issued an executive order<\/a>\u00a0to improve the health of the state\u2019s forests and help mitigate the threat and impacts of deadly and destructive wildfires, which hinder the state\u2019s progress toward its climate goals. Forests serve as the state\u2019s largest land-based carbon sink, drawing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in trees and shrubs and in forest soils. But even a single wildfire can immediately cancel all those benefits.<\/p>\nIn addition to SB 901, the Governor also signed the following bills today:<\/p>\n
SB 30<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Ricardo Lara<\/b>\u00a0(D-Bell Gardens) requires the Insurance Commissioner to convene a working group to assess new and innovative investments in natural infrastructure and insurance products in light of California\u2019s worsening fire vulnerability due to climate change.<\/p>\n
SB 821<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson\u00a0<\/b>(D-Santa Barbara) authorizes counties to enter into an agreement to access the contact information of public utility customers for the sole purpose of enrolling county residents in a county-operated public emergency warning system.<\/p>\n
SB 824<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Ricardo Lara<\/b>\u00a0(D-Bell Gardens) prohibits an insurer from canceling or refusing to renew a homeowner\u2019s insurance policy for one year from the date of a declaration of emergency and requires insurers to report specified fire risk information to the Department of Insurance.<\/p>\n
SB 833<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Mike McGuire<\/b>\u00a0(D-Healdsburg) requires the Office of Emergency Services, in consultation with specified stakeholders, to develop voluntary guidelines for alerting and warning the public of an emergency.<\/p>\n
SB 894<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Bill Dodd<\/b>\u00a0(D-Napa) provides assistance to survivors of major disasters or catastrophic events, including requiring insurers to renew a residential insurance policy for at least two renewal periods (24 months), requiring insurers to grant an additional 12 months of additional living expenses and allowing combined payments for losses to a primary dwelling and other structures so homeowners can apply those losses as they see fit, such as rebuilding the main home.<\/p>\n
SB 896<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Mike McGuire<\/b>\u00a0(D-Healdsburg) extends the sunset date on the state\u2019s aggravated arson statute to help ensure law enforcement agencies maintain a valuable deterrent to prevent arson-caused wildfires.<\/p>\n
SB 917<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson\u00a0<\/b>(D-Santa Barbara) requires insurers to cover a loss resulting from a combination of disasters (landslide, mudslide, mudflow or debris flow) if an insured disaster is the proximate cause of the loss or damage and would otherwise be covered.<\/p>\n
SB 969<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Bill Dodd<\/b>\u00a0(D-Napa) requires residential automatic garage door openers manufactured for sale, sold, or installed in California to have a backup battery that is designed to operate during an electrical outage and prohibits replacement garage doors from being installed without backup batteries.<\/p>\n
SB 1079<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Bill Monning<\/b>\u00a0(D-Carmel) authorizes the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to make advance payments to grantees receiving funds from the healthy forest and local fire prevention grant programs.<\/p>\n
SB 1181<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Ben Hueso<\/b>\u00a0(D-San Diego) authorizes the Office of Emergency Services to enter into an agreement with one or more certified community conservation corps to perform emergency or disaster response services.<\/p>\n
SB 1260<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson\u00a0<\/b>(D-Santa Barbara) authorizes federal, state and local agencies to engage in collaborative forestry management, creates new opportunities for private landowners to partner with public agencies to mitigate wildfire risk and enhances the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection\u2019s role in identifying wildfire hazards as local governments plan for new housing and neighborhoods.<\/p>\n
SB 1261<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Senator Jim Nielsen<\/b>\u00a0(R-Gerber) ensures that one-time death benefits are provided to eligible survivors of pilots fighting an active California fire even if they fly their own aircraft or one owned by an entity other than the state.<\/p>\n
AB 1772<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember\u00a0<\/b>Cecilia Aguiar-Curry\u00a0<\/b>(D-Winters) extends from 24 months to 36 months the period of time within which an insurance policyholder is entitled to collect full replacement benefits under a replacement cost fire insurance policy.<\/p>\n
AB 1800<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Marc Levine<\/b>\u00a0(D-Marin County) prohibits, in the event of a total loss, a residential property insurance policy from limiting or denying payment based on the fact that the policyholder has chosen to rebuild or purchase a home at a new location.<\/p>\n
