Q1 Impact Report 2026

The Bay Area Council Government Relations Committee relaunched this year with a focus on permitting reform, taxation, regulatory streamlining, and increased political engagement.

Sacramento Day: Close to 100 Bay Area Council members made the trip to Sacramento last month for the Council’s annual Capitol Advocacy Day on March 10. We held high level meetings with legislative leaders and members of the Administration on a broad range of subjects important to the Council; business climate, housing, public safety, affordability, and tech and innovation.

Bay Area Council Political Action Committees: The Bay Area Council PACs have been reconstituted, and the Council intends to have its voice heard in the election arena in 2026 and beyond.

Gubernatorial Forums: The Bay Area Council has kicked off its series of Gubernatorial Forums with Controller Betty Yee, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Steve Hilton, and Rep. Eric Swalwell, the first few candidates to visit with us. Up next in the coming weeks are Rep. Katie Porter and Superintendent Tony Thurmond. Please join us!

Committee Chairs
Ramona Prieto, Uber
Nick Johnson, Lyft
Allison Rose, Autodesk
Ariane Hogan, Genentech
Papia Gambelin, United Airlines
Kathy Duong, Amazonmmittee Chairs

Policy Lead
Matt Regan
Senior Vice President
mregan@bayareacouncil.org

The Technology + Innovation Committee advocates for greater testing, development and deployment of cutting-edge technologies and their attendant infrastructure within government agencies and private industry. The Committee directs its work at the state and federal levels through policymaker education and advocacy, thought-leadership, media engagement and coalition-building among similarly situated business associations.

Antitrust Coalition: Co-led statewide California Antitrust Coalition in opposing state antitrust changes. The California Law Revision Commission has proposed a series of changes to state antitrust law that, among other things, expand liability for single firm conduct and make mergers and acquisitions presumptively illegal above a certain threshold. The Tech + Innovation Committee has testified twice this quarter before the Commission to oppose these recommendations and has worked with state business associations to amplify their opposition.

California Legislative Tech Caucus Co-Chair: The Tech + Innovation Committee hosted Assemblyman Patrick Ahrens, Co-Chair of the Legislative Tech Caucus, to share areas for increased collaboration between the Caucus and the Bay Area Council.

Data Center Task Force: The Data Centers Task Force began research to support a forthcoming report that distinguishes California’s smaller edge data centers versus larger hyperscale facilities in other states, and the reduced resourcing required by these centers. The report will also build on two early national reports that show that large load energy users actually reduce consumer rates by spreading out the cost of fixed assets among more users. The report will serve as the basis for future advocacy, regulatory proposals, and media engagement.

Initiate Quantum Technologies Task Force: The Tech + Innovation Committee helped launch a new Task Force to explore how to grow California’s quantum technologies ecosystem in conjunction with members representing research universities and national laboratories. The Task Force met with representatives of the Berkeley Quantum Nexus three times to plan for the buildout and coordination of this effort with GO-Biz and other quantum actors. Following this foundation-building, more member companies will be brought into this effort in Q2.

Advocated for Autonomous Vehicles: Legislators continue to mischaracterize driver assisted systems as autonomous vehicles and use this mischaracterization to impugn the safety record of truly autonomous vehicles. The Tech + Innovation Committee testified before the California Senate Transportation Committee to correct the record and speak to the mobility, economic and safety enhancements provided by autonomous vehicles.

