Senate Standing Committee on Transportation

There we go. The Senate Transportation Committee will come to order. I think we'll call this good evening instead of good afternoon. We have nine measures on today's agenda. And first, a couple of usual housekeeping items. We're going to allow for two primary witnesses maximum each for support and opposition. And each witness will have two minutes to present their testimony.

Any additional witnesses, we will ask to limit yourselves to name affiliation in your position on the Bill. Me toos. As we say, SB667 by Senator Archuleta has been pulled from the agenda today. We have two measures proposed for consent today. The proposed consent items will be Item 8, SB364 by Strickland. Item 9, SB695 by Cortese.

We will come back when we have a quorum and take up that consent calendar. All right, so we're going to start in file order here. I'm just going to indicate, also as a courtesy to. I think Senator Cervantes will be presenting item three. We're going to actually take that up.

Second, so we'll reverse the order of items 2 and 3. We have some issues with witness travel and so forth. But the first,

Okay. Is Senator Allen in the audience? We could actually go to Cervantes first. Okay. So we can go. Are you prepared, Senator Cervantes? Okay, that's terrific. And so we're going to start off then with item three, SB800, which is a Reyes Bill, and Senator Cervantes is presenting. Please begin whenever you're ready.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair and Committee Members, for the opportunity to present Senate Bill 800 on behalf of Senator Reyes. AB800 establishes a pilot program requiring Cal Trans to install suicide deterrence on 10 freeway overpasses in San Bernardino County.

In the past six months, there have been multiple suicides and attempts along the overpasses of the 210 freeway in the San Reyes district. While any suicide attempt is a serious cause of concern, one particular incident stood out as especially heartbreaking.

Within just a week and a half, her community experienced a devastating loss of two high school students, both of whom tragically took their life at the same location.

This string of losses not only left families and friends in profound grief, but also shook the entire community, sparking conversation about mental health support and urgent needs to resources to help young people in distress. The impact of these tragedies were felt deeply, highlighting the importance of addressing the challenges that students do face today.

These incidences underscore the urgent need for intervention. No family, school or community should have to endure such unimaginable grief. Addressing this issue is complex, and there is no single solution to preventing these tragedies. Having this crucial infrastructure in place is an important step in the right direction.

Here to testify in support of this Bill is Mina Furu Tan, sister of one of the victims in Rancho Cucamonga, Mayor Pro Tem Lynn Kennedy.

Whichever one of you would like to go first, that would be fine. You have a couple minutes each.

Great. Thank you very much. Good evening. Honorable Chair Cortese and Members of the Senate Transportation Committee, thank you for taking the time to consider SB800. And thank you to Senator Gomez Reyes for sponsoring this important Bill. I am Christine Scott, a Council Member on the City of Rancho Cucamonga, and I'm here in strong support of SB 800.

Because in Rancho Cucamonga, we're not talking about policy, we're talking about lives we've lost and lives we're still trying to save. In the past six months alone, there have been four suicide and five additional attempted suicides from freeway overpasses in Rancho Cucamonga.

Two of those lives were high school students lost just a week and a half apart from the same overpass in our city. These tragedies continue to reverberate across our community. Their names, their futures, their families are etched in the heart of our city. And they are not alone. When we talk about crisis response, our city acts.

Rancho Cucamonga has mobilized our Police Department, behavioral health partners, and engaged community Members to remain vigilant and respond swiftly. In fact, it was this coordinated crisis response that helped save two young lives just last week. But we know we can't rely on timing and luck to be on our only safety net.

For the last several months, we have reached out to Cal Trans urging for more meaningful action. Barriers, signage, anything. They could prevent more deaths. Unfortunately, despite our continued outreach, little progress has been made. This is why this Bill is not only necessary, but urgent.

SB800 creates a pilot program to install suicide deterrence on 10 High Risk Freeway overpasses in San Bernardino. County. These life saving measures, whether physical barriers, signage, or both, will protect not only those in crisis, but also the motorists and first responders impacted by these events.

SB800 is how we say you are not alone and your community is fighting for you. It's how we help someone hold on just long enough for help to arrive. And it's how we prevent another family from experiencing the unimaginable. On behalf of Rancho Cucamonga, I urge your full support. Let's be the difference. Thank You.

And at this time, I'd like to introduce Mina Purvatan, the sibling of one of the students who died by suicide in October of 2024.

Thank you both for being here.

Thank you. Good evening. Honorable Chair Cortese and Members of the Senate Transportation Committee, thank you for taking the time to consider SB800. And thank you to Senator Gomez Reyes for sponsoring this important Bill. My name is Mina, and I'm the sister of Shereen Connor Furutan.

Less than eight months ago, the entire Rancho Cucamonga community was shaken when Emily Gold, a student at Los Sosos High School, died by suicide jumping from a freeway overpass. Not even two weeks later, another lo so so student died the same way. That second student was my sibling, Shireen.

Words cannot even begin to describe the immense pain that my family has carried since then. Shireen was a talented artist who was involved in theater tech, very funny and immensely caring. Shireen had dreams and hopes for the Future. But on September 26th of 2024, those dreams came to an end.

Those first few days were a nightmare that I wouldn't wish upon anybody. My parents were inconsolable, and I was in disbelief. And now, every single day on my drive to school, I pass under the bridge where Shireen died. And every single day, I'm reminded of how wonderful Shireen's life could have been.

When multiple suicides happen in a community in a closer time or space than you would expect, it's called a suicide cluster. This situation is a textbook example of a suicide cluster, because when suicides happen in such public ways, such as jumping off a bridge, it can often trigger other suicides. However, SB800 is trying to combat this phenomenon.

There is evidence that signs and barriers can prevent suicide. Suicide is usually an impulsive action, and anything that can interrupt that can save a life. Before Shireen died, I drove by that bridge and I cried, thinking about the girl who had jumped just a few days prior. I'd never met her. I never knew her story.

But the impact of what happened that night stayed with me. And sometimes when I try to imagine the night Shireen died, I think about the cars that were driving below that had to witness Shireen's death without any warning.

Not only must it have been traumatic, it is also dangerous, because what would have happened if a car had swerved from the shock or had suddenly braked? Suicides done like this can unintentionally put others in danger as well. I also think about the first responders who were called out at 1:30 in the morning.

The ones who tried their best to stop a 17 year old from jumping and who failed. I wonder how that night has stayed with them. The toll it's taken, doing everything that you can and still losing someone so young. My dad has put together a petition in support of SB800.

It currently has over 400 signatures from Members of our community. This isn't just our family's grief. It's a shared call to action. SB800 isn't just a gesture. It's not just thoughts and prayers. It offers real, tangible tools that could have benefited Shireen and that will benefit many others.

Please pass this Bill and give others what Shireen didn't get. A sign, a barrier, and a moment to pause and to choose to live. Thank you.

I thank you for your testimony and in case anyone doesn't have a chance to say it, our deepest conferences. On behalf of the Committee, we're going to pause in establishing form so we can actually vote on the Bill. And we'll ask the assistant to do that at this time. Thank you.

Senators Cortese. Here. Cortese. Here. Strickland. Here. Strickland. Here. Archuleta. Arreguin. Here. Arreguin. Here. Blakespear. Cervantes. Here. Cervantes. Here. Dahle. Here.

Dahle. Here. Gonzalez. Grayson. Here. Grayson. Here. Limon Menjivar. Richardson. Here. Richardson. Here. Seyarto. Here. Seyarto. Here. Umberg. Valladares.

We have a quorum. We're going to move now. To other folks who would like to express a support position on the Bill, please come forward. Your name, your affiliation, if any, and your support position, please.

Mr. Chair. Senators, my name is Dennis Michael, for the Mayor for the City of Rancho Cucamonga. And on behalf of myself and our over 170,000 residents, we ask for your support of this piece of legislation. Thank you. Thank you.

Honorable Senators and Members of the Committee, John Gillison, City Manager for Rancho Cucamonga. Here, on behalf of the Coast Specialized. Mental Health Team that we set up in response to this to help provide some additional resources in the future and I'm here in support of this Bill. Thank you.

