Assembly Standing Committee on Transportation

The Assembly Transportation Committee is called to order. Good afternoon and welcome everyone. The hearing room is open for attendance, and it can be watched from a live stream on the Assembly website. We seek to protect the rights of all who participate in the legislative process so that we can effective so that we can have effective deliberation and decisions on the critical issues facing California.

In order to facilitate the goal of hearing as much from the public within the limits of our time, we will not permit conduct that disrupts, disturbs, or otherwise impedes the orderly conduct of legislative proceedings.

We will not accept disruptive behavior or behavior that incites or threatens violence. We encourage the public to provide written testimony by visiting the committee website. Please note that any written testimony submitted to the committee is considered public comment and may be read into the record or reprinted. We will allow two minutes each for two primary witnesses in support and opposition of the bill. As a reminder, primary witnesses in support must be those accompanying the author who otherwise have registered a support position with the committee.

And the primary witnesses in opposition must have their opposition registered with the committee. All other support in opposition can be stated at the standing might when called upon to simply state name, affiliation, and position. Please note that we will not be hearing file item number six, SB 1087 Cabaldon, or file item number 14, SB 1292, Richardson. We also have two absent members today, Assembly member, Aguiar Curry, and Assembly member, Sharp Collins.

They were replaced by Assembly member Avila Frias and Assembly member Eloar Eloari.

With that, we will begin our hearing. We do not have a quorum, so at this time, we will start as a subcommittee. I'd like to note that we have three bills on our proposed consent calendar. File items one, s B607. File item two, SB962.

File item three, SB990. We go in, file item order, also recognizing when members, are not present to also go by where we do have auth where authors are not present, we go by order of, authors being present. And so with that, our subcommittee will start as, with Assembly number sorry, with item number five, Senate bill 1064, Dolly. You may begin at your convenience.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Chair and members. Senate bill 10764, paying common send to ARB, paying truck test, testing. This only applies low-use vehicles driven less than 1,000 miles per year. The, there, they are important vehicles for, for districts around California.

Under this bill, these vehicles will be tested once a year. This simple adjustment that makes affordability. With me today, Marisol.

Hello. Marisol Ibarra-Bouslama on behalf of the California Grain and Feed Association and the Pacific Egg and Poultry Association. We write in support of SB 1064 by Senator Dahle, which will revise the California heavy-duty vehicle inspection and maintenance program to re to require biannual rather than an annual testing for heavy-duty vehicles. Our associations represent, key segments of California's agricultural system and supply chain, including businesses that move ingredients, finished feed, poultry inputs, and other essential products all, all throughout our state.

Many of our members are located in many rural areas.

Often, they have to travel many, many miles from, you know, authorized testing facilities. As a result, this annual testing requirement can create substantial practical burdens. A truck may, may, may need to be taken out of service for an extended period of time simply just to get to the travel site in order for the vehicle to be tested. And, also, the driver must be assigned to that task instead, instead of doing that productive work that is much needed in our agricultural industry.

And, and the also, the businesses incur real cost before the inspection even begins.

This measure is limited to a low-mileage vehicle defined as a thousand miles per year. Producing the frequency of required testing trips would help lower unnecessary cost, improve vehicle availability, and allow drivers and equipment to remain focused on essential agricultural operations. This modest adjustment would rather align the program with operational realities faced by rural industries that are critical to California's Food and Agriculture Committee. For these reasons, we support SB 1064.

Thank you. Moving on to members, who would like to add their support, members of the public who would like to add their support to this bill. Now would be appropriate time to come to the mic. Name, affiliation, and position.

Good afternoon. Lizzie Guanzona here on behalf of the California Moving and Storage Association in support.

Thank you. Now, we'll move on to opposition testimony. As I understand it, we do have opposition registered. Thank you. At your convenience.

Oh, press the button.

Got it. Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Bill Magavern with the Coalition for Clean Air. The clean truck check is an extremely important program for California to try to attain healthy air, which we are still well out of attainment for in almost the entire state. We have by far the worst smog and soot in the country.

And until this program started, there actually was no inspection and maintenance program for trucks. The kind that with our cars, once they reach a certain age, we have to get them smog checked. That did not exist for trucks until Senator Leyva's bill, SB 210, passed in 2019. The Air Resources Board adopted the regulations a couple years later, and it didn't go into full-blown effect until 2023 and 24.

So, we wanna make sure that this program remains able to detect problems in a truck's emission system.

There are no new requirements. It's just to make sure that the emission controls are operating the way that they're supposed to. The original bill would have blown a big hole in those emission reductions. Thanks to the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. The bill has been narrowed very substantially.

We recognize that this is, is much more limited. However, it's still unnecessary because, unlike passenger cars where we have to actually go to a smog check station, the, the truck reports can actually be transmitted at a kiosk. And the truck's computer will connect to the state system and send that along. So it's really not an onerous requirement. And our concern is that the low-use exemption will be difficult to enforce, especially when it comes to trucks coming in from out of state.

I also I heard the support witness say that the bill would require biannual reports, and I'd like to get a clarification as to whether that's what the bill says.

Thank you. And I will provide that clarity that is annual report. Yes. All right. Now would be an appropriate time for members of the public who are in opposition of this bill to come forward. Name, affiliation, and position.

Good afternoon. Victoria Rome with NRDC. Respectfully opposed.

Good afternoon, Chair. Benjamin Liu, American Lung Association. Respectful opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Rebecca Marcus on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. We are operating as a subcommittee, but I wanted to make sure I bring it to members of committee who might have any comments. Okay, seeing none. My comments as chair. So smog check programs have been very successful in reducing air pollution from vehicles in California, as highlighted by the 75% reduction smog in Los Angeles since the nineteen seventies.

Heavy-duty vehicles are an outsized contributor to air pollutant emissions. This bill recognizes that our heavy-duty fleet has a large diversity of duty cycles and attempts to provide flexibility for vehicles that are defined as low use. In a time of our affordability crisis, we must be conscious of regulations that may add burdensome burdens to consumers while also acknowledging that the federal administration is attacking our state's authority over vehicle emission standards. At the appropriate time, I'll be supporting your bill today for those reasons.

I'd like to give you an opportunity to close.

I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Alright. With that, we are looking now for senators. So if you are a senator and you have a bill before our committee today, we ask that you make your way to our chambers. In addition, if you are a member of this committee, we ask that you make your way to this chamber. Thank you.

Oh, we're starting with senators on the floor, so my apologies. I don't think they'll get past us to come over, so we'll hang out for a little bit.

Alrighty. We have permission to present, to have one of our, committee members, present a bill.

So we're going to move on to item number eight, SB 1174, Valadares. If you are a witness as it relates to item number eight, please come forward. We do have, someone in oppose, but I we don't have a registered opposition witness. If you, are a part of the opposition and had intended to testify, just Kinda raise your hand so I can see you. Seeing none, okay.

We're gonna go with what we have now and follow the normal order. Alright.

You're reading the

You can begin, vice Chair Davies, at your convenience.

I just have a few notes over here, if you don't mind.

She she's not reading the bill, is she, madam Chair? That's

Just the good parts. Alright. Thank you, madam Chair and members. SB 1174 supports everyday Californians by providing a bid preference for construction companies that operate employee stock ownership plans or ESOPs. ESOPs help working people build wealth by owning a share in the company that help create and operate.

Specifically, SB 1174 offers a small bid preference scale by employees 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 those only focus on the owners of a company. SB 1174 is a strong pivot for the state to favor companies owned by the workers. SB 1174 does authorize the sanctions of bidders that attempts to defraud the bid preference.

Those provisions are provided in the bill, and they are identical to the sanctions contained in the small business enterprise preference. Joining me today to testify is Joy Joe Lewis from Maguire and Hester Construction Company and Garrett Francis from Payment Recycling Systems.

Thank you. You may begin. And as a reminder, two minutes apiece.

Thank you. Good morning good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Joe Luis, and I'm here today not just as a construction professional, but as a first generation American who has lived the very challenges this bill is trying to address. I was raised by an by immigrant parents and from the ages one to eight, lived in an immigrant housing center. When I was seven years old, lost my father.

And from that point forward, my mother carried the full responsibility of supporting our family. Watching her sacrifice and everything to give us a chance had a better life shaped who I am today. Like many families across California, our goal has been simple, stability, opportunity, and a path towards the American dream. Early on, we learned that hard work alone does not always create wealth. More often, it simply allows you to get by.

This is especially true in structures where ownership and profits are concentrated in the hands of a single individual or a small group at the top. This is where employee ownership changes everything. At Maguire and Hester, I'm not just earning a pay paycheck. I'm building ownership through our ESOP. I receive shares in the company every year at no cost to me.

That means that the work I put in today directly contributes to my future. I'm building retirement, creating financial security, and helping my family in a way that wouldn't otherwise be possible. More importantly, this is how we begin to close the wealth gap. For people like me who didn't grow up with access to generational wealth, ownership is usually out of reach. ESOPs changed that by giving everyday workers a real stake in the companies they help build.

It's not a handout. It's earned, and it creates long term wealth where it normally wouldn't exist. That ownership mindset also directly impacts the work that we do. Because we are owners, we don't cut the corners. Cutting corners hurts our brand, our safety record, and, ultimately, it hurts our share price.

The state is getting a higher quality of work because we are personally invested in the outcome. And from a from a work point workforce standpoint, this model creates stability. People stay, they gain experience, and they build careers, not just collect paychecks. That means more skilled and reliable crews deliver delivering projects to the state. From a taxpayer perspective, the return on investment is clear.

A a two to 4% bid preference is a small investment for the state of California to ensure that billions in infrastructure spending creates a permanent middle class in California.

I have to have you wrap up.

My closing statement. Members of the committee, when you vote on SB 1174, you're making a decision about who benefits from California's investment in infrastructure. You can choose a system where the rewards go to a small group at the top or you can support a model where the people doing the work sharing the success have a real opportunity to build wealth. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, committee, madam Chair.

Press the microphone button.

It's on. Oh, maybe I'll turn up a little bit. Better?

Or pull it down closer to either of my help.

There we go.

Yeah.

Good afternoon, committee. Thank you, madam Chair. I wanted to show you this. We brought this. This is 1,352 constituents letter letters that cover all 80 districts of the Assembly and all 40 Senate districts.