Committee Chairs
Lauren Kimzey, PayPal
Javier González, Google
Mitra Rogers, AWS

Policy Lead
Peter Leroe-Munoz
Senior Vice President
pleroemunoz@bayareacouncil.org

Three years ago, Bay Area Council members called for the creation of a public safety policy area in response to significant safety concerns and rising property and violent crime during and after the pandemic. The message was clear: safer transit, stronger enforcement tools, a robust public safety workforce, and strategic use of technology are necessary for the region’s recovery. The Council’s Public Safety Committee quickly cemented itself as a key player by passing key local and state ballot measures, advancing transit safety, expanding technology deployment, achieving major legislative wins, and engaging with all the region’s 100+ policing agencies. We’re seeing results, with violent and other crime down significantly in many cities and on the BART system. The first quarter of 2026 brought several key public safety wins:

Legislative Wins: Co-sponsored AB 1622 (Rubio) – an extension of Council-backed AB 2371 (Carrillo, 2024) – to eliminate red tape and accelerate deployment of critical security infrastructure, and successfully advanced the bill through Assembly Local Government Committee in March.

Safety Technology: Expanded regional leadership on public safety technology by facilitating exclusive, behind-the-scenes member access to real-time operations, including the Super Bowl Command Center and SFPD’s Real-Time Investigation Center; Developed a proposal with the BAC Economic Institute for a first-of-its-kind analysis on the return on investment of local safety technology; Brought on new member company and leader in the safety technology arena, Axon, as a BAC member and Public Safety Committee Co-Chair.

Building a Safer Oakland: Helped restore the Oakland Police Department’s police cadet program, secured continuation of safety camera technology through the extension of the Flock contract, and supported the launch of the automated speed enforcement pilot enabled by Council-backed AB 645 (Friedman, 2024); Initiated advocacy with the City Council to advance key recommendations from the 2025 Oakland crime trends report – Prop 36 Implementation Progress: Led ongoing advocacy to secure funding and policy changes needed for effective implementation of Prop 36, including facilitating a Sacramento lobbying day dedicated to this issue, and convened top local and state leaders to drive alignment and action.

Committee Chairs
Jeff Littlefield, San Francisco International Airport
Kristi McKenney, Port of Oakland
Greg Suhr, Salesforce Tower
Tina D’Agostin, Alcatraz AI
Jordan Sauers, Axon

Staff Lead
Laura Hill
Vice President
lhill@bayareacouncil.org

The Bay Area Council in recent years has passed some of the most consequential reform legislation in state history to address California’s housing shortage and affordability crisis. Our legislation and advocacy are holding local jurisdictions accountable for meeting housing obligations, and we’re working to bring down excessive permitting costs, ease onerous local fees and building requirements and support infill housing near transit and jobs. Our Project Endorsement Subcommittee has blessed hundreds of new units with direct advocacy by our staff at city halls around the region to secure approval.

Legislative Priorities: Developed clear legislative priorities, with principle focus on affordable homeownership. We also launched a new legislation tracker, which will be rolling out weekly, for those interested in staying in touch with priority housing legislation.

Sponsored Bills: The Council is sponsoring three major bills on homeownership, including revisions to the state’s construction defect liability law, one of the most significant barriers to homeownership in the state.

Project Support: Council staff spoke in support of four housing projects in planning commissions and city council meetings, helping secure thousands of new permitted homes.

Committee Chairs
Ann Silverberg, Related California
Andy Ball, oWow
Robin Baral, Hanson Bridgett LLP

Staff Lead
Louis Mirante
Senior Vice President
lmirante@bayareacouncil.org

The Bay Area Council Homelessness Committee advocates for policies to end California’s epidemic of unsheltered homelessness and addiction.

Sponsored Recovery Housing Legislation: Co-sponsoring, with San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, legislation by Assemblymember Matt Haney (AB 1556) to expand access to drug-free recovery housing for homeless Californians seeking sober living environments.

Sponsored Shelter and Permanent Housing Legislation: Co-sponsoring, with DignityMoves, legislation by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (AB 2351) to require jurisdictions to make public their shelter and permanent housing inventories.

