We had another long day Wednesday, as the Assembly rushed to send bills to the Senate before the end of the week deadline.  We considered about 200 bills, working until past 9:30 PM last night.

Several Budget subcommittees had to work parallel to the Assembly so they could wrap up their duties by Friday as well.  My Budget Sub 4 committee was one of them.  We went into action at 5:30, then recessed for about an hour to make up our votes on the floor, then reconvened at 9:30 and worked until 11 PM or so.

Budget Sub 4 took two significant actions, both related to public safety.

First, to save about $170 million, the committee agreed on a 4 to 2 vote, with Republicans voting "no," to allow "summary parole" for felons.  Unfortunately proposed by Gov. Schwarzenegger, this proposal would allow some 18,000 felons on parole to go unsupervised while also reducing the number of parole agents.  At the hearing some law enforcement professionals argued that parole agents are already stretched to the max and reducing the number of released felons they have to supervise while also reducing parole agents is a sure path to increased crime since they'll have fewer resources to supervise the more serious felons.

The other action was even more interesting.  Acting on a cost saving criminal justice recommendation from the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) the committee moved to change 10 "wobblers" to misdemeanors.  A wobbler is a crime that may be charged either as a felon or a misdemeanor at the discretion of the court.  Changing a crime to a misdemeanor from a felony means time in the county jail instead of the state prison with sentences of no more than a year.

It also means the state can save another $75 million.  The flip side is that the counties are likely to see far increased jail crowding as felons who used to serve hard time stay in the local jail - this will force the counties to set more misdemeanor offenders on the street without any jail time at all.  This proposal should have been heard in the Public Safety Committee after considerable debate on its merits and drawbacks.  Instead, we had a budget committee making criminal justice law late at night, approving on a 4 to 2 party line vote a plan to make drug possession, vehicle theft, petty theft with a prior theft, receiving stolen property, grand theft, forgery/fraud, DUI, other property crimes, other drug crimes, and hashish possession all misdemeanors unless the offender has a prior history of a violent or sex offense.

Back on the Assembly floor, one bill with some serious, perhaps unintended consequences, passed with the bare minimum 41 votes after almost failing.  AB 2112 by Assemblymember Lori Saldana stipulates that all houses built in California after 2020 have to be "zero net energy buildings" - in other words, generate enough electricity through photovoltaic solar panels to power the house.  This proposal is bad energy policy, bad greenhouse gas emissions policy, and bad housing policy.

It is bad energy policy because a house needs about half a football field's worth of solar panels to truly generate as much energy as it uses.  Further, to be net zero, a house would have to generate a surplus during the day, while consuming at night.  This is not good for the grid.  If, on the other hand, a house is to be self-sufficient, it would have to have a huge bank of highly toxic and expensive batteries to get through the night - and don't get me started on houses up in the mountains or up along the Oregon border during the winters.

The bill is bad greenhouse gas emissions policy because solar panels are only about 1/7th as efficient in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as is nuclear power.  Further, making houses "zero net energy buildings" is not necessarily the best focal point to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  California already is the most electrically efficient state in America.  Most of our greenhouse gas emissions are from our transportation sector and the best way to reduce emissions there is to generate a lot more electricity from nuclear power and use that electricity to charge car batteries and make hydrogen for vehicles.

Finally, the bill is bad housing policy because it will dramatically increase the cost of a new house - putting the American dream out of reach for the Average Californian by adding about $200,000 to the cost of new home.

Well, that's all for now.  I have to get back to the Capitol for another long day of voting.

All the best,

Chuck DeVore
California State Assemblyman, 70th District
www.ChuckDeVore.com