We asked employee owners of construction companies to write letters, and this took about three to four weeks to get this many letters because people are passionate about it. It changes lives as Joel pointed out to you. California should encourage to adopt employee ownership models themselves. We should encourage companies that share ownership with their workers. It rewards broad based ownership, wealth creation for employees while leaving the door open to every company to embrace the model.

The question before is as simple, should California recognize and support business models that help workers build wealth, retirement, security? And we believe the answer is yes. Instead of contracting wealth in a single owner or a small group of executives, ESOPs distribute ownership across the workforce. I know with our company, we've have over 55 millionaires made, and we celebrate that.

We we we reward it, we promote it, and we want people to be successful and retire with dignity and and really change their family's wealth and change their own retirement and not struggle in the future.

When California taxpayers fund infrastructure projects, it makes sense to support companies that share economic benefits with their workforce. Our workers have skin in the game. We believe that you get a better project and a better product when you have workers that care about the job they do because it represents future projects for them. In California construction, the workforce is highly diverse.

As a result, employee ownership can extend wealth building opportunities to many more minority workers and women than a preference tied to solely ownership one ownership status.

Employee ownership focuses on the workers who actually build California's infrastructure.

And I'd love to have you wrap up.

Ten four. California Newsom recently directed state agencies to identify opportunities to expand worker ownership, and 1174 is consistent with that direction. SB 1174 helps ensure that we have opportunity to share the wealth in that in that in what we create. It expands ownership beyond a handful of executives or shareholders.

Alright. Thank you. Moving on to members of the public who would like to add in their support to this bill as a proponent. Name, affiliation, position. Alright.

Seeing none, just double checking was there opposition witnesses. We don't have any registered. Seeing none moving on to those that are appoint Me too or yeah. Yeah. I'm now moving on to those who'd like to register opposition to the bill, name, affiliation, and position.

Good afternoon, madam Chair and committee members. On behalf of I'm Matt Easley, on behalf of the Associated General Contractors of California in respectful opposition. Thank you.

John McHale on behalf of Associated Builders and Contractors of California in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Rex Heim with the Western Electrical Contractors Association, also respectful in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Now moving on members of the committee who would like to make any comments. Seeing none. As a reminder, we are still, I believe, in a subcommittee. Yes.

Yes.

So I I appreciate the Senator for introducing what seems like a novel idea to encourage more employee ownership of the companies they work for. I understand that the evidence shows that employees of ESOP communities I'm sorry, companies do accumulate more wealth than employees at their non ESOP counterparts. So it seems beneficial to support these companies as a compliment to our existing bid preferences.

I will be supporting the senator's bill today, but I hope that she does continue to work with Caltrans and the administration to get them comfortable since I'm concerned about the potential cost of this bill, especially if it leads to reduced competition. Greater procurement costs means less funding for our roads at a time where there are many cost pressures on our transportation funding system.

With that, I'll give you an opportunity to close.

Thank you, madam Chair. On behalf of Senator Valadez, madam chairs, SB 1174 sanitizes companies to transition ownership to the employees, a worthy goal for the legislators to pursue. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. We are still meeting as a subcommittee and at the appropriate time, we will, vote on this bill. Thank you so much for your testimony. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your time.

Alrighty. It looks like we now have a quorum. Madam Secretary please call the roll.

[Roll call]

Alright. We have a quorum. I'd like to entertain a motion on our proposed consent calendar. We have three items. SB 607, SB 962, and SB 990.

It's been moved by Hoover, seconded by Macedo. Macedo. Roll call?

[Roll call]

Alright. We'll hold the roll open for members to be able to add on. We started as sub subcommittee. We have nine bills to discuss today. Two of those bills, we have already, discussed, and so we'll entertain a motion on those bills.

Item number five, SB 1064. It's been moved by vice Chair Davies, seconded by Hoover.

SB 1064. The motion is do passed to the Committee on Appropriations. [Roll call]

Alright. I will hold the roll open for members to be able to add on. Moving on to item number eight. Moved by Hoover, seconded by Lackey.

SB 1174. The motion is do passed to the Judiciary Committee. [Roll call]

Oh. All right. We'll hold that open for members to be able to add on. As I understand it, the Senate is adjourning. So in doing their intermittent memory, so we should have authors soon.

Thank you. Alrighty. We have another author. Yay. With that, we'll move on to item number 13 SB 1279.

The author may begin at her convenience.

Good afternoon, madam Chair and members. I want to begin by accepting the committee amendments, and thank you very much for your work and your your team's work, and their collaboration on this bill. I'm here to present SB 1279. It authorizes the city of Long Beach to place speed safety cameras along the Pacific Coast Highway.

In 2023, as former Chair of the Transportation Committee at that time, I worked with Assembly member Friedman on AB 645, which authorized six cities, including my city of Long Beach, to create a speed cap camera safety system pilot program to reduce speeding.

This pilot program has strict guidelines for privacy and equity, requiring non punitive warnings for the first sixty days of operation of any camera, fine starting at $50, and fee reductions available for low income recipients of fines. In implementing its own speed safety camera program excuse me. I don't have my glasses. Long Beach identified a high injury corridor where they could not place cameras, which was the Pacific Coast Highway.

And as we've we've discussed, you know, PCH in Long Beach is a very different PCH than other areas.

It goes right through our communities that are very, very dense. Twenty percent of Long Beach's crash fatalities are on one percent of these roadways, which is the eight mile stretch near, Long Beach City College, elementary schools, parks, etcetera. And testifying in support of the bill today, I welcome council member Megan Kerr from Long Beach's 5th District and Ryan Kelly, senior traffic engineer on behalf of the city of Long Beach. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Go ahead. Thank you.

Good afternoon, madam Chair and members. I'm councilwoman Megan Kerr from the city of Long Beach. I wanna thank Senator Gonzales for authoring this and very proud to support it because ultimately, it's saving lives. As a representative of our intergovernmental affairs committee, the Chair of our ports, mobility, and infrastructure committee, and a former school board member, I hear from residents and students who are concerned about speeding and traffic safety consistently.

Unlike the PCH that most people think of lined by large homes and the ocean, PCH, Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach, is through one of our most densely populated areas. It is adjacent immediately adjacent to schools, to multifamily housing, including an elementary school and a high school with over 4,000 students. Many students have to cross this highway to access their classrooms, and parents are afraid to let children walk to school.

Seniors who feel unsafe crossing the street from small business owners who worry about the constant risk that high speed traffic brings right to their storefronts, and I hear from families who have witnessed crashes and near misses. For too many in Long Beach, PCH has become a source of fear and loss.

And while it makes up less than 1% of our roadway miles, it accounts for about 20% of our traffic traffic fatalities in Long Beach happens on PCH, and that alone should urge us to act. SB 1279 simply and its amendment simply allows Long Beach to include a a portion of PCH in the existing speed camera pilot program. Right now, we're excluded from doing this safety tool on some of our most dangerous stretches of road.

This closes the gap and gives us the ability to act where it's most needed. And on behalf of the city of Long Beach, I thank you for your time today, for your consideration, and strongly urge an aye vote.

Thank you.

Hello, madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Ryan Kelly, and I'm a senior traffic engineer in the public works department of the City of Long Beach. I'm here to urge you to allow Long Beach to place, automated speed devices on Pacific Coast Highway. Simply put, the placement of these devices will save lives.

Long Beach has made tremendous progress in reducing vehicle speeds on many of our minor arterials, but we are counting on speed enforcement devices to fill an important niche in our traffic safety response to change motorist behavior where our traditionally effective calming methods, like protected bike lanes and roundabouts, are not compatible with the roadway designs that serve critical goods movement and truck traffic, leaving the largest container port in North America.

The portion of PCH that experiences the highest rates of severe collisions in the is the truck route extending from the harbor complex at the city's western boundary to this traffic circle at the center of Long Beach. The evidence from ASC programs around the country and in the San Francisco pilot program demonstrate substantial changes in motorist behavior, up to 80% reductions in speeding. We are asking for these additional devices now in large part because it is because it is what the Long Beach public has asked for.

We have completed our public engagement campaign for our ASC system and have heard time and again from constituents, most often through the local council district offices, that placement of ASC devices on PCH is a must given the multitude of repeated fatal crashes. It is hard to argue with their logic, and that is why we are here before you today.

As stated previously, PCH isn't a waterfront highway in Long Beach. It runs through the very center of the city. It is our main street. Thirty of the thirty nine fatalities since 2020 on PCH have involved pedestrians. Road users most likely to be immediate community members and most vulnerable to speeders.

We thank you for your consideration of this bill and your support for roadway safety in our neighborhoods.

Thank you. Moving on to members of the public who would like to register their support as, proponents of the bill, name, affiliation, and position.

Jeanie Wardwaller on behalf of Climate Plan, CALBike, and People for Bikes in support.

Tim Chang with the Auto Club Southern California in support of the bill.

Matt Easley on behalf of the Associated General Contractors of California in support. Thank you.

Kurt Augustine with the Alliance for Automotive Innovations, support of the bill.

Bernie Ojeda on behalf of Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Luna. We're in support.

Kirk Canfield, Carlight Long Beach. We are in support.

Mark Fuchsich on behalf of Streets for All, in support.

Thank you. Now moving on to opposition. I see we have registered opposition, but no witnesses. Just confirming. Alright.

Seeing none. Moving on to anybody who would like to register their opposition to the bill as a me too comment, name, affiliation, and position. Seeing none, moving it back to members of committee, Assemblymember Lackey.

Yeah. Thank you. I have some mixed feelings about this. And as someone who is highly sensitive to traffic related fatalities, I want you to know that I I have some mixed feelings about this because what I did is I asked my friends at the Hyatt Patrol to pull some of the statistics. And as was mentioned by one of your colleagues there, thirty of the thirty nine fatalities were pedestrian related.

And I don't think these cameras are gonna help pedestrian related collisions. That's where your focus needs to be. Is enforcing pedestrian traffic, obviously, it's a problem there. If you have that many fatalities associated with pedestrian traffic, that's where your focus should be. I pulled and I looked to see how many were speed related fatalities.

Guess what? Zero. That's that's alarming. You're you're focusing on something that I I think is a is a ruse, and I I think it's and that's hard for me to say that because speed does kill. There's no question about that.

But in this section, this eight mile section, it doesn't seem to be the main cause for fatalities. Pedestrians and their behavior seems to be the real focus, and that's where your focus, I think, would be best placed. But I don't think the cameras are gonna help that. I really don't. And so I'm I'm not gonna vote against it, but I can't really support this because it seems like it's more focused on money generation.

