News Room: 2007-2008 Legislation

In an editorial, the San Jose Mercury News said:

Death and injuries from traffic accidents have plummeted in California, a trend tied to the 2008 law that bans gabbing on handheld cellphones while driving. Memo to all those drivers still yakking away: Wake up. Distracted driving can kill.

The number of deaths caused by driving while chattering on handheld cellphones dropped by half in the two years after the law took effect compared with the two years before, according to a study released by the state Office of Traffic Safety. That dramatic improvement should persuade 41 other states to enact similar laws. The rest already have.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, take a bow. He pushed the bill until his reluctant colleagues agreed to pass it. Credit also goes to the California Highway Patrol and local police throughout the state for aggressively enforcing the ban. They seem to have wholeheartedly embraced it, probably because they have to deal with the heartbreak of fatal accidents.

According to a study announced Monday by the state Office of Traffic Safety, since a state law forbidding the use of handheld phones on the road went into effect in 2008, the number of traffic deaths in California declined by 22 percent. With fewer drivers yakking into handheld phones, the death-by-cellphone rate dropped an even more stunning 47 percent.

“Those are huge numbers,” said Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, author of the bill whose outcome the study tracked, while taking a (hands-free) victory lap after the announcement.
During a two-year period after the law was implemented, there were 53 deaths caused by drivers holding cellphones, compared with 100 in the two years before the law took effect. This came as total accidents and fatalities were down overall for reasons as varied as more cars having air bags.

“The drop in collisions was the biggest, single, year-to-year drop in the history of the state since the CHP began keeping the data,” Simitian said.

State Senator Joe Simitian of California, who succeeded in getting a law passed in 2006 that bans drivers there from talking on a hand-held phone, called the board’s recommendation “a wake-up call about the dangers of distracted driving.”

Yet, he also said he doubted it would achieve the desired result because it was unlikely that legislators in California or elsewhere would be able to pass such a ban. Mr. Simitian noted that he spent five years trying to push a ban on hand-held devices, and faced intense opposition from the phone industry.

“It’s a political nonstarter,” he said, adding that he would not attempt to propose a total ban on drivers using their devices. “I don’t believe you’ll see such a ban in my lifetime.” For all his skepticism, though, he acknowledged that political winds could shift. “A decade ago, people didn’t think we’d have a hands-free law in California. Only time will tell.”

Sen. Joe Simitian gets an “A” for effort. In fact, he might even be the post-term limits Legislature’s perspicacity poster child.

While not the decade it took Jim Costa to win approval of legislation moving California’s presidential primary forward, it took Simitian six years to pass a measure requiring hands-free use of cell phones while driving.

He’s been as tireless – but not as successful - on a measure he and some 150 school districts contend will help them better control their financial destinies.

In 2003, 2005, 2007, 2009 and now 2011 Simitian has introduced a constitutional amendment that would allow parcel taxes sought by school districts to be approved by a 55-percent rather than a two-thirds vote.

“If the state either can’t or won’t fund public education adequately, the least we can do is give local communities the opportunity to make local choices about their kids,” Simitian, a Palo Alto Democrat, told Capitol Weekly.

Governor Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 2X into law at the SunPower/Flextronics solar manufacturing plant in Milpitas on Tuesday, April 12.  Governor Brown and Senator Simitian were joined by U.S. Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu for the signing ceremony and dedication of SunPower’s new facility.

More pictures are available at the link below.

California lawmakers passed a bill Tuesday that would require a third of the state’s power to come from renewable energy sources by 2020, setting a new bar for the rest of the country.

The U.S.‘s largest energy consumer is increasing its renewable portfolio standards and continues to pursue a cap-and-trade program that would put a price on carbon after similar initiatives to do so in Congress have flatlined.

California is typically seen as a trendsetter when it comes to setting environmental regulations aimed at slashing harmful emissions. The new law would make it the most aggressive adopter of renewable energy in terms of the amount of new generation that will be needed, which will draw investment dollars and create jobs through wind, solar, geothermal and other alternative projects.

