Busy Week Ahead Before Legislative Summer Break

In the final week before their summer break, legislators are scheduled to consider many priority bills for the California Chamber of Commerce that could have positive or negative impacts on the affordability of doing business in the state.

CalChamber-supported bills on the hearing schedule include a Cost Cutter to streamline the permit process for tenant improvements and another to help improve energy policy decisions.

CalChamber-opposed bills slated to be considered include a number of Cost Drivers with huge implications for the California economy, including a proposal to rewrite the state's antitrust law.

Below are brief summaries of some of the bills to be considered.

Oppose

• AB 1776 (Aguiar-Curry; D-Winters) Massive Expansion of Antitrust Law. Would create the largest expansion of antitrust law in world history. Would leave every business of every size in California vulnerable to massive legal liability. Cost Driver. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 2564 (Ward; D-San Diego) Litigation Risks for Offering Discounts. Exposes companies who offer discounts to potential liability for offering basic, consumer-friendly discounts if they fail to fit into the bill's three, limited, allowable forms of discounts. Also infringes on the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) by creating new disclosure obligations that businesses must comply with in order to use personally identifiable information to offer discounts, despite the CCPA already having such standards for rewards programs. Cost Driver. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 2575 (Ortega; D-San Leandro) Discourages Artificial Intelligence in Health Care. Requires health care facilities to provide workers disclosures when using AI tools in a health care setting, if requested. Imposes unworkable liability provisions on health care entities and developers if using AI-enabled tools. Cost Driver. June 29 hearing in Senate Privacy, Digital Technologies, and Consumer Protection Committee.

• SB 951 (Reyes; D-San Bernardino) Discourages Innovation Through Broad AI Layoff Mandates. Significantly expands Cal/WARN type requirements to include impacts on hiring or staffing as a result of technology and includes problematic enforcement provisions that allow uninterested, third parties to file claims. Cost Driver. July 1 hearing in Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee.

• AB 1979 (Bonta; D-Alameda) Artificial Intelligence in Health Care. Imposes overly broad, disruptive oversight requirements on health facilities using AI tools. Prevents unlicensed individuals from using AI tools. Includes unworkable liability provisions. Cost Driver. Oppose Unless Amended. July 1 hearing in Senate Health Committee.

• AB 1930 (Zbur; D-Hollywood) New Federal Subpoena Response Requirements for Healthcare Information. Requires state businesses to, if receiving a federal subpoena for healthcare-related information, refuse to comply with federal subpoenas unless the subpoena meets certain requirements, and the responding business delays its response and provides notice to the attorney general. Notably, the bill does not shield businesses from potentially violating federal law by complying with its requirements. June 30 hearing in Senate Public Safety Committee.

• SB 1365 (Allen; D-Santa Monica) Grant New Enforcement Authority to City Attorneys for Antitrust Laws. Gives the city attorneys of large cities the ability to bring lawsuits against businesses using the Cartwright Act, despite the attorney general and district attorneys already being able to pursue such cases and no clear lack of enforcement necessitating city attorneys being given such authority. Also substantively changes price gouging laws related to housing. June 30 hearing in Assembly Public Safety Committee.

• AB 1577 (Bauer-Kahan; D-Orinda) Data Centers: Reporting. Establishes a high-frequency, highly intrusive reporting regime that imposes significant compliance burdens, exposes sensitive operational information, and creates real security risks without a clear demonstration of commensurate policy benefit. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 1854 (Krell; D-Sacramento) New Federal Subpoena Response Requirements for Healthcare Information. Requires state businesses to, if receiving a federal subpoena for healthcare-related information, refuse to comply with federal subpoenas unless the subpoena meets certain requirements, and the responding business delays its response and provides notice to the attorney general. Notably, the bill does not shield businesses from potentially violating federal law by complying with its requirements. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 1881 (Ramos; D-Highland) Tribal Veto Over California Government Actions. Would give California tribes effective veto power over water infrastructure projects and a broad range of government actions by imposing an unworkable consent requirement and strict scrutiny standard. Oppose Unless Amended. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 1929 (Ortega; D-San Leandro) Health Plan Disclosure Requirement. Requires carriers participating in the American Health Benefits Exchange to annually disclose material investment holdings for public posting. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 2244 (Gabriel; D-Woodland Hills) New Liability for Grocers. Creates a state-sanctioned labeling program allowing food producers to certify products as "not ultraprocessed." It then mandates that grocers surrender valuable shelf space to at least three certified products without compensation, risking retailer financial viability, and exposes them to new private litigation liability. Oppose Unless Amended. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 2465 (Ortega; D-San Leandro) Punishment for Contracting with Federal Government. Makes any business that contracts with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or Customs and Border Patrol ineligible for any state-provided benefit, subsidy, grant, or loan, or any tax credit, even if the contract was not directly associated with immigration detention or was helpful to the detainees. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 2721 (Carrillo; D-Palmdale) Overbroad Notice of Federal Hotel Guests. Requires hotels to publicly post the presence of any federal agency reservations on their premises, regardless of the agency involved or purpose of the visitation. Risks inviting protests and walk-outs, making employees less safe and operations difficult. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 1812 (Aguiar-Curry; D-Winters) Compostable Packaging. Prohibits all forms of bioplastic packaging from being labeled "compostable" in California and effectively closes off all pathways for any forms of compostable packaging or food service ware in California despite state and local mandates requiring the use of compostable products. Oppose Unless Amended. July 1 hearing in Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