And right now, if any everybody in this audience knows if you've got a citation, they're very expensive. Very expensive. And does speeders deserve to be punished? I I would say they do. But the level of punishment is actually quite harsh.

And when affordability is what it is right now, I think it's we we just be should be selective more selective on how we go about punishing our public. And so I'm sorry to say, you probably thought I would be be all in on this, and I've tried to be, but I'm gonna have to be neutral.

Thank you. I have a motion by Ward, seconded by Rogers. Seeing no other comments, I'll provide some comments and then give you an opportunity to close, Senator. So, first of all, I wanna say thank you for working with my team and, myself on the amendments, to your bill.

As noted in that conversation, I have concerns about automated enforcement systems and the economic consequences they have on people at a time when we are facing an affordability crisis, and I've also shared the same thing about the data that my colleague has.

I've also had concerns around the legislature expanding the pilot where we haven't gotten any data back, or in this case before, it's actually begun as the cameras are not yet for the 18 cameras that you have deployed.

But I appreciate you working with the committee to make modifications to the existing speed safety system pilot system that you noted working on as Chair former Chair of transportation with my, predecessor instead of creating another pilot and for agreeing to only permit two additional cameras beyond the 18 cameras permitted in AB 645 as we discussed, had you been allowed to include PCH initially, when you, were going through your community engagement program, PCH would have been included, in those.

But now that you've completed that process, this is an addition of two additional cameras as it relates to that specific pilot. So I'm supporting your bill today, and I continue to caution against the introduction of bills expanding ongoing pilot programs. We have pilots for a reason.

People, sometimes are in oppositions to bills and come off when it's a pilot saying, okay. Well, let's wait for the data. And so when we expand or ignore those, we are saying that the legislative process, they don't trust that ledge part of the legislative process. And so I wanna make it clear that, you know, that is the the stance of the committee as Chair. But like I said, we'll be supporting your bill today, give you an opportunity to close.

Yeah. Thank you very much. And Assemblymember Lackey, I really appreciate your comments. Certainly, don't take any of your votes for granted and wanna make sure that we have ongoing conversation. And, again, Chair Wilson and your committee, I wanna thank you for the two additional cameras.

The reason we put the pilot program for Long Beach together was because we are some of the highest we have some of the highest fatality rates for, for collisions on our streets, whether state highways or our surface streets. And so, I think it's our duty. You know, many of us this is not just a council member, but she's a former school board member and knows our PTAs and our and our schools very, very well.

And I think that what's most important for me is to at least have some sort of opportunity to reduce the traffic speeds along PCH. We're also a city of 500,000 people along piece that drag of of PCH, which is eight miles, it is extremely populated.

So it is it's dense. It's populated. We're going to have the Olympics, the Paralympics. I am afraid that we are gonna be overcapacity with even more people coming into our city if we don't put some sort of precautionary measures in place. When the data comes back, we look forward to that, and then we can reassess.

This is a pilot program, and that's what we need to do to be able to help other cities perhaps formulate their own programs. I do know that in San Francisco, they reduced their their numbers reduced by 70 in terms of fatalities and collisions on their streets with their pilot program and the data that has just come back.

So I I look forward to that as an optimistic point of of data that we could use and hopefully see what else we can do in Long Beach and other, cities if if we should so, decide as a legislature after these pilot programs are done.

Thank you. And I take that to respectfully ask for an aye vote. It is. With that, madam secretary, please call the roll.

SB 1279, the motion is do passed as amended to the privacy and consumer protection committee. Wilson? Aye. Wilson? Aye.

Davies? Aye. Aye. Aye. Avila Farias?

Aye. Carrillo, Ahawari,

Harabedian,

Heart. Part, aye. Hoover. Jackson? Aye.

aye.

Jackson, aye. Lackey?

Not voting.

Lackey, not voting. Macedo? Macedo, no. Happen? Ransom? Rogers?

Aye.

Rogers, aye. Ward? Ward, aye. Yeah.

Alright. We'll hold that that role open for members to be able to add on. As we wait for senators, we'll give an opportunity for members of this committee who've just arrived to be able to add on to bills previously voted on. With that, we'll start with our consent calendar, which included items one, two, and three.

[Roll Call]

We'll continue to hold that open for members to add on. Item number five.

[Roll Call]

We'll continue to hold that role open for members to be able to add on. And then finally, item number eight.

[Roll Call]

Alright. We'll continue to hold that role open for members to be able to add on.

Alright. I see another author. Thank you, Senator. We're gonna move to file item nine twelve thirteen. You may begin at your convenience. Microphone.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Today I'd like to present SB 1213, the Clean Truck Transportation Act. This bill that will ensure California maintains the leadership in the deployment of clean, medium, and heavy-duty vehicles will do this by, first, looking at alternative financing opportunities for vehicles. Second, asking CARB to increase the scale of vehicles being deployed. And most of all, improving transparency to ensure the funds used to support this market lead to a decrease in truck prices over the long term.

To be clear, programs such as the HVIP or the California Clean Truck and Bus Vouchers Incentive Project, the, programs like this are fundamentally transforming the vehicles that we use in the medium and heavy-duty sector. Earlier this year, CARB announced that this program has delivered more than one billion dollars in funding for fleets statewide, equating to more than 2,000 fleets, enabling the deployment of 11,600 clean vehicles, accumulating 181,000,000 miles statewide.

This is important because we know that significant public health benefits are tied to the deployment of these vehicles. Although heavy-duty vehicles make up a small share of vehicles on the road, they are disproportionately responsible for transportation-related pollution. However, it is important that we provide funding to the sector.

We also, we also need to ensure meaningful price transparency. Unlike the passenger vehicle market, medium and heavy-duty trucks lack publicly available pricing information, and it can be difficult to understand exactly how much each vehicle costs and the impact that subsidies are having on prices long-term.

This results in several policy impacts, which include weakening competition in the marketplace, limiting our ability to ensure that the cost gap between zero-emission and diesel is truly closing, and not allowing policymakers the necessary tools to provide proper oversight. SB 1213 addresses this while also providing direction to multiple departments to provide more options to support this growing market.

Here to testify in support of SB 1213 is Victoria Rome, director of California government affairs with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Mary Solicky with E2.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members. Victoria Rome with NRDC here in support of SB 1213. This is a common-sense measure to ensure that California's transition to clean transportation is rooted in affordability, market fairness, and healthy competition. As diesel prices remain high across our state, California's fleets, especially our small businesses and independent owner-operators, are looking for relief. They want to move toward cleaner, more cost-effective clean trucks, but they are entering a market that lacks the basic transparency required for a level playing field.

As a senator noted, the passenger car market, there is transparency. There's the manufacturer suggested retail price, or MSRP, which allows the public and buyers to shop around for a vehicle that fits their budget. But in the medium and heavy-duty sector, it's more of a black box. Prices are often shielded by non-disclosure agreements, which prevents the kind of price-based competition that naturally drives cost down. This transparency gap has real-world consequences for affordability.

Despite falling battery prices since model year 2020, the median price of electric class eight trucks in the US has increased by about 30%. In contrast, prices for comparable vehicles fell in the European Union by 27% during the same period. SB 1213 is a targeted reform to get at this disconnect. It ensures that our state's investments are stretching as far as possible to deliver clean air and economic relief to our communities. We ask for your aye vote.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. My name is Mary Solecki, and I am here on behalf of E2 in support of SB 1213. E2 is a national, nonpartisan organization of business leaders who advocate for smart policies that are good for the economy and good for the environment. California's transition to zero-emission trucks is essential to improving the state's air quality and meeting its climate goals. But the framework supporting this transition must be fair and transparent.

SB 1213 would require OEMs of medium and heavy-duty trucks to disclose baseline pricing in order to qualify for state incentives, such as HVIP. This is a common-sense action, as Victoria mentioned, that will protect small business fleet operators, improve market transparency, and help ensure that state dollars are spent efficiently. Traditional grant-heavy and incentive and structures, while foundational, face natural scaling challenges.

Section five of this bill aims to address this issue by requiring CARB, in coordination with GoBiz and Ibank, to report back to the legislature on alternative financial tools that can help advance the medium and heavy-duty zero-emission vehicle market and mobilize private-sector investment. This shift is critical to ensuring that independent owner-operators and small fleets who lack large capital reserves are not left behind or priced out of the transition.

For these reasons, E2 supports twelve thirteen and urges its passage. Thank you.

Thank you. Now moving on to members of the public who would like to register their support. So name, affiliation, and position.

Bill Magavern with the Coalition for Clean Air in support and also voicing the support for APAN Action, Central California Asthma Collaborative, San Francisco Bay Physicians For Social Responsibility, Regional Asthma Management and Prevention, Center for Biological Diversity, Sierra Club California, and California Interfaith Power and Light.

Jake Schultz on behalf of Series in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Ross Buckley on behalf of the South Coast Air Quality Management District Group in interim support position.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Rebecca Marcus on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists and strong support, as well as the Federation of American Scientists, the American Lung Association, LA Cleantech Incubator, LA Business Council, and Green Latinos all in support. Thank you.

Afternoon. Craig Schuller on behalf of Port Long Beach in support.

Onvi Chobel on behalf of American Lung Association in support.

Ada Welder on behalf of Earthjustice and California Environmental Voters in support.

Alright. Thank you. Now moving on to opposition. I believe we have opposite, excuse me. Opposition witness testimony.

Good afternoon. Shane Lavigne on behalf of Volvo Group North America. We're in an imposed and less amended position, but the good news is we are very close. I think we're gonna get there. Appreciate the Senator and her staff.

So I look forward to removing our opposition soon. Thank you.

Thank you. Now moving on to members of the public who would like to note their opposition to this bill as well. Name, affiliation, and position.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Chris Shimoda on behalf of the California Trucking Association. Bit of a tweener position here. Appreciate the author's intent in bringing the bill. Have heard from the manufacturers that there are some technical implementation concerns with the bill.

Just encourage the author and, and opposition continue working. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we'll move it on to members of the committee. Alright. We do have a motion by Ahrens and a second by Harabedian. With that, I'll give my comments and then give you an opportunity to close.

