienced an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and vehicles miles traveled in the last four years, despite efforts to reduce them. Additionally, the AB 285 report found that only 2% of our current transportation funding goes to projects aligned with our climate mandates. The data is clear.

We need to ensure that transportation projects are aligned with our state's climate efforts if we are to ever meet our targets and protect our citizens from the deadly effects of poor air quality and climate change. AB Seven is a very important step in this direction as it will ensure our transportation investments accelerate progress on meeting climate goals rather than working on cost purposes.

This Bill will support the construction of climate friendly projects that build sustainable and multimodal transportation systems, reduce greenhouse gas and vehicle miles traveled, and make transit and active transportation more accessible. It will also help protect our most vulnerable communities as it will invest in zero it will promote projects and invest in zero emission vehicles and infrastructure, address environmental justice impacts, especially for near freight communities. AB Seven will ensure that California remains a leader in promoting climate solutions. For these reasons, we ask you to respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. That concludes support lead witnesses. So we'll move on to opposition. It doesn't look you have any primary witnesses in opposition, so we'll take anyone who'd like to come. Was it late registration for opposition?

Yeah. My apologies. Sylvio Ferrari on behalf of the California Building Industry Association. So we are registered, but decided to get up and add on some commentary to our concerns. So, Madam Chair Members again. Sylvio Ferrari.

On behalf of the California building industry Association, Our overarching concern that I think is becoming more and more apparent to us as we look at the amendments and see where this conversation is going, is that we are taking a document that is not mandatory today, that does not have legally binding teeth today, and we are going to put it in statute and now give it exactly that.

There is additional provisions that go through the guidance document and pick out specific principles and say we're only going to do those ones. So our concerns are that the practical reality is going to be that we pit principles against principles, that we now give opponents of transportation projects an additional tool for SQL litigation.

And then the most recent amendments of the Bill actually go in and remove some pretty common sense terms like reasonable and feasible that we put into bills all the time now in the Legislature, when we're saying, hey, air. Resource Board or Energy Commission. Consider these as you're going forward and adopting to make sure these things are feasible and achievable and doable well.

This just removed them in the most recent amendment. So we are concerned. We know this is going to be an ongoing conversation. Look forward to be participating in that, but wanted to come up and raise our concerns. Thank you.

Thank you. And now we'll take anyone who'd like to support or oppose. Just name organization and your position, please.

Good afternoon. Isabela Gonzalez para with the Nature conservancy in strong support of AB Seven. Thank you.

Melissa Romero, California environmental voters in strong support. Thanks.

Good afternoon. Bubba Fish with streets for all in strong support. Thank you.

James Lombardo, on behalf of the California Association of Bicycling Organization in support. Thanks.

Mariella Rachel from the American Lung Association, in support. Thank you.

Madam Chair Members. Roger Dickinson on behalf of Civic Well, formerly the local government Commission in support.

The other roger, there's another one.

Good afternoon. Matthew Baker with Planning Conservation League and strong support.

Moira Topp with Orange County transportation Authority. Respectfully opposed.

Thank you. Anyone else who'd like to come forward?

Nick Row, on behalf of the California Business Properties Association, in opposition.

Thank you for your support or opposition of AB Seven. You may press the one and then zero. We'll go line 42.

Thank you. Okay, I see no other public comments, so we'll take it to the phone lines. Moderator do you have anyone who'd like to support or oppose AB Seven at this time?

Nastasia Kavalchuk with California Advisors on behalf of San Bernardino County Transportation Authority in opposition.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 41. Your line is open.

Madam Chair Members, this is Chris Wilson with the Los Angeles County Business Federation known as BizFed. We are opposed. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 40. Your line is open.

Thank you, honorable Chair and the Committee Members. Matthew Saws at the California Business Roundtable. And we are in opposition of AB Seven. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 48. Your line is open. Thank you.

Madam Chair Members. Cody Boyles on behalf of the American Council of Engineering Companies, in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 27. Your line is open.

This is Jared Sanchez with Cal bike in strong support.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 34. Your line is open.

Madam Chair, Benjamin Lopez with the Inland Empire Economic Partnership. Respectfully in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. And next we'll go to line 30. Your line is open.

Yes, this is Nick Rattle representing 350 Bay Area action in strong support.

Thank you, Madam Chair, we have no further support or opposition in queue.

Okay, thank you. We'll take it back to questions or comments from Members. And first I want to say, Assembly Member, thank you for bringing this forward. I know you've been working on this and your team has been working on this for some time. So just want to say thank you for that. And I know it's been a lot of discussions that have been had, especially with my office and yours.

And I know there's continuing discussions as well that I know you'll most likely address in your close. But any questions or comments from Members at this time, like Senator Newman thank you, ma'am.

I feel like I'm too close to you here. We're often close to each other now. We're really close to each other. Let's just talk outside. So I do have a question. Assembly Member so this is very similar to a Bill you did last year, correct? 2438.

It's similar in terms of its eventual goals, but it's very different in terms of its implementation.

The difference is, like, in brief, right? And I say that in light of the governor's veto message last year. But please go ahead.

The difference is that the other Bill was a lot more prescriptive. It had dates, it sort of had a lot of as you're this Bill gives a lot of leeway, it gives a lot of outs. And it basically gives, I would say, encouragement and not had timeline. And what this Bill does is it encourages the principles of capti to be incorporated into the planning process.

And so I guess square that with the governor's veto message last year, which was linking these programs in statute to a specific iteration of this plan, inhibits the state's ability to appropriately respond to the evolution of the state's response.

Exactly.

Climate change.

Sorry, it's that term, specific. And so we have been working very closely with the Administration. We're in constant contact with them to make this less prescriptive, less about specific implementation, and more about goal setting and transparency. And a big piece of this, let's not forget, is for us and the public to start to understand what projects are being planned for and whether they do or do not align with all of these goals, like equity and climate. So it's not so prescriptive.

It's more about the reporting, which right now does not exist. And again, asking them to incorporate this. And I will also say that yesterday, the Governor signed an infrastructure Bill. We were all at the ceremony. One of those is to streamline the projects that incorporate captive that do exactly what we're asking. But there's nothing in statute that says your project in the planning process should be considering captive. So we're trying to bring everything into alignment.

And so among the sort of concerns about the Bill, as I understand it, relate specifically to SB One and some of the SB One projects that are underway. And that there's a concern that adding the captive element could add new requirements to SB One programs that could alter either their funding or their progress. How do you respond to that?

Well, in terms of things that we think of with SB One, like maintenance, this does not at all touch maintenance. We want to make sure that roads are maintained. We want to make sure that we continue to that program. This is really about planning for new projects going forward to make sure we are now incorporating equity, incorporating climate, and really thinking as we spend money about what our goals are as a state, but in a very non prescriptive way.

And so, Madam Chair, if it's okay, can I have one of the witnesses speak to this? All right. Orange County Transportation Authority. Octa, please. I think they're representative of some of the concerns. Sorry to make you walk all this way. And Ms.. Top, if you could, I mean, speak to using, again, Octa, as fairly typical your concerns as they relate to funding and projects.

Well, I think, Senator, through the chair, the concern that our agency faces is, quite honestly, some of the ambiguity that will result when we have.

An Executive Order that's being put into statute without a lot of detail and quite frankly, with some inconsistencies within the terminology and the uncertainty of what that looks like in the out years. I think the witness who came up before articulated a lot of our concerns in terms of the fact that some of the terminology about reasonableness and feasibility, which we see over and over in legislation without those words gives. The Executive branch kind of latitude and maybe uncertainty on their part.

That then reflects for the local agencies down to the local agencies in terms of what is expected of us and whether or not we can actually deliver the projects that our constituents have asked us to do.

I appreciate.

Senator Newman, if we can just wait one moment. We have established a quorum, so I just want to make sure we capture that first. My apologies for interrupting. Madam Secretary, can we establish a quorum first?

Okay. Senators Gonzalez, Here. Niello, Here. Allan, Here. Archuleta, Here. Becker, here. Blakespear, here. Cortese, Here. Dahle, Here. Durazo. Laird. Limon. McGuire. Newman, Here. Nguyen. Seyarto, Here. Umberg.

Thank you. Madam Secretary, aye think we've established a quorum, so we are good. Senator Newman? Yeah.

So, Assembly Member, if you would mind, if you could speak to that concern about I understand you've tried to make this less prescriptive, but about ambiguity and about prospective sort of conflicts might arise moving down.

Yeah, it is a little ironic. We're trying to make it less prescriptive. And so now the ambiguity is being brought up as an issue. We've been working with a very large group of stakeholders, including Orange County and many others, and the reasonable word was removed, I think, and cost effective was put in. But we're happy to put reasonable back as well. We're committed to continuing working with all of the stakeholders.

We've had very productive conversations, which is why you don't see nearly the opposition that the sort of earlier permutation of this Bill had. And I do think that if we continue the conversation, we can get to something. But the fact that we had an Executive order, but had it go through policy Committee is exactly why we're here.

There was an Executive order that our agencies are supposed to be operating under, and yet we didn't have any policy Bill that had been worked through Committee to see how we were going to implement the Executive order is the reason that we are at this place right now.

So without us taking action, we end up with an Executive order that, as they say, maybe is even less clear than if we have a policy Bill that gives some parameters and just as importantly, the transparency, so that we can see the reporting, to see how these agencies are actually complying or not complying with that Executive order. That's what we've been trying to work on for the past few years. And I think it's been very productive.

And we will continue to commit to working with everybody to make sure we end up with something that is useful to all of our agencies as they try to achieve all of those goals, which I know they share in and that we all share together.

So my last question, I mean, to the extent that the Governor had concerns last year about sort of incorporating this into statute, because I think specifically he mentioned that any report on Captain implementation will be issued each year. Each agency is endeavoring to sort of meet the goals as quickly and effectively as possible. What is the value, and then in creating a statute around this, as opposed to letting the Administration continue applying their best efforts.

So the difference is, I believe that this Bill is really focused on the planning process because these projects take many years to plan to go through environmental reviews. And most of what we've seen from sort of the governor's efforts have been at the project level. But by the time the project's planned and funded, in some ways it's almost too late. And you really want to be looking at what they're planning and how they're prioritizing those projects.

Those of us who have been in local government know when you have your SANDAG or your Skag, you've got this huge laundry list of projects. But how are they actually elevating some projects above others? And that's what this is trying to get them to look at, which is, as you're planning, think about captive to the effect that it's reasonable and cost effective. We want you to be thinking about equity. We want you to be thinking about emissions as you're going through your planning process. And this is, we believe, a very gentle nudge in that direction.

So then are you open to making allowances for projects that are already approved and in the pipelines so that at any point during the process they're not taken offline because of new requirements?

Let me be very clear. There's nothing in this legislation that can stop a project. Nothing there's nothing that derails anything. There's no mechanism here to do any of that.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

OK. Thank you. Senator Newman. Senator Sayarto.

Thank you. So the first question I have, if there's nothing in here that hampers or anything like that, then why do we have this? Mean, why would we even have it if there's nothing in here that's going to change anything?

Well, for one thing, because we don't have a reporting of how the projects are complying with this Executive order. And we want to see, as they're planning, what is the process that our agencies are going through to be accountable to fulfilling those goals that we have of reducing emissions and otherwise. And we do think that having them thinking about that and preparing that report will show them and also the local electeds that make up these planning boards whether or not they're complying with our state's goals.

Okay, so CQA does cover all of those during the process of trying to plan a project. Well, how would this be different than what Sequa is already doing? In other words, are we adding another layer of doing exactly what we're already doing with SQA?

No, Sequa does measure impacts, but Sequa does not compare projects head to head the way that you would do. And I was on Skag for a number of years, and Sequa was something that was done long after the planning process. We didn't have any of the benefit of that SQA analysis when we were prioritizing projects. What this does is it asks that at the planning process you are thinking about are you increasing or decreasing emissions? Is there a better way to reduce congestion that's more equitable.

It asks you to incorporate all of the things that Capti and the Executive Order is asking the state to do. Right. At the planning process, it's very different than a Sequa process.

All right, so I also sat on the Transportation Committee for Skag at one time, as well as RCTC and as well as Wrcog, and all of them were involved in trying to plan. Only the area that we are planning for is much different than some of the areas that you're familiar with. And the problem that we're having out in the less developed areas are that our roads aren't there yet.

And if we don't get these roads built to the same level that we have in Orange County, LA County, and some of the in San Diego counties even, it's going to be hard to justify accommodating the housing that they want to go out there, which means we're going to be infrastructure starved if we try it. And when you're talking about equity for communities that are disadvantaged, there are plenty of those out in San Bernardino and Riverside counties and others like them that need roads.

And so the expectation with SB one from people out in our region are a lot different than what I'm hearing now, which is we want to build less roads and we want to spend more of the money or be more focused on rail and bike lanes and things like that in areas that already have their roads.

So this looks like and feels like it's going to hamper the process that's already extremely difficult to get through and Fund the roads that need to be built in order to accommodate housing so that we can actually accommodate places for those people to work so they cannot have to commute as far.

