ENVIRONMENT / CLEAN ENERGY
AB 2 (Solar Recycling): Establishes a convenient, safe, and environmentally sustainable system for the end-of-life management of solar photovoltaic panels. The program will focus on the reuse of eligible panels, the recovery of commercially valuable materials, and the minimization of potentially hazardous waste.
AB 1238 (Solar Alternative Management Standards): Directs the Department of Toxic Substances Control to develop alternative management standards for the recycling of solar photovoltaic panels.
HOUSING
AB 1333 (Bulk Home Sales: Institutional Investors): Prohibits the bulk sale of two or more parcels of single-family homes to institutional investors. This would grant families and individuals the same opportunity to purchase homes, which would otherwise be sold directly to institutional investors in bulk transactions, without ever entering the market, once an occupancy permit is issued.
AB 1635 (Hillcrest DMV): Modifies current law relating to the Department of Motor Vehicles facility located in the Hillcrest neighborhood in the City of San Diego, to ensure that it be used for the development of affordable housing and maximize redevelopment potential on the site.
AB 1932 (Mortgage Interest Deduction): Provides a dedicated funding source for housing and homelessness prevention by eliminating the mortgage interest deduction for homeowners who own a second house or vacation home.
AB 2005 (CSU Low-Income Housing Tax Credit): Enables California State University (CSU) campuses to utilize the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit for the purpose of developing affordable housing for CSU faculty, staff, and students on CSU owned land.
AB 2353 (Property Taxation: Welfare Exemption): Ensures non-profit affordable rental housing developers can access the existing welfare property tax exemption without floating unnecessary tax payments while their application is under review, reducing the cost of constructing affordable housing.
AB 2597 (Planning and Zoning: Revision of Housing Elements): Eases time crunches in housing element adoption timelines for the state’s largest metropolitan planning organization – the Southern California Association of Governments – by creating two phases of housing element due dates for SCAG jurisdictions. This will foster better review and technical input opportunities for SCAG jurisdictions, the Department of Housing and Community Development, interested stakeholders, and the public by smoothing out the significant workload required when creating, reviewing, and adopting housing elements.
AB 2638 (Department of Housing and Community Development Loans): Allows the sales and refinancing of Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) financed projects in order to deploy loan repayments into additional affordable housing opportunities. This bill will unlock millions of dollars in loan repayments for HCD to use to increase the stock of desperately needed affordable homes.
AB 2694 (Senior Housing): Expands the Density Bonus Law to include the development of residential care facilities for the elderly. This will ensure that we provide adequate affordable housing opportunities for our aging population.
AB 2893 (Recovery Residences): Creates a certification structure for recovery residences that will follow housing first policies. Allows for an intermediary option that provides more services than transitional housing, but is more flexible in treatment than sober-living facilities and clinical level treatment centers.
AB 2934 (Building Standards Updates): Directs the Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to create a working group to explore allowing “missing middle” developments between three and 10 units to be built under the requirements of the California Residential Code, rather than the California Building Code.
HOMELESSNESS
AB 1316 (Emergency Services: Psychiatric Emergency Medical Conditions - Irwin and Ward): Ensures that Medi-Cal managed care plans reimburse hospitals for care and referrals provided after normal business hours to people experiencing a mental health crisis.
AJR 14 (Continuum of Care Formula): Requests that the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development revisit the formula used to allocate federal homelessness dollars to local Continuum of Care and housing authorities to more equitably support communities with the highest rates of homelessness.
AB 3093 (RHNA Planning): Requires local governments to account for the housing needs of people experiencing homelessness in their housing elements, and for HCD to include vulnerable residents into the Regional Housing Needs Allocation.
COMMUNITY PROTECTIONS
AB 1979 (Doxing Victims Recourse Act): Provides recourse for victims who have been harmed as a result of being doxed by allowing a victim to pursue civil action to receive restitution for the harms endured as a result of being doxed.
AB 3024 (The Stop Hate Littering Act): Protects individuals from the distribution of hateful propaganda in the form of flyers, posters, or symbols with the intent to terrorize vulnerable communities. These forms of hateful propaganda have rapidly become the preferred tactic of hate groups because it maximizes personal impact, while allowing them to remain anonymous and avoid accountability.
EDUCATION
AB 1858 (School Shooter Drills): Standardizes the guidance for how school shooter drills are done at the K-12 education levels. This new guidance will add clarity, require parental notification, forbid simulated gunfire, and require age-appropriate practices.
AB 1884 (Department of Defense Excused Absences): Clarifies the definition of combat related excused absences for K-12 students of active-duty parents in the military. Smaller school districts will no longer struggle with the vague and antiquated definition currently in statute that poses an ADA funding risk to them.
AB 1955 (SAFETY Act): The Support Academic Futures & Educators for Today’s Youth Act (SAFETY Act) strengthens existing California protections against forced outings of LGBTQ+ students in schools, provide critical resources for parents and families of LGBTQ+ students to support them in working towards family acceptance on their own terms, and provide additional protections to educators who face retaliatory actions from administrators and school boards for seeking to create an inclusive and safe school environment.
TRANSPORTATION
AB 1904 (Transit Buses: Yield Right-of-Way Sign): Allows all transit agencies to exercise the authority to affix flashing LED yield right-of-way signs to the left rear of their buses, reducing dwell times and facilitating reentry into traffic, provided the transit agency’s governing board approves a resolution on the matter.
INVESTMENTS
AB 2524 (ScholarShare Rollover Funds): Allows individuals with money in a 529 account to roll over the remaining funds into a Roth-IRA, resulting in higher confidence in long-term accessibility to funds, as well as more trust in investing in 529 accounts, resulting in increased contributions and savings to existing and new accounts.
ACR 177 (529 College Savings Day): Designates May 29, 2024 as 529 College Savings Day to raise awareness about the importance of families investing in the future education of their children with the help of 529 College Savings Plans.
GOVERNMENT
AB 2489 (Equal Qualifications Contracting): Requires local governments mandate hiring qualification parity, such as education, experience, and background checks, when contracting out government jobs to private businesses.
AB 2832 (GO-Biz & CDFA International Procurement): Enables the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) and the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to enter into contracting and procurement agreements for international affairs, making it more efficient to utilize existing Economic Development and Trade Promotion Accounts and specified grant funds for the benefit of supporting California exporters.