Our heavy-duty vehicle incentive programs are crucial to getting more zero-emission trucks on the road, which will reduce air pollution emissions in our most disadvantaged communities and also help our state reach federal air quality requirements. And as legislators, we have a responsibility to spend the state's money wisely. Including price transparency requirements for our heavy-duty vehicle incentive programs will help ensure the public has the information necessary to make informed purchasing decisions. With that, I'll be supporting your bill today.

Give you an opportunity to close, Senator.

I'd like to use your words as my closing. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. With that madam secretary, please call the roll.

SB 1213 do pass to the committee on natural resources. [Roll Call]

Alright. We'll hold that for members to add on.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, members.

I see we have another author. Moving on to item number four, SB 1013. You may begin at your convenience.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity here to present Senate Bill 1013. As of June 15, I did amend the bill to address stakeholder concerns and strengthen its implementation. These amendments include defining "case file number" as a reference number pertaining to a specific law enforcement or public safety incident or investigation, and requiring usage and privacy policies to clearly identify the purpose for which employees and contractors are granted access to ALPR information.

We also expanded the definition of "hot list" to include alerts issued by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. At its core, SB 1013 is about a simple principle: protecting the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of Californians while ensuring law enforcement tools are used lawfully, responsibly, and effectively.

This bill strengthens safeguards governing automated license plate recognition systems by requiring stricter controls on employee access and use of these databases. It directs the Department of Justice to conduct annual randomized audits of agencies using ALPR technology to ensure compliance with existing law. It also requires mandatory privacy and data security training for every employee who accesses ALPR information and limits the retention of ALPR data to no more than 30 days unless it is associated with an active hot list. We believe these are reasonable, common-sense guardrails.

Over the last decade, ALPR technology has quietly expanded across California.

More than 230 police and sheriff departments now use these systems with additional agencies preparing to adopt them. Yet, despite this widespread deployment, there remains no comprehensive public evidence demonstrating ALPR's overall effectiveness, its impact on investigative outcomes, or its success rate in solving crimes. For years, the stakeholders and members of this legislature have requested that data, and that data has not been produced.

Instead, what we do know is that billions of location records are being collected and stored, documenting the movements of virtually every vehicle on the road—not just those connected to criminal activity. That means millions of law-abiding Californians are being swept into massive government databases that can reveal visits to hospitals, reproductive health clinics, gender-affirming care providers, places of worship, political demonstrations, and countless other deeply personal aspects of daily life.

The threat to privacy is not theoretical. The threat to civil liberties is not hypothetical. The threat is real, documented, and ongoing. In 2016, this legislature enacted SB 34 to establish safeguards around ALPR use. Four years later, the California State Auditor found widespread violations of those requirements.

Agencies were sharing ALPR information with hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of outside entities, including federal immigration authorities, in direct violation of state law. Many agencies lacked required policies altogether. Others commingled ALPR data with other sensitive personal information while maintaining inadequate control over employee access. Six years later, the violations have continued. Privacy advocates reported in 2023 that 71 California law enforcement agencies had broken the law.

The attorney general was forced an advisory to clarify the roles. Still, just late last year, San Francisco Police allowed out-of-state officers 1.6 million illegal searches including for ICE.

We have seen abuses in Marin, Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange, San Diego, and Sacramento counties where ALPR systems have been used to track immigrants, facilitate unlawful data, sharing, and even stalk or harass private citizens. When ALPR data is misused, officers can track former partners, target journalists, monitor political activity, or facilitate unlawful surveillance of immigrant communities. The Associated Press (AP has documented repeated instances nationwide in which law enforcement personnel abused access to confidential databases for personnel purposes.

In Shasta County, an officer used ALPR information to harass the former boyfriend of his fiancée and was criminally charged after using the data to have the individual's vehicle towed and impounded. In San Diego, a police sergeant used ALPR data to identify and stalk his former girlfriend and her new partner.

These cases illustrate a fundamental reality: any surveillance system can and will be abused when meaningful safeguards and accountability mechanisms are absent. Last year, Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the City of El Cajon for refusing to comply with California law prohibiting the sharing of license plate data with federal and out-of-state agencies. The unlawful sharing continued even after the Attorney General intervened.

A series of media reports have demonstrated local, AI-enabled ALPR databases feeding a federal surveillance system used by the Trump administration against immigrants and others.

Enraged communities in Colorado, Illinois, and Texas have already convinced their local governments to deactivate these systems entirely. And in March, the State of Washington signed legislation to regulate ALPR use and retain ALPR data for 21 days. So here we are today, where we continue to see departments—whether that is in San Francisco, Riverside, or others—continue to misuse the system. The problem is not the existence of the technology itself. The problem is the repeated failure to safeguard it.

And the problem is the repeated failure to ensure that the public's sensitive location data is not being misused. That is what this bill addresses today. It strengthens employee access. It requires annual compliance audits. It mandates privacy and security training, and it limits the indefinite retention of location data belonging to millions of innocent Californians.

With me here to testify in support of the bill, we have two witnesses for expert testimony: Professor Catherine Crump, Clinical Professor of Practice in Technology Law at UC Berkeley School of Law and Director of the Samuelson Law, Technology, and Public Policy Clinic; and Mike Katz-Lacabe, a privacy rights activist and Director of Research for Oakland Privacy.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and honorable committee members. My name is Mike Katz-Lacabe, and I'm the Director of Research at Oakland Privacy, here in support of SB 1013. In February 2020, the California State Auditor issued a report on automated license plate readers referenced by the Senator that began, quote, "To better protect the privacy of residents, local law enforcement agencies must improve their policies, procedures, and monitoring for the use and retention of license plate images and corresponding data."

SB 1013 finally helps to ensure that more than six years later, these recommendations are implemented. In the absence of any limit on license plate reader data retention, 165 of 192 law enforcement agencies we reviewed have chosen to retain their data for thirty days or less, including 20 county sheriffs.

The argument that more than a 30-day retention period is necessary for investigations or public safety is just not borne out by actual practice. Agencies keeping data for more than 30 days are the exception. In fact, the Los Angeles Police Department, which retains data for five years, had a worse clearance rate—that means it solved crimes at a worse rate for both violent crimes and property crimes in 2024—than San Diego, which retains data for 30 days.

Research by journalists and privacy organizations have documented that law enforcement agencies are typically unaware of who they are sharing data with or the reasons that their data is being searched, despite policies that require periodic audits.

Too many times, audit logs obtained from public record requests have revealed law enforcement performing searches on behalf of immigration agencies that were somehow missed by existing audits. SB 1013 addresses this by requiring audits by the California State--California Department of Justice. In nearly every law enforcement agency that we reviewed, there are no documented policies or procedures for how or why a license plate is added to a hot list.

Hot list are created and maintained with no oversight, putting California drivers at risk of being stocked or abused by those with access to ALPR systems. SB 1013 addresses this issue by defining legitimate sources and reasons for license plates being added to a hot list.

Thank you for your time and consideration, and I welcome any questions or clarifications.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Wilson and members of the committee. We can agree on two things. First, ALPR is a valuable law enforcement tool. No one is suggesting we stop using it.

And second, over 99% of the data collected by ALPR pertains to people who are innocent. So the question is how long law enforcement agencies should be keeping data about innocent Californians. I urge the committee to adopt a statewide data retention limit. The 30-day limit is reasonable and evidence-based. In fact, it mirrors the default retention limit of Flock Safety, the most prominent ALPR vendor in the United States today.

According to the California State Auditor, over 99.9% of the 320,000,000 plate hits Los Angeles stored were not on a hot list. Those people were overwhelmingly innocent, and yet their data is now stored in a law enforcement database. Law enforcement agencies simply should not be engaged in the mass collection of data about innocent people. Two evidence-based findings explain why long-term storage of ALPR data actually compromises public safety.

First, the auditor found that up to 92% of investigative searches were for records less than six months old.

The objective evidence therefore suggests that the primary investigative utility is realized shortly after collection. While law enforcement agencies argue for a five-year window, the marginal utility of stale data cannot justify the immense security risks of holding billions of location records indefinitely. Second, without a strict retention limit, California data is actively leaking across state boundaries. The state auditor previously uncovered widespread failure to comply with ALPR restrictions, and that continues to this day.

This is why a strict data retention limit backed up by an auditing requirement is essential.

You can't unlawfully share data that you don't have. The proposal by the California Police Chief Association--

Please wrap up.

Is a dangerous step backwards--it would create a vault system that would result in expensive storage of data pertaining to billions of people, billions of of movements. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you. Moving on to members of the public who would like to register their support of this bill as a proponent. Name, affiliation, and organization --I'm sorry--position.

Certainly. Hi, Tracy Rosenberg on behalf of Oakland Privacy, organizationally in support of the bill.

Alright, seeing no others, I'd like to invite opposition. There has been opposition registered for testimony for this bill. You may come forward. If you just move over to the left or your right, you can yes. You can yep. Everybody can fit. Alright. You can begin at your convenience. As a reminder, you have two minutes a piece.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Cory Salzillo on behalf of the California State Sheriffs' Association in opposition to SB 1013. Law enforcement agencies across the state and nation have used ALPR data to solve crimes. It's not theoretical. We solve crimes and apprehend criminal suspects, and we continue to do so today.

Some cases are solved quickly within the 30 days, but these data are exceptionally helpful in solving crimes that have occurred deeper in the past. Bottom line, setting a data retention limit such as 30 days in statute will significantly hinder the use of a valuable law enforcement tool. We would remind the committee that last year, the Governor vetoed SB 274, which was a substantially similar bill but had a 60-day retention limit in it. This is half that length.

Also, the bill in this hot list to which ALPR data can be compared.

This prohibits an ALPR query unless the requesting entity has a case file number or a number that refers to an incident. Unfortunately, those recent amendments don't address our concerns with this requirement. A lot of times, in a split second, when you know that a kid is missing, you're not going to have a case number or an incident number necessarily. You know that a kid has potentially been shoved in a car or put in the trunk, and that's what you know. And you need to access the tools you have as law enforcement to find that child.

We can point to numerous examples of lives saved and cases solved using ALPR. It's hard to say the same in terms of demonstrable cases where a person has suffered actual harm just from having their license plate data captured by law enforcement. In the cases referred to by the author, that person apparently was prosecuted for the other crimes that they had committed; it was not just the inappropriate access to ALPR data.

And really, we're comparing the perceived harm of capturing data and the alleged threat to privacy, when really, when you're out in public driving a car with a government-issued piece of metal attached to it, you don't have that expectation of privacy.