Because right now, most of those people, 63% of them, if I'm not mistaken, from the Inland Empire areas, have to commute at least 45 miles, sometimes as much as 100 miles, to go to job centers that are out in Orange County, San Diego, and LA. And you're saying this Bill won't do anything to stop that, but at the same time, it's putting into statute something that does.

I'm trying to grasp how we're not going to hamper the efforts of the areas that aren't developed as much yet and accommodate what the state expectations are as far as participating in that development for housing and jobs in the economy and all of those things. And the traffic that we have out in those areas is contributing more to the air pollution and greenhouse gas issues while these cars are sitting in traffic for two to 3 hours.

And even if we're able to transfer all of our cars over into electric vehicles, the electric vehicles need roads to drive on, too. Right now, there's estimates it'll take $130,000,000,000 over the next 10 years just to fix our roads. And that's what people's expectations were. A lot of people's expectations were when SB one passed was that our roads would be pristine roads like they have in other states, but they're not.

We're 47th in road building, so I don't see how this furthers us along both of those things. It furthers us along in one respect, but it doesn't further am I taking too much time?

No, sorry. I thought someone might be sending me a message.

Are you?

Almost.

Okay, go ahead.

It doesn't further us along in the other, and we need something that's a little more balanced. And that's why I'm concerned about this Bill. It's because it's not.

And thank you very much for the feedback. I just want to remind Members we have quite a few bills, 22 plus bills on file, and we respect everybody's dialogue here. If you want to mention and address that in your close. We do have Senator Blakespear, who also has a question or comment.

Yes, thank you. I'll just be brief. I know we have a lot of bills, but I just want to voice support for this Bill in the biggest picture.

We spend an enormous amount of time on our emissions reductions goals, talking about how we can do better when it comes to fighting climate change and the transportation sector is the single largest emitter, and we are actually going up. So in the last five years, we've gone up in percentage points, so we're now at 41%. And so the idea of aligning our planning process with our goals makes a lot of sense just in the biggest picture.

And our Governor has already done that with the Executive order. So to me, the idea that we would codify this in statute is the next step, and we need to do that if we're going to be serious about meeting these goals. This Bill does that and moves us in that direction. And so I support this completely, and I just think there's no other option for us if we're going to be serious about meeting those goals than moving forward with codifying it in statute.

So I just wanted to put that out there because I know there are lots of different reasons that it seems like there are concerns about supporting it, but really it deserves support. This is a good Bill.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Blakesbury. And we'll take that as a motion. So I think we've concluded questions and comments. Assembly Member, would you like to close?

I would just say that I appreciate the Senator's concerns. There's nothing in this Bill that takes money away from repairing roads. It doesn't handicap communities from adding new roads. I would hope that as developing communities develop, they look at the mistakes that have been made by many of our urbanized areas where adding more and more highways and widening more and more highways has not led to free.

Flowing traffic but has done exactly the opposite and increase the amount of congestion that we have without offering people actual solutions that move them around in a way that's more equitable, like having really robust public transportation and really robust other kinds of infrastructure. It's something that we're trying to turn the clock back on in Los Angeles.

We're desperately trying to add that for people who can't drive, can't afford to drive, people who want to just not sit for hours in traffic just to get from one side of their own city to the other. There are things that we can do that are complementary even to adding roads. And all we're asking is for us to take a pause and think about what those options are as we plan for a variety of projects.

I have been to your community, talking to your transportation agencies, and there are wonderful and aspirational and very, very progressive planning projects that they want to get done, that they want to move. They're looking for things to help also get them the funding that they need to do those.

But part of it also starts with the understanding from all of the electeds of what the goals are and how we can move forward together to do things that are benefit for all communities, especially communities that are developing. And with that, I would request an Ay vote.

Thank. You. Assembly Member Madam Secretary, can you please call the role? We have a motion by Senator Blakespear.

This is file item number one, AB seven. The motion is due passed to the Committee on Appropriations. Senators. Gonzalez. Aye. Neilo, No. Allen, Aye. Archuleta, Aye. Becker. Blakespear, Aye. Cortese, Aye. Dahle, No. Dorazo Laird Limon Mcguire Newman. Nguyen. Seyarto, No. Umberg.

Okay, the Bill has five. We'll leave it on call.

Thank you.

You have the second file item, which is AB 1250. Go right ahead.

Thank you, Ms. Chair and Members. I want to, first of all, thank you and your Committee Staff for all their hard work on this bill. We're going to be accepting the proposed Committee amendments to give Caltrans sufficient time to comply with the requirements in the bill. As you all know, concrete, asphalt, and cement are vital to building and maintaining California's infrastructure and economy. The manufacture of these products, however, can be a significant source of greenhouse emissions. For example, concrete is responsible for eight percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally.

With the use of these materials expected to grow considerably in the next couple of decades, it's clear that we can't meet our ambitious climate goals without also addressing the emissions from these materials.

Now, Caltrans is one of the biggest users of all of these materials, and so they have a unique opportunity to lead the state in our efforts in this area. And they've already shown leadership through the implementation of the Buy Clean California for materials such as steel rebar, and by piloting the collection of environmental product decorations, or EPDs, for projects using concrete, asphalt, and aggregate.

AB 1250 builds on Caltran's existing efforts in three ways. First, the bill requires Caltrans to study and report on the emissions associated with the materials they use in state transportation projects and to examine the potential use of near zero or net negative carbon emission emerging technologies.

Secondly, the bill requires Caltrans to expand on its existing pilot program by directing the Department to require the submission of environmental product declarations for concrete and asphalt use in state transportation projects. Lastly, as the data collection process becomes more robust, Caltrans may at some point in the future require that concrete and asphalt and transportation projects have to meet certain greenhouse gas requirements.

Based on extensive discussions with industry and labor, we believe that including a global warming potential, or GWP benchmark in project bid specifications would be the best way to do this. To that end, the bill would require Caltrans to develop language for a model performance based bid specification to demonstrate how a GWP benchmark may be incorporated into project requirements in the future. I'd like to acknowledge a few points made by the opposition and to thank those in the industry who've worked with us to improve the bill.

While the study portion of the bill does require an analysis, there's no requirement that Caltrans begins using these newer, untested materials. As it relates to concrete and cement, I believe we're very close to addressing the remaining concerns of manufacturers, and I look forward to coming to an agreement with them in the next few weeks. As it relates to asphalt, we've had very productive conversations, and we've taken amendments to try and address issues.

I acknowledge that we're not there yet, and should the bill move forward, I'm continued to continue working out the remaining issues with all of the stakeholders, and I'm also fully committed to working with Caltrans over the summer recess to incorporate any technical fixes to increase their comfort with the bill. Testifying in support is Lauren Kubiak with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Thank you. Welcome, Lauren.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee Members. My name is Lauren Kubiak, and I'm a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. Thank you for your work on this bill. We appreciate all of the hours that everyone has put in to address emissions from asphalt, concrete, and cement used in California's transportation infrastructure. To build off of the author's comments, I want to focus on what this bill does and doesn't do and put it in broader context.

In addition to Caltrans reporting on the emissions associated with materials used in their operations, this bill would require environmental product declarations, or EPDs, to be submitted for concrete and asphalt used in Caltrans projects. EPDs are a lifecycle assessment tool for quantifying the greenhouse gas emissions generated during the production of industrial building materials and products. Caltrans is already collecting EPDs for asphalt and concrete in some projects as part of a pilot, and this builds on that leadership.

By uniformly adopting this EPD requirement, California would develop a broader understanding of the emissions associated with different concrete and asphalt products in different regions of the state to inform how we could then address them. The Inflation Reduction Act contains 250,000,000 dollars in funding to support industrial materials manufacturers of all sizes in creating EPDs through grants and technical assistance. Expanding EPD collection in California at this moment can leverage this important source of funding.

In addition, this bill would require Caltrans to develop language for a model bid specification that incorporates a global warming potential for concrete or asphalt used in a project. It stops short of requiring Caltrans to incorporate emissions in its bid specifications. While we hope that at some point in the future Caltrans will require materials to meet certain global warming potential limits, our consultations with industry have indicated that improving data quality and collection processes first is crucial. That's what this bill does.

I also want to acknowledge that other states have already adopted similar, yet more ambitious policies. New York, New Jersey, Oregon, Colorado, the federal government, and municipalities within California have all adopted low embodied carbon, concrete, or asphalt public procurement policies and are moving to require those materials to meet admission benchmarks that decline over time. By passing AB 1250, California can put in place processes that will be key to unlocking decarbonization in the industrial sector, which is a significant and growing source of emissions without immediate policy intervention.

We have worked closely with the author's office and industry stakeholders over the past year and are committed to continuing these consultations to develop a framework to address these emissions. Doing so will be crucial to meeting California's goals--

We need you to wrap up, I'm so sorry.

I appreciate your thoughtful consideration of AB 1250 and respectfully request an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We're going to give everybody two minutes on the lead side. So is there anyone else who'd like to be lead witness? I see none. Okay. So we'll move on to witnesses, lead witnesses in opposition. We have the California Asphalt Pavement Association if they'd like to come forward. You have two minutes.

Madam Chair, will be shorter than two minutes. Jeff Sievers on behalf of the California Asphalt Pavement Association. We're an association of more than 200 companies that design, engineer, and build all the roads in here, and we exclusively focus on asphalt. So, first of all, I'd like to begin by thanking the author of this bill and her Staff, as well as the sponsors, the NRDC, for our fantastic dialogue. We don't have objection to the concept. It's more how do we get there?

The Association and all of its members, companies, as well as the National Association, is actually endeavoring on initiatives to achieve some of the same goals. We've actually been working with Caltrans for more than two years to try and put this place into place, and so we're more concerned with how do we get there, not when we get there. So it's very technical. There's a lot of data.

We want to make sure that the data that we do collect is correct, so that we're actually operating on good information. With the commitments from the author's office and the sponsors, I think over the summer break, we can get there. So we're opposed unless amended, but we think we'll have that resolved by the time we all return. So thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Okay, now we'll entertain anyone who'd like to come forward in support or opposition of AB 1250 here in room 1200.

Charley Rea with the California Construction and Industrial Materials Association. We're actually the association for the majority of the asphalt and concrete producers in California. We don't have a formal position, but we've been very pleased with the sponsor and author working with us, listening to us, and we look forward to ongoing discussions.

Sofia Rafikova with the Coalition for Clean Air in support.

Thank you. Anyone else who'd like to come forward? Okay, see none. We'll take it to the moderator. Moderator, do you have anyone who's queued up for support or opposition of AB 1250, please?

Thank you. For in support or opposition of AB 1250, you may press one and then zero. Again, that is one and then zero for in support or opposition of AB 1250. We do have one in queue. One moment while they get their line number. We'll go to line 58. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. This is Laura Berland-Shane. I'm calling on behalf of Blue Planet Systems. We're a California-based corporation, and we strongly support. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Chair, we have no further support or opposition in queue.

Thank you, Moderator. We'll take it back for questions or comments. Senator Archuleta?

Thank you, Assembly Member, for bringing this forward. In the spirit of the lowest carbon emissions that we could find during the construction of our roads and working with Caltrans, the contractors, are we also trying to find the better players that are using new modern materials that, believe it or not, are environmentally friendly today than we were ten, fifteen years ago? Does that address that?

Yeah. This is an attempt to start to create the demand for--exactly for those newer technologies.

Very good. Thank you, and I'll move the bill when appropriate.

Thank you. Senator Newman.

One question this time, I promise. So the argument opposition references concerns about supply chain disruption in the event there are changes in standards and some of the components. So if you can speak to that, is that something you've considered, or are you working with them to make that less likely? We clearly did have massive supply chain problems.

Well, at this point, this doesn't require any certain type of procurement. It's really just starting to set the stage for how they would even be able to record the emissions and then eventually establish a bidding criteria. So I think that my thinking is that's a concern for down the road when they actually start to make more, when we have more technologies and there's more of a choice about how they're going to prioritize different materials and do the bidding process.

But I guess their concern is if an EPD is not developed for a compliant mixture down the road, then you'll have a problem.

We'll continue to discuss this with them as the bill moves forward. As we said, we're not quite there yet on all the issues, and we're still in discussion with industry.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Okay. Any other questions or comments? Alright. Assembly Member, would you like to close?

Just that this can help us develop more of those homegrown materials, help with the R&D as I start seeing what's coming to invest in new California technologies that can address this, address the climate change while creating new jobs. So I would request an aye vote.

Great. Thank you. And we have entertained a motion by Senator Archuleta. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

This File Item Number Two: AB 1250. The motion is 'do pass as amended to the Committee on Appropriations.' Senators Gonzalez? Aye. Gonzalez, aye. Niello? No. Niello, no. Allen? Aye. Allen, aye. Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Becker? Blakespear? Aye. Blakespear, aye. Cortese? Aye. Cortese, aye. Dahle? No. Dahle, no. Durazo? Laird? Limon? Aye. Limon, aye. McGuire? Newman? Aye. Newman, aye. Nguyen? Seyarto? No. Seyarto, no. Umberg? Seven to three.

Okay, bill has seven to three. We'll leave it on call. Thank you, Assembly Member.

