California Legislature Reconvenes

The California Legislature reconvened on January 6 for the second half of the biennial session, during which CLFP will continue to work diligently to address bills and issues affecting California’s food processing industry.

Two packaging bills that CLFP strongly opposed were held in the Legislature at the end of the last session and will be considered again in 2020. SB 54 (Allen) and AB 1080 (Gonzalez), which are identical bills, would set impractical recycling rates and deadlines for all types of packaging materials, provides CalRecycle with broad emergency regulatory authority that include significant fee authority with no legislative oversight, draconian penalties for unintentional data reporting errors, and lacks assurances that local jurisdictions and waste haulers would pull material through for all recyclable and compostable materials, among other significant issues. CLFP continued to engage on these bills throughout the legislative recess to try and make these bills workable. CLFP is working with a food and agriculture stakeholder group on issues relating to food safety as well as a larger multi-industry stakeholder group on larger issues relating to infrastructure, Cal Recycle authority and more. 

CLFP is also engaging with an agricultural and industrial stakeholder group on energy rates. With the passage of AB 1054 in July, legislative leadership asked key stakeholders to compile a wish list of potential energy proposals to help offset increased costs. The preliminary stakeholder list includes proposals surrounding de-energization, customer-generation, direct access, energy-efficiency funding and more. The CLFP Energy Committee is providing input on these proposals before they are formally presented to the Legislature for potential action in 2020. Some of the items would require legislation; some might be accomplished with regulatory action.

Look for more detailed information and updates in the February Insider newsletter about the 2020 Legislative Session and priority bills being addressed by CLFP.

For more information about these and other legislative issues, please contact Trudi Hughes. The CLFP Legislative Affairs Committee meets via conference call on a monthly basis to receive legislative updates and to discuss strategies on how to address legislative issues.