And we're comparing this perceived harm to a very real situation. And I would just say that what if what if it was your child who had been missing for thirty one days or forty five days?

And I'll have to have you wrap up.

And we didn't know which car we were looking for. So for those reasons, we ask for your no vote. Thank you.

Chair and members, Jonathan Feldman, California Police Chiefs Association, respectful opposition. I want to say we are respectfully opposed to provisions in this bill and not the entirety of it. Some of the functions around the audit, the oversight, the safeguards, and the training, we think are measured and a good approach, especially given some of the things that we've seen happen over the previous six months or so.

Important to note that, you know, a lot of the cases that are talked about in the media, the agencies were not willingly sharing out of state information.

There were failures on the back end of the systems that they were using, so it was not intentional. But nevertheless, it's important that we catch those early and we correct those as we've done. You know, to follow-up on my colleague's statements here, there are statistics where we've seen that this data has been helpful beyond sixty days, beyond ninety days. LAPD right now has 210 unsolved murders going back to 2023.

Three of which in the last year, began as missing persons after ninety days of the person's disappearance.

So, obviously, in these really critical situations, the data can be really helpful. I'm happy to answer your questions. I'll talk just briefly. We are asking for essentially four fixes to the bill as it is in print right now: three more technical, and one around the retention piece, which is the most controversial.

On the technical side, you define case file now as an incident number. Those aren't the same thing. They're different. A case file is an actual criminal investigation. An incident is just a call out to a scene.

Sometimes used interchangeably, but not by all agencies and not by the major agencies. We need to correct that. We talk about being beholden to a DOJ General Order 2023-05. That was a temporary order; it's not a permanent order.

We shouldn't pigeonhole ourselves to just something that was interim. The bill does now allow for us to hold files if it's part of an active investigation or during criminal proceedings, but not after those investigations and proceedings are over. If this information becomes part of a murder incident, those files are held indefinitely. And if there's an appeal or if there's a challenge later on, we have to have those files. We can't delete them just because we've hit some boundary.

Point past the investigation or criminal proceeding. And then on the retention piece, yes, we are asking for an extension longer to be held just by the administrator of the police agency. We're only allowing restricted access if you're involved in a criminal investigation at that point, and only through the administrator.

I'll have you wrap up.

So we wanna continue working on this issue. We understand that there is room to improve, but unfortunately, as the bill stands, we are opposed to ask for a no vote.

Thank you. My apologies. I was a bit distracted. So you got a little extra time on that clock.

I needed it.

For members of the public who would like to register their opposition, now would be appropriate time to come forward to the mic. Name, affiliation, and position.

Madam Chair, members, Jolena Voorhis on behalf of the League of California Cities, in an opposed unless amended position. Thank you.

Madam Chair, members, Ryan Sherman with the California Narcotic Officers' Association, in opposition. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Mark Vukovich on behalf of Streets for All. We don't have a formal position on the bill at this time, but we have concerns about its interaction with SB 720, the red light camera bill from Senator Ashby last year that we sponsored. Thank you.

Bernie Ojeda, on behalf of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and Sheriff Robert Luna. We're opposed.

Okay. Thank you. Now bringing it back to members of the committee, Assemblymember Ahrens.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator, for bringing this bill forward. I know that--I can see what you're trying to accomplish, and I appreciate your your thoughtful look at this.

I'm wondering, you had mentioned earlier in your opening remarks that you're sort of working on you've worked on this bill, you're you're working on you're working with the stakeholders and wanted to give you maybe an opportunity to address were there any of the technical or otherwise other proposed amendments by the stakeholders and other stakeholders who had expressed some of the concerns? Are you looking at those specifically or did you wanna give an opportunity to respond to any of that?

Certainly. Thank you for your question. Yes. The answer is yes. We've been working with the stakeholders, both who wanna see us have more protections in place and others that didn't like the bill as it was introduced.

And so, we've made amendments throughout this entire legislative process as we will continue to do. And we've worked also with the governor's office to address, the administration's concerns and we continue to have those discussions today.

Thank you. Yeah. I I can--I can certainly see what you're trying to accomplish? I just wanted to to sort of uplift, the desire to try and get to a better place if we can. And so I appreciate your work on this. Thank you.

Assemblymember Lackey.

Yeah. Certainly. I respectfully, but seriously oppose this protection of violent offenders, because that's what it'll be. I will tell you that many, if not most complex cases require more than 30 days to identify a suspect, develop probable cause, or determine what vehicles are even involved in some of these crimes. Other crimes are not even reported within 30 days.

You have domestic violence issues, sexual assault issues, fraud. There are many, many issues that take a while to develop. And the 30-day—I'm not here to excuse misuse of this tool, but this is an extreme response to any level of misuse. And I would tell you that it supports the wrong part of our society. These violent offenders don't deserve this kind of protection, which is what this bill—I don't think that's your intent, but that is clearly one of the results.

So that will actually be the result of this kind of problem. And apparently, the Governor shared this perspective. I just want to read what he stated about SB 274, which is very similar, except I think it was 60 days. And this is what he said: "Restrictions on interagency data sharing may impair solving crimes in real time, such as highway shootings where the suspect may be rapidly crossing jurisdictional boundaries." I share that view, and for that reason, I'll be opposed.

Did you wanna respond or do you want to close?

If I may, Madam Chair. So, yes. I certainly just want to note that this is not going to restrict law enforcement's ability to solve crimes. We want to make sure that we are protecting privacy rights while maintaining their ability to continue to look at these vehicles that are on a hot list. If a municipality elects to permit retention of license plate data to enable historical searches, they can obtain a warrant to keep them for a longer period of time.

We want to ensure that we can put safeguards in place as it is stated in this bill, working through amendments with the administration, working through amendments with the stakeholders who are here with us to my left. That is my continued commitment: to find a balanced approach. And that will continue to be where I stand. It's been decades where misusage is not stopping; it's only continuing, and we cannot allow another decade of this to continue.

But if I may, on the on our expert testimony, if you may speak to some of the specifics that were mentioned, that would be helpful perhaps to committee members.

Well, I think he made it as a comment, unless there was something inaccurate. Yeah. Then we'll keep it to—I think your remarks addressing his comments were sufficient. Seeing no others, thank you. I'll give some comments and then allow you to close.

So first of all, I want to say thank you for your continued focus on trying to address this important issue. It's been seven years, as you stated in your opening testimony, since the California State Auditor first made a recommendation for the Legislature to impose a data retention policy for ALPR data. Now, this is at least the sixth attempt to place restrictions on how ALPR cameras are used and to create such a data retention policy.

At some point, we need to come to a compromise with the Governor's office and law enforcement to get this across the finish line. Now, I believe one such solution could be to create a default statewide retention policy while allowing locals to allow for a longer retention policy if discussed during a public hearing detailing why a longer retention policy is necessary.

So I'd ask you to continue to work with law enforcement on the data retention policy as well as modifications to when ALPR data can be assessed. I'll be supporting your bill today. Do we have a motion? Second. Motion made by Harabedian, seconded by Jackson. Give you the opportunity to close.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. Respectfully ask for an "aye" vote as we believe this bill is a measured, reasonable, and overdue response to, unfortunately, documented failures, but appreciate the opportunity to continue working on this throughout this legislative process.

Thank you. With that, Madam Secretary?

SB 1013, the motion is do pass to the Committee on Privacy and Consumer Protection. [Rollcall].

Okay. We'll hold that roll open for members to be able to add on. We're going to move on to item number seven. But before we do, we do have members who have to leave. We're gonna do a quick check on our votes to—for—we're gonna go back to votes that have already been voted on to allow members to add on.

But once we do that, we will be moving on to item number seven, SB 1315 with that. Oh, just that. There's just the one? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Item number 9, SB 1213.

[Roll Call]

Okay. We'll continue to hold that open for members to be able to add on.

Moving on to item number seven, SB 1315. You can begin at your convenience.

Thank you so much, madam Chair. I'm here to present SB 1315, which is intended to update the state's policies with respect to automated driver assistance programs. I wanna begin by accepting the excellent amendments by your staff that both simplify, clarify, and extend the bill all at once. So appreciate those and I'm happy to accept those as author's amendments. This bill is intended to to to more precisely focus in that danger zone in between full human driving and full autonomous driving or largely autonomous driving.

As the analysis points out, this is an area where a a lot of folks who look at the level one, level two, level three, level four taxonomy for driving assume that it's an increasing level of potential risk. But it turns out that there's a lot of evidence to suggest that the biggest challenges are actually in the middle, where not where the technology and the human both kinda get used to each other and start to over rely on one another.

And it's that area where there is, some of the most some of the most significant dangers. So the bill recognizes that that is the case, but also that there's been movement in the in the industry and some hints by some of the, company CEOs around what the long term future is.

And so the bill actually is quite simple in its final in its in the final analysis, which is that it says that companies have to ensure that they don't, by by any means, including a software update, that's probably the most likely, make it impossible for a human being who buys one of their cars to drive that car themselves.

So that you couldn't, by by virtue of a software update or other modification, disable the the ability of the human being who bought the car with knowing that they had had an an an automated driver assistance program to their ability to drive it themselves. This has been hinted at by some of the by by some automakers and other in the world, but this is a basic consumer issue and also a safety issue.

So with the bill simply prevents that from occurring, it also suggests to the the the DMV that they consider when when engaging in driver's exams, both in writing and and in person, where there is an ADAS and level two vehicle involved, that they consider incorporating questions or content to assess the driver's knowledge and understanding of what their responsibilities are in this unique area of level two, assisted driving systems.

And that is the the the the the sole point of the bill is to assure that when you buy a car with the intention of driving it, no matter what advanced features it has, that that that you could retain the right to drive that car and the company may not, through software updates or other means, disable human driving on the car, that you purchased for that purpose.

That is that is the the the essence of the bill. And, again, thanks thanks for the amendments. And with that, I would ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. We don't have any witnesses and support or opposition, just confirming that is still true. Right. We have a motion and a second.

Let me give an opportunity for add ons. Hold on one second. A motion by Lackey. Sorry. Motion by Roger, seconded by Lackey. Support time

Or It's Removing our opposition.

Okay.