We'll leave it on call. Thank you very much, Member. Okay, so just a reminder for Members who are here. File item three, AB 73 by Assembly Member Boerner has been removed off the file. So at this point, we'll take consent calendar while we're waiting for additional authors. Madam Secretary, can you please call the role on the consent calendar, which includes... Let me explain. File item four, SCR 74 by Nguyen. File item 12, AB 610 by Holden. File item 13, AB 744 by Assembly Member Juan Carrillo.

File item 20, AB 1594, Assembly Member Garcia. File item 21, AB 1606, by Gipson. File item 23, AB 1738 by Assembly Member Wendy Carrillo. And my apologies. And file item seven, AB 962 by Assembly Member Vince Fong. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll? And we'll have a motion by Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. Consent calendar. Senators Gonzalez? Gonzalez, aye. Niello? Niello, aye. Allen? Allen, aye. Archuleta? Archuleta, aye. Becker? Blakespear? Blakespear, aye. Cortese? Cortese, aye. Dahle? Dahle, aye. Durazo? Laird? Limon? Limon, aye. McGuire? Newman? Newman, aye. Nguyen? Seyarto? Seyarto, aye. Umberg?

Okay, the consent calendar will be on hold there and on call, so we're just waiting for additional authors at this moment. Yes, let's add on right here for Members. File item one, AB 7, Assembly Member Friedman, for Members who are not here. Madam Secretary.

Senators Becker? Limon? Durazo? Laird? McGuire? Newman? Nguyen? Umberg?

Okay, we'll leave the bill on call. Six to three at the moment. Okay, and I think everyone was here for file item two. File item one.

Okay, and just as a reminder, file item three has been pulled. File item five, AB 295 by Assembly Member Fong, and file item 15, AB 833 by Assembly Member Rendon. So while we're waiting, we're just going to sit here and stare at each other and say hello, it's been a while. Assembly Member Schiavo. Thank you. We were going to have a moment here without you. Great.

Could have told some jokes or something.

Right. Yes. Well, welcome. You have file item 10, AB 464.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair and Members. I'm very happy to present AB 464 to you today because this is a really personal bill for me. I, for those who don't know, actually co-founded an organization in my district that addressed homelessness. And we became, what quickly became the largest homeless outreach program in the West San Fernando Valley by volunteers. And I personally did outreach to encampments for over a year in mostly Northridge and Granada Hills area in the San Fernando Valley.

And one of the number one things that I heard folks really needing who were experiencing homelessness was an ID. So after basic necessities like food and housing, an ID was at the top of their list to be able to get the services that they need to get into housing. I think a lot of times we take for granted how much and how often we use an ID.

We have to use an ID to walk across the street and go into the Secretary of State building, just to access that building. You also need it to be able to get a job. You need it to be able to get into housing. You need it to be able to get the services that you need to get on your feet. And so this is such an important and vital resource for folks. And so often when you're experiencing homelessness, it's stolen.

It's lost in sweeps, or it's just lost because you don't have safe filing drawers to put things in anymore. And so this bill really aims to make sure that IDs and vital records, which you need to enroll your kids in school or get certain services, are free and available to low-income folks and folks experiencing homelessness who really need it. And wanted to just thank you so much for the analysis and definitely want to verify that this includes children and youth. And I'm accepting technical amendments that were discussed with Committee staff. So we'll leave it with there and happy to answer questions.

Thank you. And again, that's technical amendments, as you mentioned, adding definitions for homeless children and youth.

Yes.

Thank you very much for that. And do you have any lead witnesses in support today?

No.

All right. Just yourself? No problem. Alright. We do have a lead witness in opposition. It looks like the County Recorders Association of California. I don't know if they're here. Please come forward.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Rob Grossglauser with the County Recorders Association, regrettably in opposition due to administrative and fiscal concerns, as nicely articulated in the analysis. Here to answer any questions, but regrettably opposed. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, we'll entertain anyone who'd like to come forward in support or opposition of AB 464, please. Okay. See none here in room 1200. We'll move to the phone lines. Moderator do you have anyone who'd like to support or oppose AB 464, please?

Thank you. If you're in support or opposition of AB 464, you may press one and then zero. Again, that's one, then zero for support or opposition. We will go to line 49. Your line is open.

Yeah. Kim Lewis representing the California Coalition for Youth and Aspiranet, in support.

Thank you. Madam Chair, we have no further support or opposition in queue.

Okay. Thank you, Moderator. We'll take it back for questions or comments from Members.

I'll move the bill.

Alright. Senator Blakespear moves the bill. Senator Niello, would you like to ask a question?

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. So I noticed in the Committee analysis, expressed concern about the fact that driver's license being provided without a fee is a challenge to the state's General Fund. There was no mention, however, about the challenge to Recorders. And I'm very sensitive to that because local control is a significant issue for me. And they are, if I understand correctly, largely dependent upon the fees that their services provide. And so this would seem to be quite a challenge for them.

So I'm wondering how you would answer that. Would you put into the bill a reimbursement for the Recorders for this fee, or just leave it up to the mandate system where, frankly, things are never paid? But it would seem to be a significant issue for local governments, specifically Recorders.

So the bill is upon appropriation. Is it already included in the language? And I understand that the state mandate reimbursement process can be challenging, but that doesn't...

It's more than challenging.

It does exist for this purpose.

It's almost a never thing.

Yeah. I think that sometimes we have to also balance choices that may cost some money up front, but also reap incredible benefits and pay forward in big ways. Right? If someone can get off the street and into housing or a job where they didn't have one before or their kids in school, there are huge benefits, including tax benefits for many of those things, for taxpayers.

And so, while it may not be a one to one for Recorders, and I understand the concern there, I think that when we have people able to get on their feet, get into housing, get into jobs where they're paying taxes, right, paying into the public system. And also we know that supporting people on the streets costs much more than it costs to house folks.

And so this being an important tool to make sure that we end that cycle of homelessness and get people into the housing and services that they need to get on their feet. I think in the end, if we're looking more globally at the costs that are going towards supporting folks who are experiencing homelessness or low-income, that it's actually going to be a benefit to the public.

I really appreciate that. I do, because I've said many times right now, homelessness is probably the most significant challenge facing the state of California.

Agreed.

I kind of doubt that it's entirely because of this issue.

Agreed.

In the last five or six years... I'm going to be speaking sort of parenthetically because it's not specifically to this bill. But we've spent $20 billion, established over 30 programs, mostly state top down approach, refused to give permit to counties, multi-year funding, just one year at a time. And all that time, homelessness has risen. In fact, in the Committee analysis, it shows the number of DMV ID cards issued to unhoused people. In 2020 it was 75,000, and in 2021 it was 100,000.

Now, that's not going to solve homelessness. Homelessness is a much bigger issue, and I get that. And you're absolutely right. But I have to come back to the realistic impact on county recorder budgets. And if this included in it, specifically, funding to reimburse them, I could support that. But that's not what it does. And the mandate system, quite frankly, just never works.

Right. Again, it has, upon appropriation in the bill, number one. Number two, I'm happy to, in future budget cycle, work with the recorders and fight for money to go back specifically for this program. I think that would be important. And also, obviously, because it has upon appropriation in it, that is something that I'm committed to doing, is fighting for budget allocations both for the recorders and for the DMV to make sure that this is covered.

Because, while it does not, we do not, with our bill, solve homelessness. I hope that the story I told at the beginning of my presentation illustrates how critical this really is for people. If it's the number one thing that they talk about and ask for after housing and food, this is one of the most important things that we can do to actually help folks get out of homelessness. And so it seems like kind of a simple thing, I think.

But when you think about all the things... I was working with a woman experiencing homelessness who had gotten into housing, and we couldn't get her a senior bus pass because she needed an ID, and she didn't have one. So there are so many barriers for folks who are just trying to get their basic needs met, so they can get on their feet when they don't have an ID, that this actually really does make a big difference in people's lives. And ultimately, I think, housing solves homelessness.

And I agree that there's a lot better, smarter ways that we can do that. But this bill, I think, is one of the kind of unnamed things that really is a barrier to people getting on their feet, getting out of homelessness, and having stabilized lives that we can do that will make a difference for folks.

Thank you, Senator Niello. Alright, I don't see any other questions or comments. And Senator Blakespear has motioned, and I want to thank you. I know this is very personal to you, and especially coming from Los Angeles. So would you like to close, Assembly Member?

No. Appreciate the conversation. Respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

File item number 10, AB 464. Senators Gonzalez? Aye. Gonzalez, aye. Niello? Allen? Archuleta?

Archuleta aye. Becker. Blakespear aye. Cortese aye. Dahle. Durazo. Laird. Limon aye. Mcguire. Newman aye. Min. Seyarto. Umberg. The motion is do pass as amended and refer to the Committee on Appropriations as well.

Okay. The Bill has six. We'll leave it on call. Thank you so much. Assembly Member all right, next we have Assemblymember Lee, who is going to present file item nine, AB 413. Welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and Senators. First, I would like to thank the Committee staff for all their work on this Bill and accepting the amendments suggested by the analysis. These amendments, there's five of them I'm going to list off. One narrows the Bill to the approach side of intersections only. Number two provides local governments the authority to adopt at different daylighting distances. Number three provide for signage or marking in the circumstances.

Number four, allow local governments to grant commercial delivery vehicles loading and unloading in the daylighting zones. And number five makes a first persons violation. Simply a warning. Daylighting zones at intersections will make our streets safer for drivers, bikers, and people on foot. The increased visibility for everyone will help address California's pedestrian fatality rate, which is almost 25% higher than the national average. And in 2022 was basically 22 people a day who died.

43 other states have adopted daylighting measures, and because it is a common sense way to prevent traffic collisions. And with these amendments, I believe this is a Bill that will work for every community. And just to give you a concept of what a visualization worth saying is that on the approach side of an intersection, we want to clear the 20ft so there is visibility, so you're not running over drivers, not hitting cyclists, not hitting other cars.

And 20ft, just for reference, is one Ford 150 the length of one Ford 150, or simply a little bit longer than one Tesla Model X, the SUV, which is 16.5ft. So we're really talking about basically one car length so that we can improve visibility and safety on the streets. And I would like to respectfully for your aye vote when time comes. And my witness today will be Marc Vukcevich with streets for all.

Welcome.

Good afternoon, Committee. My name is Marc Vukcevich, co Director of State policy for Streets for All. We're an organization that advocates statewide for safe, sustainable, and equitable transportation and proud sponsor of the Bill. AB 413 requires daylighting a crosswalk and it's a really small tweak that will save countless lives. This Bill will improve pedestrian and cyclist safety on California's roads. This legislation would prohibit vehicles from parking or stopping, as somebody Member mentioned, process known as daylighting. And that's right before the crosswalk.

This AB 413 would make intersections safer by widening sight lines for the driver, giving drivers better vision when looking out for pedestrians, and allowing more people to more safely and comfortably cross streets at the most dangerous part of the street, which is the intersection where multiple folks collide. Essentially. In California, pedestrian fatalities are over 25% higher than the national average, and the state has the highest number of pedestrian deaths on its roadways.

In 2021, the pedestrian death rate in the US reached a four decade high, with California topping that list. Daylighting is a proven safety technique for everyone, especially useful for Shorter folks. To be totally honest, it's like kids trying to peek out over cross cars. That's where daylighting is most effective. Kids in wheelchairs, kids and people in wheelchairs. And that's what daylighting solves. It's a widely accepted safety measure.

The NHTSA National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has proven it to be effective at reducing pedestrian and cyclists fatalities and injuries. NACTO, the National Association of City Transportation Officials, a group of engineers and transportation planners who dedicate their focus on design standards, recommends daylighting with local discretion. And that's exactly what we're doing here.

This safety measure is affordable and will involve no cost, making it practical and effective solution for improving safety at intersections, which to say again, is the most dangerous part of our roadways for all users, but especially pedestrians. We ask for your support in this life saving Bill. Thank you.

Great. Thank you very much. Okay, we'll move on to lead witnesses in opposition if there are any, please come forward. Don't believe so. Okay, so we'll take anyone who'd like to come forward. Name organization, and whether you support or oppose.

May have been a little tardy, but good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee Members Nick Chappie on behalf of the California Trucking Association in opposition unless amended. However, with the author accepting the amendments. Today, we are removing opposition. Thank you.

Madam Chair Member Shane Gusman on behalf of the Teamsters. And with the amendments, we are removing our opposition as well. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair Members Andres Ramirez on behalf of the City of Fremont, in strong support. Thanks.

James Lombardo on behalf of the California Association of Bicycling Organization in support. Thank you.

Steve Wallach on behalf of the Alameda County Transportation Commission in support.

Thank you. Anyone else who'd like to come forward and support our opposition in room 1200? Okay, see? None. We'll move on to the moderator is there anyone who'd like to support or oppose AB 413?

Thank you. For in support or opposition of AB 413, you may press one, then zero. We will go to line 37. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. Sharon Gonzalez on behalf of the City of Rancho Cucamonga in support thank you.

Thank you. Line 27. Your line is open.

Hi, Jared Sanchez with Cal Bike, co sponsor and strong supporter. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have no further support or opposition in queue.

Thank you very much. And first, I'd like to say, Assembly Member, thank you for bringing this forward. I know we worked together with you to ensure there were some compromises and still some local control.

