This year’s CalChamber ‘job killer’ list includes 37 proposals that would make it even more difficult for California companies to remain viable in this difficult economy,” said Allan Zaremberg, President and CEO of the California Chamber of Commerce. “Our businesses need to have certainty that they can be competitive before they will begin to reinvest in our economy. Not only do these bills send the wrong signal and create an uncertain environment for investment but, if passed, they would create new costs that would harm our ability to recover and add new jobs.”

“The only way out of these economic hard times is a rebound of the private sector. Our policy makers must focus on job creation, reducing regulatory burdens and holding the line on new costs. If enacted, these ‘job killer’ bills would make it even more difficult for us to solve the huge, gaping budget hole that Governor Schwarzenegger announced on Friday.

Here’s a link to the cal chamber job killers bill. Click Here.

COSTLY WORKPLACE MANDATES

AB 482 (Mendoza; D-Norwalk) Expanded Employer Liability — Increases potential liability exposure for hiring decisions by unduly restricting the ability of businesses to use consumer credit reports as part of the background check process.

AB 1994 (Skinner; D-Berkeley) Increased Workers’ Compensation Costs — Inappropriately increases costs to employers by expanding workers’ compensation presumptions into the private sector for the first time by allowing hospital workers to be eligible for various presumptions, including H1N1, MRSA, and other diseases and injuries.

AB 2187 (Arambula; I-Fresno) Expanded Employer Liability — Creates a significant disincentive to locate jobs and operations in California by potentially criminalizing almost any legitimate wage dispute with a terminated employee that takes longer than 90 days to resolve.

AB 2727 (Bradford; D-Gardena) New Liability for Hiring Decisions — Increases potential liability exposure for hiring decisions by restricting the ability of employers to make their decision based on a job applicant’s criminal conviction.

SB 810 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Government-Run Health Care — Creates a new government-run, multibillion-dollar socialized health care system based on a yet-to-be specified ‘premium structure’ — in essence, a tax on all employers.

SB 1121 (Florez; D-Shafter) Harms California Farms and Farm Workers — Places farms at a competitive disadvantage, increases cost of doing business for California farmers, and reduces available resources to invest in workers and farms by removing overtime exemption for agricultural employees.

SB 1474 (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) Increased Agricultural Costs — Undermines the process that now guarantees through secret-ballot elections, a fair vote and the expression of agricultural employees’ true sentiments on the selection of a collective bargaining representative. This act will hurt California’s businesses by driving up costs, making employers less competitive in a global market.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BARRIERS

AB 656 (Torrico; D-Fremont)/AB 1604 (Nava; D-Santa Barbara)/ABX6 1 (Nava; D-Santa Barbara) Gas Price Increase — Increases gas prices and dependence on foreign oil by targeting the oil industry for a tax on only oil extracted in California, in addition to other taxes not levied in other states.

AB 846 (Torrico; D-Fremont) Anti-Business Cost Increases — Significantly increases the cost of doing business in California by placing an automatic increase on fines and penalties without legislative review and encourages state agencies to levy the highest fine and penalty allowed.

AB 1405 (De León; D-Los Angeles) Climate Change Tax Increase — Increases costs and discourages job growth by granting the Air Resources Board broad authority to implement unlimited fees and taxes with little or no oversight.

AB 1639 (Nava; D-Santa Barbara) Delays Residential Construction Industry Recovery — Hinders the recovery in the residential construction industry by reducing the availability of credit due to delays in resolving delinquent loans by imposing a mandatory mediation program on delinquent residential mortgages.

AB 1836 (Furutani; D-South Los Angeles County) Increased Tax Burden — Harms small businesses, many of whom pay taxes under the personal income tax system, by imposing another temporary personal income tax increase on top of the existing personal income tax increase that was passed in last year’s budget.

AB 1935 (De León; D-Los Angeles)/ SBX6 18 (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) Discourages Business Growth in California — Raises taxes for many companies with significant investments of property and payroll in California by making the single sales factor apportionment method mandatory.

AB 1936 (De León; D-Los Angeles) Creates Inequity in the Tax Structure — Harms struggling small businesses and start-ups by repealing the Net Operating Loss (NOL) carry back deduction, a lifeline that helps employers stay afloat, retain employees, and continue investing in their businesses in an economic downturn.

AB 2100 (Coto; D-San Jose)/ SB 1210 (Florez; D-Shafter) Targeted Tax Increase/Flawed Budget Philosophy — Threatens jobs in beverage, retail and restaurant industries by arbitrarily and unfairly targeting certain beverages for a new tax in order to fund obesity-prevention programs and services.

AB 2171 (C. Calderon; D-Montebello) Discourages Investments — Creates substantial uncertainty for employers and discourages future investment in the state by effectively creating an annual sunset for all investment incentives, including tax credits, deductions and exemptions, and caps how much can be claimed each year.

AB 2492 (Ammiano; D-San Francisco) Higher Employer Property Taxes — Undermines Proposition 13 protections and could result in higher property taxes for small businesses by creating an arbitrary and unfair standard for determining that a business property has changed ownership and needs to be reassessed.

AB 2641 (Arambula; I-Fresno) Discourages Investments — Creates uncertainty for California employers making long-term investment decisions by requiring all future-enacted investment incentives to sunset after five years, and eliminating existing incentives that provide no “measurable benefit” without defining how that benefit would be measured.

ACA 6 (C. Calderon; D-Montebello) Discourages Investments — Discourages investments in jobs and operations by imposing an automatic sunset of seven years on any new or extended tax credit, exemption or deduction.