Okay. So Kurt Augustine, for the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. We were concerned about the prior version, but thanks to the Senator, the Chair, and her staff, we were able to successfully reach a conclusion that we're no reach a conclusion that we're no longer concerned about the bill. And and thank you very much.

Thank you.

Lizzie Guanzona here on behalf of Tesla. Similarly, twinning your position. Still some remaining concerns, but really appreciate the ongoing discussion and the recent amendments and understand the intent of the bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. With that, bringing it to committee. Seeing none, I'll give my remarks and give you an opportunity to close. So thank you for working with the committee on amendments to correctly define level two vehicle systems as an advanced driver assist system and not an autonomous system.

Thank you for also addressing concerns to remove language that may have inadvertently prohibited security packages, patches. Excuse me. I also appreciate your goal of making sure consumers can continue to drive their cars in the same way that they purchased them. And so I'll be supporting your bill today. With that, I'll give you an opportunity to close.

Without outstanding close, I would I would agree, concur with you, and ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Alright. We have a motion made by Rogers and a second by Lackey. Madam secretary, please call the roll.

SB 1315, do you pass as amended to the Judiciary Committee. [Roll call]

Alright. We'll hold that open for members to be able to add on. Okay. We are waiting for one author with three bills. We will we will have that Senator make his way here, hopefully, soon.

While we're waiting for our final Senator, we will go through an add on for members who were not present earlier for votes starting with our consent calendar where we had three, bills, file items one, two, and three. Madam secretary?

[Roll Call]

Alright. Moving on to item number four, SB 1013. Oh, wait. We just did that one. Are we good on that one? Okay. Moving on. And and and with each of these, in case I'm forgetting to say it, we will be continuing to hold the role open for members to be able to add on. Moving on to item number eight, SB 1174. Oh, wait. Did we wanted to Oh, I'm sorry. Item number five, SB 1064.

[Roll Call]

Alright. Item number eight, SB 1174.

[Roll Call]

Item number nine, SB 1213. Okay. It looks like everyone present has voted for that bill. So we'll move on to item number 13, SB 1279.

[Roll Call]

Alright. All of those bills will be continue to be held open for members to add on. Okay. All right. We'll start all over.

We do have another member present. Consent calendar, items one through three.

[Roll Call]

Alright. Continuing to hold open for members to add on. Item number 41013.

[Roll Call]

Alright. Continue to hold open. And number five, SB 1064.

[Roll Call]

Okay. Continuing to hold open. Item number seven, SB 1315.

[Roll Call]

Alright. Continuing to hold open. Moving on to item number eight, SB 1174.

[Roll Call]

Alright. Continuing to hold open. Moving on to item number nine, SB 1213.

[Roll Call]

Alright. We will continue to hold open. Moving on to item number 13, SB 1279. Oh, never mind. We just did that one.

Yes. Okay. All those bills as a reminder continue to be held open for members to be able to add on. We are looking for our final author and, our final members. We have about, three members missing for votes.

Thank you. We have our final author here as he gets settled. We'll do our last call for members of this committee to make their way as we are on our final author and our final three bills. To the Senator, you may begin at your convenience. We have file item 10, SB 1246. File item 11, SB 1250. And file item 12, SB 1425. You can take them in the order you so choose.

Thank you very much, madam Chair and members. And, I wanted, very specifically thank you, Chair, for, your work, on this bill. In fact, I think I'll be seeing that, throughout, the bills remaining here. I apologize for any delay we've caused you. It's one of those days as you as as all of you are quite familiar of trying to get back and forth from the capital back here.

Reports of AVs running red lights, obstructing traffic, and driving through act law enforcement activities have grown nationwide as the industry has grown. Last month, an AV drove into a submerged road in Texas and was swept off into flooded conditions. Luckily, nobody was inside. In December, a citywide power outage in San Francisco caused 1,500 stoppages at block intersections and impeded first responders in dangerous weather conditions. Emergency personnel were left on hold for fifty-three minutes as remote operations were overwhelmed.

Under the current AV regulations, remote operators are not required to have knowledge of local traffic laws, face no staffing requirements, and can be located outside the United States. But remote workers can only do so much. It often falls on public sector workers or firefighters, law enforcement, and traffic officials to step in despite the strain it puts on our public resources. SB 1246 sets standards for autonomous vehicle companies to provide immediate, coordinated responses to AV instances and emergencies.

Under SB 1246, remote drivers must be based in the United States and have US driver's license.

This bill also requires a trained autonomous vehicle worker to be dispatched to the scene of an AV accident or obstruction immediately. The DMV, with stakeholder input, will set appropriate guidelines for response times during regular operations. But if there's an emergency and AV interferes with first responder operations for more than thirty minutes, manufacturers are going to face penalties under this bill.

SB 1246 also requires AV companies to tell local jurisdictions, including public dispatch, where their vehicles are and what their status is when system wide failures occur. We've held frequent meetings with opposition and made several author's amendments to address their concerns.

Again, I appreciate, the committee's cooperation with all of that. I still believe remote operations require more oversight, and first responders should be able to disable a malfunctioning AV without waiting for remote assistance. Still, I'm accepting the committee's amendments today because 1246 is a necessary step forward, towards increasing road safety, and accountability. And again, with that, I'm grateful for the committee's help.

With us here today to testify in support, we have Matt Lege with our sponsor, SEIU California, and Megan Subers with the California Professional Firefighters. At the appropriate time, I'd respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Good afternoon, Chair. Matt Lege with SEIU California here on behalf of our 750,000 members, and appreciate and wanna echo the senators. Thanks for the committee and the chairs' work on this bill. It was a lot of meetings, and so I appreciate everyone coming together and working hard on these. We are proud to sponsor SB 1246, because we really see this as, as this technology starts to get deployed, we really should not be having the public sector workers be acting as roadside assistance.

We think that the technology staff appropriate guardrails and staffing so that they really can step in when there's a incident that happens. And, unfortunately, we're seeing, because my Google alerts continue to pop up, a lot of incidents that happen, whether it be the incident in San Francisco or people getting stuck at the World Cup as I saw as we're waiting today for the bill to be presented.

So we do think that this is an important step forward as the technology is new and getting deployed to make sure that there's some on the ground staff to get in there and move the cars as appropriate, and also to ensure that the drivers who are doing these daily tasks are located in the United States. We think it's really important for folks to be here, not just for the knowledge of the local roads, which is critical, but also for the latency issue.

Because as things go across the country or across the United States or across oceans, it's important to make sure that that response is timely and can actually impact and address the issue that they see.

We've already seen these technologies get deployed, and this is particularly important as they start to move to really high speed bros like freeways and others to have that quick response. And so we do think that this is an important step forward and wanna thank both the author, the Chair, and the opposition. We've had good conversations. I feel like we're moving in a good direction. So appreciate the, work there. And so with that, we respectfully ask your aye vote.

Thank you, madam Chair and members. Megan Subers on behalf of the California Professional Firefighters, and we're pleased to be in support of this bill today. I'd like to thank the author for continuing his work on policies to improve AV safety on our streets. As you like you have likely heard me and my member say previously, we think it's important that we have clear safety protocols and requirements on AV operators in California.

Your your committee analysis notes some of the incidents that have occurred involving AVs interfering with emergency response activities.

These things include things like parking on fire hoses, blocking fire station driveways, driving through active fire scenes, and also remaining parked and locked and inaccessible to first responders who are responding to a call for a passenger asleep or unresponsive in an AV. Thing I hear the most from my members is that there needs to be a mechanism for them to access the vehicle in a manner that allows them to disable it, and if absolutely necessary, move it.

And if that isn't gonna happen now, we think that there needs to be immediate action by the company to do so. My San Francisco local noted recently in a public hearing of the San Francisco Fire Department's command staff and labor representatives have asked the AV companies for a public safety manual override option that would allow first responders to have access. This hasn't happened yet, so we are continuing these conversations here in the legislature.

During the power outage affecting large portions of San Francisco in December, the city reported that emergency dispatchers made a total of 31 calls to to the AV company hotline and were placed on hold for long stretches with one dispatcher waiting on hold for fifty three minutes.

So in this bill, as proposed to be amended today, it will require a few things that we think are important for safety, including requiring the remote driver and local incident techs technician to have that US driver's license, setting up guidelines and response times for local incident technicians, and creating a fine structure for an AV who is interfering with emergency operations. And for those reasons, we are in support. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we'll move to members of the public who would like to register their support as proponents of this bill, name, affiliation, and position.

Madam Chair, members, Matt Broad for Teamsters California in support. Thank you.

Madam Chair, members, Sarah Flock, California Federation of Labor Unions in strong support. Thank you.

Ayanna Sampier. I live in California City, California. I'm a Uber driver and member of the California Gig Workers Union, and I definitely support this.

Hi. Janice Jackson with Sacramento, California with the California Gig Workers Union, and I do support 1246.

I'm Gurpreet Banu from Sacramento. I'm a ride share driver for the last ten years, and I'm with the California Gig Worker Union. And I'm strongly support this, and I urge all of you to say yes on this too. Thank you.

Thank you. And as a reminder, name, affiliation, and position.

Yeymi Lopez with SCIU 1021. I'm an external organizer, and I urge for your yes vote. Thank you.

Hi. Sorry. Hi. Hector Castellanos from NTH California, California Gig Workers Union, and I support the bill SB 1246.

Vikash Shankar, rideshare driver from Fresno, California Gig Workers Union, and I'm in support of the bill.

Lawanda Aguilar with 521 external organizer, and I support this bill with California Gig Workers Union.

Chair and members, Jonathan Feldman, California Police Chiefs Association, support of the bill.

Navneet Puri on behalf of the California School Employees Association in support.

Good afternoon, madam Chair. Christopher Sanchez on behalf of the Consumer Federation of California in support.

Hello. Samuel Gutierrez from Riverside County, and I supporting 1246. Thank you guys for your time.

My name is Fernando Martinez from LA, and I support SB 1246. Thank you.

Alright. Thank you. Seeing none others, now moving on to opposition. We do have opposition witness testimony. Press the button.

Good afternoon, madam Chair and members. Sarah Boot on behalf of the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association. First, I wanna thank Chair Wilson and the committee staff for your thoughtfulness on this bill and for the committee amendments. We're grateful to Senator Cortese and to the sponsors for the many meetings and addressing many of our concerns. We particularly appreciate removal of the rigid staffing ratio requirements and the bill shifting away from prescriptive response time mandates in most instances.