But I can tell you, I hear from residents, I think, every week about this specific issue, and it's certainly something that I know needs to be fixed and certainly education being done at the local level, but also for drivers that are not knowing what a hazard this can pose. With that, I'll also move on to Senator Blakespear.

Yes, thank you. I very much appreciate you focusing on pedestrian safety. I think the vision zero goals, which are to have zero traffic fatalities to pedestrians or bicyclists from cars, is in order to achieve that goal, we need to have things like this, the widening of sight lines. The statistic is particularly striking that California's pedestrian fatality rate is 25% higher than the national average, and the national average is already high. So California needs to be a leader in prioritizing pedestrian and bicycle safety.

I appreciate the amendment that you took related to local control, which was basically that a local agency could have a different daylighting standard. I assume that that's what that amendment is. And I think the thing that I had been most concerned about in the Bill was that it applied to unmarked crosswalks, which seemed like we might be setting people, vehicle drivers up, to get tickets if there's an unmarked crosswalk, and then they're within this area of 25ft or the length of a Tesla. That you gave those examples. So can you just address that about the unmarked crosswalk? Because how would that exactly work?

Happy to answer it. Senator Blakespear. So one of the unmarked crosswalks as part of our Bill is some of the most essential parts of our Bill because usually marked crosswalks, a are safer because they are marked, and B, drivers are expecting pedestrians. And so you have that expectation there. We are trying to address unmarked crosswalks as well with the Bill because there's that expectation gap that actually leads to, I would say, more challenges between driver on pedestrian collisions and challenges there. So that's, I guess, like, the intent to respond to that.

So is an unmarked crosswalk where people just are randomly walking across the street? Is that what that means?

My understanding is an unmarked crosswalk is where an intersection. An intersection where someone may otherwise want to cross the street that is unmarked with paint, but it's not at any point at any part of the street, if that makes sense.

Okay. We've also added first violation is a warning. So it's not...

Yeah. Hopefully local government, this will force local governments to focus on this daylighting when they're coming up with their own streets standards because they could come up with alternatives and if they don't, then this would be the default, I assume. I do think it's a great idea for us to continue to codify NACTO because NACTO has some really great recommendations. But NACTO does say that they do not think that this should be intended as a blanket requirement. So the amendments that you took have addressed that and I really appreciate that.

Yeah, I would just say that to your point about unmarked crosswalks, as you can imagine there's lots of different types of avenues, streets, boulevards that exist out there and some are very well painted and some of course people cross them all the time. It's between intersection of four streets you can imagine, but they don't put the paint there. Perhaps maybe it's under invested or just lower foot traffic. But the idea is to put a standard essentially where locals could then modify if necessary.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Senator Archuleta.

Yes. Thank you, assemblymen, bring this forward. I'm going to support the Bill. I just got the question, if we're talking about that daylight, you mentioned the length of an automobile or an SUV, couldn't it just be painted red because people are not going to know you shouldn't park there with this new Bill. But if it were painted red, they would just not park there. What can we do about that one?

Yeah, the Bill doesn't mandate any painting of curbs, but if a locality does choose to change the length of the daylighting on the parking zone, then they must park it. But again, this is the length of one Ford 150. We're talking about one truck basically. But there's also existing law out there where we don't require painting as well. It's actually illegal to park 7.5ft from rail tracks, but we don't have painting on there as well at the same time.

Okay, thank you.

Okay. Senator Newman.

Thank you, ma'am. Chair. So Assembly Member Lee, I am glad to support this Bill today. I do have a question. Presuming this passes and the government signs it, how to publicize, how to educate the public. Mr. Vukcevich, you can probably speak that you've thought about it as to this new law, this new ground across the state and I guess sort of at the same time what assurance do we have that it'll be enforced alongside that?

Yeah, I'll just say really quickly is that of course you're going to see a lot of measures dealing with different rules of the road that are going to happen here. But first of course, CHP, the California Patrol, they put out a red lease about upcoming changes to the law. So if this was signed into law, of course, then of course the news covers it. And I can imagine this is one of those things that gets covered quite widely.

In addition, the DMV automatically makes these changes in the Driver's Handbook and hopefully third parties like AAA will put these releases out. You know, this is an aspect of the Bill where we change the rule and usually the public awareness campaigns kind of follow that. I don't know if I responsible, but.

To be know without funding and I'm not nearly as optimistic as you are about the average Californian learning about this quickly.

Yeah. To respond, Senator Newman, I guess I'll echo what Assembly Member Lee said and state that the Caltrans press release that goes out every single year where there's rules of the road changes isn't, I would just say a press release that even just like my organization writes, it's a press release that then gets distributed widely.

So when I just did even a basic Google search this morning, the 2022 Caltrans press release on rules of the road changes was covered by KTLA, KCRW, Times of San Diego and a bunch of other press organizations, many of them started with a K, in California. And so I don't think of this as something that's going to happen quietly and no one's going to know about it and suddenly they're going to get a ticket.

Because on top of that, the first violation is a warning based on the amendments we took. This is something that's widely publicized through the existing governmental means that we have. And as some of my relief mentioned is that these are automatically placed within the DMV Handbook that is available at every DMV and addresses in the.

Driver's Training, the book that we all take on vacation with us and read on the beach.

Okay.

I appreciate it. This is harder, I think, as a matter of kind of education than we generally assume, but otherwise I think it's a terrific Bill. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Niello, my apologies.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As I pointed out earlier, local control is a significant issue for me. So would you articulate again, you went through those amendments very quickly. You elaborated a little bit with other questions, but what are the amendments that you have accepted?

Yeah. In regard to local control, I'll say that it provides local governments the authority to adopt different daylighting distances, provide for signage or marking in those circumstances where they change the distances and allows local governments to grant commercial delivery vehicles, loading and unloading zones in the daylighting zones.

Okay.

First violation is a warning, yes.

I was just saying to the local control aspect yes, yeah.

I appreciate that. So local areas know best their safety risks and measures that they should take. And what works in Modoc County is not necessarily going to work in LA County, so appreciate the flexibility. With that, I can support the Bill.

Thank you.

Any other questions, comments? All right. My apologies, Senator Cortese.

Yes, actually my questions have been asked and answered, but I want to thank the author for the thoughtful Bill and taking the amendments because I think they're critical to the Bill and just how the local communities that we share on a district basis are going to need to operate. Thank you. And I'm happy to support the Bill.

Sorry about that. Thank you so much. All right, Senator Dahle.

Sorry, I know we have a full Committee today. But, we passed the no ticketing pedestrian or cross when it's safe, basically. So I know this is dealing with the vision part of it, but in the statistics, was all those statistics of people actually in the crosswalk where this would actually daylight out or were those people getting hit just crossing the street without a crosswalk?

I'll answer the best of my ability because I'm not sure if I totally understand the question.

So this Bill is dealing with the ability to be able to see, right?

That's right.

But you stated in your opening remarks about people who are getting hit, is that just in the crosswalk or is it on the street? And we passed a law last year that allows you no ticket for people to jaywalk, quite frankly. So that's my question.

Senator, the statistics I cited were from the National Governor's Highway Safety Association, which are statewide statistics not necessarily dedicated to just the intersection and just the crosswalk. There's pedestrian fatality statistics throughout the whole state and city. They're not necessarily disparated by a crosswalk.

They're all pedestrian fatalities.

So the answer is that it could be anywhere on the street that they were struck by a vehicle, not just in the crosswalk where there's a vision issue.

That's right, Senator. In just General in terms of pedestrian fatalities. That's right. The point I was just trying to make in the testimony to clarify is that in General, if you look at even just on a physics level, the most turbulent flow happens where there's two kind of crossings happening and that's an intersection. And you can kind of look at traffic flow dynamics as physics in that way. And that's where the most dangerous areas are, is because you have multiple competing factors colliding, cars, vehicles, pedestrians, bicyclists, et cetera.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Senator DAhle. And I think we have a motion by Senator Archuleta, Assembly Member, would you like to close?

I thank everyone for your great questions. This is one of those simple kind of things. If you've ever been frustrated trying to cross the street and you can't peek behind, either you're driving or on foot because there's a big car in the way, this is really what it's meant to do. I appreciate all the amendments that are taken today.

I think at the know, we want to have a standardized rule because we don't want to be more confusing for drivers where in Los Angeles or in Kern, County, suddenly the rules are very vastly different. But we want to give that nuance to ability to do so, because even within a jurisdiction, of course, there are different types of streets and different types of capacity. But we want to have a standardized rule. Doesn't confuse people off the bat, right? So we want to make it so. If there are exceptions to the rule, then, you know, not so that everywhere else is so different. You never know where to park.

Right. But the end of the day, this is about improving safety for our streets and respectfully ask your aye vote.

All right. Thank you, Assembly Member motion by Senator Archuleta. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

File item number nine, AB 413. The motion is do pass as amended and re referred to the Committee on Appropriations. Senators Gonzalez aye. Niello aye. Allen. Archuleta aye. Becker. Blakespear aye Cortese aye. Dahle. Durazo. Laird. Limon aye. Mcguire. Newman aye. Min. Seyarto.

No. Seyarto, no. Umberg? Seven to one.

Okay. The bill has seven to one. We'll leave it on call. Thank you, Assembly Member. Alright, next we'll go by file order. I know Assembly Member Villapudua has been very, very patient, but Assembly Member Fong, welcome. You've got File Item Six: AB 641.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll be very quick. In deference to Mr.-- like my colleague from Stockton, I would first like to accept the Committee amendments and I would like to thank the Chair and Committee Staff for working with my staff on amendments to address catalytic converter theft. An estimated 1,600 catalytic converters are stolen in California each month, and victims' repair costs are as much as 4,000 dollars per incident.

Catalytic converters are a necessary part of vehicles, and they contain rare metals that can be worth up to several thousand dollars. For example, rhodium is worth eight times the price of gold at over 14,000 dollars per ounce. Theft, when we talk about theft, perpetrators can remove a converter in minutes using basic tools and quickly sell it on the black market. This type of theft claims increased 175 percent in California from July 1st, 2020 to June 30th, 2021, and California accounts for 37 percent of all catalytic converter theft claims nationwide.

This bill requires individuals with nine or more catalytic converters cut from a motor vehicle to register as automobile dismantlers. This bill cracks down on rampant catalytic converter theft and unlicensed dismantling by helping law enforcement charge thieves found in possession of multiple detached converters with a crime. This bill will discourage thieves and bring relief to California motorists. I respectfully ask for your aye vote. And I'm joined today by Jonathan Feldman from the California Police Chiefs Association and Tim Chang, representing the Automobile Club of Southern California.

Thank you.

Chair and Members, Jonathan Feldman with the California Police Chiefs Association. I'll follow the brevity of the author here. I will say the most important thing the Legislature can do to help law enforcement on this issue is tighten laws around the possession of stolen catalytic converters. If we are not there to witness the crime, it is incredibly hard to prosecute and as was mentioned, they can detach these catalytic converters in a matter of minutes, so it's very, very hard to be there at the time that the crime is occurring.

So we support this bill wholeheartedly. It's incredibly important to this issue, which is a statewide issue. At every single police chief's board meeting for the last five years, this has been brought up by every one of our region reps. So we're thankful again for this measure and would request your aye vote.

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee, Tim Chang for the Auto Club of Southern California. We are here to support the bill and not to contradict any of the statistics that Assemblyman Fong just spoke about. According to our statistics, in 2019, there were less than 4,000 catalytic converter thefts here in California. That number rose to about 50,000 in 2021, and right now, we're projected to probably hit at least 75,000. So this is a growing problem for California motorists, and we certainly urge an aye vote on this bill.

Thank you very much. Alright, we don't have any lead witnesses in opposition, so we'll take anyone else who'd like to--You want to come forward? Come up.

Madam Chair and Senators, Carlos Gutierrez, and we have a CarMax in support.

Okay, thank you. Alright, we'll take anyone else who'd like to come forward in support or opposition of the bill here in the room. Okay. See none. Moderator will take it to the phone lines. Anyone who'd like to support or oppose AB 641.

Thank you. For support or opposition of AB 641, you may press one, then zero. And that's one, then zero for support or opposition. Madam Chair, we have no one in queue.

Okay, thank you. Alright, we've got a motion by Senator Seyarto, and I want to thank you, Assembly Member, for bringing it forward. This is like the 100th catalytic converter bill, but it's so very important, and I know that AAA will also put it in their newsletter because I've seen my bill in there as well. So I'm glad you're doing this and thank you for taking the amendments, which you mentioned in the--

Yes, I will take the amendments.

Senator Archuleta.

Yeah. Thank you so much for bringing it forward. As a former law enforcement, I am so proud of what you've done. I think that across the state, everyone is going to be excited. The tougher we get, the better we're going to be. As a state, we've got to make an example. So I'm hoping I can be an co-author.

The bill has nine. We'll leave it on call. Thank you, Assembly Member.

And I would be proud, and I think this is a big step forward. Let's continue. Thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Senator.

Okay. We've got two co-authors here. Assembly Member, would you like to close?

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. Thank you. We've got a motion by Senator Seyarto. Madam Secretary.