The legislation “sends a signal to renewable energy providers that California wants them here,” State State Sen. Joe Simitian, who authored the bill, said in a statement. “They will respond, as they have in the past, with billions of dollars in investments that will provide jobs and tax revenues.”

An editorial in the Los Angeles Times calls on the Legislature to pass Sen. Joe Simitian’s bill, SB 2X, requiring that 33% of the electricity in the state come from renewable resources. Some excerpts:

“The state still doesn’t have a renewable energy standard even though a sensible bill to establish one has been taken up annually since 2007. ... We’re once again hoping the political establishment can overcome its legacy of failure and give California an early lead in the struggle to wean the nation off of fossil fuels, clean the state’s air, boost its fledgling green industries and set an example on responsible mitigation strategies for climate change.”

“It’s very important for the standard to take the form of legislation rather than a gubernatorial order, because the latter can be changed at whim by any new administration. Without the force of law, utilities and investors lack the certainty they need to proceed with new renewable projects.”

In an opinion article, Senator Joe Simitian explains the importance of increasing the amount of electricity generated from renewable resources.

In 2006, the California Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ambitiously committed California to obtain 20 percent of its electricity from renewable resources by the end of 2010.

The utilities blanched and the skeptics snickered. But despite much naysaying, we’ll get pretty darned close. The California Public Utilities Commission said we’d reach 18 percent by the end of this month, and move past 20 percent some time in the new year.

That’s good, but we can do better. California’s commitment to green energy has invigorated the renewable-energy market. An explosion of investment in green technology has produced advances in solar and wind power and a smarter electric grid. Combined, they have brought within reach what once seemed an audacious goal: 33 percent renewables by 2020.

With our 2010 goals clearly in sight, I’ve again introduced legislation that calls for a commitment, in state law, to a 33 percent renewable portfolio standard by 2020. That measure, Senate Bill 23, is now before the Senate.

State Sen. Joe Simitian is again introducing rules that require 33 percent of utilities’ energy mix to come from renewable sources, such as wind and solar, by 2020.

Simitian’s proposal was once vetoed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2009. A similar measure died on the Senate floor earlier this year. Both times, the governor objected to provisions that would limit the amount of renewable energy utilities could purchase from out of state.

Schwarzenegger did, however, issue an executive order requiring the higher energy standards, without the restrictions on out-of-state generation.

But executive orders don’t have the permanence of state statute—his successor could have nixed it—and the governor’s order left a lot of uncertainty about whether utilities would actually have to go ahead with the new requirements.

Sacramento Bee columnist Dan Morain writes that the next governor needs to defend a state’s right to protect personal data.

In California, privacy is a fundamental right. This state has a constitutional amendment identifying privacy as inalienable. And for better or worse, legislators don’t see themselves as potted plants. Some actually care about state law. All that means the next governor will grapple with privacy or lack of it right here in Sacramento.

“States often have to lead to get attention at the federal level,” said Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto,  the Legislature’s most prolific author of bills that seek to provide at least a thin veil of privacy. Simitian helped push a first-in-the-nation requirement that companies tell us when a security breach has spewed our personal information into other people’s hands. Because of a 2004 Simitian bill, California requires companies doing business in the state to post privacy policies on their websites. Lately, Simitian has sought to limit the misuse of radio frequency identification. Now Simitian is carrying legislation to protect people who use FasTrak to pay bridge tolls.

... A bill working its way through Sacramento could sharply increase the penalties for driving while using a handheld cellphone, fines that some say are already deceptively higher than had been expected.

The ban was instituted in July 2008, and six months later, texting while driving was similarly prohibited. Only hands-free talking is now allowed.

Senator Joe Simitian, Democrat of Palo Alto, wrote both bills, which include modest fines of $20 for a first offense and $50 for the second. ...