More than 2,000 bills have been in play this year, with about 200 intersecting in various ways with agriculture. Yet only a handful remain in the industry’s crosshairs as lawmakers return to the Capitol this week to wrap up their business for the year.
Industry groups have marked victories with several measures taking amendments to remove contentious provisions or to narrow the scope. More could fall by the wayside next week during a critical juncture for fiscal bills, when appropriations committees cast decisive votes on more than a thousand measures, each marked as costing the state at least $50,000 to implement.
A few key measures remain under the microscope with farm lobbyists, who are racing to meet with lawmakers and their staff this week to curry favor ahead of the final votes. And, as always, last-minute trailer bills and sudden gut-and-amend maneuvers could catapult aggressive new proposals into the playing field.
Labor not only remains a top concern with farmers throughout California but with their representatives in Sacramento as well. Senate Bill 399, a carryover measure from last year, seeks to protect workers from intimidation by management.
The California Labor Federation and California Teamsters Public Affairs Council are sponsoring the bill. The labor organizations, alongside a coalition of economic justice groups, argue employers have “tremendous power” to pressure workers into attending mandatory meetings. SB 399 would enable employees to decline mandatory meetings in which the employer expresses personal views on religious or political matters, such as their viewpoints on unions. The bill’s author, Senator Aisha Wahab, D-Silicon Valley, argues workers currently face discipline and other adverse actions if they opt out of attending such “captive audience meetings.”
Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Silicon ValleyThat reasoning has brought several labor-friendly lawmakers on board with the proposal.
“California has long prided itself as a sanctuary for workers, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion or political leaning,” said Sen. María Elena Durazo, D-Los Angeles, who advocated for SB 399 during a committee hearing last year. “It is important that workers are free to go to work without feeling coerced into listening to the political or religious views of their employer against their will.”
Business groups have raised alarms over violating free speech rights with SB 399 and for creating a chilling effect on workplace communications. The California Chamber of Commerce, leading a broad business coalition in opposition, flagged the bill in its 2023 Job Killer List. The Agricultural Council of California, California Farm Bureau and Western Growers Association have joined the effort.
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Courtney Jensen, lobbying on behalf of the coalition, called the bill overly broad, extending beyond activities already illegal under state law to encompass activities “as simple as a political sign in a restaurant window, hosting a legislator at a manufacturing facility, sending out a company newsletter expressing support for equal pay legislation, hosting a regulator at a farm to discuss pending pesticide regulation.” She worried the bill would lead to frivolous lawsuits.
The chilling effect, she explained, may bar companies from discussing pending legislation that stands to impact the business or the job security of workers.
“This is something workers would want to know about,” said Jensen.
In an interview with Agri-Pulse, Matthew Allen, vice president of state government affairs at Western Growers, shared the industry's concerns over the bill and highlighted another labor issue central to agriculture.
A labor bill more specific to the industry is SB 1299. As the bill’s sponsors, United Farm Workers wants to make it easier for farmworkers to claim worker’s compensation for heat-related injuries. Under the proposal, the state would presume that a worker’s comp claim is true if the employer is unable to show it complied with the rules. Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose, hopes his measure would incentivize compliance with the state’s heat illness and injury prevention regulation.
The legal tool, known as a rebuttable presumption, played a key role during the pandemic, when labor interests convinced Cal/OSHA’s governing board to make employers responsible by default for infections discovered on the worksite.
Leading the opposition coalition, CalChamber is calling SB 1299 unnecessary, since the “vast majority” of claims are approved and often quickly. Policy advocate Ashley Hoffman also pointed out that previous bills proposing such presumptions have failed in the absence of clear and convincing evidence showing they are necessary.
Also in opposition, insurance companies argue workers at dairy farms, for example, could claim an injury that happened at home up to a month earlier.
Beyond the labor battles, debates over pesticides have punctuated the legislative session with lengthy, technical discussions on the scientific review process and have kept lobbyists on their toes. At the tip of the spear for industry opposition has been Taylor Roschen, a lobbyist for the firm Kahn, Soares & Conway, and the lawmaker frequently courting such opposition is Assemblymember Laura Friedman, D-Glendale.
The Southern California progressive is pushing to add more rodenticides to the state’s current ban list and to create buffer zones near wildlife areas. Roschen has countered that the measure, Assembly Bill 2552, would usurp the regulatory process governing pesticides.
Friedman has also sought to ban applications of paraquat to protect farmworkers and neighboring communities. Roschen has defended the herbicide, citing decades of use and more than a thousand scientific studies justifying its safety.
AB 1963 took late amendments ahead of the summer recess, but its trajectory remains uncertain. The Senate Agriculture Committee recommended the next committee, appropriations, consider reincorporating a contentious enforcement mechanism central to Friedman’s effort.
“The concern here goes beyond just individual active ingredients and products,” Allen told Agri-Pulse in describing such pesticide bills that circumvent the regulatory process. “We don't want a situation where we're disincentivizing new products to be registered in our state.”
He asserted that the “process works” and that the industry must have “a stable, trustworthy system” if it is to invest in bringing alternative products with lower risks to the market.
Long-term reliability has also been a major agricultural concern when it comes to water policy. Lawmakers this year continued a trend of advocating for aggressive reforms to the state’s water rights system and to the laws governing groundwater pumping. Yet none of the measures have survived—without taking significant amendments—into the last lap of the session. Instead farm groups are watching two bills that could benefit farmers.
SB 366 by Sen. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, aims to boost the overall supply to nine million acre-feet by 2040 through a variety of approaches, ranging from above-ground storage to groundwater banking, conservation and recycling. Meanwhile, AB 2060 by Asm. Esmeralda Soria, D-Fresno, would exempt flood flows from certain environmental permits when applied to groundwater recharge.
Another measure offering potential advantages to agriculture and rural communities is SB 945 by Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil, D-Jackson, which would track data on the health impacts of wildfire smoke and is sponsored by the California Farm Bureau.
“By recognizing [those impacts], we're hoping to help justify the need for continued forest management and managing the fuels in areas where wildfires have been so prevalent,” explained Farm Bureau President Shannon Douglass, in an interview with Agri-Pulse.
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