This measure would declare April 24 through April 30, 2011, as West Nile Virus and Mosquito and Vector Control Awareness Week.
This measure would proclaim the month of May 2011 as Celiac Disease Awareness Month to promote statewide awareness of celiac disease.
This measure would designate April 24, 2011, as "California Day of Remembrance for the Armenian Genocide of 1915–1923." It would memorialize the Congress and the President of the United States to act likewise to commemorate the Armenian Genocide.
Existing law, the Administrative Procedure Act, governs the procedure for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of regulations by state agencies, including a requirement that the notice of proposed action contain prescribed cost estimates associated with the proposed regulation. Existing law also provides for the review of these regulatory actions by the Office of Administrative Law. This bill would establish an Economic Analysis Unit within the office. The bill would require agencies to make publicly available and submit to the unit specified cost estimates that pertain to a proposed regulation and specified information used to develop the cost estimates, as prescribed. The bill would require the unit to review final revised cost estimates for regulations that the agency determines to have a cost estimate of $50,000,000 or more. The bill also authorizes a stakeholder to petition the director of the office to direct the unit to review a regulation that the stakeholder believes has an actual cost of $50,000,000 or more. The bill requires the unit to develop an appropriate methodology for reviewing agency cost estimates for proposed regulations and to approve or reject the cost estimates, as specified.
This measure would urge Congress and the President to restore funding for the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program.
The California Constitution authorizes each house of the Legislature to provide for the selection of committees necessary for the conduct of its business, including committees to ascertain facts and make recommendations to the Legislature on a subject within the scope of legislative control. Existing law generally makes various regulatory boards within the Department of Consumer Affairs inoperative and repealed on specified dates, and, until January 1, 2012, subjects those boards and other specified boards to review by the Joint Committee on Boards, Commissions, and Consumer Protection. This bill would enact the Jobs Protection Act. The bill would rename the Joint Committee on Boards, Commissions, and Consumer Protection as the Joint Committee on Boards, Commissions, and Consumer or Business Protection, and would create a new legislative procedure with regard to any bill, as defined, that may have a statewide economic impact affecting business. The bill would require the Assembly Committee on Rules and the Senate Committee on Rules to refer any bill that may have a statewide economic impact affecting business, as specified, to the joint committee for the preparation of an economic impact analysis and a hearing and approval. The bill would require the joint committee to move a bill estimated to generate a fiscal impact of $10,000 or more on small business, as defined, or $50,000 or more on any other business, to the suspense file of the joint committee for further consideration, subject to specified procedural requirements. The bill would also require the joint committee to make an annual report in that regard. The bill would make conforming changes to related provisions.
The Administrative Procedure Act generally sets forth the requirements for the adoption, publication, review, and implementation of regulations by state agencies. Existing law establishes the Bureau of State Audits, which is headed by the State Auditor and has specified statutory duties, including the performance of statutorily mandated audits. This bill would require the Bureau of State Audits to review, report, and make recommendations on each regulation, before May 1 of the 5th year after the regulation was amended or adopted, that the State Energy Resources and Development Commission, the Public Utilities Commission, the California Consumer Power and Conservation Financing Authority, or any other state agency that has duties relating to state energy regulations or the implementation of those regulations adopts or amends on or after January 1, 2011. The bill would require the review, report, and recommendations to include specified factors, including a summary of the written criticisms received by the agency that adopted or amended the regulation within the preceding 5 years and the estimated economic, small business, and consumer impact of the regulation, as specified. The bill would require the bureau to make the report available on its Internet Web site. The bill would authorize the adopting agency to take specified actions in response to the bureau's report, and would provide that a regulation ceases to be operative, as specified, if the agency takes no action. This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.
The Personal Income Tax Law and the Corporation Tax Law, by reference to a specified federal statute, allow a credit against taxes imposed by those laws for increasing research expenses, as defined. In general, the amount of the credit under both laws is equal to 15% of the excess of the qualified research expenses, as defined, for the taxable year over the base amount, as defined, and, in addition, for purposes of the Corporation Tax Law, 24% of the basic research payments, as defined. The term "base amount" means the product of the average annual gross receipts of the taxpayer for each of the specified years preceding the taxable year and the fixed-base percentage, as defined, but in no event less than 50% of the qualified research expenses for the taxable year. A taxpayer may elect an alternative incremental credit for increasing research expenses in modified conformity to federal income tax laws. This bill would increase the credit for increasing research expenses to 20% of the excess of the qualified research expenses. This bill would also provide complete conformity to the alternative simplified credit provided under those federal income tax laws, and eliminate the conformity to the alternative incremental credit. This bill would take effect immediately as a tax levy.