Elissa Cox, in support of this on behalf of the Rancho Cucamonga Fire Prevention District.

Hello. Good evening, Mr. Chair and Senate Transportation Committee. My name is Hope Velarde on behalf of Healthy Rancho Cucamonga and the schools and the youth there, we are in support of SB800.

Nora Angeles, with Children Now in support.

Thank you. We'll move to opposition now. I do not believe we have a lead opposition witness. Or do we? Do we have a lead opposition witness? No. Do we have anyone in the room who wishes to come forward and express opposition? I've seen none.

We'll come back to the Committee now for discussion. Senator Cyrus, thank you. You know, every once in a while, we get bills that have nothing to do with partisan politics, and this is one of those bills. It's an easy support. And sorry for your loss. That's terrible.

And I remember reading about this and how horrible that was. So anyway, thank you for your bravery and courage today to come and testify before this Committee. I can't imagine it not passing.

Senator Richardson.

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also wanted to thank you for your testimony. When I was in high school and then going as a freshman to college.

Which was a lot more years ago than yours, I had a friend of mine, Gabrielle Long, and we were students at UCLA, and she had never gotten a grade less than an A, and she got a C on a midterm and jumped off of an overpass, and I'll never forget that.

So I commend the author for actually bringing this forward. I commend you telling your story. I'm a believer. And I'm sure your sister is smiling on you with the effort that you're taking today. So thank you very much, and I'll move the Bill when appropriate.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Grayson.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to both for your testimonies, especially for your bravery, your courage, and especially your voice coming forward.

This is, of course, a problem in Rancho Cucamonga, but it's also a problem all over the state, wherever there's an overpass, and would love to be able to be at it as a co-author at the right time and fully support your effort. Thank you.

Okay. Any other comments or questions at this time? Seeing none. Thank you very much for bringing the Bill forward on behalf of Senator Reyes. Senator Cervantes obviously a tough and emotional Bill to present, we appreciate the fact that you are willing to do that, and we can have you close at this time.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just on behalf of the families, this critical infrastructure is so important that we have in place. We believe it's a step in the right direction and respectfully ask for your aye vote on SB800.

Thank you. Senator Richardson offered a motion, so we will go with that. And we'll ask the assistant to call the roll at this time.

The motion. The motion is do pass to the Committee on Appropriations. Senators Cortese. Aye. Cortese, aye. Strickland. Aye. Strickland, aye. Archuleta. Arreguin. Aye. Arreguin, aye. Blakespear. Cervantes. Aye. Cervantes, aye. Dahle. Aye. Dahle, aye. Gonzalez. Grayson. Aye. Grayson, aye. Limon. Menjivar. Richardson. Aye. Richardson, aye. Sayarto. Aye. Sayarto, aye. Umberg. Valladares.

All right, that Bill is eight Ayes, zero no's. We have to leave it on call for the absent Members. They'll come in and vote as they get here. And again, we appreciate you being here in every way, so thank you so much. Sorry we had a late start today. Long four session.

And I extend that apology to everyone who's here today. Thank you again. Safe travels. Mr. Chair, can I move the consent calendar at this time? Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Vice Chair. The consent calendar has been moved by Vice Chair Strickland. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

All right, 8-0 on call. And again for the record, that was item 8 on consent SB 364 and item 9, SB 695. That will come back to those when the absent Members are here. We're going to go to Senator Allen at this time.

And I want to note that with the author's concurrence, there will be testimony only today on SB220. We will not be taking a vote on the Bill today, although we will have an opportunity for discussion. And Senator Allen, thank you for appearing today to present SB220. You can begin whenever you wish.

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you Members. Let me start by thanking the staff as well for the excellent analysis of SB220. And I do apologize, I know we're not casting a vote here, but I did think it was important for us to just have a quick chat about the issues raised by the Bill.

I'm perfectly happy to to give this whole process some more time because as all of you know, this is really something that is coming out of the passage of Measure G in Los Angeles, which doesn't even start implementation until 2028. So there is time.

But I do want to thank the Members who were, you know, many of you were very willing to give me the courtesy of continuing to work for it, work on this Bill right now.

But I do think it's in everybody's best interest right now for us to make it a two year Bill and have a broader conversation about how to react to Measure G. And the end of the day, just for everyone's background, the Legislature created the Los Angeles. The Legislature created METRO, the LA County Metropolitan Transportation Authority in 1992.

Folks may remember the RTD from way back in the day when there was this kind of smorgasbord of, of different transportation agencies. And the whole idea was that they were going to try to streamline transportation planning in LA County by unifying all these different competing agencies.

Now it's METRO is the second largest public transit operator in the country. It's got over 300 million riders last year. It's responsible for nearly $10 billion of taxpayer proof funding for the planning, construction, operation, man and maintenance of the county's transit and highway and road projects. And right now it's governed by a 14 Member board.

It consists of all of the Members of the Board of Supervisors, the five Members, and then there are various council Members from cities representing smaller geographic sub regions of the county, Louisiana Mayor has some appointments, etc.

So the, you know, one of the, it's funny, having introduced this Bill now, I've gotten an earful from so many different people who, you know, all of whom are dissatisfied with the makeup of the board, but they all have very different opinions as to how it ought to be reformed.

One of the critiques you sometimes hear is that there's a lot of local perspectives but no voice that's focused on broader county wide planning.

And of course now with the passage of Measure G, we have an incoming countywide Executive that will be elected by the voters of Los Angeles starting in 2028, whose job it will be to look out for the entire county. And so one of it also expanded the Board of Supervisors from five to nine.

And you know, I think that we need to respond to the passage of Measure G with some various changes actually across the board as we look at LA County governance, but certainly with regards to the Metro board. And so the idea is how do we incorporate the changes?

The fact that we now will have a countywide Executive, the fact that we have an increased number of supervisors.

You know, though I did in extensive conversations with the cities, got a real understanding of some of the concerns that they have about, I think the way that we had put the Bill out, it kind of gave additional seats to the counties and kept the cities where they were.

And there was concern amongst folks on the city side about the balance of powers between the city, the cities and the counties and the county and I understand that, and that's certainly something we're going to have to grapple with as we try to figure out the plans moving forward.

So, anyway, I just want to say, you know, I commit to continuing to have these discussions with our cities. I want to aand our county, of course, talking to academics. And I really do want to, I want to take this opportunity to just invite robust input from the Members of this Committee and other Members who are interested.

Certainly, you know, every Member from Los Angeles and indeed, you know, anyone with an interest in transportation governance in the Senate and the Legislature ought to be a part of this conversation. So I welcome your input and your engagement, and I look forward to the discussions that we'll be having over the,

over the course of this, the year as we try to figure out how to respond to the challenge and the opportunities presented by Measure G with regards to transportation governance in Los Angeles County. Thank you. Senator Allen. You don't have witnesses here today? I don't. We wanted to keep it simple.

I know you got a busy schedule, but appreciate it. I certainly welcome discussion.

We'll come back to the Committee in a moment. Let me ask if there's anybody who wanted to speak in support, support of this Bill in the Committee room.

If so, you can come forward at this time and express your name, your affiliation, and your support position.

Good evening, Committee. Mark Fucsovich, on behalf of Streets for All, I guess we're not formally registered in support, but we're supportive of the concept and supportive of the continued discussions and really working to make these changes in light of Measure G passing. So thank you, Senator Allen.

All right. Thank you. All right. Seeing no one else come forward, is there anyone here who wishes to come forward and express opposition? If so, please come to the microphone at this time. Seeing-. Yes. Come on forward.

Thank you. Chair and Committee Members, Madeline Moore, L.A. Metro Government Relations, in opposition, but committed to working with the author's office as well.

Mr. Chair, Members, Andrew Antwee, also on behalf of LA Metro, I think the author has rightly stated that, you know, there's give and take relative to county representation versus city representation, and this is a conversation under current law that it's going to have to happen anyway. So appreciate the author's approach here. All right, thank you very much.