File Item Number Six: AB 641. Motion is 'do pass as amended to the Committee on Appropriations.' Senators Gonzalez? Aye. Gonzalez, aye. Niello? Aye. Niello, aye. Allen? Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Becker? Blakespear? Aye. Blakespear, aye. Cortese? Aye. Cortese, aye. Dahle? Aye. Dahle, aye. Durazo? Laird? Limon? Aye. Limon, aye. McGuire? Newman? Aye. Newman, aye. Nguyen? Seyarto? Aye. Seyarto, aye. Umberg?

Thank you, Assembly Member. Alright. Assembly Member Villapudua, you've got file item 11, AB 476. Welcome.

Thank you.

Alright. Thank you, Chair and Members. I want to start off by thanking you and your staff for working with my office. And I accept the amendments discussed in the Committee analysis. AB 476 seeks to clarify the San Joaquin County to be able to build a digital display in one location to display countywide public messages and announcements. The essential role of government is to provide public safety and inform the public to ensure effective operations.

More than ever, the way that constituents receive information has shifted to digital media, making this cost effective way to share information with the community. The simple clarification will ensure San Joaquin County residents receive the most up to date public information and announcements in a timely fashion. With me to testify today is Matt Garber, the Assistant Director of San Joaquin County Health Care Services Agency, to testify and answer any questions the Committee may have.

Thank you. Welcome.

Thank you. Chairman, Members, thank you for allowing me to testify on this bill. We're grateful to the author and this Committee for allowing us to present this bill to allow greater flexibility in our county to share vital noncommercial information quickly with our community.

Specifically, the planned digital display will primarily be used to display public health messaging campaigns and other important safety advisories in the form of messaging campaigns, including public service advisories, campaigns to raise awareness to the community, promoting county services available to the public, and local and regional emergency advisories and alerts. With the ever expansive access to information, it's vital that our county has the ability to spread awareness and knowledge within our jurisdiction, especially for messaging focused on public health and safety.

We share an understanding with the Committee that the County of San Joaquin could rezone this parcel of land to comply with the Outdoor Advertising Act. However, for government entity to have to rezone a very small portion of land every time they wish to erect a digital display on county owned property adds to the unnecessary red tape of a project designed simply to broadcast...

Public notifications for the good of the community in a manner that does not have any public profit or monetization component, nor would it benefit private agency, energy, entity, or persons. We've discussed what zoning options are available to the county, including mapping off a section of the desired parcel to create another, smaller, stranded parcel and zone that land as commercial to conform with the current law.

However, doing so would invite future pressures to do something similar for private entities, and the county wants to avoid creating that precedent in San Joaquin County and beyond. AB 476 would provide the relief the county is looking for without setting a land use precedent for rezoning of small parcels of land to technically comply with the letter of the law.

The authorization provided by AB 476 would be incredibly valuable to the residents of the County of San Joaquin and potentially those that travel on the interstate to receive noncommercial essential public messaging and announcements for the safety and benefit of San Joaquin County residents and visitors. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, anyone else who'd like to come forward in support or opposition of AB 476? Doesn't look like you have any lead witness in opposition. Anyone else who'd like to come forward? Alright. Moderator will take it to the phone lines. Anyone who'd like to support or oppose AB 476?

Thank you. For your support or opposition of AB 476, you may press one, then zero. Again, that is one and then zero for support or opposition. Madam Chair, we have no one in queue.

Okay, thank you. We'll take it back for any questions or comments by Members. Okay.

Move the bill.

All right. Senator Archuleta moves the bill. Assembly Member, would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. Thank you. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

File item number 11, AB 476. The motion is due pass as amended. Senators Gonzalez? Aye. Gonzalez, aye. Niello. Aye. Niello, aye. Allen? Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Becker? Blakespear? Aye. Blakespear, aye. Cortese? Aye. Cortese, aye. Dahle? Dahle, aye. Durazo? Laird? Limon? Limon, aye. McGuire? Newman? Newman, aye. Nguyen? Seyarto? Seyarto, aye. Umberg? Nine.

Okay. Bill has nine. Leave it on call. Thank you, Assembly Member. Okay, now we're going to move on. If there are any other authors available, we've got Assembly Member Aguiar-Curry with her very easy bill. We've got Assembly Member Bryan, McCarty, Zbur, Santiago, Flora, and Gabriel. But Senator Becker will be pinch hitting on behalf of Gabriel. OK, so we will resume as soon as we have an author. Thank you.

Alright. Assembly Member, welcome.

Here we go.

I think you've got the Bill of the Day today. So file item eight, AB 316. Assembly Member, welcome.

Thank you. Good timing. Okay. Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. The goal of AB 316 is simple. Full testing and full deployment of an autonomous vehicle over 10,000 pounds can be permitted by the DMV to operate on public roads in California. While we await the analysis of safety data and recommendations to the Legislature by the Executive Branch, that vehicle must be accompanied by a qualified human safety operator.

There is nothing, let me repeat, there is nothing about a human safety operator that prevents the autonomous trucking industry from testing and deploying autonomous vehicles anywhere in California. The only conceivable motivation for rushing forward without a monitor in the cab is to increase profits at the risk of public safety and the livelihoods of our trained expert trucking workforce.

The rollout of light duty autonomous vehicles in San Francisco is a perfect example of why the Legislature should be involved in the final decision making on personless 80,000 pound trucks. Hundreds of incidents with driverless autonomous cars have prompted city public safety officials and elected officials to plead with the CPUC to rein in the deployment of driverless autonomous vehicles. Their experience and review of the data do not conclude this deployment has been safe.

You can see on my map that's here that the incidents cover downtown San Francisco, and more incidents are being reported on a weekly basis, if the companies decide to do so under self reporting. In these incidents, driverless vehicles stop suddenly, impeding traffic and causing accidents. In others, they have blocked emergency vehicles, including preventing police from responding to a mass shooting. The vehicles have driven through emergency scenes and into downed wires. Even one drove away from police officers during a vehicle stop.

Meanwhile, the companies deploying the technology are pulling out all the stops, lobbying for expansion over the passion objection of local officials. Let me make this clear. Senators, I believe that in this technology has great potential, which is why this bill affirmatively recognizes we should move forward with full testing and deployment of these vehicles. But there is absolutely no reason to believe the San Francisco experience won't be repeated in testing driverless trucks.

If you think you've received a visit or two from our colleagues in the Third House doing their job with great energy. Without this bill, that extraordinary amount of lobbying will turn to the executive branch, not in Committee hearings, or your offices, but out of the public eye.

And just like San Francisco, potentially over the passionate objections of our constituents and local public safety officials. Unlike San Francisco taxis, these vehicles weigh an extra 76,000 pounds, drive at significantly higher speeds, and present a greater threat to the public. We need the data collection and reporting of AB 316 to get real sense of the broader impacts of AV trucking technology.

If the industry is true to their word, they should share our interest in studying the employee needs of the future instead of rushing to eliminate our trained and capable workers, who they say will be needed to meet future needs. 500,000 of our brothers and sisters working in the trucking industry cannot be an afterthought in the rush to eliminate drivers to increase profits.

All this bill does is include the legislative branch of government in a more transparent process as the final decision is made to remove humans from trucking in our state. We, Members, answer to our constituents. It affirmatively lays the groundwork for companies to test and deploy autonomous trucks. And it contains a statutory trigger for legislative consideration of final approval of driverless operation based on real data analyzed by the safety experts in the executive branch. They will then appear in a hearing to make recommendations to elected legislators at that time. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, Assembly Member. And it looks like you've got, of course, your lead sponsor, which is the Teamsters. Anyone would like to come forward as a lead witness? Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Gonzalez and the Senate Transportation Committee, for listening to the importance of AB 316. My name is Patrick Ahern. I've been driving trucks for 48 years. My dad wanted me to be an architect. I wanted to drive trucks. I initiated into the oldest Teamster Local west of the Mississippi when I was 23 years old. Old and new, I've driven them all. And I'm here to talk about why AB 316 needs to be passed as a precautionary safety measure for any vehicle over 10,000 pounds.

Recently, I took a load to New Orleans in a truck so new, the nationwide fleet owner had not even completed the interstate permit process until I got as far as the New Mexico port of entry. This 80,000 pound vehicle had all the newest high tech sensors, warning devices, flashing lights, vibrators, speed inhibitors, and a feature that automatically slams on the brakes. This is the same solution incorporated into fully autonomous trucks to deal with sudden sensor related events. No evasive action, just a sudden full stop.

Picture that on I5, anywhere from Eureka to San Diego, with a traffic flow of 70 plus miles per hour, anytime, day or night, in inclement weather or emergency situation. They'll tell you the autonomous trucks will make our highway safer. Don't believe them. I have 2 million miles of accident free driving in my career. I can't count the times my awareness and reactions have avoided serious consequences to the human beings around me. Autonomous vehicle developers will tell you these vehicles will relieve traffic congestion.

The math says that the only thing that changes in that equation is one less human operator. They'll say these are jobs nobody wants. Where have we heard that before? And there will be other jobs we can do, like packing boxes or doing IT work or maybe even management. They say it'll reduce consumer prices. Just look at your cell device and ask yourself, when was the last time that happened? This isn't about any of these things.

This is about market share and profits for autonomous vehicle developers, manufacturers, and large shippers. Yes, there is a nationwide shortage of drivers. Why? Because large truck carriers moved out of California to states like Utah, Tennessee, Alabama, Arizona to pay lower wages and avoid use taxes and regulations. Now they want to operate back into our state. People just want to be paid a fair wage for the type of work they perform.

The developers and their proponents like to use initials to describe what they're pushing, AV, AI, so that you don't actually think about what that means. Say the words autonomous vehicle, artificial intelligence. Let those words sink in, and then think about the words family, friends, children, grandchildren, real people on our highways. The thing that separates human beings from animals is the very same thing that separates human drivers from fully autonomous 10,000 pound vehicles controlled by artificial intelligence, the ability to think and reason. That's why I urge you to support AB 316 today and ensure there is a qualified, licensed operator in every vehicle over 10,000 pounds. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Looks like we have another lead witness in support. Tami Friedrich-Track? Thank you. Welcome.

Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Tami Friedrich. I'm the current President of the Truck Safety Coalition and board member for CRASH, Citizens for Reliable and Safe Highways. And most importantly, I'm a volunteer. I've been a volunteer for over 30 years. My sister and her entire family were all killed in a truck crash with a gasoline tanker on the 10 Freeway in Claremont, California. The Truck Safety Coalition has been fighting for proven, common sense safety reforms since our founding.

Tested and proven safety tech exists that has not widely been adopted. California would do well to incentivize the use of these technologies that have already been proven to save lives. Large truck automated driving systems, ADS, have no state or federal performance or regulations. What's more, AV manufacturers have lacked transparency, repeatedly telling lawmakers disengagement and testing data necessary to understand and evaluate progress and performance is proprietary.

California's existing automated vehicle testing framework has infuriated the public and emergency responders in San Francisco and does not inspire confidence that the time has come to unleash driverless 80,000 pound trucks on the highways. Despite their promising potential, it must be acknowledged that unregulated AV trucks pose a threat to human life. Considered too simple story, their AV truck malfunctioned, and without warning, turned the truck sharply toward a guardrail. If another vehicle had been there, its passengers could have easily been killed.

Thank goodness human safety operators were there attentive and able to take decisive action to avert catastrophe. AB 316 makes sure that happens. Californians did not sign up to be guinea pigs in driverless experiments on our roads. It is reckless and wrong to force people to participate in this experiment without reasonable safeguards, such as retaining a human safety operator in case the unexpected happens. Safety must be kept the top priority. While it's necessary and important, autonomous trucking testing and research continues, which is why I urge this body to pass AB 316. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Alright, now we'll move on to opposition. We have lead witnesses in opposition, Ariel Wolf, as well as John Ross. Mr. John Ross.

Hi. Good afternoon, Chair Gonzalez, Members. John Ross here in opposition to what you dubbed the Bill of the Day, or Easy Bill of the Day. Anyway, let me begin by saying what we agree with, what we agree with the author about. For AVs, autonomous trucks should not be on the roads until they're demonstrated to be safe. I think the proponents believe that. We believe that. The point of disagreement is over how you make that decision.

Our view, based on the history around the development of AVs in this state, is that those decisions should be made by safety experts and by safety experts alone. Let's remember how we got here. In 2012, the Legislature passed SB 1298 by Senator Alex Padilla. What motivated passage of that bill was the promise of improved safety. At the time, and still, it is estimated that autonomous vehicles will save tens of thousands of lives annually.

The bill was passed to encourage the development of AV technology in California. And in response to California passing this first in the nation legislation, pioneering companies have spent billions of dollars developing that technology here for the benefit of residents here. Then, like now, there was considerable unease about letting cars on the road without drivers. Some suggested requiring a second vote of the Legislature before fully autonomous cars could operate.

The Legislature opted instead to have the DMV and CHP make these decisions on a company by company basis. That was the right decision then, and it's the right decision now for several reasons. First, regulators can make nuanced decisions based upon the strengths and weaknesses of each application and impose additional requirements as needed to ensure safe operation of a particular company's technology. Second, the regulators have time, resources, and expertise to solicit broad public input and carefully craft safety standards.

