Tag: Robert Rivas

AB 125 Passed by Ag Committee

Today AB 125 passed the Assembly Agriculture Committee. The $3 billion agriculture bond is now awaiting hearing by the Committee on Natural Resources.

There seems to be strong support for the bill. Some groups objected to the portions of the bill that deal with meat because, meat. It’s a polarizing issue. And then Assemblyman Adam Gray (D-Merced) withheld his support until such time as more is done to ensure water for agriculture. Another legislator, who nonetheless voted to pass, thanked Gray for bringing up the issue. Rivas, who introduced the bill, said he’d handle it. I’m curious to see how that works out. Water is more polarizing than meat.

AB 125 Amended Upwards

$180 million added to bill

Yesterday AB 125, a multi-billion dollar bond proposal creating an entirely new agriculture-related division in California’s Public Resources Code, was amended in the Assembly’s Agriculture Committee, increasing it by $180 million to a new total of $3,302,000,000.

What next?

Making it out of the Agriculture Committee where it was introduced by committee chair Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) is the first step in a long slog through both the Assembly and the Senate, which, if successful, will culminate in a vote of the California citizenry in the general election of November, 2022.

What’s the new money for?

Thirty million dollars of the new money is earmarked for prescribed grazing (a method of grazing animals that promotes soil health and the sequestration of carbon), $100 million to upgrade food processing plants, and $50 million for fire-related improvements.

AB 125-Introduced

Yesterday, California Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) announced AB 125, a bill proposing a bond measure to support a variety of agriculture-related efforts. The grab-bag title is: The Equitable Economic Recovery, Healthy Food Access, Climate Resilient Farms and Worker Protection Bond Act. Right now the bill says, in its entirety: “It is the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation to issue a bond to support solutions to the climate crisis and recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that would create a more equitable and resilient food and farming system.”

I’m not at all sure of legislative procedures for bonds, but this is what I think is going on:

Right now there’s a place-holder proposing that the legislature will pass a bond — so legislation saying practically nothing except that the legislature is planning to try to raise money for something ag-related. So what’s up with that? My understanding is that a coalition of special interests is working on the wording of the bill spelling out just what they’d like to do with the money if the bond passes. Representatives of some of those interested parties participated in the public announcement of the bill yesterday. You can see it here. So far as I can tell, their intentions align with my interests. Eventually, I suppose, they’ll amend AB 125 to spell out just how the legislature plans to spend a hefty sum of money.

That bill itself doesn’t include funding and only takes a simple majority to pass, but the bond proposal to raise the money to back the bill would require a 2/3 vote of the legislature AND voter approval, so the next step, assuming the process makes it through the legislature, is to put the bond measure on the November ballot in 2022 and give the California voters their say. It’s a 3-step process. The whole shebang could fall apart at any step:

  • Flesh out of how the money will be spent in AB 125 and get the legislature to approve it with a simple majority.
  • Put together a bond proposal to finance 125 and get 2/3s approval from the legislature.
  • Put the bond on the ballot in November 2022 for voter approval.

All that means that if you want to support the bill, whatever it is, then the first step is to work on the legislators who need to get a bond proposal on the ballot, and the next step will be to convince the voters. The second step won’t matter if you don’t succeed on the first step.

And what will AB 125 do? My sense is that food and ag people are trying to pin down stable funding for projects that have been working hand-to-mouth for a while, and as a general principle, that sounds like a very good idea to me. Still, it’s hard to be sure what you think of a bill that’s essentially just a promise that some day a bill will be written. At the very least, it’s ant opportunity to jump in and see how the legislative machine works, and perhaps to witness a sea change in California’s legislative approach to food and agriculture.

Here’s a great post from CalCAN, one of the bill’s supporters: https://calclimateag.org/a-resilient-and-equitable-food-and-farming-system-in-california/