ACA 22 (Torlakson; D-Contra Costa) Targeted Tax Increase/Flawed Budget Philosophy — Exacerbates state budget problems and harms tobacco industry by unfairly targeting it for a new cigarette tax, a declining revenue source, to fund new government spending programs.

SB 967 (Correa; D-Santa Ana) Restricts Business Options — Limits choice and drives up prices for consumers and for state and local government by providing a preference to bidders who commit that 90 percent of the work will be performed by California employees.

SB 974 (Steinberg; D-Sacramento) Undermines Economic Development — Threatens California’s economy and economic recovery by effectively gutting the California Enterprise Zone (EZ) program hiring tax credit and in turn increasing employer taxes in order to fund a new education tax credit.

SB 1113 (Wolk; D-Davis) Undermines Taxpayer Rights — Makes it more costly and difficult for taxpayers to fight meritorious disputes and gives the Franchise Tax Board (FTB) the upper hand by allowing FTB to request a new court trial of tax cases it loses at the administrative level.

SB 1272 (Wolk; D-Davis) Discourages Investment — Creates uncertainty for California employers making long-term investment decisions by requiring all future-enacted investment incentives to sunset after seven years.

SB 1275 (Leno; D-San Francisco) Delays Residential Construction Industry Recovery — Hinders the recovery in the residential construction industry by reducing the availability of credit due to delays in resolving delinquent loans by requiring lenders to determine a borrower’s eligibility for a loan modification prior to the filing of a notice of default.

SB 1316 (Romero; D-East Los Angeles) Employer Tax Increase — Places California out of step with federal law and creates a disincentive for multi-state companies to invest in California by making it the only state to impose a tax liability when a company needs flexibility to exchange a California property with one owned in another state.

SB 1391 (Yee; D-San Francisco) Creates Employer Tax Credit Uncertainty — Eliminates the incentive effect of future-enacted tax credits by requiring employers to repay the state for credits claimed in years where their businesses experience a net loss of employees, whether or not the reduction of employees was connected to the effectiveness of the credit.

EXPENSIVE, UNNECESSARY REGULATORY BURDENS

AB 479/AB 737 (Chesbro; D-North Coast) Expanded Waste Bureaucracy — Exposes employers to new requirements that are not cost effective or are unworkable by giving government broad new authority to impose programs that achieve a statewide solid waste diversion rate of 75 percent by 2020.

AB 2138 (Chesbro; D-North Coast) Unworkable Mandate — Imposes new and costly mandates on California’s food service industry by imposing an unworkable framework aimed at reducing marine debris.

AB 2578 (Jones; D-Sacramento) Inappropriate Price Control — Reduces health care choices, access and quality by creating additional bureaucracy to impose price controls on health insurance policies while failing to address the major cost drivers of rising medical costs.

INFLATED LIABILITY COSTS

AB 1680 (Saldaña; D-San Diego) Interferes with Contractual Agreements — Burdens businesses with unnecessary litigation costs and slows resolution of disputes by prohibiting enforcement of voluntary arbitration agreements if someone is being sued for a hate crime.

AB 2773 (Swanson; D-Alameda) Undermines Judicial Discretion — Unreasonably increases business litigation costs by removing judicial discretion to reduce or eliminate exorbitant legal fees in fair employment and housing cases.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed all six bills designated by the California Chamber of Commerce as “job killers,” the chamber announced Monday.

Schwarzenegger also signed into law a chamber-designated “job creator” bill that will reinstate air quality permits for hundreds of construction projects in the Los Angeles region.

The six vetoes uphold Schwarzenegger’s tradition of rejecting job killer bills reaching his desk; since he took office, he has vetoed 53 out of 57 bills bearing the job-killer label.

“Governor Schwarzenegger understands that California business cannot withstand additional regulation at a time when we are struggling with economic recovery,” said Allan Zaremberg, chief executive of the state chamber. “Allowing these ‘job killer’ bills to become law would have further hampered hiring and hurt our state’s competitiveness.”

Among the bills vetoed were two that the chamber feared would increase business’ exposure to lawsuits: AB 793, which would have broadened the ability of employees to sue for discrimination; and SB 242, which would have imposed penalties on employers who failed to post signs or otherwise communicate with customers in additional languages.

Schwarzenegger also vetoed AB 943, which would have restricted the ability of employers to use credit reports in hiring decisions; as well as SB 789, which would have made it easier for farmworkers to gain union representation.

Also on the veto list were: AB 2, which would have allowed lawsuits over health insurers’ decisions to rescind coverage; and AB 1404, which would have limited the amount of pollution offsets businesses could use to meet their greenhouse gas emission reduction goals.

On the other side of the ledger, Schwarzenegger signed into law SB 827, which as of Jan. 1 reinstates permits that had been granted for hundreds of construction projects in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The South Coast Air Quality Management District permits were frozen by a judge as the result of a lawsuit filed by environmental groups challenging the district’s awarding of emission reduction credits at below-market costs.

Schwarzenegger had signed another “job creator” bill in July: AB 333, which extends the life of subdivision and parcel maps for two years; many of these development maps had been set to expire due to inactivity related to the state’s real estate crash.

The governor did sign A.B. 1383, which establishes a hospital provider fee, proceeds of which would help the state qualify for more Medicaid money from the federal government by being able to offer a larger state match. The bill authored by Assembymember Dave Jones, (D-Sacramento) was co-sponsored by California Hospital Association and two other hospital groups, but was opposed by the state chamber and some hospitals that do not serve many Medicaid patients.

Article from LA Business Journal