And finally, the Legislature understood in 2012 that requiring a subsequent vote of a future Legislature to authorize autonomous vehicles would chill investment in this state. And the same holds true today. What the Legislature did require 10 years ago in 1298, was appropriate to ensure appropriate legislative oversight, was notice from the DMV to the Legislature when it received an application to operate a fully autonomous vehicle and then 180 day waiting period before the application could be approved.

That, we believe, was an appropriate solution then, which served to provide an opportunity for the Legislature to engage if they saw facts or had concerns. But it didn't create a barrier that would prevent deployment of this technology and investment in this technology absent a subsequent legislative vote. I have with me today, if needed, Dr. Matthew Schwall, who is the Director of Safety at Waymo. He can respond to any particular questions about their technology and their experience in developing these trucks. Thanks.

Thank you. Did you have testimony at this time, or I know that there's Ariel Wolf as well. Is that in... Oh, I'm so sorry. My apologies, Mr. Wolf. Thank you.

Thank you. Chair Gonzalez, Members of the Committee. My name is Ariel Wolf, and I'm in the General Counsel to the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association, here in respectful opposition to AB 316. Like to make two points and then can be available for any questions. First, we recognize the passion and the sincerity of the sponsor and the supporters of this bill. But in its current form, this bill is not a guardrail. It is a total shutdown of a multibillion industry in California.

That's because it requires a human operator to be in the vehicle forever, in perpetuity. There is no sunset because in order to remove the requirement, the Legislature has to act again, at the earliest, in six years. No company can plan to operate in California without the certainty that the technology will one day operate driverless. That's the fundamental business case of autonomous trucking.

We respectfully ask why such a drastic measure is being advanced now, especially as the regulatory process continues, as it has for the past 11 years. So we've heard about safety concerns, and I want to address that directly. And in doing so, I want to read directly from the Committee's own analysis of this subject. Quote: the safety record of AB trucks appears to be fine so far. Close quote. That's on page four.

Quote: California's experience with light duty AVs demonstrates that they are safe and have resulted in no major injuries. Also on page four. Direct you to page six as well for additional information on this. So our concern is that a rushed proposal that would shut down an entire industry in California before it can even start, and one that this Committee's own analysis says is safe. And these are the facts that we're addressing here.

So respectfully, we urge the Committee to take a step back and work to strike the right balance. We stand ready to help and work with the sponsor and with Members. And we've proposed amendments that would keep a driver in requirement for two years and then sunset that to allow the DMV's rulemaking process to continue, as it has been underway for more than, as I said, 10 years. In conclusion, we want to preserve California's role as the lead state for AV Technology.

But failure to act here would cede this vital industry of the future to other states that are eager to welcome the jobs and the safety benefits that it is already providing. Available to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Okay, thank you very much. Anyone else who'd like to come forward in support or opposition? Just your name, organization, and whether you support or oppose.

Madam Chair, Members. Sarah Flocks, California Labor Federation. A proud co-sponsor of the bill. Thank you.

Shane Gusman. I just want to add the Amalgamated Transit Union, the Machinists, in support of the bill.

Scott Brent, Smart Transportation Union, Local 1201, in support.

Good afternoon. Andrea Deveau, on behalf of TechNet, in opposition.

Madam Chair and Members, Members Mike West on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council, in support. Thank you.

James Lombardo, on behalf of ABATE of California, Motorcyclist Safety and Rights Organization, thank you.

Good afternoon. Corey Hallman, representing Teamsters Local 856, in support of the bill.

Lani Richardson, Local 2010 of Teamsters. I'm a grandmother and a mother, and I support this bill.

Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Catherine Cobb, I'm President of Teamsters Local 2010, and I am in support of AB 316. Thank you.

Norma Lopez with Teamsters Local 952 in support of AB 316. Thank you.

Ruth Duarte. I'm Teamsters Local 542 and zip code 92227. I'm in support of this bill.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Members. Brady Van Engelen, California Chamber of Commerce, respectful opposition.

Afternoon, Chair and Members. James Michael Powell with the American Federation of State County Municipal Employees, California, in support.

Izzy Swindler with Shaw, Yoder, Antwih, Schmelzer, and Lange, on behalf of Mayor London Breed of San Francisco, as well as the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, in support. Thank you.

Leah Barros, on behalf of Chamber of Progress, in opposition.

Voleck Taing with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, in opposition.

Shaune Vaughn, representing Teamsters Local 856, in support.

Matt Andrakowicz, representing Teamsters Local 150 here in Sacramento, California, in support of this bill.

Good afternoon. John Virgen, Local Teamster 150, in support of AB 316. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Salvador Abrica, Teamsters Local 542, in support of the bill. Truck driver by trade.

Norberto Lopez, Teamsters Local 911, in support of AB 316.

Oscar Ruiz, in support of AB 316 from Teamsters Local 630 in Los Angeles and a truck driver as a trade, zip code 90021.

Good afternoon. Mike Williams. I'm here on behalf of the International Warehouse Logistics Association and the California Delivery Association, in opposition. Thank you.

Emerson Diaz, Local 495, Covina, California, in full support of this bill.

Jaime Vasquez, Principal Officer of Teamsters Local 542, San Diego and Imperial Counties, California. I'm in favor of this bill. Thank you.

Juanita Smith, I am in support of this bill. Representing for Local 853.

Ayanna Banks, Local 350, San Francisco, California, and I'm in support of this bill.

Ed Duffy, with Teamsters Local 399, in support of AB 316.

John Apodaca, Local 350, in support of AB 316.

Joe Gomes, Local 350, in support of the bill.

Afternoon, Madam Chair. Hector Delgado, with Teamsters Joint Council 42, representing 170,000 members in support of the bill.

Sam Cornejo, Teamsters Local 396 in Los Angeles, in support of AB 316. Thanks.

Adam Padilla, Teamsters, Local 150, in strong support.

James Long, Teamsters 853, driver for 31 years, in support.

Apollo Wallace, Teamsters Local 2785, San Francisco. In support of the bill.

Masiel Garcia, Local 630, in support of this bill.

Silvano Navarro, Local 630, in support of this bill.

Albert Flores, Teamsters Local 495, in support of this bill. And residents of Covina, California.

Marco Escalante, Teamsters 495, Covina Resign Los Angeles 90042, I support this bill.

Good afternoon. I'm Phil Vermeulen, representing the Coalition of Small and Disabled Veteran Businesses and the Flasher Barricade Association, in strong opposition to this bill.

Sam Lesh, Lobby Innovation, AV trucking developer out of the Bay Area, strong opposition to this bill.

Daniel Goff with Kodiak Robotics, another AV trucking developer in Mountain View, California, in very strong opposition to this bill.

Good afternoon. Rich Steiner with Gatik, another AV truck developer in Mountain View, California, in opposition to this bill.

Michael Erazo with Teamsters Local 2010. I support this bill.

Good afternoon, Chair Gonzalez. Deekay Lee, Business Agent from Teamsters Local 439, and I support the bill.

Gavin Buchanan, Local 439, in strong support.

Frank Afoa, President Teamsters Local 630. Strong support of this bill.

Tracy Kelley, Teamsters Local 853 in Oakland, in support.

Good afternoon. Ted Perez, Teamsters Local 856, San Bruno, in support.

Good afternoon. Matthew Castillo, with Teamsters Local 350, in support.

Good afternoon. Sergio Arranaga with Teamsters Local 350 and a third generation truck driver, in support of this bill.

Hi. Florencio Sinogui, Vice President Teamster 665, San Francisco, in support of the bill.

Steve Beck, Principal Officer of Local 853, 14,500 members strong, in support of this bill.

Hi Cliff Batham, representing Local 986 in West Covina, in support of this bill. I reside in 91505.

Sammy Gurule, Teamsters Local 986, in strong support of this bill, 92336.

Rigo Pastrano, 986, Covina, in strong support of this bill.

Tricia Suzuki Blinstrub, Teamsters Joint Council 7, in strong support.

Robert Moreno from Local 542. I'm also a 30 year UPS driver, third generation trucker. I've been behind the wheel for 30 years, and I've never been in an accident. So, yes, I am an expert on this, and I'm in support of this bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If you wouldn't mind, I have two. On behalf of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, unfortunately in respectful opposition, but we have suggested an amendment. And then on behalf of the California Transit Association. We don't have a position on the bill, but we do look forward to continuing to work with the author and her staff on figuring out how this melds with another bill we worked on with ATU and the Teamsters earlier this year, AB 96. Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members, Andrew Antwih here on behalf of the Tesla Corporation in respectful opposition unless amended.

Afternoon, Chair and Members. Dean Talley with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. Always a pleasure to work with the author. We remain respectfully opposed.

Good afternoon. Kate Bell on behalf of the Association of Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, also in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Mufaddal Ezzy on behalf of Aurora. We're an autonomous vehicle technology company with a huge footprint in California in respectful opposition to the bill.

Madam Chair and Members, Duncan McFetridge on behalf of Motional. Respectfully opposed.

Okay, anyone else? I think we've exhausted the whole line, but anyone else who'd like to come forward in room 1200? Okay. See none. Moderator, we'll take it back to you for anyone who'd like to support or oppose the bill at this time.

Thank you. If you're in support or opposition of AB 316, you may press one, then zero. And that is one and then zero if you're in support or opposition of AB 316. We will go to line 47. Your line is open.

Ryan Snow, Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen Rails, strong support.

Thank you. Line 71, your line is open.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Committee Members. Louie Costa with SMART Transportation Division-Legislative Board in support.

Thank you. Line 68, your line is open.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Chris Myers with the California School Employees Association in strong support.

Thank you. Line 63, your line is open.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Evan Strawn on behalf of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce in respectful opposition.

Thank you. Line 73, your line is open.

Thank you, Madam Chairman and Members. Matt Cremins here on behalf of the California-Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers. Apologies for not being there in person, but we wanted to ensure to register our strong support. Thank you.

Thank you. Line 46, your line is open.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee Members. Shafali Madali representing the California Asian Pacific Chamber of Commerce, and we are in respectful opposition of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Line 69, your line is open.

Yes, this is Leah Pressman from Culver City, California. CUNY Human in support.

Thank you. Line 65, your line is open.

Hi. This is Nayiri Baghdassarian on behalf of the San Gabriel Economic Partnership. We oppose AB 316. Thank you.

Thank you. Line 70, your line is open.

Good afternoon, Chair Gonzalez. Committee Members. This is Mark Watts representing Contra Costa Transportation Authority, home of the GoMentum Station AV test facility, and we are in strong opposition to this measure. Thank you.

Thank you. Line 53, your line is open.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. My name is Tasia Kieffer with the LA County Business Federation, also known as BizFed, and we are opposed to AB 316. Thank you.

Thank you, and Madam Chair, we have no further support or opposition in queue.

Okay, thank you. We'll take it back for questions or comments from Members. Everyone is quiet today. So, okay. Well I will--did you have a question, Senator Allen?

You don't have to.

Or you don't have to, for the author.

Oh, he has to. He has to.

No, I guess I have to. I, you know, I'm pretty sure I'm going to vote for this today. I guess I just wanted to get a better understanding of the time frame here and the reason for the rush. I think one of the things we keep hearing from the folks in industry is that the regulatory process that oversees the rollout of these AV trucks just literally takes years and we've got DMV working on this. We've got CHP working on regulations as well, and so where does this interplay with the existing regulatory work from your perspective?

Well, my perspective is, you know, it has to be tested, as we all know, and the trigger for removing the requirements for the human safety operator will be all about safety. And as soon as we can prove that, we can move forward. Nobody in this body and certainly nobody in the industry with a huge profit motive can give me a date and time when it'll be safe. And I've asked them numerous times, when do you'll be this safe?

And each one of the companies--and they're wonderful people, so don't get me wrong--they'll say, 'well, maybe in three years. Well maybe in six years. Well, we don't know.' So we want to make sure there's some data collection that's done on these and so that we can make some good decisions. It's really important for me is not to have this done behind closed doors.

A lot of times when it goes to DMV or to other agencies, we don't know what's happening in the background, but with bringing it out to the public and it's a legislative process, we're going to be able to see that this is working right, if not. You know, I think about we had the City of San Francisco here, and God bless them, I mean they've seen this with all due respect. They know that the safety officials do not agree with the rollout in their city and that it hasn't been safe.

So to me is that we need to make sure it's safe and then we can move it on. If I was given time frames that were accurate, it'd be one thing, but I have not been given that, and I don't see that happening right off the bat. Instead, we have a trigger in this for the legislative consideration for removing the safety operators.

DMV and CHP will collect the data, consult with safety labor officials and the Administration, then appear in oversight hearings to make a recommendation, making it accountable, making it transparent. You know, when I got this job, even when I was in the City Council on Planning Commission, people asked me what was my job. My number one job: safety. And this is what my constituents ask for. This is what the teamsters are asking for and the drivers is to make sure we have safety.

So I just think that we need to keep our eye on the ball, and I think--I love the technology. I've told everyone that's walked in my office, I'm not against the technology, let's keep moving it forward, but we need a human safety operator in there to make sure it works.