• AB 2253 (Boerner; D-Encinitas) Prohibits Mass Balance Claims. Prohibits any company from making an environmental marketing claim if using internationally recognized mass balance accounting methodologies. In doing so, the law jeopardizes circular economies for textiles, glass, paper, aluminum and plastics, to name a few. July 1 hearing in Senate Environmental Quality Committee.

• AB 2469 (Papan; D-San Mateo) Unprecedented Water Mandates on Data Centers. Singles out data centers for permitting prohibitions and an unconstitutional infrastructure cost mandate that apply to no other commercial, industrial and institutional sector, discouraging investment in the digital infrastructure California's economy depends on without meaningfully improving water supply management. July 1 hearing in Senate Local Government Committee.

• SB 354 (Limón; D-Santa Barbara) Duplicative Privacy Regulation for Insurance Industry. Creates duplicative privacy regulations applicable to the insurance industry, when the landmark California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) applies to the industry and already regulates the topic. Oppose Unless Amended. July 1 hearing in Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee.

Support

• AB 1693 (Zbur; D-Hollywood) Accelerated Building Plan Approval. Tenant Improvements. Streamlines permitting for tenant improvements at retail locations, while ensuring compliance with all applicable building, health, and safety requirements. Cost Cutter. June 30 hearing in Senate Judiciary Committee.

• AB 2124 (Pacheco; D-Downey) Improves How the Legislature Evaluates the Cost of Energy Policy Decisions through Independent Ratepayer Impact Review. Supports more cost-effective policymaking by creating a framework for independent evaluation of proposed legislation that imposes costs on utility customers, helping identify unnecessary or duplicative programs and reducing future rate pressure. Cost Cutter. June 30 hearing in Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee.

• SB 1153 (Caballero; D-Merced) Water System Wildfire Preparedness. Starting January 1, 2028, requires urban retail water suppliers serving a high or very high fire hazard severity zone to include incident-specific response procedures for wildfires as part of their disaster preparedness plans and specifies liability limitations of public water systems when responding to wildfires. June 30 hearing in Assembly Environmental Safety and Toxic Materials Committee.

• AB 1622 (Rubio; D-Baldwin Park) Electrified Security Fences. Removes the January 1, 2028 sunset date on a 2024 law governing the installation of electrified security fences, giving local governments certainty in ensuring that businesses in their communities can provide security to employees and assets. July 1 hearing in Senate Local Government Committee.

• AB 1923 (Soria; D-Merced) Expands Distressed Hospital Loan Program. Expands the Hospital Emergency Loan Program that administers loans to prevent the closure of a hospital or facilitate the reopening of a closed hospital. July 1 hearing in Senate Health Committee.

• AB 2215 (Calderon; D-Whittier) State Water Project Water Rights Time Extension. This bill extends the deadline for the State Water Project to fully develop its water rights permits to 2046, giving the Department of Water Resources the operational flexibility it needs to modernize infrastructure and adapt to climate change - ensuring a reliable, affordable water supply for 27 million Californians and hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland for decades to come. July 1 hearing in Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee.

• AB 2353 (Pacheco; D-Downey) Establishes Hospital Mandate Cost Analysis Program. Establishes the Center for Health Provider Policy Impact to assess and evaluate the impact of state and federal policies on hospitals. July 1 hearing in Senate Health Committee.