2015 CA Senate Bills

Updated October 5, 2015

SB 203 (Monning): Warning Label on Sugary Drinks
Creates the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Safety Warning Act that requires those that distribute, sell or offer sugary-sweetened beverages to display the warning label or will be fined by the California Department of Public Health, with revenues going to a health promotion fund.
Sponsor: California Center for Public Health Advocacy, Health Officers Association of California
Status: No longer advancing. Voted down in Senate Health Committee, April 22.

 

SB 334 (Leyva): Water in Schools
Status: Passed Senate and Assembly. On Governor Brown's desk as of September 10.

 

SB 564 (Cannella): Additional Fee for Moving Violations in School Zones
Assesses an additional $35 fee to any moving violations by vehicles in a school zone.
Status: Passed Senate. Awaiting hearing in Assembly Transportation. 

 

SB 632 (Cannella): Allowing Jurisdictions to Expand the Size of School Zones
Allows jurisdictions to expand the size of school zones to up to a quarter mile around school grounds.
Status: No longer advancing this year. Transitioned to two-year bill.

 

2015 CA Assembly Bills

Updated October 5, 2015

AB 292 (Santiago): Adequate Time to Eat School Lunch
Ensures that CA students have adequate time to eat lunch. Specifically, the 20 minutes of recommended time after being served. Many students miss out on the benefits of school lunch due to time pressures, such as long lines and wait times, insufficient points of service and scheduling constraints. When students don't have enough time to eat lunch, they miss out on the full benefits of nutritious school meals.
Sponsor: California Food Policy Advocates
Status: Held in Assembly Appropriations Suspense file.

 

AB 1240 (Bonta & Thurmond): Breakfast after the Bell School Breakfast
Improves students' academic achievement, attendance, and mental and physical health by ensuring that more children in California, particularly those attending high-need schools, have access to school breakfast. The "guarantee" for breakfast increases based on need at each individual school site.
Sponsor: California Food Policy Advocates
Status: Held in Assembly Appropriations Suspense file.

 

AB 1321 (Ting): Nutrition Incentive Matching Grant Program
Creates a statewide grant program that would double the value of nutrition assistance benefits at farmers markets and small business retailers when used to buy California-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables.
Sponsor: Roots of Change
Status: Signed into law by Governor Brown!

 

AB 1357 (Bloom): Children and Family Health Promotion Program
Requires the Children and Family Health Promotion Program to consist of a competitive grant process in which grants are awarded by the department to counties, cities, nonprofit organizations, community-based organizations, and licensed clinics that seek to invest in childhood obesity and diabetes prevention activities and oral health programs
Sponsor: Roots of Change
Status: Did not pass out of Assembly Health Committee.

 

2014 CA Assembly Bills

Updated September 15, 2014.
 
Bans the non-therapeutic use of medically important antimicrobials in the production of meat and poultry sold in California and requiring use reporting, this bill will help protect the effectiveness of these critical antibiotics for human medicine and help reduce the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria in California.
Sponsor:Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Working Group
Status: Re-referred to Assembly Committee on Agriculture, hearing cancelled at request of author.
 

 

Requires counties with significant farmland resources to inventory their agricultural lands and outline goals and policies to retain farmland.
Sponsors: California Climate and Agriculture Network, Community Alliance with Family Farmers, American Farmland Trust
Status: Held on Assembly Appropriations Suspense File.
 

 

Amends the State Meal Mandate to ensure that students are given adequate time to eat their lunches.
Sponsor: California Food Policy Advocates
Status: Held on Senate Appropriations Suspense File.
 
 

2014 CA Senate Bills

Updated September 15, 2014
 
Ensures current nutritional standards for foods and beverages sold in vending machines in state buildings remain in place by removing the “sunset” date on the nutritional guidelines in the current law.
Sponsors: California Center for Public Health Advocacy, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, American Heart Association
Status: Signed into law by Governor Brown.
Status: Passed Senate Governmental Organization Committee
 
 
Provides consumers with information on health problems associated with the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.
Sponsors: California Center for Public Health Advocacy, California Medical Association, California Black Health Network, Latino Coalition for a Healthy California
Status: Passed Senate. Held in Assembly Health Committee.
 

