With the state Senate hitting its deadline for passing bills this week, Sen. Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park, saw his legislation on renewable energy, carbon renewal, data privacy and prison canteen costs all clear the upper chamber over the past week.
But Becker's support was conspicuously absent on the year's most contentious housing bill of the current session, Senate Bill 423, which would extend and modify the 2017 law that created a streamlined approval process for housing development in communities that had failed to meet the state's housing mandate.
Authored by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, SB 423 is a successor to SB 35, also authored by Wiener. It extends the streamlining provisions until 2036, adds various new provisions pertaining to labor standards and removes exemptions for coastal areas. Palo Alto is among the cities that have formally opposed the bill, which cleared the Senate by a 29-5 vote. Becker, who abstained from voting, said in an interview he did not support the bill because it does not address the true barrier to building affordable housing: insufficient financing.
He noted that most of the cities in his district have met or exceeded their goals for total housing units in the last Regional Housing Needs Assessment cycle, which concluded last year, even as many fell well short when it comes to below-market-rate housing. The key to building more affordable housing is more investment of state funds, he said.
"Instead of removing local control over planning decisions, California needs to provide the financial support needed to ensure that critically needed affordable housing can be built," Becker said in an interview. "SB 423 doesn't help get us there."
Becker was one of six Democrats who did not vote on SB 423, which easily cleared the Senate despite their lack of support. Both the Senate and the Assembly have until June 2 to pass all legislation in the current session before the bills move to the other chamber.
While Becker was in the minority on the housing bill, he found plenty of support for his legislation on climate change. Among the bills that cleared the Senate is SB 410, which aims to address delays by PG&E in hooking up customers to electricity -- a key obstacle at a time when the state and cities are looking to electrify homes and vehicles. The legislation, SB 410, got through the Senate on May 24 by a 32-8 vote.
Also clearing the Senate was SB 420, Becker's bill that would make some transmission projects eligible for expedited environmental review. The bill would also charge the governor with monitoring development of clean energy and transmission facilities and identify the projects that would be necessary to maintain reliability and meet the state's targets for clean energy. SB 420 passed 40-0 on Wednesday.
Becker's privacy bill, SB 362, moved ahead by a 32-8 vote, with Republican opposition. Known as the Delete Act, the law would require data brokers to disclose the types of personal information they collect to the California Privacy Protection Agency. The agency would also create a way for residents to request that data brokers delete their personal information. Those that fail to do so would face civil penalties and administrative fines.
Becker said the goal is to create something like a "do-not-call list" for data collection. Because of the vast amount of data that is being collected, it's currently very difficult for consumers to determine what's being collected and control it.
"If you're motivated enough to go to 450 different sites and try to figure out how to manage the information, you can do it, but this will require data brokers to list what information they collect and the idea is to create a one-stop shop," Becker said.
His proposal to limit price gouging at prison canteens also advanced this week. The bill, SB 474, would prohibit the sale prices of items sold in prison canteens from exceeding 10% above the amount paid to vendors. The bill got through the Senate on May 24 by a 34-5 vote.
Comments
Registered user
Old Palo Alto
on Jun 2, 2023 at 10:20 am
Registered user
on Jun 2, 2023 at 10:20 am
Senator Becker is bad for our area. Just about everything he touches or supports increases State regulation and also the taxes we pay.
Many of his energy proposals will reduce rather than increase the resilience of our energy grid. He caters to a vocal minority of activists in his party.
Registered user
Embarcadero Oaks/Leland
on Jun 2, 2023 at 10:43 am
Registered user
on Jun 2, 2023 at 10:43 am
Good that Becker finally "wrapped his head around the issues" with the unfunded housing bills sponsored by Scott Weiner -- something he said he was having doing when he supported all the other housing bills. Too bad he only had the courage to abstain but not oppose them.
Guess he's afraid of all the deep-pocketed lobbyists working tirelessly to destroy this community with laughable claims that increased density will lower housing costs -- an insult to the intelligence of anyone who's ever heard of New York City or Tokyo or London or any other densely populated area with the highest housing costs in the world.
Registered user
Downtown North
on Jun 2, 2023 at 11:12 am
Registered user
on Jun 2, 2023 at 11:12 am
Becker is what a State Legislator should be - won’t knuckle under to vote yes on noxious bills such as SB243.
And he takes the initiative to write bills of consequence that have a positive impact on Palo Alto (unlike another local Legislator in the Assembly).
Thank you Sen. Becker. You are doing good.
Registered user
another community
on Jun 3, 2023 at 10:53 am
Registered user
on Jun 3, 2023 at 10:53 am
I would rather see an anti-spam bill that applies directly to the government (like Becker, who sends tons of spam if you email him to express an opinion), instead of another watchdog agency that is a data collector monitoring other data collectors. HUGE waste of money.
Registered user
Adobe-Meadow
on Jun 4, 2023 at 11:54 am
Registered user
on Jun 4, 2023 at 11:54 am
In the papers today another article on a bill sponsored by Weiner - single payer health system for CA. Since Weiner is an employee of the state he is already on a single payer system - the state is paying for his health insurance. However - most corporations have a health insurance program negotiated for their employees over many states - must be uniform to be accepted accounting practice. Anything that Weiner gets his fingers into is a disaster to this state. He did not grow up here and only worked for a law firm prior to his CA employment.
I thank anyone who says No to him - why not all of the legislators? Everything he touches is counter to good business practice and the accounting rules and regulations that corproations must follow in any audit. Let's scare away any corporation that wants to have a CA location because it has to bend accounting standards to do business here.
Our Governor is not much help here - he is consumed with establishing the state of CA as a stand alone location that has no consistency with other states or the federal government. And he is termed out now - anything he does to ruin this state will flow over to the next goevernor to undo.
What is Berman doing - is he a water carrier for Weiner?