I'm going to come back to the Committee at this time.

Vice Chair Strickland, I would like to work with you moving forward on this. When I saw this Bill, I do have concern with the way you talked about the balance of power. I've had my local cities in Los Angeles County, call me and folks from Metro call me.

Metro is very important that we have that interaction throughout the County of Los Angeles to make sure, because you spend a dollar somewhere is taking a dollar from someone else.

And so I think it's important to make sure that we, not only Louisiana is a huge, huge places, you know, Senator, that we have the good representation and that we don't shift that balance of power away from local cities and give more of the power over to the county now that they've now created this county election.

So I would love to be part of the discussion as we move forward on this Bill.

Thank you. Anybody else want to provide comments or questions at this time? Seeing none, Senator.

Yeah, appreciate it. I know I've already spoken with a number of you privately and I welcome the discussions.

You know, ultimately for me, you know, it's about how do we create really good, how do we meet our region wide transportation needs and create a governance structure that will help to do that now that Measure G has passed and while also recognizing the very important responsibility of the Metro board as it passed through for all sorts of city requirements and needs, roads and traffic.

And so look forward to those discussions. And I appreciate it.

Yeah. And I should, I should state that Senator Allen's been in conversations extensively with myself with the Committee staff and today was kind of an exercise in transparency and getting, getting the issue out there with your presentation. I appreciate it very much.

And the good news is there isn't, I mean, you know, as I, there isn't a huge rush. I mean Measure G, the county Executive isn't elected until 2028. So there's time here. And so it's going to be a good, good, good opportunity for discussion. Thank you.

All right. Thank you for being here today. And again, this was a no vote. This was a no vote item today. Oh, I'm sorry, did you, did you have a question for the author or comment? I'm sorry, I didn't look to my right after we started with the close.

Quick comment like you mentioned, you know, we've been conversation as well and I, I do agree that we do have some time, but also the current process in place, I think just, I think it's too long. I think what is it like the 60 days after the Board of Supervisors increase, then the plan comes out?

I think that's a little too late. So I do agree with the author in saying we need to do it sooner. We do have a little bit time but the current, with the current process, I don't think makes sense for us to be successful as possible.

So I agree that we should have continuing conversations to find that middle ground.

Thank you. Excellent. Senator, go ahead. Yeah, clarification. You said this is a no vote, so we're. And I was. I'm going to lay off the building. We're not. We're not going to vote. Yeah, we're not doing that. Okay. Oh, we're not. We're not going to. No, we're making it. I just walked in. Okay.

I announced earlier to apologize. I was just starting to re-announce it, and then I kind of got caught up in seeing that some Members wanted to be recognized. But with the concurrence of the author, it was agreed that we would have the hearing today, but we would not vote on the Bill today.

So the Bill will be held for further processing. That's it. So no need to justify a vote today one way or the other. I guess that's good news for Commission Committee Members.

But the message, Senator Archuleta, was, you know, we welcome a discussion about how to incorporate the passage of Measure G into the Metro governance structure, as you and I have discussed. So, you know, there isn't an immediate rush to do this now, but we do need to do it at some point soon.

And so we wanted to just have this discussion today to welcome that conversation. We've had some folks from stakeholders on various sides that have had a chance to speak, so I very much encourage your input as we figure this out.

If this was a game of tag, you're it.

All right. For a non vote. Yes. All right. Okay. Got it. Thank you. So, Senator Cabaldon, if you'd like to come up, we'll move on to item two, SB371. Cabaldon.

Yeah, that's what I heard today. I respectfully asked for no vote.

And you may, as soon as you get situated at the podium, just go ahead and continue, please.

All right. Thank you. Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee, we're here to present SB371, which takes up the issue of uninsured and underinsured motorist insurance coverage.

SB371 will remove the requirement for draw drivers to obtain $1 million in uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage and instead place that legal responsibility squarely and exclusively on the transportation network companies, which is the industry practice.

But this Bill would make it clear that at no point will it be appropriate for the drivers to be the subject of that charge. This issue is before us in part because in 2014, the Legislature adopted the framework for, for insurance for transportation network companies. And it was an entirely.

It doesn't seem like that long ago, but a couple of the Senate committees held informational hearings on the matter at that time. And looking back at their reports, their findings from those hearings were, wow, we heard from actual people who drive these cars or ride in them. It was so new.

The concept that anybody would actually use rideshare was still relatively novel. And, and so the fact that there was testimony provided here that said, yes, people are doing it was a big deal.

And in fact, at the time, the Committee analysis for what ultimately became the insurance requirements said, look, given the emergence of rideshare only two years ago, any attempt to set insurance requirements for these services is, and I'm quoting, a bit of a guess. And so that was a bit of a guess.

It was rooted in a PUC decision that had also been made. But I want to emphasize that at the time, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage was not the central issue. At the time, the main TNCs were already on their own volition offering that coverage and that simply got incorporated into the policies that followed.

The main debate was about the core liability coverage that is carried. And in fact, that legislation required TNC companies to carry $1 million policy for death, personal injury and property damage liability and required this $1 million in UIM coverage as well.

So like all attempts at regulating brand new technologies, the Legislature made what the staff said was a shot in the dark, best guess possible. And this is the only sector in which this applies. So as the analysis points out repeatedly, this is a requirement for uninsured and underinsured motor coverage that applies uniquely to the transportation network companies.

Not to taxis, not to Uber Black or to other carriers, but uniquely and only and exclusively to transportation network companies.

And although we often think about them as just being Uber and Lyft, I know in my own community the principal transit service, the micro transit service in our community is provided through a ride share operator which is a licensed TNC through Puc. So these requirements have wide ranging implications for riders.

So today, unlike 2014, it's not a novelty. Ride share is a fundamental means of mobility for folks in our own region. I know Senator Umberg has told me many, many times how impossible it is to park at the Sacramento airport.

It is essential for so many folks to get to work, to get their internships after school for seniors who are looking for it, to be De isolated, to be able to get together on the fly for lunch without having calling paratransit two days in advance and making a reservation that rideshare is a fundamental.

And so when the cost increases are substantial, it's a major challenge for affordability in our state. So this Bill is a starting point to try to address that issue. As I said, the Bill at this stage focuses on making sure that it is the TNC and not the driver that's responsible and would ask for an vote.

We do have two witnesses here to speak on behalf of SB371. John Finley representing Uber, and Malcolm Mcfarland representing Lyft.

All right, gentlemen, you may proceed in whichever order you like, and you'll have a couple minutes each.

Thank you. All right, thank you very much. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, my name is John Finley here representing Uber Technologies and incorporated in support of Senate Bill 371.

I want to just first acknowledge those of you wearing denim today and this week, I think I speak for both Uber and Lyft in saying we support survivors. And there will be several of these proclamations throughout this week. We thank you for that and we want to join you.

As Senator Cabaldon mentioned, the current regulatory scheme under which TNCs like Uber and Lyft operate was created 10 years ago.

In addition to mandated limits of $1 million for third party bodily injury insurance, excess liability insurance, and occupational accident insurance for drivers, TNCs in California are also required to carry $1 million in uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage for accidents where the TNC driver is not at fault.

Besides TNCs, California requires no other vehicle on the road to carry, um, UIM insurance at any level, not personal vehicles, buses, taxis, black cars, or limousines.

There is no data at all pointing to why this policy only applies to one form of transportation, and more importantly, why it's acceptable for that to be costing Californians hundreds of millions of dollars each year. In statute, California requires either TNCs or the drivers themselves to carry this coverage.

In reality, $1 million in, um, UIM coverage for rideshare is not a policy that exists on the open market for any driver to purchase. So TNCs are always the ones carrying it. SB371 would clarify that drivers are not obligated to purchase this insurance themselves. I want to be very clear on a few things.

Again, we are not talking about coverage for accidents caused by a ride share driver. In fact, while 99.99% of trips end in no incident at all, 100% of those trips are covered by the multiple types of insurance that TNCs carry.