While we continue to have some concerns with the bill and our members are still reviewing the most recent amendments, we are encouraged by the progress that has been made, and we're changing our position to oppose unless amended. There's just a few things I wanna highlight. Recent amendments to the manual override provisions are a significant improvement. But we remain concerned that the bill would move California into creating vehicle design and performance requirements, which have obviously long been the purview of the Federal Government.

That national framework allows manufacturers to design vehicles in a single set of safety requirements and enables drivers to avoid conflicting design requirements at each state's borders.

We also continue to have some concerns with the bill's enforcement provisions. Local jurisdictions play an important role in public safety and traffic enforcement. However, compliance with the manufacturer's DMV permit is best evaluated by the DMV, which has the necessary expertise. And finally, there are some definitions we'd like to continue to work through. So we look forward to continuing to work on this bill. We thank you again, madam Chair and Senator Cortese.

Alright. Thank you. With that, moving on to members of the public who would like to register their opposition as opponents of the bill. Name, affiliation, and position.

Camille Wagner representing Waymo. Just wanna echo the comments. We're very appreciative of the work of the committee, the Chair, and the author as well. Few refinements, but moving in the right direction. Thank you.

Thank you, madam Chair. Jack Yanos with Sloat Higgins Jensen here on behalf of Consumer Technology Association. We align our comments with a view. Thank you.

Sarah Bridges on behalf of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association in opposition. Also on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce. Thank you. In opposition.

Madam Chair, members, Andrew Antwih here today on behalf of Tesla. We echo the concerns. We remain in opposition.

Stephanie Jimenez on behalf of Bay Area Council in opposition.

Robert Singleton with Chamber of Progress. Also stuck with host, but appreciate the amendments. I think they're on the right track.

Thank you.

Ashanti Smith with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. Appreciate the amendments and the work by the author and the staff, in respectful opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Now moving to members of the committee. Assembly member Ahrens.

Thank you, Senator, for bringing this piece of legislation forward. I just wanted to note that I appreciate the the work on the amendments thus far. I know you're trying to get to a better better spot. I wanna acknowledge the the work that you've done with the opposition.

As you know, many of these people coming in with concerns are employers and our district in Silicon Valley, and I know you're trying to get to a better place to see how what we can do to provide proper guardrails without stifling the innovation economy.

And so, I would just encourage us to continue working on the bill and proud to support today. Thank you.

Alright. Assemblymember Lackey.

Yeah. I just have a quick question. I just wanted to make sure in the amendments that the CHP requirements were removed.

Yes. They were.

Thank you.

Alright. Seeing no other, I'll make some comments and then give you an opportunity to close center. So first of all, I wanna thank you and the sponsors for working closely with the committee on this bill. Thank you for accepting the committee amendments. Our June 8 on June 8, our committee had a hearing on DMV's most recent AV regulations, and I believe that those regulations provide a comprehensive approach to ensuring safety on our roadways.

However, at the same time, I recognize the frustrations our first responders have had with AV companies. While AV technology certainly reduces the need for humans to drive, the technology is not perfect, and companies can and must do better, to, to do a better job responding to situations where AVRs, immobilized on our roads.

I appreciate the concerns raised about the manual override system and believe that first responders should be working with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and Congress to better address concerns related to these related to AVs built for specific purpose. I also understand the concerns brought by SEIU in returns of workers, especially remote work versus domestic work or even California work.

I do ask that you continue to work with the opponents as this bill moves forward, and I'm glad, with all the work that has been put into this.

Thank you to staff for their many meetings, trying to articulate my thoughts to you all, and and to the author. With that, I'll be supporting the bill today. Is there a motion? Did I or did I miss it?

Okay. Moved by Harabedian, second by Ahrens, to the author, give you a chance to close.

Yeah. Thank you again, very much, Sharon, to your committee. And, certainly, I can relate and and empathize with all the meetings back and forth and interpretation of things, as well as with our sponsors. I wanted to thank, Assemblymember Ahrens for, you know, his reflection on what's going on in our our home county and our home area. We kinda split what was the original I think the original Silicon Valley just about in almost in half. There's a little different population.

I I have the heart of Silicon Valley.

Yeah. I have yeah. And I have the capital of Silicon Valley right in the middle of my district. So this goes on in in our area over and over, so we won't continue that. But I do appreciate I appreciate the insight, obviously, into what's going on. It's just always been a balance of embracing innovation and at the same time, you know, making sure that we have some regulatory guardrails in place.

And that's exactly what we're trying to do here. And with that, I'd respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. With a motion made by Herbedian and seconded by Ahrens. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

SB 1246, do pass as amended to the Communications and Conveyance Committee. [Roll call]

Alright. We'll hold that, roll open for members to be able to add on. Moving on to item 11, SB 1250.

May I begin, madam Chair?

Yes. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you again. And I would like to, again, thank the committee staff for their thoughtful engagement and conversations with our office and sponsors. So sorry to keep putting you through so much work.

But while I vehicle collisions are a real and growing safety issue, as most of us know on California roads, those collisions cost hundreds of millions of dollars annually, damaging vehicles, injuring injuring drivers, and disrupting critical transportation corridors. These incidents are not random. We have strong data identifying collision hotspots, specific stretches of highway where wildlife collisions occur repeatedly over time. SB 1250 is fundamentally about planning smarter.

Some have asked whether wildlife connectivity should be addressed through the state highway system management plan, also known as I'm sorry.

Rather than the transportation asset management plan, also known as TAM. The SHSMP, I just spoke of, helps identify transportation needs and establish policy goals. The TAM is where those goals become actionable by setting performance objectives, tracking progress, prioritizing investments, and informing long long term project delivery. This is a planning bill. I wanna emphasize that.

By incorporating wildlife connectivity into the temp, we ensure these known safety risks are evaluated alongside other transportation assets, and they're considered during routine highway improvements such as repaving, bridge rehabilitation, and culvert upgrades. This allows the state to address multiple safety needs at once rather than returning later to retrofit the same quarter at greater cost.

If wildlife connectivity remains only in the planning documents, such as the SHSMP document, it can be recognized as a need without ever being incorporated into the performance management investment framework that drives project prioritization. So this bill does not require Caltrans to build a wildlife crossing at every location. It simply ensures wildlife connectivity is evaluated as part of the transportation planning process and considered where it is practical and cost effective.

Importantly, the build does not divert funding away from pavement, bridges, culverts, or other existing transportation assets. It simply requires wildlife connectivity to be evaluated and tracked within the same performance management framework used for other transportation objectives. I would say it gives the opportunity to seize an opportunity when it's seen at Caltrans discretion. The bill leaves project selection, investment decisions, and implementation priorities entirely within Caltrans discretion and existing planning processes.

Any future investments would would remain subject to normal project prioritization, funding availability, cost effectiveness considerations, and competing transportation needs.

Here with us today to testify to support the bill is sponsor, Michael Jarrett, on behalf of The Nature Conservancy, if I may.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. I am Michael Jarrett of the Nature Conservancy, and we are proud to sponsor SB 1250, which would support better planning and agency coordination for wildlife connectivity. TNC thanks Senator Cortesi for his leadership on this important issue. At its core, SB 1250 is about protecting California's natural resources while improving public safety and recognizing those two goals are interconnected. State highway barriers limit animals' access to food, water, habitat, and mates.

Wildlife vehicle collisions are a preventable safety problem on California's roads. Analysis by the UC Davis Road Ecology Center documents an annual statewide cost of above $200,000,000 a year with collisions concentrated in predictable hotspots. SB 1250 wired wildlife connectivity to the transportation asset management plan, which would change a piecemeal approach to wildlife connectivity to one that is systematic and consistent with other aspects of transportation planning.

We believe integrating wildlife connectivity into this prioritization will ensure Caltrans is not just looking at the condition of culverts, bridges, and drainages in a narrow sense, but finding ways to improve the condition of a select number of assets for wildlife connectivity. This can mean a bigger culvert is used for a replacement or a ledge is placed in an underpass.

These are simple and cost effective solutions. Many of these projects are eligible for funding through the Wildlife Conservation Board, federal funds, and private funds. With the right planning, there's a huge opportunity to leverage funds to make our roads safer, reduce traffic congestion, and benefit our wildlife. For all these reasons, TNC urges your support on SB 1250. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving on to members of the public who would like to register their support for this bill name, affiliation, and position.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Karen Stout here on behalf of the Animal Legal Defense Fund in support. Thank you.

Lizzie Gwansona here on behalf of the Humane World for Animals in support.

Good evening, members. Matthew Baker with Planning and Conservation Link and Strong Support. Thank you.

Jeannie Wardwaller on behalf of Pew Climate Plan, WCN, and NRDC in support.

Jennifer Fearing here on behalf of Wildlife Crossing Fund, National Wildlife Federation, and also expressing support for Green Foothills and the UC Davis Road Ecology Center. Thank you.

Jake Schultz on behalf of the California Habitat Conservation Planning Coalition, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, East Bay, Regional Park District, and the Land Trust Santa Cruz County in support. Thank you.

Good evening, Chair and members. Jordan Grimes on behalf of Greenbelt Alliance and Prosperity Action in support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. Juliana Tetlow on behalf of San Diego Humane Society, Wildlands Network, and as a courtesy on behalf of Social Compassion and Legislation in support. Thank you.

Thank you, madam Chair members. Jean Hurst here today on behalf of the boards of supervisors of the counties of Santa Clara and Santa Cruz in support.

Good afternoon. Kim Delfino reading, this, for the endangered habitats league in support, Pathways for Wildlife, Eco San Diego, South Coast Wildlands, San Diego Three Fifty, Climate Center three fifty Bay Area Action, Honey Lake Valley Resource Conservation District, Alameda County RCD, and the El Dorado County Transportation Commission. Thank you.

Thank you, madam Chair. Mark Fenstermaker here on behalf of the California Council of Land Trust, the Peninsula Open Space Trust, and the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority in support.

Thank you, madam Chair. Keith Dunn, behalf of the State Building Construction Trades Council here in support.

Thank you. Alright. Moving on to opposition. I don't have any opposition witnesses that have registered, but this would be an appropriate time for anyone in the audience who'd like to note their opposition to come forward, name, affiliation, position. Seeing none, moving on to members of the committee.

There was a lot. I'm gonna give it to Rogers and Elohari. Wait. I thought I heard a more, you know, feminine sounding voice. I'll give some comments and then give an opportunity for you to close, sir.

