CLFP tracked over 150 bills over this two-year session. This included reviewing, vetting, and monitoring these bills as they moved through the legislative process. Staff actively engaged on about 45 bills, meaning, we took a position, submitted comments, met with author’s staff and committees, and lobbied the measure. Over half of the bills we actively “opposed” were defeated and were not signed into law. Many bills died in policy committees, or were placed on the “suspense file” in the Appropriations Committee due to high costs in a budget deficit year. This list includes, but not limited to, SB 1231 (Allen) – SB 54 clean-up bill, AB 2066 (Reyes) – decaffeinated coffee bill, AB 2761 (Hart) – reducing plastic packaging bill, and SB 903 – PFAS ban bill. We can anticipate future legislation on SB 54/recycling as well as PFAS and packaging in the coming years.
AB 2316 (Gabriel) was a main bill of interest to CLFP’s members. This bill will prohibit food containing six specified food dye additives (Blue 1; Blue 2; Green 3; Red 40; Yellow 5; and Yellow 6) from being sold to students in schools. This prohibition includes all school meals and competitive foods sold to students from midnight the night before to 30 minutes after the end of the school day. CLFP actively opposed this measure with a large group of stakeholders. In order to move the bill, the author made many amendments to the language including the removal of TiO2 from the list of banned additives and extending the implementation date to December 31, 2027. The bill garnered bipartisan support and was signed by the governor into law.
The governor also signed AB 98 (Carrillo) into law. This bill was a last minute gut-and-amend that was introduced on August 28 – the last few days of session. This bill will mandate new “green” building standards on future facility expansion projects and new buildings that fall within the definition “logistics use.” This definition extends beyond “warehouses” and includes facilities that move goods with heavy-duty trucks – thereby including CLFP membership. CLFP shared concerns with governor’s office on our inclusion in the broad definition of “logistics use” and hopes to work on language next year to amend this legislation. The governor signed the bill into law, and it will go into effect January 1, 2026.
If you wish to learn more about this year’s list of bills that have become law, feel free to reach out to CLFP’s Government Affairs Director, Katie Little: katie@clfp.com.
California League Of Food Producers