YOUR DUES DOLLARS AT WORK A MID-YEAR TEMPERATURE CHECK ON CCA’S LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES

by CCA Vice President of Government Affairs Kirk Wilbur

June 2 was the “house of origin” deadline in the California Legislature, the date by which bills needed to pass off the floor of the chamber in which they were introduced to advance in the first year of the 2023-24 Legislative Session (some bills which didn’t meet that deadline will become “two-year bills,” viable so long as they pass off the floor before the end of January in the second year of Session). With one half of the legislative process behind us, this month is a good time to check in on the status of CCA’s 2023 legislative priorities.

The Legislature will begin its summer recess on July 14, which is also the deadline by which policy committees must complete their consideration of legislation. Given that timeline, the statuses of the bills detailed below are likely to have changed since press time, so what follows should simply be read as a reflection of the first half of the legislative year. (Also note that this update does not include every bill that CCA has taken a position on this year but does detail CCA’s highest-priority legislative targets.)

After reconvening on August 14, legislators will have one month to consider legislation in appropriations committees and on the Assembly and Senate floors, after which Governor Gavin Newsom will have until October 14 to sign or veto legislation. Look for a final recap of 2023 legislation in the November edition of California Cattleman.

CCA-OPPOSED

AB 99 (Connolly) – State roads and highways: integrated pest management

Current Status: Will be heard in Senate Transportation Committee June 27.

Vote History: Passed the Assembly 55-16.

This bill would require the California Department of Transportation to adopt a statewide policy to use “integrated pest management” limiting roadside pesticide application in any county in which the Board of Supervisors has voted to limit or discontinue roadside application of pesticides. Such a policy could be detrimental to pest management on farms and ranches adjacent to CalTrans-managed roadsides.

CCA-SUPPORTED

AB 408 (Wilson) – The Climate-Resilient Farms, Sustainable Healthy Food Access and Farmworker Protection Bond Act of 2024

Current Status: Awaiting referral in Senate Rules Committee.

Vote History: Passed the Assembly 67-9.

This $3.365 billion bond bill includes several allocations that seek to promote livestock grazing in recognition of its ecological benefits, including $35 million to CalFire for equipment and infrastructure to support prescribed grazing, $60 million to CDFA to promote carbon sequestration through methods including prescribed grazing and $40 million for community food production in urban and suburban areas which can include “livestock grazing in open space.”

CCA-OPPOSED

AB 460 (Bauer-Kahan) – State Water Resources Control Board: interim relief

Current Status: Will be heard in Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee June 27.

Vote History: Passed the Assembly 43-20.

Though it has been messaged as a bill to disincentivize violations of curtailment orders by increasing fines for illegal diversions, AB 460 is much more sweeping in its scope. The bill would allow virtually any person to petition the State Water Resources Control Board for an interim relief order against a water rightsholder for alleged violations of virtually any water right or water quality statute, and would allow the Board to impose draconian fines with minimal due process protections. The bill could be weaponized by environmental groups to target grazing based on alleged water quality impacts and could even lead to challenges against stockpond diversions in drought years.

CCA-OPPOSED

AB 554 (Gabriel) – SPCAs: enforcement of laws

Current Status: Ordered to the Assembly inactive file.

Vote History: Passed Assembly Judiciary Committee 11-0; passed Assembly Banking & Finance 9-0.

Under current law, societies for the prevention of cruelty to animals may assist the state in prosecuting alleged violations of “any law relating to or affecting animals” in criminal courts. AB 554 would have allowed SPCAs to independently file such suits in civil courts, without the oversite of unbiased district attorneys. Because California law allows any 20 citizens to incorporate as an SPCA, the bill would have been easily weaponized by radical animal rights groups opposed to animal agriculture, enabling those groups to harass ranchers and harm them reputationally and financially. A concerted opposition effort led by CCA resulted in Assemblyman Gabriel shelving the bill in late May. It may still be taken up in 2024 as a two-year bill, and CCA stands ready to redouble our opposition if it is.

CCA-SUPPORTED

AB 606 (Mathis) – CESA accidental take: farms or ranches

Current Status: Will be heard in Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee June 22.

Vote History: Passed the Assembly 79-0.

This bill extends an existing provision of law which provides that a farmer or rancher is not liable for take of a species listed as threatened or endangered under the California Endangered Species Act if the take was accidental and occurred in the course of “routine and ongoing agricultural activities.”

CCA-SUPPORTED

AB 720 (Addis) – California Rangeland, Grazing Land, and Grassland Protection Program

Current Status: Will be heard in Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee June 22.

Vote History: Passed the Assembly 76-0.

While not titled the “California Conservation Ranching Incentive Program,” this bill is substantially similar to two prior CCA-supported bills that bore that name: 2021’s SB 322 and 2022’s SB 977, both authored by Sen. Laird. AB 720 would amend the California Rangeland, Grazing Land, and Grassland Protection Program to establish grants intended to support landowners’ efforts to enhance, restore and preserve California’s private rangelands.

Neutral

AB 1197 (Hart) – Local food producers: grant limits

Current Status: Will be heard in Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee June 22.

Vote History: Passed the Assembly 66-2.