This Bill will focus only on accidents caused by another driver who either has no insurance at all in violation of California law or who does not have enough insurance to cover the damages that they caused. Second, this Bill will ultimately be about affordability.

In Los Angeles today, 45% of a ride share fare is now going to pay for insurance, largely due to this policy and the litigation abuse that it attracts. By comparison, for the same ride taken in Boston, Massachusetts today, insurance makes up around 4%.

Californians are the ones left footing this massive, unnecessary Bill each time they take a trip. It's time to update this requirement. On behalf of Uber, we respectfully encourage your support of SB371 so we can continue the conversation on this important reform. Thank you, Senator Cabaldon, for bringing this issue forward. All right, thank you.

Next witness please. Thank you, John. Thank you Senator Cabaldon, for your leadership. Good evening. Thank you Chairman Cortese, Vice Chair Strickland and esteemed Committee Members for your consideration. My name is Malcolm Mcfarland II and I'm here representing Lyft speaking in favor of Senate Bill 371.

As we have as we have seen over the past few years, insurance costs have been escalating statewide and the rideshare sector is no different. Our insurance requirements were established over a decade ago during the industry's infancy and included high minimums to foster public trust. But these requirements have significantly increased the cost of rideshare services over time.

Lyft has calculated that on average at least $6 per ride is allocated to cover insurance related costs in California, a figure that is double the national average. Claims data and industry developments show that these requirements are much higher than what is necessary to adequately compensate injured parties.

It is clear that TNC insurance requirements, specifically uninsured motorist and underinsured motorist limits, can be modernized to risk appropriate levels while maintaining affordability and without sacrificing protections for rideshare users. The crisis of rising insurance costs and the litigiousness associated with required limits deserve to be taken seriously.

Californians are struggling to afford a rising cost of living and as insurance rates continue to rise, rideshare will become an unaffordable luxury for many riders. More than 1/3 of Lyft rides here in California start and end in low income areas and 90% of Lyft drivers have other jobs or are students in addition to App based work.

There isn't a silver bullet solution here, but with SB371 we hope to start a common sense, data driven dialogue to begin addressing rising insurance costs and work to make rideshare more affordable for riders and more profitable to drivers. I thank you for your time and respectfully request your support. Thank you. Thank you for your testimony.

It looks like we have some support witnesses that want to come up and express that position.

Please come forward. Thank you. Chair Members. I have 10 organizations I'm going to. Read support for if that's okay.

TechNet, NAACP, California Cal Knight, San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, National Action Network Sacramento, California Black Chamber of Commerce, FICA, California Asian Pacific of Commerce, Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce and the Central City Association of Los Angeles. Timothy Burr on behalf of all those folks in support, thank you.

All right, thank you.

Next up, Brandon Knapp representing Barrier Council as well as Chamber of Progress in support. Thank you.

All right. Any other support I'm seeing none. Do we have a lead opposition witness? Please come forward.

Welcome. Let yourself identify.

Good evening, Mr. Chair Members. Sabina Takar with the Consumer Attorneys of California in opposition. Although this Bill is a substantive spot, the author and sponsors have been clear that SB371 is a step towards reducing the current underinsured and underinsured motorist coverage required for TNCs. Preserving statutory insurance requirements is a matter of equity and public protections.

This long standing requirement has protected passengers and drivers for nearly a decade. It ensures that when someone is hit by an underinsured or uninsured motorist, they are not left to bear that financial cost alone. There is no independently verified transparent data justifying any change to the law.

As this Committee analysis notes, data should be a key component of TNC, um, UIM, insurance reform. Despite repeated calls from stakeholders, TNCs have not made data about accident rates, claim amounts for the actual cost of UMUM coverage publicly accessible. Without that information, it's irresponsible to reduce coverage levels instead of providing the necessary information.

Uber argues anecdotally that there have been abuses in litigation. Yet they force any and all claims into private arbitration where arbitrators paid by Uber decide the merits of any and all claims and outcomes are private and confidential. There is no judicial oversight or public transparency in arbitration.

We agree with the author that when the standard first went into effect, there was no data to determine what the limits should be. However, now we emphasize that with a decade of experience, the Legislature should not make policy decisions in the dark. We for these reasons, we oppose. 371.

All right, thank you for your testimony. Others who wish to express an opposition can come forward.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman and Members. Robert Harrell, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of California. We share the concerns about the data gap as expressed by the lead witness, and we urge a no vote today. Thank you.

Good evening. Kim Stone, Stone Advocacy on behalf of Consumer Watchdog in respectful opposition.

All right, thank you. Seeing no other opposition come forward, we'll come back to the Committee at this time. Questions or comments from Members of the Committee. Okay. We have an offer of a motion from Senator Richardson.

The only thing I'd like to clarify is my understanding in working with the author, the author's office, through the Committee staff here, is that you're committed to working with the concerns raised by the opposition going forward.

We're understanding the that some of those issues were a little challenging for our Committee to deal with at this time, in this moment.

Can you affirm that or confirm that for us? Yes, sir, we definitely are. We have some amendments to be adopted today that come from the last Committee hearing that are trying to get at the data questions as well.

But as I know the Committee Members are well aware, this is a 16 dimension issue with lots of, lots of folks engaged and we're absolutely committed to working through the issues that have been raised today.

There will be others as well as we, as we proceed into and you know, as we get further along to return here as well after the, after, after we get through the second House. If I could just. One of those issues is the data issue, obviously.

And that's why the amendments that are in the bill around the data specifically going forward, obviously we're making contemplating the change prior to that whole report being done similarly to what was done before, but trying to right size it based on what we know from the cases that are out there now.

Yeah, I appreciate the response. And again, just from our look at it, I anticipate you'll be dealing with other committees on this going forward. You know, there's a broader public policy question of making sure that that insurance coverage is there to make folks whole, you know, 100% of the time. At least that's the aspiration.

And there may be some pocket of absence of that, you know, in the application of the bill still. That said, I'm recommending an eye and you know, appreciate you taking on the big lift to get this done. And if you want to close, you can. I don't see any other requests to speak here from the Committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The only thing I will add is I think the challenge with Looking back the 10 years is because the decision was it was quick, the Legislature had to do something. But there's no basis in the record for 1 million versus 10 million or 100 million or half a million.

And so we're dealing with what began as an arbitrary figure. And so I think our challenge now is to in the future to get better data. I know there is a third party study that's coming as well. The Bill has to be considered, but we need to.

The purpose here is to help to get this right sized and then to give us the tools that we need over the long run to make sure that it is exactly the right figure in order to accomplish precisely the goals that you've outlined. So with that I'd ask for an eye vote.

All right, thank you. And all the testimony is appreciated today. Thank you. We'll ask the assistant to call the roll on Senator Richardson's motion.

[Roll call]

13 to 0. We'll leave it on call for absent Members, but that's where we're at now. Thank you. Thank you, Senator. We'll move to item five, which is our very own Senator Blakespear. Are you. zero, Richardson, I accidentally thought you were done already. I'm sorry. You're so. You have such a reputation for efficiency.

I thought you just got out of here with your aye votes already.

In all seriousness, call the vote. I'll accept it with your great motions.

That has been done in this Committee in the past. But I do know that you have some easels and some props coming out here, so we're gonna. And some witnesses, more importantly. So I apologize for the misreading. We're actually on item four, SB 34, Richardson. And you can proceed whenever you're ready. Thank you.

And Senator Blase Fair, you will be next.

All right, thank you, everyone. Given the hour, and especially I have some witnesses here who've worked all day and are still here, I'll make my comments as brief and succinct as I possibly can.

Let me first start off by thanking the chair of this Committee for working with me and my staff diligently to address any and all issues that we had regarding this measure. And I would also, I want to acknowledge Senator Blakespear as well, who worked with us in Eq, did have a double referral.

