In the commotion of racing through thousands of bills on a tightened schedule this year, some measures were quietly sidelined without a committee hearing.
One of these was a bill pitching a ban on seeds treated with the neonicotinoid class of pesticides. It attempted to continue the momentum created by environmental groups last year in a petition to the Department of Pesticide Regulation on restricting the seeds, which the department later rejected.
Sen. Ben Allen of Santa Monica (above) parked a recycling bill on the Senate floor. Senate Bill 54, which did pass the first committee, would have required all single-use plastic packaging be compostable or recyclable and would have banned sales for all other types of plastic by 2023. The bill revived a similar two-year effort with more ambitious goals, which failed on the last day of session in 2020.
The governor's revised budget proposal has $130 million to support the infrastructure needed for such recycling goals, which the administration is currently negotiating with the Legislature.
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