Committee Chair
Elizabeth Funk, DignityMoves

Policy Lead
Adrian Covert
Senior Vice President, Public Policy
acovert@bayareacouncil.org

Across generations, the Bay Area Council may be the most important and influential group for advancing a worldclass
regional transportation system. We created BART and the regional ferry system, ushered in the electrification of
Caltrain, and helped secure hundreds of billions of dollars to improve and expand our highways, roads, bridges, and
transit systems. With our transit systems still struggling to recover from the pandemic and shift to remote work, the
Council’s Transportation Committee acted to protect those multigenerational investments with a measure that will
provide life-support funding and drive significant efficiency improvements to get transit back on its feet and thriving.

Regional Transit Measure: Leading the Connect Bay Area campaign to place a regional transit measure on the
November ballot to prevent severe service cuts on BART, Muni, AC Transit, and Caltrain, and invest in priority
transportation projects and targeted road improvements.

Transit Breakfast with 3 Major Bay Area Mayors: Hosted San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie, Oakland Mayor Barbara
Lee, and San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan on the Klamath to demonstrate unified regional support for the regional transit
measure. The event brought together unprecedented support across business, labor, public agencies, and civic
leaders.

Meeting with SF Director of Transportation: The Transportation Committee hosted the San Francisco Director
of Transportation and leadership team for an in-depth briefing and discussion about the proposed Muni parcel tax
designed to address SFMTA’s looming financial crisis. The parcel tax – coupled with the regional transit measure – is
designed to prevent drastic service cuts to the city’s bus and rail system that would significantly disrupt commutes
and overall mobility within San Francisco.

Committee Chairs
Arielle Fleisher, Waymo
Rich Robbins, Wareham Development
Shalonda Baldwin, WSP

Staff Lead
Emily Loper
Senior Vice President
eloper@bayareacouncil.org

For more than a decade, the Bay Area Council has fostered mutually beneficial relationships between California and China and provided opportunities and insights into the second largest consumer market in the world. Two years ago, the Council expanded its scope of international efforts by establishing the Global Business and Investment (GBI) Committee.

16th Annual Spring Festival executed (Feb 26): Delivered a flagship convening featuring Fiona Ma and senior Chinese consular leadership, with strong corporate turnout and sponsorship—one of the Council’s largest international events of the quarter.

BAC featured at SuperNova Conference (Belgium): Led by Sean Randolph, the Council participated on a major European innovation stage, expanding international visibility and positioning the Council in global tech dialogue.

U.S.–India business forum with NASSCOM leadership: Convened a high-level discussion with the President of NASSCOM on U.S.–India business cooperation, directly engaging one of India’s most influential industry bodies.

India AI Summit report-out event delivered: Hosted a member briefing translating outcomes from India’s first major government–industry AI convening into actionable insights for Bay Area companies.

Forum with Henry Wang (Center for China and Globalization): Convened a China-focused dialogue providing direct perspective on economic and geopolitical trends.

Forum with the Ghanaian Ambassador to the United States (Los Angeles): Co-hosted a high-level convening in partnership with Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, engaging Ghana’s ambassador and regional business leaders to advance California–Ghana economic ties.

Committee Chairs
Harshul Asnani, Tech Mahindra America
Florence Fang, Florence Fang Family Foundation
Dean Fealk, DLA Piper
Travis Kiyota, East West Bank
Kevin Xu, MEBO International

Staff Lead
Alex Foard
Vice President
afoard@bayareacouncil.org

Inspired by our international missions to Vancouver and Sydney, the Bay Area Council launched the Waterfront Initiative to promote waterfront activation and shoreline resilience on the Bay shoreline. By activating our waterfront with new housing, jobs, and transportation, we can build vibrant and beautiful new centers for community and innovation while embracing climate resilience and preparing the region to weather the storms ahead. We have hit the ground running in 2026, marking major milestones in our campaigns to improve permitting on the shoreline and activate new funding and resources for shoreline resilience and climate adaptation projects.

Co-sponsored AB 2051 to establish a coastal resilience permitting working group: authored by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, to advance the shoreline themes and recommendations from the landmark Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform final report that we played an instrumental role in developing.

