YOUR DUES DOLLARS AT WORK
“BUSINESS AS USUAL” GETS FACELIFT
2022 OFF TO A BUSY START AS CHANGES TAKE PLACE IN SACRAMENTO by CCA Vice President of Government Affairs Kirk Wilbur Just one month into the year, 2022 has kept your CCA government affairs team on its toes. While the kickoff of the legislative session and the Governor’s budget reveal are annual traditions that are easily anticipated, a raft of other developments – from continued COVID complications to redistricting and its fallout – have kept Sacramento politics incredibly interesting in the new year. Legislature Reconvenes The California Legislature reconvened for the second year of its 2021-22 Legislative Session on January 3, after previously adjourning last September. As with the first year of session, high-profile matters likely to draw the attention of state legislators include homelessness and housing issues, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic (including mitigating its economic and educational impacts) and improving the state’s resilience to wildfire, drought and other severe climate and weather events. In the opening weeks of session, your CCA government affairs team has been hard at work positioning the Association for another successful year in thel Legislature on the heels of a fruitful first year of session. Last year, CCA saw major legislative victories with the passage of two CCA-sponsored bills: AB 1103, which enables the development of county Livestock Pass programs to ensure ranchers’ access to livestock during wildfires and other emergencies, and SB 332, which reduces prescribed fire practitioners’ liability risk in order to incentivize application of prescribed fire. Both AB 1103 and SB 332 took effect on January 1. What does CCA have cooking in the second year of the 2021-22 Legislative Session? You’ll have to stay tuned
to California Cattleman and CCA’s other publications to learn details of this year’s CCA-sponsored legislation as soon as those bills are introduced in the legislature. So far this year, most of the legislature’s attention has been on “two-year” bills – bills which were introduced in 2021 but were held back until the second year of session. Such bills were required to pass out of their house of origin by the end of January or be dead for the session. One such two-year bill which recently reared its head was Assembly Bill 558 (Nazarian), which was resuscitated by its author on the first day of the legislative year. AB 558 would reimburse schools for including a “plant-based… food option” or “plant-based milk option” in school lunches. A similar initiative – AB 479, also authored by Assemblymember Nazarian – failed in 2019. While CCA did not take a formal position on the bill last year, we did communicate our concerns about the bill to key legislators, and the bill failed to receive a hearing in the Assembly Education Committee in 2021. Unfortunately, the bill did receive an Education Committee hearing on January 12, passing out of the policy committee and being referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee. This year of session, CCA is formally opposing the bill unless the plant-based meal incentives are stripped from the legislation, and we will continue to highlight the nutritional benefits of beef and milk as well as California ranchers’ leadership on GHG emission reductions as we seek to defeat the bill again in 2022. Newsom Unveils Budget Framework One week after the legislature reconvened, Governor Gavin Newsom released his proposed 2022-23 State Budget. Bolstered by a projected surplus of $45.7 billion, Newsom’s Proposed Budget – dubbed the “California Blueprint” – proposes allocating a record $286.4 billion in state funds, significantly more than last year’s record $262 billion budget. The California Blueprint includes $1.2 billion in new funding for forest resilience and wildfire
8 California Cattleman February 2022
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