AB 1875<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Jim Wood<\/b>\u00a0(D-Healdsburg) connects consumers who need residential property insurance with agents and brokers to help ensure they obtain plans and coverage that suit their specific needs.<\/p>\n
AB 1877<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Monique Lim\u00f3n\u00a0<\/b>(D-Goleta) requires the Office of Emergency Services to create a library of translated emergency notifications and translation style guide and requires authorities to consider using the library and translation style guide when issuing emergency notifications to the public.<\/p>\n
AB 1919<\/strong>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Jim Wood<\/strong>\u00a0(D-Healdsburg) expands the scope of criminal price gouging by including rental housing that was not on the market at the time of the proclamation or declaration of emergency and defines the rental price of housing for purposes of price gouging.<\/p>\nAB 1956<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Monique Lim\u00f3n\u00a0<\/b>(D-Goleta) establishes a grant program to support fire prevention activities, including vegetation management, grazing, prescribed burns, creation of defensible space and retrofitting structures to increase fire resistance.<\/p>\n
AB 1981\u00a0<\/b>by\u00a0Assemblymember Monique Lim\u00f3n\u00a0<\/b>(D-Goleta) requires the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Forest Management Task Force to coordinate with the California Environmental Protection Agency to promote the use of forestry material in compost.<\/p>\n
AB 2091\u00a0<\/b>by\u00a0Assemblymember Tim Grayson\u00a0<\/b>(D-Concord) requires the Forest Management Task Force, in coordination with the California Department of Insurance, to develop recommendations to reduce the cost of conducting prescribed burns.<\/p>\n
AB 2126\u00a0<\/b>by\u00a0Assemblymember Susan Eggman\u00a0<\/b>(D-Stockton) requires the California Conservation Corps director to establish a Forestry Corps Program by July 1, 2019. The program would provide corps members with job training and placement in forest health projects.<\/p>\n
AB 2380<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry\u00a0<\/b>(D-Winters) requires the state to develop standards and regulations for privately contracted fire prevention operations that are conducted during an active fire incident.<\/p>\n
AB 2518\u00a0<\/b>by\u00a0Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry\u00a0<\/b>(D-Winters) requires the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to explore markets for innovative forest products and mass timber consistent with the state\u2019s climate objectives.<\/p>\n
AB 2551\u00a0<\/b>by\u00a0Assemblymember Jim Wood<\/b>\u00a0(D-Healdsburg) allows the director of the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to enter into agreements with landowners to conduct joint prescribed burning operations.<\/p>\n
AB 2594<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Laura Friedman<\/b>\u00a0(D-Glendale) extends the existing statute of limitations for a homeowner to sue an insurer from 12 to 24 months if the loss is related to a state of emergency.<\/p>\n
AB 2889<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Anna Caballero\u00a0<\/b>(D-Salinas) requires the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to provide assistance and develop guidance documents to reduce timelines for timber harvest plan review and approval.<\/p>\n
AB 2911\u00a0<\/b>by\u00a0Assemblymember Laura Friedman<\/b>\u00a0(D-Glendale) makes various changes to fire safety planning efforts, defensible space requirements and vegetation clearance requirements for electrical transmission and distribution lines to improve the fire safety of California communities.<\/p>\n
AB 2990<\/b>\u00a0by\u00a0Assemblymember Evan Low<\/b>\u00a0(D-Campbell) provides surviving dependents of a deceased firefighter or law enforcement officer free tuition and fees within the California Community College, State University and University of California systems.<\/p>\n
For full text of the bills, visit:\u00a0http:\/\/leginfo.legislature.ca.gov<\/a><\/p>\n###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sacramento, CA…Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today signed legislation to strengthen California\u2019s ability to prevent and recover from catastrophic wildfires, including Senate Bill 901 \u2013 authored by Senator Bill Dodd (D-Napa) \u2013 which boosts the state\u2019s forest management activities, updates requirements for the maintenance and operation of utility infrastructure to reflect changing climate conditions, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,5,1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-government","category-news","category-traffic-fire","last_archivepost"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/IMG_2247-400x250.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67200"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67200\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.thepinetree.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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