Secured funding for our new shoreline resilience initiative, Strong Shoreline: to champion the Bay’s flood protection and shoreline adaptation needs, study the climate resilience benefits of waterfront activation, and lay the groundwork for future regional measures to fund shoreline adaptation and bay restoration.

Committee Chairs
Enrique Landa, Fifth Space
Seamus Murphy, SF Bay Ferry
Geeti Silwal, Perkins&Will

Staff Lead
Rigel Robinson
Consultant
rrobinson@bayareacouncil.org

This year, the Bay Area Council’s policy agenda is driven by an urgent need to protect Californians from rising energy
costs while advancing the state’s climate leadership and preserving the Bay Area’s innovation economy.

California’s Fuel Crisis: Convened the Energy Committee to examine the policy decisions contributing to California’s
looming fuel supply challenges and to identify policy solutions to ensure reliable fuel availability at affordable prices.

Supported Nuclear Energy: Launched the Bay Area Council Diablo Canyon 2045 coalition to advocate for
extending the operation of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant through 2045. Successfully advocated for federal
extension of Diablo Canyon’s operating license to 2045 and now focusing on winning similar approvals at the state.

Sustainable Aviation Fuel: Initiated support for the Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) incentive package included in
the state budget.

Bridge Technologies: Held discussions with the California Air Resources Board about opportunities to expand
bridge-fuel technologies.

Advanced Manufacturing Exemptions: Leading coalition to defend/improve CEQA exemptions for advanced
manufacturing.

Energy Committee Chairs
Alex Makler, West Region, Calpine
Carla Peterman, PG&E
Dominic Aliano, Martinez Refining Company

Committee Chairs
Regina Donaldson, Bayer
Nathan Fleisher, Apple

Staff Lead
Julian Lake
Senior Policy Director
jlake@bayareacouncil.org

A historically small snowpack this year serves as a pointed reminder that California must do more to expand its water supply to meet growing urban, economic and environmental demands. The Council’s Water & Climate Resilience Committee is dedicated to bringing more state and federal dollars to water infrastructure to expand supply while minimizing ratepayer impacts; advocating for large regional priority projects like Sites Reservoir to secure necessary permitting; pushing back on short-sighted regulatory proposals that undermine regional drought-resilience; and rebuilding California’s wood-products economy as a market-based solution for wildfire prevention.

New Co-Chairs: Appointed four new co-chairs to lead the committee – see below.

State Water Plan: Helped elevate water data into prominent place in upcoming State Water Plan strategic update.

Wildfire Resilience: Advocated for preserving wildfire resilience funding in cap-and-invest program.

Committee Chairs
Devyani Kar, Jacobs Engineering
Jason Willet, CSAA Insurance Group
Joshua Golka, Valley Water
Ellen Levin, San Francisco Public Utility District

Staff Lead
Adrian Covert
Senior Vice President
acovert@bayareacouncil.org

Building on the Workforce of the Future Committee and the foundation laid during last year’s re-launch, 2026 is about scaling our support of member priorities through strategic partnerships. All the committee’s work is guided by our north star: To lead and support programs that prioritize high-opportunity pathways for Bay Area residents, while building more seamless, high-quality talent pipelines for our businesses, and anchored by three pillars outlined below. As conversations heat up on what the future of work will look like in the next five years, with rapidly evolving AI and agentic capabilities of the technologies, we will remain a space for business leaders to convene with cross-sector partners to work toward the brightest possible future for the Bay Area and beyond.

AI & The Future of Work – AI For All Expansion: AI For All expands with the ambitious goal to make Bay Area cities the most AI literate in the world. Led by the Bay Area Council in partnership with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic along with local governments, the program launched in Q4 2025 and continues to grow. In partnership with San Jose State University, the MLK San Jose Public Library just opened the AI Center for Civic and Social Good, where all AI For All – San Jose in-person programming will take place focused on displaced workers and underemployed youth as well as senior populations and small businesses. AI For All is also working to expand to two other major Bay Area cities in 2026.

