Assembly Revenue And Taxation Committee

Thank you. Thank you.

Gibson here. Gibson here.

Carrillo? Here.

DeMaio? McKenner? Here. McKenner here.

Michelle Rodriguez.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll be brief. AB 611 is a measure that establishes a voluntary tax contribution checkoff to raise funds for spinal cord injury treatment research. Over 300,000 people in the United States are living with spinal cord injuries. Depending on the type of spinal cord injury, people can expect significantly reduced life expectancy and significant challenges in daily routines of life. This bill demonstrates our state's ongoing commitment to find treatments and solutions to help Californians living with spinal cord injuries. The bill has no opposition. I ask for your aye vote. Thank you very much.

Second.

By.

The motion is recommend concurrence and second amendments. Gibson?

Gibson, aye. Sanchez?

Sanchez, aye. Carrillo? Carrillo, aye. DeMaio? McKenner? Aye. McKenner, aye. Burke Silva? Aye. Burke Silva, aye. Michelle Rodriguez. That bill passes 5-0.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members, colleagues. I know it's very late tonight, but I'm here to present AB 817, which will address several pressing issues brought about because of the lineage facility fire in my district. Two months ago, a fire broke out at a 500,000-square-foot cold-foot storage in the heart of my district in Boyle Heights, and they literally just cleaned it up yesterday. For those who are not familiar with Boyle Heights, it is a neighborhood in East L.A., a neighborhood surrounded by freeways that has been historically underinvested, and the victim of one of the largest environmental disasters in California history, the fall of the Excite Battery Recycling Plant. But that's not what this evening is about. This evening is about a devastating fire, a fire that lasted eight days and spewed out smoke and choked the surrounding community. A fire that left a warehouse with 88 million pounds of rotting food and attracted untold amounts of flies and rats. And again, I want to reiterate, they barely cleaned out the food yesterday. AB 817 will tackle two key issues brought upon by this fire. First, by preventing any new building permits for companies like Lineage until they can show they have a contingency fund to set aside disasters like this. This fund will exist to ensure that money will be available for food assistance, housing assistance, air quality monitoring, and health care. Because if you're going to do business in our community, you better be ready to support it when you mess it up. Second, it will ensure that any settlement that a resident or a business gets from any future litigation because of an incident is tax-free. Should this community wish to pursue legal action, we want to stand by their side. That money is not income. It's compensation for suffering. They have been through enough. They shouldn't have to worry about paying taxes on money that is rightfully owed to them. AB 817 will not undo what has already been done, but it will make sure for every community in California that this never happens again without a plan, resources, and accountability. I have also taken amendments to address the concerns raised by the opposition on potential unintended consequences for cold storage facilities of varying sizes and uses by narrowing the bill to only apply to Boyle Heights for 2027, delays implementation until July of 28 for the rest of the state, with the goal addressing all the stakeholder feedback the author has received, and to create a version of this that works for everyone while continuing to hold lineage accountable Clarifying that the cold storage facilities that the bill applies must either be at least a 20 square foot storage facility or a facility that has at least 20 square feet of cold storage within if it not entirely cold storage Adding an insurance policy as another option for the contingency fund. And I'm committed to continue working on this issue next year to ensure a statewide version reflects stakeholder feedback while ensuring no community to experience what ours has experienced. Because no one deserves to experience an eight-day fire. No one deserves to breathe smoke. We're nowhere to go. No one deserves to be choking on rotting food odors while surrounded by rats and flies for the last two months. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate this committee hearing the bill. And again, I just want to thank the opposition for continuing to engage in these conversations, all knowing what has happened in my backyard. Many of you have reached out to me about that situation. That's why we are here today to take action on those bad actors in my district. And thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.

Good evening, Mr. Chair and members. I want to call you off the California Business Properties Association. We initially had an opposed unless amended position. We are going to be moving to neutral. We appreciate the author's amendments to really narrow and target this bill in response to the lineage fire in Boyle-Hartts and believe that this is a bill that actually makes a difference and is an appropriate step. Our position to neutrality is based on the predication that we will work on cleanup legislation next year going forward. And just want to thank the Assemblyman.