Well, I guess when you're saying--you keep asking about when it's going to be safe, but obviously, they're not able to--all this is in beta testing, I guess right now--what's been the consideration of kind of requiring certain metrics, certain safety metrics to be met?

I'm going to ask my expert to give you what the metrics could be. I'm not real familiar with exactly what all the metrics will be, but--

Mr. Guzman.

Through the Chair, Senator, what we've been given from some of the companies is a very short timeframe for a sunset. That's been the extent of it. We are not engineers. I don't know what those metrics should be.

I think the appropriate thing is to have the DMV and the CHP look at this as the bill sets out for the testing period, which is five years in the bill and for what the companies refer to as the experts to come back and tell you, [a]: this is safe and we shouldn't have a human safety operator requirement anymore, or we should continue with it, or some hybrid that we could only guess about at this point in time. And I think that's the point.

We don't have enough data to actually make a decision about a set time frame, so five years seems like a reasonable amount of time to let the testing go forward. As the companies have said, nobody's going to be on the road anytime soon. That gives plenty of time to develop this and to come forward to the Legislature and make their case. And I think it's an appropriate trigger to have given the amount of information we have right now.

Right, but it's not a trigger, right? It's just a report to the Legislature. We have reports all the time from all sorts of groups.

Certainly, but the bill does specify that the Legislature will consider it and make the decision. I believe it says it in the bill to consider whether or not the human safety operator is appropriate anymore. And I think that does call on a future legislator and some of you will be here then to make that decision.

But they then have to proactively run a new bill, right?

Correct. But the other alternative is that the law just disappears, which I think is what the companies are asking for and we don't think that's appropriate because we don't feel that you would have the information or the transparency or the ability to revisit that if that was the case.

Yeah. One of the things I think it's been difficult to get my head around is just--there are so many different companies in this space and very different approaches, right? You got sort of some that have just put stuff out there and ask questions later and there are others that seem to be a lot more careful and conservative in the way that they've been deploying.

And I think that's one of the challenges because I think there are certainly some companies that have been setting a pretty bad example and I think kind of made it real bad for everybody else in the industry because they rushed out this technology too quickly. But there are some that have been really very careful and--

They'll be rewarded.

Well, that's the question. That's the real question. Do you think so? You think they'll be rewarded?

No, I'm just saying I think that there are some that are definitely headed in the right direction that I've met, with some of the experts. I was delighted on some of the experts and some just didn't come in with a solution or anything, but there are some that are working and headed in the right direction and I think are willing to work with us with the DMV collecting data. I think it's just a matter of time. It's a big paradigm shift, right?

People are a little bit scared. But for me, it's about the safety, and I think we're going to get there. There's things that are frustrating to me because I know that the DMV is supposed to pull permits if somebody's not a good actor in the current way we have autonomous cars, and not one person has been reprimanded yet, and there's a whole bunch of them that aren't playing right.

So I just think that it's important that we keep the conversation open and we work with our experts across the United States on this and we'll get there.

My Colleague has a couple of questions.

First we're going to go to Senator Niello and then Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I agreed with your opening remarks, and it's the way that I look at it also. This is promising technology, and as you and I discussed in my office, we do need to make it safe in my consideration. I was thinking about, well, how do we follow up on this?

Do we leave it up to safety experts, as Mr. Ross indicated, or do we bring it back to the Legislature where, of course, politics is involved and can influence it beyond just merely the useful technology? I did conclude that I think it makes sense to bring it back to the elected body. And you emphasized in your comment the future value of this technology, and then your primary witness proceeded, if I understood him correctly, proceeded to tell us it shouldn't happen at all.

And so I'm a little confused by that. Now, I know whenever new technology hits, people are concerned about job losses. It's been the case since the Luddites. The Luddites kind of carried it to an extreme. They went and destroyed factories, but that's why they earned that forever descriptor of the resistance to technology because of concerns of job losses.

Now I get the concern, but since the Luddites and before that, technology has increased incredibly and yet overall standards of living and the economy and jobs as a total continue to climb. But I get the fear. I understand that, but as I said, the primary motivation, if I understand your primary witness's testimony, is don't do it at all. That makes me take pause in terms of how we proceed.

I think it's just another paradigm shift and it's going to take time for people to figure out where we're going with this, and I think that we have to honor the working members of the trucking industry and understand their fear. In the meantime, we can work on this as we go forward. It's not going to be an easy change, and I think that we've got to honor what they're doing and I don't want to turn my back on them at all.

I think that, I just think it's really important. I think these people, the workers and our people, they got big hearts and they done so many wonderful things for our communities. I mean, this is working families and so I want to honor them as well during this process. So I think it's going to come together. I'm not going to have the answer today and neither do they.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Members. So I'm the only, I believe, Senator or Legislator that actually has a Class One license. I've driven over a million miles with accident-free and we have a lot of laws about safety, as we should. These are obviously heavy vehicles. But this bill, I want to thank the author for coming to my office and sitting down with me and talking about this bill because it is very controversial and safety is very important and I think we need to acknowledge that this bill goes down to 10,000 pounds, which is a smaller vehicle that's going to be not 80,000 pounds like we talk about most of the time.

So I have two questions. I have a question about the perpetuity because I think that is really critical to--in the opposition, if I may, can I get your take on--because I think that this is critical to the future.

Look, I don't think we should have trucks operating in the near term without an operator in there, a driver. So let's talk about that because I think that's really the crux to this bill is what happens in the future? Do we come to a point where we feel safe enough to not have an operator in a vehicle? So let's talk about that perpetuity part of this bill.

Could you go into a little bit more depth about your take and then the other side can talk about it as well. So, if you may?

Mr. Wolf.

If we may.

With respect to perpetuity--I think everything that's been said thus far and with great appreciation for the sponsor and everyone that came to the hearing here today--with respect to perpetuity, the reality is the regulatory process has been underway for a long time, and the choice that we face with this legislation and potentially maybe an amended version of it or not at all, is not whether there is going to be a driver in the vehicle or not at all.

In the absence of this legislation, the DMV and the CHP continue to regulate this as they have been undertaking for a long period of time, and the expectation is, just later this week, on Friday, there's going to be a public workshop where there'll be an open opportunity for the public to talk about the next steps with the regulation that there would be multiple years before there would be driverless trucks in California.

So that process continues underway. That's the choice that continues apace in the absence of legislation, and so what this bill in its current form does is come over top of that more than a decade long process and inject a perpetual prohibition on a driverless truck.

And again, as I noted in my comments, I'll conclude with this: that eviscerates the economic case for the technology on the front end, and so there are other states that have this testing and they have rigorous oversight as well, but in not doing that, that is where the technology will go and the benefits, with respect to safety, the economic benefits with respect to jobs and all of that that goes along with it that the Committee's own analysis talked about, that would evaporate in its current form, the bill.

I can just center at a point, if that's alright? I think the point was made that the investment and the companies and the technologies are different.

Under the system that's existed for a decade, the companies go to DMV and they have to prove safety one by one. It may take a company three years, it might take a company six years, it might take a company 10 years, but the incentive ought to be to reward the investment and the energy and effort to get your technology to market sooner as long as it's demonstrated to be safe.

And what this bill says is, regardless of all that, it's seven or eight years from now at a minimum before the Legislature can even cast a vote. No one's suggesting that trucks will go on the road without operators in the near future. The history at the DMV was years of testing cars with drivers in them, and then years of testing the technology without drivers under constrained geographies and limits before it could be demonstrated to be safe, and it's still not commercially allowed anywhere in the state yet. That's a 10 to 12 year process.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Alright. Oh, did you have another question? Alright, get going.

This is a question I asked to the author in my office and I wanted some more clarification. So if you have a driver in the vehicle and the vehicle is in an accident, is the driver liable or is the company liable?

Boy, that's a tough question. I guess I should ask them.

Who would like to come forward and just quickly, briefly answer that? Mr. Guzman?

Sure. Through the Chair, Senator, I don't see any difference between the current state of affairs with respect to commercial driving. If a driver gets in an accident, their employer is often liable under respondeat superior, and if it's a mechanical failure, there are liability issues around product liability and the like. So I think nothing would change with respect to liability. That's certainly not the intent of the bill.

But you said that this is going to make us safer if we have a driver in the vehicle. Okay, I would just like to conclude with saying that this is a tough bill. We all talk about technology and those of us in business know that labor is the highest cost in business, and when you can reduce labor, you can reduce your cost and efficiencies. But at the same time we want to be safe.

Those are the couple of concerns I have with the bill is that in perpetuity-- look, this obviously is--there's a lot of labor here and there's a lot of technology here at the same time. So I've been kind of conflicted about this bill for some time and what the right approach is, and I think in perpetuity is forever long time, and the ability to come back and revisit this and work on the technology I think is something we need to look at. And I also think the 10,000 pound threshold is very low.

We have a lot of vehicles that are not operated by Class One commercial drivers that are over 10,000 pounds. So just some thoughts.

Thank you, Senator Dahle. Senator Newman.

Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. Senator Dahle, just, the question you asked interestingly was a question that was asked--I was part of an information hearing in 2017 on this topic. It was a Joint Hearing, I think, of insurance, transportation, B&P. So the safety conversation has been going on for some time, but I want to touch on something Senator Niello rightly pointed out. The pretext here or the text is safety. The subtext is labor. The subtext here is the impact on the labor force.

Let me make clear, I'm going to vote for the bill today, but I do think that's important to be honest about, to be forthright about, and I would say that above and apart the technology and safety dimensions of this conversation, there is a labor impact. That is why a lot of these good folks are here and I respect that and I think it's valid for the Legislature to take up that issue as its own issue because it's a big deal, right?

It's a big deal for this labor force. It's a big deal for how we think about the intersection of technology and work and the impact on working families. And so my hope is that as we move beyond this and my Colleagues ask good questions about the safety and technical aspects, that we should be willing to have that discussion and not use safety as sort of the camouflage for this.

Let's talk about the real dimensions of how we think about technology in California and the allowances we'll make for investment and technological leadership, but just as importantly for its impact on people, especially the people who've worked in long careers doing this work. So voting for the bill today, but that's my concern moving forward. So thank you.

Okay, thank you. Senator Becker?

Thank you. First, I want to thank all the drivers who are here. You know, I also have family connect--my wife's, both her uncles, one ran a trucking company, one was a trucker his whole life and my side of the family as well, and I think people are justifiably proud of their safety records and appreciate you all for what you do and your testimony.

And I thank the companies too; many are headquartered in my district who I believe are ethical and are working hard on safety and appreciate them coming to the table as well. I did have a few questions. First, the opposition just said perpetual, but you said it's not perpetual. How would you address that?

I would just say is that as time goes on and we get the additional data, they can come back and present the information to the Legislature and we can move with the bill, let them go ahead and have autonomous vehicles. We're going to have a transition period. I think we all have to agree with that, right? And so it's going to take some time, whether it's with the technology or with labor, we're going to have a transition time.

And it even says in the analysis there will be a combination of things that we're going to have to do in the meantime. I agree with Senator Newman. These are the additional conversations we're going to need to have in the future. This is not just this industry, other industries as well as we start to do more and more automation in whatever field we're looking at.

I do agree with you. I consider myself a techno-optimist, but I do agree. I think people on both sides tend to overestimate sometimes the impact of technology and how ready it's going to be and the time frame that it's going to be because I remember ten, fifteen years ago, and to their credit, some of the companies that have not rushed to market, but ten to fifteen years ago, talking about driverless cars and people thought we'd be much further ahead.

I certainly hope we'd be there before my kids drove, but unfortunately, we didn't quite get there. But I think people probably overestimated the effects, and I think we see it with AI sometimes too. On the report, just so I'm clear, are companies then going to come on a case by case? Is the Legislature going to prove each company on a case by case basis or the technology overall? How is that going to work?

The bill says there should be a holistic report. The report comes to the Legislature, and the Legislature makes its decision. If the Legislature wants to say companies that meet this standard can go without a human safety operator, the Legislature has the power to do that. You can decide they all should be available with that requirement. So it's not prescriptive in that way. The Legislature is free to consider this report and come back and do what it wants. So it's not saying we're going to reward Company X and penalize Company Y.

Got it.

We've capped, I just want to remind you we've capped the time for data collection and reporting, and the Administration can ask for an oversight hearing and the industry could run a bill.

Yeah, got it. Thank you. Senator Dahle raised a question of weight. Just curious how that kind of factored in, and also, do you think of short haul and long haul? Do you differentiate there? Are you concerned, more concerned about one or the other? I'm just kind of curious how the thought process that went in.

I'm concerned about all of it, quite frankly. I live off of Highway 80 and Highway 505, and I'm very concerned about the traffic and what this could do because farming community, we have trucks going up and down those highways.

And the size of the 10,000 to 80,000, or have you--what kind of factor?

Any one of those. I mean, as long as they're going down the highway, they're a weapon. I don't know if you've ever had to take a driving defensive driving class. I have. The whole thing is about defensive driving. It's a weapon. These trucks are going really quickly, and they can kill people, and they may not, but there's really good drivers that we have here, and we don't know what the autonomous vehicles are going to do until we actually are running them.

So I think having a person in, an operator in the vehicle is really important to do. My constituents are looking for that. I'm sure yours are, too.