Alternative Talent Pathways – NCAN & Apprenticeships: In 2025 we heard from the local and national apprenticeship communities that positioning NCAN as an employer-focused ecosystem would bring the most value, and this is explicitly our goal for 2026. As we shift the NCAN community to bring more employers into the fold, our intermediary, education and public sector partners remain essential and central to the work. We kicked off in early January with a ROI research study presentation from Brookings Institute and will be publishing our own employer-centric ROI Study in Q2, building directly on our Brookings partners’ research. In partnership with LAUNCH Apprenticeship Network, we’ve also focused deeply on employer engagement. Aside from apprenticeships, we plan to grow alternative pathway programs with UCSF, Opportunity @ Work and Jobs for the Future in 2026.

Education & Employment Linkage – Employer Talent Taskforce: We know one of the most impactful roles we can play is to deeply understand our employer talent pipeline needs and take meaningful steps to support both hiring opportunities and pipeline deficiencies through partnerships, programs and policy. This employer-only roundtable convenes our members’ senior leaders to discuss critical talent and hiring priorities shaping the Bay Area’s economic growth. Designed for high-growth employers and companies facing acute talent shortages, the session provides a forum to highlight areas where targeted improvements in workforce alignment can strengthen talent availability and support business expansion.

Committee Chairs
Erika Webb-Hughes, Pearson
Mattie Zazueta, OpenAI
Angelo Farooq, AlphaX RE Capital
Philip Minardi, BuildWithin
Javier González, Google

Staff Lead
Kelly Cure
Senior Vice President
kcure@bayareacouncil.org

The Bay Area Council’s Healthcare Committee is a diverse group representing the region’s premier providers, payers, and large employers from across industry. Its unique composition allows it to tackle issues that are otherwise traditionally ignored by single-interest groups. The Committee has a long history working hand-in-hand with policymakers on the implementation of the Affordable Care Act in California and beyond, and has always championed high-quality, affordable care; a diverse and well-trained workforce; and universal coverage.

New Co-Chairs and Fresh Momentum: The Committee is entering 2026 with fresh momentum, welcoming two new co-chairs to lead its work: Mike Bowers of Kaiser Permanente and Kara Carter of the California Health Care Foundation. Together, they bring deep expertise spanning health care delivery, policy, and philanthropy — a combination well-suited to tackle the region’s most pressing health care challenges. The committee is energized and well-positioned to drive meaningful progress on its goals of affordability, workforce, coverage, and the responsible adoption of AI in health care.

Engaged with Senior Administration Leaders on California’s Healthcare System: Earlier this year, the Committee met with senior leaders from the Newsom Administration to discuss the far-reaching consequences of H.R. 1 for California’s healthcare system. With the law projected to cut roughly $30 billion annually in federal Medi-Cal funding and put millions of Californians at risk of losing coverage, the committee brought the perspective of Bay Area employers, providers, and health plans to conversations about how the business community can help the state navigate this unprecedented disruption. The committee continues to engage at the federal level to advocate for solutions that protect coverage, stabilize the provider workforce, and preserve access to care for the residents and workers who power the region’s economy.

Committee Chairs
William M. Isenberg, MD, PhD, Sutter Health
Mike Bowers, Kaiser Permanente
Kara Carter, California Health Care Foundation

Staff Lead
Patrick Kallerman
Vice President
pkallerman@bayareacouncil.org

The Economic Impact of Immigration Enforcement in the Bay Area

ADU Construction and Racial Equity in California

Suisun Expansion and Solano Shipyard: Economic and Fiscal Impact Analysis

Finding Opportunity in Asia’s Changing Supply Chain Landscape: Leveraging Hong Kong

Staff Leads
Jeff Bellisario
Executive Director
jbellisario@bayareacouncil.org

Abby Raisz
Vice President
araisz@bayareacouncil.org