Sacramento, CA - Governor Newsom released a budget proposal that paused funding to implement all newly signed laws, including a set of landmark climate laws, until the full picture of the state’s finances is clear in May. The Climate Accountability Package — comprised of Senator Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) Senate Bill 253 and Senator Henry Stern’s (D-Los Angeles) Senate Bill 261 — created the nation’s first requirements for large corporations to publicly disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, carbon embedded in supply chains, and climate risks.
Press Releases
SACRAMENTO – Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced SB 912, the Requiring Objective and Accurate Drug Testing (ROAD Testing) Act. SB 912 prohibits law enforcement agencies from making arrests or filing charges on the basis of a color-based (colorimetric) drug test, a class of tests some jurisdictions use in the field to assess whether a substance contains an illegal compound, but which many jurisdictions have abandoned due to their extremely high error rate.
SACRAMENTO – Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) introduced SB 905, a bill sponsored by San Francisco Mayor London Breed, removing the “locked door loophole,” a senseless barrier to holding auto burglars accountable. The bill’s introduction delivers on a promise Senator Wiener announced in October to tackle the issue this legislative session.
Auto break-ins have long been a vexing problem in San Francisco, and despite recent progress by city officials reducing the number of break-ins, they remain a problem.
SACRAMENTO – Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) announced Senate Bill (SB) 294, the Youth Mental Health Access Act. SB 294 removes barriers to youth accessing mental health treatments by requiring that any life threatening mental health treatment denials made by private insurance companies be automatically referred to the state’s existing Independent Medical Review (IMR) process. Senator Wiener introduced an earlier version of this bill last session as SB 238.
SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed Mayor London Breed’s package of housing reforms, bringing the City into compliance with state housing law as enumerated in a recent report from the state housing department. The package includes over a dozen different reforms that expedite housing permitting and reduce the ability of opponents to obstruct new homes.
SAN FRANCISCO – On Tuesday November 28, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted to delay a final vote on Mayor Breed’s package of housing reforms, which would bring San Francisco into compliance with state housing law. The Board of Supervisors has already missed the deadline set by state housing authorities to come into compliance, and yesterday’s action pushes San Francisco even further past the deadline.
SACRAMENTO – Today, Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) announced that when the Legislature reconvenes on January 3, he will introduce a bill sponsored by San Francisco Mayor London Breed removing senseless barriers to holding auto burglars accountable. Senator Wiener previously authored similar legislation: in 2019, Senate Bill 23 died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee, and in 2018, Senate Bill 916 died in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
SACRAMENTO – The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) released the findings of its historic top-to-bottom audit of San Francisco’s housing approvals process. The report found that at least 18 City policies and practices are out of compliance with state law. HCD imposes a series of deadlines, the first of which is in 30 days, for the City to take action to come into compliance.
SACRAMENTO – Governor Newsom signed Senator Scott Wiener’s (D-San Francisco) Senate Bills 423, 4, and 593. The new laws massively boost affordable housing production across California by extending and strengthening landmark streamlining provisions, allowing affordable housing to be built by right on land owned by faith institutions and nonprofit colleges, and creating a tax increment financing structure to replace 5,800 affordable homes in San Francisco lost to redevelopment.