Well, I do appreciate the--I think to the point that was kind of made earlier--well, again, I think that we have ethical companies that are working on prioritizing safety. We have seen, unfortunately, incidences with Tesla branded self-driving. We've seen incidences. We've seen incidents in San Francisco with some of the autonomous vehicles there. So I do think it's important that we don't rush this technology to the market and that we do have a thoughtful process. So I appreciate the discussion.

I'll be supporting the bill today. I plan to intend to be here. I look forward to seeing these reports in the future. I think ultimately, I think there is a question of whether the Legislature is the best able to kind of weigh in on a case by case.

I just don't want this done behind closed doors. I think we need to know what's going on because obviously, as the map shows, some things happen behind closed doors that we weren't all aware of. So I think this is a great way to do it, and in three or four, it could be sooner. Again, if the Administration changes their mind and says, let's move this forward, let's do it.

Thank you.

Yeah, and I appreciate that piece of it. I appreciate you having the discussion here today.

Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to take Senator Cortese and then Senator Durazo, and Mr. Wolf, we're not going to go back and forth, unfortunately, if she has her lead witness in support or if we have additional questions for you, we'll certainly direct those. Thank you, though.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to be supporting the bill, but I want to explain myself very quickly. First of all, I don't see anything in the bill that prohibits the Legislature's constitutional right, any Member to bring a bill forward at any time. This bill does say that the DMV can't authorize autonomous trucks, basically vehicles at this weight level or higher without waiting for that report to come. But there's nothing in perpetuity or anything else that stops anybody.

And I would imagine you may see a bill from every year, from every session from here on out trying to deal with this differently than you have as an author. But correct me if I'm wrong, if you will, in your close or when I conclude my comments through the Chair. There's two separate issues here. One is safety and one is workforce. To me, this is sort of the early staging of the workforce debate that's coming not just in this area, but in other areas as well and we're going to have to deal with it.

The technology is coming. The safety is absolutely not there. I just want to identify with what you said. I travel many, many dozens of times a year, over 152 from Santa Clara County over into Merced. It's already been dubbed for the last 30 years as Blood Alley. Maybe 40 years.

I can't even imagine at five o'clock in the morning, six o'clock in the morning heading over there on that two-lane road with no barriers, no median dividers, with the Goods Movement that's coming the other way, trying to make its way all the way up to Oakland from the Southern California. Not having in the next stages of testing of this equipment, not having somebody as a pilot or copilot monitoring what's going on, and these are 60,000 to 80,000 pound vehicles, 80,000 pounds when loaded.

I know truckers here know that these aren't 10,000 pound vehicles. So you got maybe a 4,000 pound car going up against an 80,000 pound vehicle head on. That's what I'm concerned about in terms of making sure we have something in place now sooner rather than later as a default going forward. So I applaud you for bringing forward the bill.

And I just wanted to thank you, Madam Chair, going to state a few words so people would know I have my own sense of justification for why I'm supporting this. I actually don't see this today as frankly as the labor versus management fight or labor versus technology fight. That's coming, okay, but I just don't think you could even begin to go to the next level of safety without having drivers. I was on two jets over, small jets over the last 60 days or so.

Some Members here were present with me, at least on one or the other of those trips. Those planes flied autonomously much of the time. That was demonstrated to me directly, but there were still visuals that were needed. There was still air traffic control that was needed. There was still a pilot needed to make sure that the plane stayed on course despite the fact that the pilot had to do very little 90 percent of the time.

I would not have wanted to be in either one of those fights, albeit at 30,000 feet, without a human being in there regulating things. I don't think a truck coming at you at 80,000 pounds is that much different than being at 30,000 feet. Either way is going to be very, very tragic if something goes wrong. So thank you, and I intend to vote aye.

Thank you, Senator Cortese. Senator Durazo.

Thank you. I wasn't here for the presentation, trying to do double duty here with the Judiciary Committee, but I do want to say, just in general, I really appreciate Senator Newman's comments about this being both safety and workforce and there's no reason why we shouldn't talk about both and be proud to talk about both. Sometimes when technology is part of the issue we're talking about, there's this automatic that if you're not with technology, then you're a dinosaur.

You're getting behind. What's wrong with you? There's something wrong if you're not with the latest technology or that technology is the most efficient. We've got to think about technology, in my opinion, in such a way that moves society forward in the most positive way for everybody, not just for some people. And my concern here is the safety issue, but it's also about the people who have these jobs and how they should be included in the process of deciding what the next steps are.

And I sure hope they are. They are asked for their advice and they are included in this because they know better than anybody what it takes to drive and what it takes to be safe and what it takes to be safe for themselves as well as for the roads that they're driving on. So I'm proud to be able to be here and have the opportunity to vote. Thank you.

Thank you. And because Senator Seyarto does not disappoint, he's going to be next year. Go right ahead.

I'm going to disappoint somebody. So obviously, I'm a public safety guy. And one of the issues with this is we're kind of looking at an issue that we have to remember who we represent. We represent a lot of people out there. I don't know that they are ready to see a truck barreling down the road without a driver in it just from an anxiety standpoint. So that's one thing that we need to keep in mind.

This is a process that needs to go very slowly if we decide someday to go down that path at all because there is such a thing as being able to do something, but it might not be something we should be doing. I think eventually we'll get to the point. But one of the issues here is you have an industry that is getting hit pretty hard.

You have businesses, not just trucking, that are being hit pretty hard by the regulations, not just in labor regulations, but all regulations, and so they're getting pushed out and they're going where they can actually stay alive. That's one of those issues and when we talk about a driver shortage, that's one of the reasons we have a driver shortage. We have plenty of business for people to go pick up things at the port and take them out.

But we're really struggling with that, and we're starting to see the effects. I don't ever want to go into a fast food restaurant and push a button and have a burger spit out at me from a thing. I would rather a person did that. And we had that contact. And the same thing here.

I don't want to see trucks barreling down the road assisted with some extra stuff on it to make sure that if a driver is getting drowsy, somehow they go--guardrails and things like that. Yeah, that would probably be okay, but I don't think we're there yet to be, from a public safety perspective, for us to be able to have trucks with no drivers in them.

I also know we're going to have to have that conversation about labor and our businesses and where is the sweet spot where we can have both and everybody can survive. So this is a very, very difficult bill for me, but ultimately, I wind up landing on the public safety part of it. So anyway, I'll keep you guys on edge.

Thank you. Senator Archuleta.

Alright. Maybe I'll close it up. Anyway, I'd like to thank all the teamsters that are here, my brothers and sisters. I will tell you this: that you are the professionals. You know that you can't move these vehicles, these huge trucks down the road without your expertise, training, and years and years of participation among each other. You know what you're carrying, you know the dangers, and I think that's the key that we're missing: the danger. I don't know if I should call you truck drivers anymore.

I think I should call you human safety operators. Human safety operators because that's what we're looking at here to make sure we keep the road safe and still going forward. And I see a lot of the drivers that will roll over into technology, be part of what makes this truck move: the technology. I could see that happening. That's why we're always trying to find a way to educate and train for the future.

So I am 100 percent behind this, I'm going to support it, and I thank you for bringing it forward. And public safety is number one, we heard that, and technology is not far behind, but I think we can joint venture on this and keep our roads safe, but we can't do it without the professional drivers that we have that are represented here today. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Archuleta. Senator Blakespear.

Okay, thank you. So there's a famous quote that everything has already been said but not yet by everyone. So I think I'm the last person here. So I'm just going to quickly say the top things that are important to me. So I want to recognize the drivers and the important work you do and coming out today to testify and support in this bill. I will be supporting this bill today.

I think that it's really important when we look at safety, we look at this chart and there are these accidents, but the question is, how many accidents do we have because of human error? So when we're going forward with the analysis of what is safe and what isn't, we have to know what that comparison is. So that's just a critical data point that we need to be considering.

And I'll just say that personally it seems terrifying to have a big rig driving down the road without a person in it. So the human safety operator is really critical to our airplanes, to our trains, to big rigs. I can't envision that not being the case, but technology may evolve and that might be the case in the future. I think there are many, many people who would agree with that and would not feel comfortable allowing it.

So at this point, we can always change bills in the future, but this is clearly something that we should be doing today and I will be supporting it today. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, we have a motion and I'm actually the closer today because I didn't get to speak, but I will finish this off by also extending my gratitude to you, Assembly Member. I'm somebody who actually used to work in the space of artificial intelligence at Microsoft.

I did a lot of work with 'future of work' technology, but while I was doing this work, also for a very large tech company, ensuring that along the way there was a few different pillars: maintain public integrity and public trust, that includes the workforce and just the general public, more checks and balances on the system, and then lessening the power dynamic, which I think is really important. We don't often talk about that.

And as this technology moves forward--which this bill doesn't stop this innovation, it just provides additional, in my opinion, checks and balances--always ensuring that we're including the folks that are going to be most impacted, which is very important. I'm going to outs myself here, I think some of you know, but I also grew up in a teamster household.

So having the technology background while also knowing that my father was a truck driver for 30 years with the teamsters that counted on this, but also had an impeccable record, and even to this day, he's been retired now for seven years, but even to this day is so very happy to talk about his perfect driving record.

And the thought of this technology potentially not just on the jobs, but potentially superseding that safety situation, which this Transportation Committee really has the purview within, I think is something that we have to, of course, prioritize. Secondly, so, many of us have legislated on issues related to autonomous vehicles and what certain brands have done in terms of the way they are marketing autonomous vehicles, and I will tell you, the DMV has not been very communicative.

So the more reason to bring this bill, I think, is to ensure that the DMV is responsive even to this Legislature. As the Chair of Transportation, I haven't even been able to get information from the DMV. I've gotten more information from NHTSA, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, than I have from the DMV, unfortunately. And that's not okay. So we do need additional checks and balances to ensure that along the way, while we're innovating, that we are being as mindful as possible.

I thank you for that. I know you'll continue to engage with these companies. We'll all continue to engage. Nothing precludes the companies or additional legislation from moving forward, but at the end of the day, I know that, and I want to thank the workforce that has been here for hours, but I know this is so important to you.

And as the daughter of someone who every single day drove a truck and did what he could to put food on the table, I hear you, I understand you, and we're going to hopefully get through this together. This is not the end result. We'll certainly have more discussions on this. There's going to be public forums, et cetera, but still a lot of more work to do with that. Finally, we're going to allow you to close, and we have a motion by Senator Archuleta.

Well, I have a long close, but based upon the comments today, I just want to appreciate the conversation. Sure we're going to continue to work on this, but I think there's a lot of comments that are made that we have a lot to do not just this bill, but going forward to making sure we don't leave people from the table and making sure their voices are heard as we get moving on to more automation. And this bill was not in any intention to ban technology.

I love technology, and everybody in this room knows that, but I think that this is the time that we really need to reevaluate. I think that this bill is all about safety. I go up and down Highway 80, Highway 5, and I just can't imagine not having somebody behind the wheel. So with that being said, I simply ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Now, Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

File Item Number Eight, AB 316. The motion is 'do pass to the Appropriations Committee.' Senators Gonzalez? Aye. Gonzalez, aye. Niello? Aye. Niello, aye. Allen? Archuleta? Aye. Archuleta, aye. Becker? Blakespear? Aye. Blakespear, aye. Cortese? Aye. Cortese, aye. Dahle? Durazo? Aye. Durazo, aye. Laird? Limon? McGuire? Newman? Aye. Newman, aye. Nguyen? Seyarto? Aye. Umberg? Seyarto, aye. Umberg? Eight.

The bill has eight, we'll leave it on call. Thank you, Assembly Member.

Thank you very much.

Okay, we're finally on to our next--thank you so much for being so patient, Assembly Member Bryan. File Item 14: AB 825.

Currently, in California, you can be cited for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, even where no safe bike infrastructure exists on the street. Despite there being no evidence suggesting that sidewalk riding differs among races. Nearly all citations for riding on the sidewalk are people of color. In fact, in Los Angeles, an analysis of over 44,000 stops from 2017 to 21 to 2021 by the LA County Sheriff's Deputy found that 70% over 70% of those who recited were Latinos. Over 90% were people of color, period.

Cyclists should have the autonomy to decide for themselves and others whether it's safer to be on the street or on the sidewalk when there's no safe bike lanes on the streets. Data shows that we lose nearly three cyclists a week to deaths on the street involving a vehicle that's almost a cyclist every other day. We currently have over 6 million people who live in a city that has legalized riding on the sidewalk. In 2011, the City of Los Angeles legalized cycling on the sidewalk.

And since then, the amount of collisions between cyclists and vehicles decreased by 81%, and the amount of collisions between cyclists and pedestrians also decreased. In addition, LA County just recently legalized sidewalk riding after we introduced this Bill, and they have reported no spikes and collisions at all. In the last decade, jurisdictions across California have paid out at least $112,000,000 in cyclist accidents due to injuries or deaths caused by vehicle collisions on the street where there was no safe bike infrastructure.

Creating cyclists empowered flexibility is smart policy. It will improve safety. It will end disparities in enforcement, and will take us one step closer towards safe and inclusive cities for all types of mobility. With me to testify today is Bubba Fish, Codirector of State Policy for Streets for All, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.