Stern bills reach committee hearings Tuesday

Henry Stern, Feel The Stern,
State Sen. Henry Stern. Courtesy photo
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Two of Senator Henry Stern’s bills will hit Senate committee floors on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 57, which would prevent natural gas injections from resuming in Aliso Canyon, will go to the Energy, Utilities and Communications committee.

Because of the large Aliso Canyon gas leak that occurred in October 2015, Stern’s bill would require a root cause analysis to determine the cause before injections could resume.

“SB 57 is about restoring the public’s trust in government and delivering on the basic promise of health and safety to all Californians,” Stern said in a statement to The Signal. “The root cause analysis will provide clear answers to what caused the well failure, and that is critical to providing certainty to the public that all steps have been taken to prevent a future incident like the one my constituents experienced.”

Los Angeles County Fire Department Chief Bill Jones, L.A. County Chief Legislative Representative Phyllis Marshall and California Environmental Justice Alliance Policy Advocate Diana Vazquez will all testify at the hearing.

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, State Senators Bob Hertzberg (D-Van Nuys) and Scott Wilk (R-Antelope Valley), Assemblyman Dante Acosta (R-Santa Clarita), the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles City Council all expressed support of the bill.

The Natural Resources and Water Committee voted in favor of the bill 7-2 in early February.

This hearing was rescheduled from two weeks prior after it was taken off the committee’s agenda.

Additionally, Senate Bill 286 will be heard by the Elections and Constitutional Amendments Committee, of which Stern is the chairman.

The bill would allow vote-by-mail voters to cast a live ballot at a polling place. Voters who lose their mail-in ballot or never receive it will be allowed to go to the polls to cast a regular ballot after a polling officer verifies that a vote-by-mail ballot has not already been submitted by that voter.

“Senate Bill 286 is an important step to reform and improve the elections process,” Stern said in a statement to The Signal. “It will save counties money and make voters feel more confident that their votes have been counted.”

If voters surrender their vote-by-mail ballots, they will be allowed to vote at their home precincts with nonprovisional ballots instead of provisional ones.

Senate Bill 807, Stern’s initiative to waive taxes for California teachers, was originally supposed to go to committee Wednesday but has been postponed for several weeks.

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