AB 1197 would make grants under the Agricultural Protection Planning Grant Program available for the purpose of maintaining and stewarding “Local food producers.” Unfortunately as originally introduced the bill limited its definition of a local food producer to an individual who farms or ranches on no more than 500 acres across all properties, rendering almost all ranchers ineligible for such grants. CCA was the sole organization to raise concerns about the provision, taking an oppose-unless-amended position on the bill. AB 1197 was subsequently amended to expand eligibility to individuals who graze livestock on rangelands and who have annual meat sales of under $2 million, allowing CCA to remove opposition to the bill.

CCA-SUPPORTED

AB 1237 (Petrie-Norris) – California Public Interest Veterinary Debt Relief Program

Current Status: Held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

Vote History: Passed Assembly Higher Education Committee 12-0.

AB 1237 sought to alleviate the shortage of licensed veterinarians in rural areas and areas identified by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture as suffering a “veterinary services shortage situation” by providing up to $150,000 in student debt relief to veterinarians who practice full time in such a community for at least five years. Several regions of the state are identified by USDA as having a “veterinary services shortage situation” relative to “private practice food animal medicine” or “rural area food animal medicine,” so the bill stood to incentivize veterinary practice benefitting cattlemen confronted with a shortage of large animal practice veterinarians.

CCA-OPPOSED

AB 1337 (Wicks) – State Water Resources Control Board: water shortage enforcement

Current Status: Will be heard in Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee June 27.

Vote History: Passed the Assembly 45-20.

AB 1337 would provide the State Water Resources Control Board statutory authority to curtail all water rights, even in water years in which no drought emergency has been declared (under current law, statutory authority only exists to curtail post-1914 appropriative water rights, and pre-1914 and riparian rights may only be curtailed during declared drought emergencies). CCA and a broad coalition of water agencies and agricultural groups have opposed the bill because it gives the SWRCB

...CONTINUED FROM PAGE 15 unfettered authority to curtail water rights even when no scarcity exists, hindering ranchers’ and other water rightsholders’ ability to forecast water availability and plan for the use of water under their rights.

CCA-OPPOSED

AB 1563 (Bennett) – Groundwater extraction permit verification

Current Status: Referred to Senate committees on Natural Resources & Water and Governance & Finance.

Vote History: Passed the Assembly 45-20.

A similar effort to CCA-opposed AB 2201 (Bennett), which CCA successfully opposed last year, AB 1563 would require a well permitting agency to post a well permit application on its website for at least 30 days prior to approval and would condition permit approval upon written verification from a Groundwater Sustainability Agency that the well would be consistent with groundwater management plans and is unlikely to interfere with nearby wells. The bill would impose significant (and unnecessary) costs, delays and legal challenges for ranchers seeking well permits.

CCA-OPPOSED

SB 253 (Wiener) – Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act

Current Status: Awaiting referral from Assembly Rules Committee.

Vote History: Passed the Senate 24-9.

This bill would require any corporation with annual revenues of more than $1 billion that does business in California to annually report all greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the company. Of particular concern to CCA, the bill would require such companies to report their “scope 3” emissions – that is, all emissions related to the corporation’s supply chain. Were SB 253 to become law, it could thus result in onerous reporting requirements being passed down to ranchers whose products are in the supply chain of major corporations.

CCA-SUPPORTED

SB 361 (Dodd) – Water resources: stream gages

Current Status: Held in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Vote History: Passed Senate Natural Resources & Water Committee 10-0.

SB 361 sought to require the Department of Water Resources and State Water Resources Control Board to reactivate, upgrade or install stream gages in watersheds throughout the state. Expanding the state’s stream gage network would have benefitted cattle producers by improving the accuracy of drought monitoring tools that impact federal agricultural assistance programs and state curtailment orders, among other regulatory decisions.

CCA-OPPOSED

SB 389 (Allen) – State Water Resources Control Board: determination of right

Current Status: Awaiting referral from Assembly Rules Committee.

Vote History: Passed the Senate 23-11.

The third of three problematic bills proposing seismic shifts to California’s water rights system (see AB 460 and AB 1337, above), SB 389 would allow the State Water Board to investigate any pre-1914 claim of right and to revoke that water right if it believes the claim or right is not authorized. Most troublingly, the bill would place the burden of proof on the rightsholder, not the Board, to produce evidence proving the basis of right for one’s water right – despite the fact that state law did not require recording or reporting of water diverted under a pre-1914 water right until 2009.

Neutral

SB 485 (Becker) – Methane emissions: livestock feed additives

Current Status: Awaiting referral from Assembly Rules Committee.

Vote History: Passed the Senate 38-0.

CCA initially opposed SB 485, which as introduced required the California Air Resources Board to create targets for the adoption of methane-emissions-reducing feed additives in feed provided to all livestock animals. In the Senate Agriculture Committee, CCA succeeded in limiting the program to dairies, allowing the Association to remove its opposition. Working with Western United Dairies, CCA also succeeded in removing bill language allowing CARB to set adoption targets for dairies (lest those targets later morph into legislative or regulatory mandates).

CCA-SUPPORTED

SB 780 (Alvarado-Gil) – Feed additives or ingredients: safety.

Current Status: Referred to the Assembly Agriculture Committee.

Vote History: Passed the Senate 37-0.

In recent years, the California Air Resources Board has become increasingly active in regulating livestock methane emissions, with recent legislative proposals seeking to involve the agency in the business of promoting certain livestock feed additives (see SB 485, above). SB 780 would clarify that the California Department of Food and Agriculture has primary oversight of any additive fed to livestock, including those which make environmental claims.

Each time a pro-livestock, pro-business candidate is elected in Sacramento it is a win for the ranching community.