Good evening, Chair and members. Nicole Quinonez, I am representing the Global Cold Chain Alliance. Our members represent the entire cold supply chain, including warehouses, storage, transportation, logistics, research, and construction. First, and most importantly, we want to recognize the devastating impact impact of the warehouse fire in Assemblymember Gonzales' district. We certainly have empathy for the community in Boyle Heights and understand the desire to put stronger procedures in place to support communities if similar incidents occur in the future. We also appreciate the amendments and the author's commitment. His amendments would delay that statewide implementation of the bill to provide us the opportunity to work next year to address those concerns. And we are certainly committed to being a constructive stakeholder should this bill become law. Again, we have no objection to the tax exemption provisions in the bill that the committee is considering. However, we do just want to note that if for some reason we're unable to reach a compromise next year, the provisions of the bill as written would have serious impacts on the ability to build new cold storage facilities, as well as improve existing facilities throughout the state. And I'll just note, in the bill, it has the potential to increase the price of cold storage, and therefore that would likely be passed on to food prices. Facility improvements would be more expensive because it would require the contingency fund, and we fear that may disadvantage small and medium-sized businesses that may not have the capital to secure that type of contingency fund to do those improvements. But again, we are committed to work with the Assemblymember next year and appreciate your time.

Mr. Chairman, Randy Pawlik on behalf of the American Chemistry Council. I just want to echo the words of Ms. Kionis. We look forward to working with the member next year as we think that together we can get to a reasonable solution for everybody. Thank you.

Yes, Rachel O'Brien, California Groceries Association. Align our comments with those that spoke before me.

Yes, good evening, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank the author for bringing this bill up because this is so important to L.A. County and so important to your community. And I know that you guys have been through something really devastating. When I look at the lineage warehouses, they have about 39 locations across California, with about 22 of them in Southern California, 19 in the greater Los Angeles area. When we talk about, I know that you did this for your district, which I understand that, but those other 22 areas in our district, in our area, is like Vernon, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Wilmington, Fullerton, and the Inland Empire. I know we need to have these storage facilities but I would like to see some built in Beverly Hills Palos Verdes and Santa Monica not just in the poor areas where when these things happen these people can they can afford to leave But like in Beverly Hills if that happened they could afford to kind of pack up and go somewhere for about two or three months So I like to see that our cold storage which we really need in California I like them built evenly in communities Thank you.

Yes. First, I want to thank Assemblymember Gonzalez for bringing this important issue to this committee. You know, what happened in Boyle Heights should have never happened, and we can never allow it to happen again. I am proud that the budget has allocated $4 million directly to address the cleanup efforts overdue for this community that have been overlooked for too long. And I think, Eric, you said that they just cleaned it up over the weekend. It's completely clean now. Please. Please. They were able to finally get rid of the rotting food, so that piece is done. Now they still need to clean up the rest of the mess. You know, the California legislation must also ensure that a disaster like this does not happen again. It is for that reason that I support ABA 17, a bill that shows that a targeted approach to holding those responsible without impacting an intended industry such as restaurants, movie theaters, churches, and libraries. ABA 17 is also a bill that went through the proper committee process to ensure that our stakeholders could weigh in. That is a good policy, Ms. So thank you again for bringing this in. And we can and must address the Boyle Heights tragedy and support the community by supporting ABA 17. With that, I'd like to move the bill.

I would just want to ask a question. Have any of the payments related to this incident gone out to any of the affected communities? To find payment from the lineage specifically? Yes. They've given $2-3 million to California Community Foundation to distribute to the community. Obviously more is needed, but that is a portion of what they've given. $80-100 million has gone in from lineage to clean up their own personal mess, but not to the community. Not to the community as of yet. Correct. Let me just also just add one who represents the Los Angeles area, not the affected area. And I want to commend you on, one, working expeditiously before we conclude our business, before the legislature for, one, bringing at least raising this issue for your community and for the Los Angeles community. It's certainly needed. We've been watching this unfold. This is certainly has set precedents and we want to make sure nothing like this ever happens again to any communities in California. And we have to put things in place in a very sensible and reasonable way. So if something like this were to take place, that we have something to fall back on and residents are made whole moving forward. So I commend the author for one working expeditiously and making sure that there's something in place that this happens again, that communities are not left to repeat something like this ever again. So with that being said, you're welcome to close if you so desire. Again, thank you to my colleagues. Obviously, this is a very important issue, and the reason why we are at this point for the bill is we do not obviously expect a fire to happen, and so we wanted to make action now, which is why this bill has run the course that it has in the last couple of weeks. We are committed to coming back and working to strengthen it, but on behalf of Boyle Heights, thank you for caring for my community.