Both the Senate and Assembly Appropriations Committees took up their suspense files yesterday. The
Assembly released SB 453 (Chuck Poochigian, R-Fresno), the bill to extend the Rural Crime
Prevention Program. The Senate released AB 826 (Pedro Nava, D-Santa Barbara), the Farm to School
bill, which works to improve opportunities for farmers to sell their products in schools and AB 1061
(Committee on Agriculture), which would streamline the process for farmers with claims less than
$30,000 under the Department of Food and Agriculture’s Market Enforcement Branch. Farm Bureau
supports all of these bills, which now move to the Senate and Assembly floors.
The Senate Rules Committee will consider the Governor's appointment of Cindy Tuck as chair of the
state Air Resources Board on Wednesday, August 31. Ms. Tuck's past experience in reaching
compromise among diverse groups, on complex issues, will be vital in setting the standards for air
quality while at the same time keeping businesses and jobs in California.
ACTION ALERT
Please contact your state Senators, on the CFBF ACTION ALERT website. Let them know you
support this appointment and ask them to speak to their colleagues on the Rules Committee.
Legislation to increase the State Minimum Wage has moved a step closer to reaching the Governor with
its passage out of the Senate Appropriations Committee to the Senate Floor. The measure, AB 48 (Sally
Lieber, D-Mountain View), would increase the state minimum wage from the current $6.75 per hour to
$7.25 on July 1, 2006 and to $7.75 on January 1, 2007. Thereafter, it would be automatically increased
each year based on California's rate of inflation.
ACTION ALERT
Farm Bureau members are urged to immediately write their state Senators asking for a "NO"
vote when AB 48 comes before them. Please refer to the CFBF ACTION ALERT website for a
sample letter.
Important legislation that will greatly streamline and improve the efficiency of getting the newest, safest
crop protection tools into the hands of California growers as quickly and as cost competitively as
possible, will be heard for the second time in the Senate Agriculture Committee on Tuesday, August 30.
AB 1011 (Matthews, R-Tracy) has been the focus of intense negotiations by companies who
manufacture branded and generic versions of pesticides and contains the same subject matter as in two
earlier bills, AB 1730 (La Malfa, R-Richvale and Matthews, D-Tracy) and AB 1059 (Matthews, D-
Tracy).
Under current Federal law, when a pesticide manufacturer receives approval for a new pesticide from
the US EPA, that manufacturer is given a 10-year period of protection from any other manufacturer
citing the data used in their approval in a subsequent application. Essentially, this is recognized as a 10-
year exclusive use period for the original manufacturer in the marketplace.
After that 10-year period, for an additional 5 years, if another manufacturer wishes to cite the original
manufacturer’s data in an application for pesticide approval, the second manufacturer (generic

manufacturer) must agree to compensate the original manufacturer for the use of that data. After these
two periods (a total of 15 years) any manufacturer may cite the original manufacturer’s data for EPA
approval of a pesticide with no further obligation, EXCEPT IN CALIFORNIA.
Under California law, even after the 15-year period has expired, before a subsequent manufacturer is
allowed to cite data previously filed by the original manufacturer of a pesticide, the subsequent
manufacturer must obtain the “authorization” to use that data from the original manufacturer
(commonly referred to as a “Letter of Authorization”).
The existence of this additional requirement in California has resulted in the original manufacturer of a
pesticide being able to effectively bar competitors from manufacturing “generic” versions of pesticides
for use in California. As a result, California farmers pay higher prices for pesticides than farmers in the
other 49 states and may have limited access to important newer and “environmentally softer” pesticides.
AB 1011 will enable a new system that will insure a fair and open marketplace where the growers in
California will have the variety of new plant protection tools that the other 49 states are able to use.
This balanced approach streamlines the DPR registration process and insures that manufacturers who
have invested resources in this state to maintain California only data requirements will receive a share
of costs for producing that data.
Eliminating this additional authorization step will save DPR staff time and resources without affecting
its core mission of protecting public health and the environment. It will also accelerate DPR’s decision-
making process on registration requests. This streamlining effort is very important to the production
agriculture community.