So with that in mind, SB34 is designed to work collectively and effectively to continue improving air quality, maintain industries in the local communities, in addition to local, regional, state and national economies, and protecting jobs. Let me start with a few facts in terms of the scale and scope of the San Pedro port complex.

It's made up of the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the largest single intermodal commercial gateway in the State of California, the United States, North America and the Western Hemisphere.

The port complex supports 3 million jobs nationwide and supports economic activity that generates 2.78 billion in state and local taxes, plus an additional 4.73 billion and federal taxes.

So, understanding the port productivity, let's examine how the industry is coexisting and advancing air Quality improvements to the port stakeholders credit the port has made tremendous strides to improve air quality evident in the 2023 inventory of air Emissions Technical Report released last year.

So I have a copy of that for you for both complexes, both Los Angeles, Long Beach, and we have it for the years from 22 to 23. And then we also have the years dating from 2005 to 23. In both instances, both ports have worked voluntarily to reduce emissions.

You see reduced emissions in particulate matter, diesel particulate matter, oxides of nitrogen, oxides of sulfur, carbon monoxide, and also hydrocarbons as well. So when we consider that and we look at what the ports are doing in light of these reductions, the question is why is SB 34 needed?

Last year, Members of the South Coast Air Quality Management District attempted to advance a port indirect source rule, ISR 2304, which was resoundingly rejected by elected officials and and port stakeholders. Despite collective requests, the air district returned in 2025 with another attempt for this Committee of Transportation which received a dual referral.

I hope all Members would concur with me that now is certainly not the time to disrupt the flow of goods and services when the industry is working proactively and diligently to move 30% of the nation's goods while simultaneously improving and achieving emission goals.

Given the current fluctuation of the economy, stubborn inflation and the imposition of tariffs on today off tomorrow, now is certainly not the time to hinder productivity at our ports. Goods movement decisions are not made weekly, monthly or annually. In fact, right now over 200 ships have been ordered that take approximately one to three years to build.

So when you talk about throwing in a new regulation, it can literally halt a particular carrier from deciding to do business here in California or choose to go to Texas or to the East Coast. What does SB34 do?

What it does is it requires the ports to prepare an assessment of energy demand and supply, cost estimates, funding source, workforce and environmental impacts. It calls for us to create a process by which the ports can request an extension due to timelines developed during developed to achieve actions targets.

And it's also established to prohibit the action of imposing a cap on cargo throughput or limiting operation in the ports South Coast AQMD in their own report, the report of update on facility based mobile source Measures development for Marine ports dated February 72025 stated ports have achieved significant emission reductions.

Both ports have expressed an ambition in pursuing and achieving further emission reduction, charging and fueling infrastructure planning and deployment is needed. Coordination with multiple entities is the Key. And with that I'd like to refer to your last chart. And that is to say you may hear opponents. I don't know if they're present here today or not.

But the key thing to keep in mind is that the problem isn't at the port. 63% of the emissions actually comes from the vessels. And all at this time. Now, vessels are being built in foreign countries, so you have different connections.

And what's really required, required at this point now to address and get us to our zero emission goal, which I wholeheartedly support doing, is what we have to do is we need a 200amp grid. And that's not something the ports can do themselves. That's something they have to do in conjunction with dwp.

Finally, you're going to hear people here talk about, zero, this is the worst of air quality in the region, let me tell you why.

Can you go back to the microphone while you're talking? Thank you.

Yes, sir. Yes. So what you have here, when people talk about the air quality in this region, right now we're talking about SB 34, which is the Port of Los Angeles and the Port of Long Beach. But what we also have to consider is we're surrounded by two airports.

You have the port of, you have lax, and then over here you have the Long Beach airport. Now, let's throw in more into the mix. Let's add three major freeways that are carrying all these goods. You have the 110, you have the 710, and then you have the 405, and up here, the 105.

So is Air quality an issue? Absolutely. Are the stakeholders willing to work with south coast of all of these issues? Absolutely. But it's certainly not the port alone. And to limit activity when we need it most, when we need revenue most, is not the time to do a collapse here.

It's to work at all of these contributing factors. And that's why one of the recommendations with South Coast was coordination with multiple entities is the key. So as I close, the main thing I want to share, and we do have two witnesses here in support to speak to the Bill. SB 34 supports achieving the zero emission goals.

We wholeheartedly support it. What we're saying is that the stakeholders who can best do that should be involved in the process of making it happen. Thank you very much. And now I'll yield to our two witnesses. We have Marvin, who's representing ilwu, and then we also have Mike Jacobs, President of the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association.

You can go in whichever order you like and you'll have a couple minutes each. Thank you. Thank you. Chair, Members, Marvin Pineda on behalf of the International Longshore and Warehouse Unions, Locals 13, 63, 94 in support of SB 34.

The IOW has a 90 year history of loading and unloading ships, trucks and trains at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. During that time, our Members have adapted to moving all manner of cargo by using the most modern equipment available. Also, the longshore workers are usually the ones that see everything that hits California.

First, the pandemic. We saw that they continue to work during the pandemic while everybody stayed home. Now with the tariffs, they're the ones that are starting to see the first impacts. And then of course, a lot of Californians are going to start to see the impact. Our collective efforts have resulted in impressive accomplishments.

Since the inception of the Clean reaction plan in 2005, the ports have reduced diesel particulate matter by 92%, nitrous oxides by 72%, sulfuric oxides by 98% and greenhouse gas emissions by 17%.

While we are continuing to implement numerous new regulations from the Air Resources Board with the goal of reducing port emissions to zero, the port indirect source rule being proposed by AQMD is a bridge too far without the guardrails which are not included in SB 34.

Simply put, economic sustainability must be held in equal regard to environmental sustainability for the welfare of all Californians.

Without the proper protections offered in this proposed legislation, we will see cargo be diverted to other states like Texas, Florida and Georgia, just to name a few in other states are growing rapidly and taking advantage of lax environmental rules and consequently lower costs to attract ships from the Panama Canal and away from California.

We are for clean air. We have the goal of 2030, which is that all port equipment is near zero emission and the 2035 goal that all poor equipment zero emissions. So we live and work in this communities want to see clean air.

We ask you, please help us to continue to deliver the California dream by sustaining good paying jobs while continuing to improve our communities. Respectfully.

As for Nibo, next witness please. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Members. Mike Jacob with the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association representing ocean carriers marine terminal operators. Thank you to the author. I won't repeat what you just heard from Marvin from ILW.

But I think that at the core of this Bill, what it does is it sets up a collaborative process for investment. We're at a place where we've made a lot of amazing strides. You look at those data in front of you, that's a result of two decades worth of investment in cleaner air and increased efficiency and competitiveness.

We want to make sure we're still providing all of those outcomes. Because this isn't just, as Senator mentioned, the largest port complex in the Western Hemisphere. It's also the cleanest. It's also the one we've made the most progress on air quality. We have more to go.

We have voluntary goals for zero emissions, but we can't meet those goals unless we're investing in the new infrastructure to support that transition. Those investments are going to be primarily privately made. Those investments won't be made if we're not growing our cargo volumes. So we have to work together. We have to have collaborative planning.

What SB34 does is it says let's not put the regulatory cart before the horse. Let's actually focus on goals and then have everyone that sits down together talks about the goals and the infrastructure we need to make those goals happen. So it's a different process. Admittedly, it's a bit of a one off.

It isn't typically what you'd see, but this isn't a typical situation. These are very advanced technologies we're looking to implement here that don't exist anywhere else in the country. And do it in a way where we're maintaining our competitiveness and we're keeping cargo flowing.

And as Senator alluded to, in the light of the current environment we're in right now, I couldn't think of a better time to make sure that everyone who a stakeholder sitting down talking together about doing this in the most effective way possible. So we thank you for your support.

Thank you for your testimony. Those who wish to express support, please come forward.

Name, affiliation and support, please. Good evening, chair and Committee Members. Nick Chappie, on behalf of the California Trucking Association in support. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, Members, Dan Cha, on behalf of the Port of Long Beach, we're supporting greatly appreciate the leadership of the author. Have a few clarifying amendments.