So, I I first of all, thank you for highlighting the barriers our transportation system creates for wildlife connectivity and the safety risk to drivers when they collide with wildlife. I agree with you on the premise of your bill. We need to make more progress remediating legacy barriers to wildlife and certainly not creating new barriers. But I'm not confident that treating connectivity assets like traditional transportation assets is the most effective solution to the problem.

Nonetheless, I will be supporting your bill today to allow you to continue working with Caltrans and the administration on this issue.

I'd like to give you an opportunity to close.

Thank you, madam Chair.

Appreciate your comments, very much, and we're doing everything we can as, we move through this, as, you know, as a transportation Chair to to make sure we accomplish, we capture exactly what you said, an infusion of this issue every time there's, you know, a chain link fence that probably should have a cut out in it, which is not a huge expenditure while there's a big project going on that's being looked at or a culvert that maybe shouldn't be filled and should into a box culvert, but should stay open.

So these are things we just wanna make sure are are considered all along the way. We think this is the right way to to capture that, the essence of that, but, in the remaining, period that we have here to work the bill, we'll we'll keep trying to refine it, and take your advice. Thank you, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. With that, we have a motion made by Rogers and a seconded by Ella Ari. So with that, madam secretary, please call the roll.

SB 1250, do pass to the Water Parts and Wildlife Committee. Wilson? Aye. Wilson, aye. Davies?

Davies, no. Arons? Aye. Arons, aye. Avila Farias?

Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.

Aye. Aye. Aye. Art? Hart, aye.

Hoover. Jackson. Aye. Aye. Lackey?

Lackey, no. Masito. Happen. Ransom. Ransom, aye.

Rogers? Aye. Rogers, aye. Ward.

Thank you. We'll hold that open for members of our committee who are not present to add on. Before we move to our final bill, I would like to note that we are on our final bill. So any members of this committee who have not found a way to make their way here, please do so at this time. Item number 12, SB 1425.

Alright. I see a motion and a second. Senator.

Yep. Thank thank you again, madam Chair and members. So thank you for your patience. This should be a much shorter presentation. California's building the nation's first 220 mile per hour fully electrified high speed rail system as, I think, just about everybody Yep. Thank—thank you again, Madam Chair and members. So, thank you for your patience. This should be a much shorter presentation. California is building the nation's first 220-mile-per-hour, fully electrified high-speed rail system as, I think, just about everybody knows.knows.

There's gonna be massive, massive development potential along the nearly 500-mile corridor. While the state is charged with managing this land, it lacks legal authority, at least through the High-Speed Rail Authority, to regulate encroachments that may delay the building, operation, and maintenance of the project. SB 1425 simply enables the Authority to adopt regulations to establish a permit program for encroachments, otherwise known as an encroachment permit program, within the project's right-of-way.

As, again, most of you know and certainly anybody who served in local government knows, encroachment permits are a very standard, typically over-the-counter kind of a process. A codified permit process will bridge the gap between local property owners, businesses, public utilities, and other agencies to bolster the surrounding community and support expansion along the corridor.

With us today to testify, we have Robert Pearsall, the California political director of the US High-Speed Rail Association, and we also have Keith Dunn. I don't know if you're testifying or here to answer questions. Testifying. All right. Thank you, Madam Chair. At the appropriate time, we'd respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Alright.

Hi. Madam Chair, members, thank you. My name is Robert Pearsall. I'm the California political director for US High Speed Rail, a very proud sponsor of SB 1425, a coalition of over 50 leading unions, public agencies, and companies.

US High Speed Rail is co-chaired by former US DOT Secretaries Ray LaHood and Anthony Fox. USHSR works with its members and allied progressive and environmental groups to advocate for public support for world-class high-speed rail projects across the US. SB 1425 will establish a permit program administered by the Authority for encroachment on its rights-of-way. This measure allows the Authority to accommodate utilities that are trying to expand their business in the Central Valley.

Right now, they cannot access the authority rights of way because there simply is no permitting process.

While the Authority is charged with managing these lands, it lacks the legal authority to regulate encroachments that might interfere with high-speed rail construction and operations. Common encroachments include utility and broadband lines, equalizer pipes, sewage drainage, and vegetation management. Of course, all these are critical in the region where the project is developing. It's vital that the Authority be able to protect its infrastructure from encroachments that may interfere with or delay the construction, operation, and maintenance of the high-speed rail project.

Without statutory authority, the project will continue to experience encroachments and barriers to land development.

A clear permitting process will help ensure that the Authority can protect the project's land, facilities, and rights-of-way while working more effectively with local property owners and businesses and while limiting unnecessary delays. For these reasons, US High Speed Rail supports SB 1425 and requests your "aye" vote on this important measure. We're thankful to the Senator for authoring the bill, and I'm happy to take questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you,

Madam Chair, Keith Dunn on behalf of the State Building and Construction Trades Council. This is a good bill. I'd ask for your support, and I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. With that, we'll move on to members of the public who would like to offer their support. Name, affiliation, and position.

Madam Chair, members, Sarah Flocks, California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, in very strong support, eager support. Thank you.

Madam Chair, members, Matt Cremins on behalf of the California-Nevada Conference of Operating Engineers. Good bill, request your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Now moving on to opposition. We do not have any opposition witnesses registered, but wanted to give an opportunity for add-ons. Name, affiliation, and position.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Trent Smith on behalf of the California Municipal Utilities Association. I've been having some good conversations with the author. We're really down to one amendment. We provided some amendment language last week. Just dealing with the definitions of what new work is. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Joseph Zanze with Southern California Gas Company and San Diego Gas & Electric. Similar views as my colleague from CMUA. We do have a couple of concerns, utility-specific. We have master agreements with California High Speed Rail, and we want to just kind of ensure that, you know, existing property rights and franchise agreements are covered and then some of the—some of the language is worked out. But I appreciate the author and the staff's work with us and look forward to continuing to work with you.

Thank you. And I did give leeway for the first two speakers because of the two witness. So for the rest, it will have to be name, position, and affiliation. Thank you.

Madam Chair, members, Catherine Borg, Southern California Edison. Working with the author to oppose. Thanks.

Good evening. Kyra Ross on behalf of the City of Burbank. Echo the comments of CMUA in opposition.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, members, Brian White on behalf of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. Also opposed unless amended, joining in the position.

Thank you. All right. Moving it to members of this committee for any comments. Seeing none, I will give an opportunity to make some comments and then give it to you to close. So, I appreciate you bringing this bill forward to address the complex challenge of developing high-speed rail infrastructure on land that utilities such as telecom, electrical power, water, and sewer systems may want to install new infrastructure on.

And I understand that various utilities in Southern California have raised concerns about the development of the high-speed rail project and the impact this may have on existing utilities. Some of those concerns have been specific and others have been general. It will be critical to strike the right balance between what we establish in statute and what is done through a regulatory process or cooperative agreements.

We don't want to overly burden the high-speed rail project or utilities and must remain nimble and be able to meet the needs and unique circumstances of each. One size may not fit all.

In addition to my committee, this bill is triple referred to the Judiciary Committee and utilities and energy committee. I'm supporting your bill today so that conversations to resolve outstanding issues with the high speed rail authority can continue, including impact impact utilities excuse me. With the high speed rail authority impact utilities and your office so that they can continue as this bill moves through the next committees. High speed rail is a critical asset and a tool for, connecting our state as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. I intend to stay engaged on these discussions.

I will be supporting your bill today, give you an opportunity to close.

Again, thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate your engagement. It's been very helpful and effective, and we look forward to resolving any remaining issues in the next two committees. And I'm sure they'll be helpful as well.

I've had some preliminary discussions with them already. I—I will say that I think, in my humble opinion, because of—of prior legislation that was more aimed at—at trying to, frankly, you know, move utilities out of the way as opposed to creating an encroachment permit, which actually is an opportunity for utilities to come in and say, "Hey, we need some kind of ministerial process so we can come in and do our thing in your—in your right-of-way," are obviously two completely different things.

What we're, again, trying to capture here is—is just that, succinct ministerial process because the High Speed Rail Authority is not a city, county, or local government. They—they just don't have that tool that all those other agencies have. We're trying to mimic that.

We've literally tried to mimic the language in—in other statutes that allows someone to come in, whether it's a—a big utility like this or, you know, just a farmer who says, "Hey, you got a half-mile easement here and I need a temporary, you know, construction opportunity to come in to—to bury a water line." Some of that work can—can be handled very easily with a simple encroachment permit.

So, we are doing everything we possibly can to clarify and make sure that nothing gets in the way of the—the more comprehensive agreements that already exist and might exist in the future between the High-Speed Rail Authority and—and utilities. This is intended to be a much more simple, almost a safety net way of—of fallback way of people coming in and getting the permit that they need if they don't have one of those agreements.

So, again, appreciate your recognition of all those issues, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Alright. Thank you. We have a motion made by Carrillo, seconded by Harabedian. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

SB 1425 do pass to the Judiciary Committee. [Rollcall].

Thank you.

Alright. We'll hold that open for members to be able to add on. Thank you. Alright. Calling all final members to the office. We're going to restart from the beginning in just about two minutes.

Yay. We can start from the top. Goodbye. Great people for being on time. Alright. With that, we're gonna we're gonna go from top to bottom. I believe that will capture everyone, so we won't reset. Starting with consent calendars, items one through three. Madam secretary.

[Roll Call]

Alright. There are 16 votes. That bill is out of our committee. Moving on to item number four those bills, I should say. Moving to item number four, SB 1013.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 11 aye votes and four no votes. That bill is out. Moving on to item number five, SB 1064.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 15 votes. It is out. Moving on to item number seven, SB 1315.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 15 votes. It is out. Moving on to item number eight, SB 1174.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 15 votes. It is out. Moving on to item number nine, SB 1213.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 16 votes. It is out of this committee. Moving on to file item 10, SB 1246.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 13 aye votes and two no votes. That bill is out. Moving on to item number eleven, twelve fifty.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 11 aye votes and four no votes. It is out. Moving on to item number 12, SB 1425.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 11 aye votes and three no votes. It is out of this committee. Moving on to our final bill, item number 13, SB 1279.

[Roll Call]

That bill has 14 aye votes and one no votes. It is out of this committee. There being no further but is this of this committee, the committee is now adjourned.