 

SB 1002 (De Leon): Medi-Cal & CalFresh: Aligning Opportunities for Health Act of 2014

Strengthens alignments between Medi-Cal and CalFresh reporting periods, streamlines benefit delivery and ensures access to federally-funded nutrition and health benefits for low-income Californians.
Sponsors: California Food Policy Advocates, Western Center on Law and Poverty
Status: Vetoed by Governor Brown.
 

 

Directs state regulators to develop a pollution reduction timetable for both greenhouse gas emissions and short-lived climate pollutants through an open and public process that takes into account the health and safety risks of climate change, California’s economic competitiveness and innovation potential, and the need to improve air quality in disadvantaged communities.
Sponsors: Physicians for Social Responsibility
Status: Passed Senate Environmental Quality Committee. Held on Senate Appropriations Suspense file.
 
 
Establishes statewide performance goals and customer service standards for CalFresh in order to boost participation in CalFresh.
Sponsor: California Food Policy Advocates and SF-Marin Food Bank
Status: Held on Senate Appropriations Suspense file.
 
 
Increases fines for specified traffic violations if violations occurred when passing a school building or grounds. The bill would require that these additional fines be deposited in the State Transportation Fund for purposes of the Active Transportation Program.
Status: Vetoed by Governor Brown.
 
 

2013 CA Assembly Bills

 
Improves alignment between CalFresh and Medi-Cal enrollment in order to ensure that low-income households with a Medi-Cal recipient also receive CalFresh nutrition benefits.Read the full text of the bill here.
Status: On Governor Brown's desk - for more information on advocacy opportunities, visit CFPA.

 

 
Increases the required hours of preventive health practices training for providers to include one hour on childhood nutrition. Read the full text of the bill here.
Sponsor: California Food Policy Advocates
Status: On Governor Brown's desk - for more information on advocacy opportunities, visit CFPA.
 
 
AB 361 Health Homes for Medi-Cal Enrollees
Enables state to take advantage of federal health reform funds to create health homes to serve chronically homeless population. Also funds
Sponsor: Western Center on Law and Poverty
Status: Passed Assembly. Passed Senate. Assembly is reviewing Senate amendments.

 

 
Requires that food and beverages meet accepted nutritional guidelines if sold in a state-owned or state-leased building, or in a vending machine on state property. Read the full text of the bill here.
Sponsors: California Center for Public Health Advocacy, the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, and the American Heart Association
Status: Held on Assembly Suspense file. 
 
 
Establishes a permanent Safe Routes to Schools Program within CalTrans. Read the full text of the bill here.
Sponsor: Safe Routes to School Partnership
Status: On hold.
 

 

2013 CA Senate Bills

SB 1 (Steinberg) Sustainable Communities Investment Authority
Authorizes cities and counties to form a Sustainable Communities Investment Authority to adopt a Sustainable Communities Investment Plan for a Sustainable Communities Investment Area. This bill would also authorize the Authority to utilize tax increment financing for the Sustainable Communities Investment Area, as long as certain economic development and planning requirements are met. Read the full text of the bill here. 
Sponsor: LAANE 
Status: Due to amendments introduced in the Assembly, the bill is going back to the Senate, where its sponsor, Senator Steinberg, plans to hold the bill for the remainder of the legislative session. Advocacy will resume in January 2014.

 

 

 

SB 189 (Monning) Health Care Coverage: Wellness Programs

Prohibits wellness programs that tie health outcomes to premiums and other cost-sharing mechanisms. Read the full text of the bill here.
Sponsor: Author
Status: No longer moving this legislative session.

 

SB 402 (DeLeon and Pavley) Baby-Friendly Hospitals

Requires California perinatal hospitals to be Baby Friendly by 2020 or adopt an equivalent process, recognized by the California Department of Public Health. The full text of the bill can be found here.

Sponsor: California WIC Association
Status:  On Governor Brown's desk. Send letters of support to Governor Brown urging him to sign SB 402 into law by September 19!

 

SB 622 Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax
Imposes a penny-per-ounce tax on sugary drink distributors, with all revenues going to the Children’s Health Promotion Fund to be spent on childhood obesity prevention activities.  The California Center for Public Health Advocacy is sponsoring this bill. Read the full text of the bill here.
Sponsor: California Center for Public Health Advocacy
Status: No longer moving this legislative session.

 

 

2012 CA Assembly Bills

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2012 CA Senate Bills

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2011 CA Senate Bills

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2011 CA Assembly Bills

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