Look forward to working with her and the Committee moving forward. Good afternoon. Jacob Brent with the California Retailers Association in support.

Joseph Gonzalez, ILWU in support of SB 34. Hello. Evening. I'm in support of SB 35 or 34. Sorry, my name is Philip Bremman. I'm with IOW. Thank you. Good evening.

My name is Timothy Campbell with the ILWU and we are in support of SB 34.

Peter Bianchini in support.

Tim Campbell, ILWU in full support of SB 34. Thank.

Renee Sharp, ILWU in support of SB 34. Thank you.

Jim Marshall with ILW in support of SB 34. Thank YOU.

Hi, Kula Klay Keaney with ILWU in full support of S.B. 34.

Alan Couch with ILWU in support of 34.

Rick Aplaccho in support of ILWU, in support of 34. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon, I'm Leslie Alvarado with ILWU in full support of SB 34. Thank you.

Good afternoon, I'm Emily Peterson on behalf of the ILWU, in full support of SB 34. Thank you.

My name is Sean Farley. I'm with the ILWU and we're in full support of SB 30. Thank you.

All right, that concludes the support side. Lead opposition witnesses, you can come forward. Just want to check if we have one or two. One, okay-- You have two witnesses coming forward? Can I just ask you two to just move over one seat so the witnesses can don't have to turn their back to anyone on the Committee here.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. You can begin whenever you're ready and just self identify and you'll have a couple minutes each.

Great. Good evening, Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Sarah Rees. I'm the Deputy Executive Officer at South Coast Air Quality Management District. My agency is responsible for air quality in the greater LA region. It's a region that has region wide the worst air quality in the country by far.

I'm here today to testify in opposition to SB 34. Simply put, this is a bill that would tie the hands of South Coast AQMD from addressing the largest source of smog forming emissions in any way for a staggering 11 years. Goods movement is an important economic engine for Southern California.

However, port air pollution causes approximately 250 premature deaths and $3.5 billion in health impacts every year throughout our region. And in fact, the part of our region that has the worst air quality highest levels of smog is the Inland Empire.

Further, the region is at real risk of suffering devastating economic sanctions from the federal government if we are unable to meet air quality standards over the next decade. These are sanctions that include the loss of tens of billions of dollars of federal highway funding. We've proven that we don't have to trade off clean air for economic vitality.

My agency has a very successful track record of implementing stringent regulations that reduce emissions while growing jobs and our population and our GDP continue to grow. An example of this is our warehouse ISR rule. This is a rule that was projected to cripple the warehouse industry in Southern California by some of the same interests supporting this bill.

Instead, four years post adoption, this rule is delivering real results, real emission reductions while the warehouse industry continues to grow. It is true that ports emissions have reduced over the last few decades.

However, these reductions occurred almost exclusively from the implementation of CARB rules and these rules have not hampered the ports who have continued to enjoy record growth and cargo volumes. The primary objective of this bill appears to be to restrict South Coast AQMD from imposing caps on cargo volumes at the ports.

Let me be clear, we would never impose such a harmful scheme. But the bill goes much further than that, barring South Coast AQMD from implementing any action to reduce pollution from port sources, be it a regulation, be it an agreement, be it any other mechanism. At this point, we therefore respectfully request your opposition to SB 34.

Thank you. Next witness, please.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Taylor Thomas. I'm with East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice. I've been a lifelong port adjacent resident my entire life, and I've been organizing on port issues for the past 10 years. And I'm here to be a voice for the opposition to this bill.

We all have our own opinions, but we're not entitled to our own facts. This bill language states things like the ports are the cleanest in the world and emissions are down by 91%.

But what's not stated if you actually get inventories year to year, and not just 2005 to 2020, is that emissions have stagnated or increased in certain categories and are projected to increase through 2040. This bill also states that-- Excuse me, this bill also states ISR concepts lead to cargo caps. And that's just a flat out lie.

There's no evidence to support this claim. AQMD gave the ports one year to come up and design their own ISR and they produce nothing. All of the port's voluntary plans and programs do nothing to meet our legally mandated air quality standards or mitigate their pollution.

So now all AQMD is asking is for the ports to create an infrastructure plan. How does creating a plan with no requirements for actualization impact the economy or radically disrupt port operations? The answer is it doesn't.

The 17 and a half million people in AQMD's jurisdiction who don't have port connected jobs are workers too, and their health matters. And this comes down to whether or not you believe the ports have the right to operate at the expense of public health and lives. What is an economy without healthy people? There are many pollution hotspots.

Thank you for these maps. Like the ports, AQMD actually has a airport ISR. And that's precisely why AQMD needs every tool available to help bring us into attainment. This bill will set a dangerous precedent against its regulatory authority. Don't circumvent the public process that many people in our community have been participating in for several years.

And in closing, I want to remind us that every moment we have the opportunity to be brave. And this bill is not brave or honest. Supporting it wouldn't be brave or honest. And you have the opportunity to be brave today. So oppose this bill. Thank you.

Thank you for your testimony. Are there others in the Committee room who want to express opposition? You can come on up to the microphone. State your name, any affiliation you might have, and opposition or opposed.

Jeanie Ward-Waller representing Ocean Conservancy, in opposition.

Sofia Rafikova with the Coalition for Clean Air, and also speaking on behalf of the American Lung Association and Communities for a Better Environment, in opposition.

Good evening. Rebecca Marcus representing the Union of Concerned Scientists, in opposition.

Good evening. Fernando Gaytan with Earthjustice, and also on behalf of California Environmental Voters, in opposition.

Good evening. Teresa Bui with Pacific Environment, in opposition. Thank you.

Mr. Chair, Members. Brendan Twohig on behalf of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Association, that's the air pollution control officers from all 35 local air districts, in opposition.

All right, thank you. That concludes both support and opposition. We'll come back to the Committee. Are there any questions or comments? Seyarto and then Blakespear, if that's right.

All right. I'm gonna support your bill today not because I'm not brave or courageous. It's because I feel like there are some instances where we are creating totally unrealistic mandates, and some of these mandates are helping drive the cost of living for every single person in the Inland Empire. And that's where I grew up.

I know perfectly well why we have a lot of smog. It's because we have inversion layers, mountains, we have a basin and the prevailing winds. It blows all of the smog from everywhere into our little neck of the woods.

I don't know how we're ever going to clean that up, but I know as we depend more and more on the ports to bring us the fuels on the dirty ships that they have to bring in, that's not going to go away.

And some of the mandates, like my colleague here is somewhat addressing, is not going to help it go away either. And so now we're looking at-- and as far as health concerns, yes, there are health concerns with bad air. I grew up in the 1960s and 70s at the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountain.

If you want to see some bad air, that was bad air. If you played all day, you couldn't breathe at the end of the evening. But a lot of the innovations from the car industry, the fuel-powered car industry, have helped alleviate a lot of those issues.

Now a lot of it is concentrated up against where the mountains are. Where I live in Murrieta, we don't have as many problems as there are up towards San Bernardino, but that's more of a cause because of where they're located and the previous conditions.

So we have to be realistic about what we're going to achieve and stop having mandates that are unrealistic. People are sick and tired of the cost of living here in California. We don't need to be told what appliances we can use and things like that. And that's coming from AQMD and so is this thing.

And so we're starting not to be very confident in what we're getting from leadership as far as helping us clean our air. It seems like more of an unrealistic effort. This is costing us more money and driving people out of the region like our kids.

So I'm, like I said, going to be supporting this bill and I'd love to have a longer conversation about how we go about regaining the public's confidence in some of our agencies, our resource agencies, because right now it's waning a lot.

Senator Blakespear.

Yes, thank you. Being mindful of the fact that at 6:30 at night and we have other bills, I just want to briefly say that the author has worked on this a lot and has made a lot of changes.

And I wanted to give-- Since it was in the Environmental Quality Committee, I wanted to give her the chance to respond to some of the things, you know, 11 years and some of the things that might have been in the past draft that is not actually in the current bill.

