Carrying groceries out in provided plastic bags may soon be a thing of the past in California.
Sacramento Snapshot
Editor’s note: Sacramento Snapshot is a weekly series during the legislative session detailing what Orange County’s representatives in the Assembly and Senate are working on — from committee work to bill passages and more.
Legislators advanced a bill last week that would ban grocery stores from providing film plastic bags to customers, even at a cost. That means the state’s current plastic ban exemption for those thicker plastic sacks would be eliminated.
“California’s original ban on plastic bags hasn’t worked out as planned, and sadly, the state’s plastic bag waste has increased dramatically since it went into effect,” said Sen. Catherine Blakespear, the bill’s author.
According to CalRecycle, 231,072 tons of plastic grocery bags were disposed of by Californians in 2022.
“We need to do better. Shockingly, some 18 billion pounds of plastic waste flows into the oceans every year from coastal regions alone,” said Blakespear, who represents southern Orange County communities. “California must do its part to eliminate this scourge that is contaminating our environment.”
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The legislation, SB 1053, would allow grocery stores to sell reusable bags made of cloth, woven textile or other washable textile (and not from plastic film) that can carry at least 22 pounds for at least 300 uses.
Recycled paper bags could also be sold to customers for at least 10 cents apiece — or at no charge for those using certain benefits like the Special Supplemental Food Program for Women, Infants and Children benefits or CalFresh.
Voters in 2016 already agreed to do away with those thinner, flimsier plastic bags that had been offered at stores. But that measure allowed stores to still offer — supposedly for a small fee — those thicker plastic bags billed as “reusable.”
Stores were supposed to accept those bags back for recycling, but that requirement sunset in 2020, according to Blakespear’s bill. And by the end of last year, CalRecycle deemed those bags to be “not recyclable” anyway.
The bill has the backing of several environmental groups, like the Coastkeeper Alliance and Climate Action California, as well as the California Grocers Association and Kroger.
It awaits further action in the Assembly.
In other news
It was rapid-fire work for legislators last week, given that Friday, May 24 was the deadline to approve bills in their respective houses. That means, for Assembly bills to still be up for consideration this year, they needed to pass the Assembly before Friday; and the same went for Senate bills.
Here’s a quick look at a handful of other bills, not from our OC legislators, that made it across the finish line last week.
• Wildfire settlement payments: This bill from Sen. Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita would make California wildfire payments from 2020 onward tax exempt. It carries a 10-year sunset and was unanimously approved by the Senate.
• Child trafficking: This bipartisan bill creates felony enhancements for someone convicted of knowingly soliciting a minor for sex. A prosecutor can pursue a misdemeanor charge on a first offense, but subsequent offenses would be classified as felonies, according to the bill.
Current law says someone who knowingly solicits a minor for sex can be punished by a maximum of one year in county jail and a $10,000 fine, according to the bill’s summary, although, harsher penalties are generally levied on those who commit offenses with younger children. Current law also considers the ages of the offenders and victims in determining punishments for those who commit lewd acts, statutory rape and other sex crimes.
The bill would also require someone convicted multiple times of solicitation of a minor who is more than 10 years younger at the time of the offense to register as a sex offender. (According to the bill, courts may already require sex offender registration but are not statutorily required to do so.)
Sen. Shannon Grove, R-Bakersfield, attempted to remove the 10-year age gap provision and include felony prison requirements for soliciting a child or buying sex from a minor of any age but was unsuccessful.
Along with Grove, the bill is sponsored by Sens. Anna Caballero, D-Merced, and Susan Rubio, D-Baldwin Park. Orange County Sens. Janet Nguyen, R-Huntington Beach, and Kelly Seyarto, R-Murrieta, are coauthors.
• Office-to-housing conversions: Legislation meant to streamline converting empty office buildings into needed housing cleared the Assembly last week. From Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, the bill establishes a streamlined approval project for such projects and creates financial incentives for reusing those office buildings.
Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, D-Fullerton, is a coauthor.
• Kindergarten requirements: The Assembly OK’d a bill that requires children to complete one year of kindergarten before enrolling in first grade in public schools. The bill, which includes charter schools, would make kindergarten mandatory by the 2026-27 school year.
Chronic absenteeism is highest in kindergarten, according to the bill’s summary, and academic expectations for California first graders have increased in recent years. Students who don’t complete kindergarten first tend to experience academic disadvantages, said Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, D-Torrance, the bill’s sponsor.
A jot from Juneau
Faithful Sacramento Snapshot readers may have noticed a little break in the series last week. That’s because its author traveled a bit further north of Sacramento — some 1,500 miles north — to Juneau, Alaska.
The trip was really a vacation with family to Vancouver and Alaska, a cruise to see the immense glaciers, but when I learned we’d be making a pitstop in Juneau for some whale-watching, I had to sneak in a quick walk up a hill in the freezing rain to see the Alaska State Capitol Building. In case it hasn’t been clear reading this series, I love covering state legislatures and find the work that happens in a statehouse — and even the vast differences in how states go about governing — incredibly fascinating.
And so, I have a “bucket list” goal of seeing every single statehouse in the U.S.
Juneau last week marked No. 27 since I embarked on this goal a few years ago.
My visit to the Alaska State Capitol (did I mention it was raining and cold, only 40-something degrees) coincided with legislators’ final week of session for the year.
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The building itself is almost nondescript, a rectangular brown brick building, standing six stories high with no giant dome. Four columns hold up the front of building, made from marble from near Ketchikan (a city on the Inside Passage of Alaska), and a statue of former U.S. Secretary of State William Seward, who was instrumental in the U.S. obtaining Alaska, stands sentry across the street.
And even though we were far away from California, there’s a piece of Orange County in the Alaska statehouse: We met Heath Hilyard, the chief of staff to House Speaker Cathy Tilton and a Cal State Fullerton alumnus.
On Monday, at midday, legislators convened in caucus meetings. The legislative session ended just a few days after my visit, on Thursday, May 16, and last-minute work was still to be done on bills related to energy and education, according to the Associated Press.
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