ACTION ALERT
Please contact the members of the Senate Agriculture Committee on the CFBF ACTION ALERT
website before Tuesday, August 30th.
SB 109 (Deborah Ortiz D-Sacramento) moved out of Assembly Appropriations committee this week
and will now be heard on the Assembly Floor. Under existing law, the recovery of a civil penalty for an
air quality violation prevents criminal prosecution for the same offense. SB 109 would repeal that
provision and would allow both civil action and criminal prosecution for the same offense. It would
allow a farmer who is filling out an air permit application for the first time to be criminally prosecuted
for incorrect information even if they’ve already resolved the matter civilly. It would not mean that they
were intentionally deceptive; they could have simply been incorrect. In many cases the agricultural
industry will be filling out air quality permits for first time due to the passage of SB 700 (2004). A
standard that could allow a subsequent criminal prosecution of a farmer for supplying information they
thought was correct, but were mistaken, is not acceptable. This threatens the business community by
imposing both civil and criminal penalties for air quality violations and doubles the already large
potential penalties and fines. CFBF is opposed.
SB 600 (Ortiz, D-Sacramento) and (Perata, D-Oakland) passed out of the Assembly Appropriations
committee on a 11-4 strict party line vote. This biomonitoring bill seeks to identify public health trends
resulting from exposure and accumulation of toxic chemicals. However, this bill disregards the central
principle of the science of toxicology--that the degree of toxicity is dependent upon the dose. SB 600
then unnecessarily directs any California state agency to use the finding of mere detection of chemicals
in a sample to trigger any agency activities. SB 600’s also lacks a health risk framework for
interpreting and communicating the biomonitoring results. Biomonitoring alone does not allow for
scientifically valid conclusions to be drawn regarding any causal association whatsoever with individual

or community health indicators. CFBF will continue to oppose SB 600 when it is heard next on the
Assembly floor.
The Assembly approved AB 1328 (Lois Wolk, D-Davis) this week, which sends the bill to the
Governor’s office. The bill would designate 31 miles of Cache Creek in Yolo County as part of the state
Wild and Scenic Rivers System. CFBF has continued to oppose the bill because it fails to protect
private water rights. The bill was passed by both the Assembly and Senate, largely on party line votes,
although a few members crossed the aisle. In the Senate, Republican Abel Maldonado (R-Santa Maria)
joined most of the Democrats in voting for the bill. In the Assembly, Republicans Assemblyman Keith
Richman (R-Northridge) and Tom Harmon (R-Huntington Beach) voted in favor of the designation in
the Assembly. Democratic Assemblywoman Nicole Parra (D-Hanford) voted against the bill on the
Assembly floor. California farmers and ranchers should be concerned about state intrusion into local
resource management issues and are encouraged to call the Governor and ask him to VETO AB 1328.
The Assembly Appropriations Committee sent two water bills to the Assembly Floor yesterday, despite
the costs they will impose on the state government and California businesses:
SB 646 (Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica) would have four adverse effects on family farms and ranches:
(1) it would expose farmers and ranchers to shakedown lawsuits by activists tied to the bill’s sponsors
who have already organized for this purpose, (2) it would broadly expand the fees to be paid to the
State, (3) it would unfairly apply enforcement tools to participants in non-point source programs
without due process of law, and (4) it would require increased paperwork where this is administratively
untenable. CFBF is opposed.
SB 820, also by Senator Kuehl, would require individual reporting of groundwater pumping to the State
Water Resources Control Board. The state would make no use of this data, but the cost of developing
the information to file the reports will be significant. Estimates of the cost of installing meters on
wellheads range from $2,500 to $5,000, and as many as 100,000 or more wells may need to be reported
annually. The total statewide initial costs could thus easily be as much as $250,000,000 for submitting
information the state would not use. Those who fail to report risk loss of their water rights. CFBF is
opposed.
ACTION ALERT
Both of these bills could be taken up on the Assembly Floor as early as next Wednesday, August
31. California farmers and ranchers are encouraged to contact their Assemblymember on the
CFBF ACTION ALERT website and express their opposition to SB 646 and 820.