So would the author like to address any of those things that you heard from the opposition?

Yes. So first of all, let's talk about the cargo caps. The cargo caps, the opposition has mentioned that South Coast is not pushing cargo caps. We just simply codified it in the language that that's in fact what they intend to do. The opposition also mentioned tying the hands, actually does completely not that.

What it says is as South Coast moves forward and it takes actions or whatever it's going to do that it feels it needs to do, it's saying that it needs to include these three points, which is including all stakeholders, which is making sure that extensions are allowed. Why do we need extensions? Because we may not--

We do not control, as I mentioned, the 200 vessels that have now been purchased that are in the process of being made. We don't control what connection that they have. Some of them have different connections. Now, the opposition also mentioned that the ports were given one year and nothing was done. Actually, that's not correct.

And Mr. Jacobs could speak to that as well. The ports, in fact worked-- PMSA did in fact work with the ports. They actually made an offer on the table of $500 million to help pay for a grid that we need. And actually, it wasn't the port that walked away, it was South Coast that walked away.

So when we talk about the things that we need, I want to stress, and I'm so grateful for our Chair of Environmental Quality who's here present, and we worked with, this only-- all SB 34 says is that as you develop the process of how we're going to achieve zero emission goals, everybody needs to be at the table and there's no discussion of anyone saying we don't need to achieve the goals.

I support zero emission goals. PMSA supports emission goals. All those workers, you know why they came here? Unlike what the opposition said, the cancer cluster isn't down here. You know where it is? The cancer cluster is on the 710 freeway. I was on the Long Beach City Council for six years and we did a study.

And the cancer and asthma cluster are going up the 710, which is all the trucks that are coming up from here and then proceeding to go, as Mr. Seyarto said, to wards on the east side. So when we talk about workers, the workers want to work, but they don't want to work in an unhealthy environment.

And they've been at the table and they want to continue to be at the table. Finally, in terms of 11 years, that was one of the very important points that South Coast wanted to make sure that they would not be prohibited. There's nothing in the bill that says South Coast cannot come together and work with these parties.

In conclusion, what I just want to say is I thank the Committee for all of their work. I failed to say that I accept all the amendments that were agreed to with the Committee, and I also remain willing to work with the opposition as we go through this process.

But the bottom line is goods movement, the port industry, which is something I've been on committees my entire legislative career. It's important that we can focus on what we can control. And that'll be the last point that I'll make. 63%, that's more than half, we do not control. That's the vessels.

The other part, the airports, that is interstate commerce, not intrastate commerce. The same thing with the vessels. So the partners are prepared to work together. We're going to work with these other bodies and we're committed to achieving zero emissions. Because, by the way, I live in San Pedro. I live right here.

And I want to make sure I can live too, as we want everyone to live, in good air quality. And with that, I ask for your aye vote.

You can do that because I think that was her close.

Yes.

And she answered all my questions, including working with the opposition. So, we will root for you to get that done, as you do have a little bit of opposition here, as we just saw. And we'll ask the assistant to call the roll at this time.

The motion is do pass as amended to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll call]

We are at 13-0 and we're going to leave it on call. And we're going to call Senator Blakespear, but she's already here, so you can present whenever you're ready, Senator. And this is for the record, SB 455, which is item five, I believe on our file order. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair and colleagues. I am pleased to author SB 403, which is sponsored by Streets for All and Streets Are for Everyone. This Bill addresses what is and most importantly, what is not an e-bike.

Mode shifting, or getting people out of cars and onto public transit or active transportation, is essential for reducing greenhouse gases and meeting our climate goals. E-bikes have become a very popular option, especially in my district. We want to encourage more e-biking, and I will share that we are a 5 e-bike family.

My husband and I, and our two teenagers and grandma, all have an e-bike. With their popularity increasing, more laws regarding their use have been enacted. This Committee has seen several e-bike bills. Also, reports of increased injuries or lawless behavior have caused great concern in many communities.

However, it's important that we differentiate between true e-bikes, which are limited to going no more than 20 miles per hour on motor power alone, and other devices. Despite being unlawful to do so, many companies offer so called e-bikes that are capable of reaching 50 miles an hour or higher.

Those devices are often called out of class e-bikes, but they are not actually e-bikes and they shouldn't be treated as bicycles. They have the power and speed of motorcycles and mopeds, which require additional safety precautions and cannot be used by children.

Many of these devices cannot be registered with the DMV to receive a license plate because they lack unique identification numbers and safety equipment, like mirrors and turn signals, which makes them illegal to use on public roads. SB 455 creates a path to legality for some of these devices, which would be defined as low-power mopeds.

Unlike e-bikes, a driver's license would be required, and unlike a moped, no license plate is needed. Low-power mopeds would be limited to driving 30 miles per hour. They would be prohibited from use on sidewalks and in bike lanes.

SB 455 also clarifies that devices that meet the definition of motorcycle—motor driven cycle—moped, or low-power moped are not e-bikes. It also prohibits two or three wheeled devices from operating on public roads, unless they meet the definition of a device that's specifically defined in the vehicle code.

And finally, this Bill improves labeling and notification requirements to help identify the true classification of vehicles. SB 455 would protect consumers from false advertising, promote the safe use of true e-bikes, and keep cyclists, pedestrians, and other road users safe.

And with me today, I'm happy that he's joined us, Marc Vukcevich, on behalf of Streets for All, and that is the organization that is sponsoring this Bill. And with that, I'll turn it over to him.

Witness in support.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, and Committee. My name is Marc Vukcevich, Director of State Policy for Streets for All and sponsor of the Bill. First and foremost, I want to make it super clear to the Committee how much Streets for All loves e-bikes. E-bikes are transformational for our communities and for our climate.

They replace countless car trips. They significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. E-bikes offer even children a new form of healthy independence, nurturing confidence, and responsibility in physical health. It gives parents a reprieve instead of just being chauffeurs. And it reduces car trips, which then, therefore, decreases the wear and tear on our roadways too.

But we really recognize that there's been a substantial amount of growing pains as e-bikes have come onto the scene and as E bike popularity grows, We have a responsibility to ensure that they're safe and clearly defined and to know what an e-bike is and what an e-bike—or what a device is not, when it's not an e-bike.

So, our build does this in a number of ways. So, first and foremost, better data collection.

And we know that there's upcoming and forthcoming research coming out on e-bikes. And I think my big worry is that there's been a lot of conversations on what is the right e-bike to ride for, the right, the right age rider.

And right now, a lot of those discussions and that data isn't centered around the different classes of e-bikes and by us having law enforcement collect the different class of e-bikes in different collisions, just like you get a make and model when you're doing a vehicle collision, we're hoping to get that data in here, now.

Second of all, we have a consumer awareness and protection. So, this is going to make sure that anyone who is sold an e-bike in California, sorry, sold the device as an e-bike in California, that was not actually an e-bike, gets notified from the company to ensure that they know what the device actually is.

And then lastly, and I think the biggest point of our Bill is to basically say there are a number of these devices. Like I said, some on the, like Senator Blakespear mentioned, some on this sort of extreme end go 50 miles per hour. Those are flat out illegal devices.

But there are a number of devices that are on the safe end but, but illegal right now, and not legal under the law, that are widely utilized, that our law enforcement, our PDs can't handle, that we're trying to do something about by classifying as low-power mopeds. Respectfully ask for an "Aye" vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Other witness in support.

Kim Stone, Stone Advocacy, on behalf of the California Orthopedic Association, who support additional restriction on e-bikes for minors. Thanks.

Any other witnesses in support? Any witnesses in opposition? You have two minutes.

Good evening, sorry about that. Good evening, Vice Chair and Members. Jeanie Ward-Waller, representing People for Bikes, which is the sole trade association for over 300 manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors of bicycle products in the US, including electric bicycles. With deep respect to Senator Blakespear, we have an opposed unless amended position on this Bill.

