Council Scores Important Wins as Legislative Season Ends

With the deadline passing for bills to get Gov. Newsom’s signature, the Bay Area Council this week celebrated a number of important final wins this year. Already, the Council was on track for its most productive and successful legislative session in our 80-year history, including landmark housing reform measures approved with the budget in June.

Gov. Newsom last week also signed SB 79 (Wiener, San Francisco), legislation the Bay Area Council co-sponsored to make it faster and easier to build multi-family housing near transit stops, like train and rapid bus lines, by making it legal for more homes to be built in these areas. And the governor put his signature to SB 71, legislation we sponsored that makes permanent exemptions from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for a wide range of transportation infrastructure projects.

Gov. Newsom heeded the call from the Bay Area Council and other organizations to veto SB 7, legislation that would have imposed onerous and unnecessary restrictions on the use of AI in various employment practices. The Council is intensely focused on supporting California’s burgeoning and booming AI industry to ensure we remain the global AI leader.

Also securing Gov. Newsom’s signature was AB 531 (Rogers), which the Bay Area Council supported to expand the types of geothermal facilities eligible for certification as environmental leadership development projects, granting them streamlined environmental review under CEQA.