We've been working closely with the author and Committee staff. Deeply appreciate the work and we're committed to continuing to work towards the compromise. The current version of the Bill does unnecessarily burden manufacturers of legal electric bicycles, while failing to fully address the growing problem of e-motos.

As you've heard here, e-motos are electric motor vehicles with excessive speed and motor power, not electric bicycles, but marketed and sold as e-bikes. We agree with the author that this is a huge problem.

Two concerns that we have are, first, relates to requiring additional labeling on e-bikes, distinct from what is currently used on electric bicycles in 43 states. Manufacturers already clearly brand their products for marketing purposes, so adding the brand to the label is unnecessary. We recommend keeping labeling consistent across all states, with consistent e-bike definitions.

We're also concerned with requiring manufacturers to provide notice to customers who purchased certain electric bicycles in the last five years, that they may no longer meet the definition of electric bicycle, based on SB 1271, excuse me, from 2024.

We do not believe that SB 1271 intended to render numerous electric bicycles illegal to operate, nor to apply retroactively to electric bicycles that were sold prior to January 2025. People for Bike stands ready to assist the Legislature in regulating the growing public safety risk of e-motos, rather than imposing unnecessary requirements on manufacturers of legitimate electric bicycles.

We look forward to continuing to work with the author on this Bill. Thank you.

All right, thank you. Are there others in the Committee room who wish to step forward with opposition? Seeing none. We'll come back to the Committee.

Move the Bill.

Okay. We have an offer of a motion from Senator Strickland—Vice Chair Strickland. Senator Archuleta.

Thank you. Question for the Senator. Obviously, we're looking at safety. In Orange County, because I represent part of Orange County, I met with the Police Chief, City Council Members, and they're very concerned about the electric bikes on sidewalks. Now, we're talking about moving bikes onto the streets.

We're talking about lights and reflectors and some identification, so law enforcement can tell whether this person, if they're pulled over, that they should have a license, they should be wearing a helmet, they should be maintaining the speed that is in that school zone or whatever it might be. Is that where you're leaning towards?

Well, yes. Thank you, Senator Archuleta. I mean, you're bringing up a good point, which is essentially the wild west of e-bike—both regulations and also the enforcement side.

How is an officer to know what classification something's in, but also, how is a parent who's buying this for their 14-year-old to get to and from school to know?

So, this is what we're aiming at—is upstream, to say we need to actually clarify and classify all of these different types of vehicles that we see on the road accurately, so that we know what is an e-bike and what is not an e-bike.

Because many parents are not intending to buy their child what's effectively a motorcycle or a low-power moped, and so, headed toward more safety because we have more clarification about what is being driven. That's all part of this.

I think there are clearly needs across the whole spectrum, but figuring out how to have a legislative fix that can be successful, I think this is one, and it is a very needed clarification in the law.

Well, I think, on behalf of law enforcement, that they're always concerned about safety and so on, and with the number of accidents, because people just don't know how to control these.

And we understand that some of these young people who are mechanically, you know, just above our pay grade, they're able to adjust them and they're going 30, 40, and 50 miles an hour, which obviously is breaking the law in some of these zones that I talked about.

But my thought is public safety and the safety of those children. And I think that this is a step in the right direction, and I wholeheartedly support the Bill and thank you for bringing it forward.

All right. Thank you, Senator. Well, we do have a motion ready to go. If you'd like to close, Senator, you may.

Thank you. I respectfully ask for your "Aye" vote. All right. The motion is by Vice Chair Strickland. And we'll come back now to the assistant for the roll call.

[Roll Call]

140. On call. Senator Valladares. You get to be our. You get to be our real closer. Welcome to the podium. And this is SB713, item seven. And again, it'll be the last item that we have a hearing on today or tonight. You may proceed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. SB713 support everyday Californians by providing a big preference for construction companies that operate employee stock ownership plans, or ESOPs. ESOPs help working people build wealth by owning a share of the company that they helped create. The Legislature has supported worker ownership before.

In 2022, Senator Becker created the California Employee Ownership Hub through SB 1407. And Assemblymember Mia Bonta passed the Power Act to Study Ways Expand Worker Owners act report released earlier this year is 314 pages and mentions ESOPs. 747 times. One key recommendation on page 79 calls for modest incentives for high road worker owned firms.

SB713 follows that recommendation. Specifically, SB713 certifies ESOP Construction companies and offers a small bid preference scaled by employee ownership percentage. It applies only to Caltrans contracts funded by state dollars, not federal funds. California already offers bid preferences for some business types, but often overlooks worker owners. Joining me today here to testify are Mr.

Youssef Lewis, a worker, owner and General Superintendent, and Mr. Steve Ward for technical questions.

Great. Thank you. Welcome.

You may begin whenever you're ready. I'll have a couple minutes each. All right, thank you, Chairman and Committee, once again, my name is Yosef Lewis. I'm a General Superintendent for Payment Recyclist Systems and proud 100% employee owned company here for support of Bill SB713. For me, the ESOP is everything for myself and my family.

Roughly about 11 years ago, I had to sit down, have a tough conversation with my wife at that time before starting with this company and realized that we was coming short on our retirement and that the dreams and the stories I told her how things were going to be was not going to come true.

Since then, I've joined this company and it honestly gave me back the vision and I'm proud to say I can sit here in front of you ladies and gentlemen, and of course my wife, and tell her that our dreams now will come true and that's what the employee ownership has done.

It's gave me back my vision and my goal to support myself and my family and give us our dreams back. So thank you.

Thank you. Next witness, please. Yes, Stephen Ward with Pavement Recycling Systems. Also, I sold my company, small business, 10 employees, to PRS 23 years ago. So I've been an employee owner for 23 years myself.

I brought 10 family Members basically with me, and half of those are now retired with a far more secure retirement outlook than they would have had without the ESOP. At PRS, we include 100% of the. It's 100% participation, 100% employee owned, 100% participation, including the union shop.

This is an incredible boost towards employee or towards a person's retirement security. And I worked very closely with Dr. Mackenzie Scott on the state study. She's from MIT, but she was working on behalf of UC Berkeley on this study. It is a very long one, but I encourage you to read it if you can, or your staff.

And I'm here to answer any questions on esop. If you have anything that you may not quite understand on employee ownership.

Thank you for your testimony. Is there anyone in the Committee room who wishes to come up and express support? I see none. Do we have any opposition testimony? Seeing no one come forward or come back to the Committee. Vice Chair Strickland has offered a motion on the bill.

I do not see anyone seeking to be recognized on the dais. Thank you very much, Senator, for bringing this bill forward.

And I believe it will have a lot of secondary positive effects in terms of folks who are able to participate in the economy that may not have been able to do so before because of the way you've structured the bill. So I am supportive and would appreciate any clothes that you might want to offer.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, I respectfully asked for an aye vote.

All right. Thank you again. Motion by Strickland. And we'll ask the assistant. Call the roll, please.

[Roll call]

Okay, it's 140. We're gonna leave that on call and see if we get the absent Member before we close it out. Thank you again, everyone. Appreciate all witnesses on that one. We're going to lift the call. We should start, I think, with consent items and we'll ask the assistant to call items 8 and 9 on consent.

[Roll Call]

We'll leave that on call for Senator Gonzalez. Now we'll move in file order starting with item one. Oh, I'm sorry. File item two. Item one again. File for those who may have come in late, was taken up as a non voting item.. So it's this non voting item. So we're going to go to item 2, and then we'll follow the file order.

[Roll Call]

Okay. All right, thank you. Just clarifying technicality there. So that does conclude all of our voting. Thank you, Senator, for joining us. And thank you to the Committee staff for your work. I mean, we started late today, but if it wasn't for the hard work, the Committee staff over the last couple weeks, this would have been a much longer agenda.

I just want to say that for the record, and it's much appreciated by the Chair, and even if some of the Members aren't aware of that, I know they would appreciate that. Thank you to sergeants for staying late tonight. We will now adjourn the Senate Transportation Committee. Thank you. We are adjourned.