California Assembly Bill AB1097 Amended / Bill

 BILL NUMBER: AB 1097AMENDED BILL TEXT AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 25, 2011 AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 7, 2011 INTRODUCED BY Assembly Member Skinner FEBRUARY 18, 2011 An act to add Section 13985 to the Government Code, relating to transit. LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST F AB 1097, as amended, Skinner. Transit projects: domestic content. Existing law creates the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency with various departments of state government that report to the agency secretary. Existing law provides various sources of funding for transit projects. This bill would require the Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing to specifically authorize a state or local agency receiving  state   federal  funds for transit purposes to provide a bidding preference to a bidder if the bidder meets or exceeds Buy America requirements applicable to federally funded transit projects. Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS: F  SECTION 1.   The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:   (a) American manufacturing has been declining over the past several years with jobs going overseas due to tax and other policies, with predictable economic consequences. The federal "Buy America" laws were passed as one means to address this concern.   (b) Public transit agencies in the state and nation continue to provide critical transportation services to citizens, and remain critical components for state and national goals to alleviate highway Fgridlock, air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions.   (c) Funding for public transit has continued to decline in difficult economic times, and it remains difficult to keep public transit systems in good repair, including maintaining and replacing rail vehicles.   (d) Federal "Buy America" laws applicable to rolling stock, including rail vehicles, require that the cost of components and subcomponents produced in the United States total at least 60 percent of the cost of all components in the rolling stock, and that final assembly of the rolling stock occur in the United States (49 U.S.C. Sec. 5323(j)(2)(C)).   (e) Federal "Buy America" regulations allow states to impose contracting preference provisions based on more stringent domestic content requirements than those set forth in the federal law, but the Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will not participate in the funding of state and local contracts with those preference provisions if they are not explicitly set out under state law (49 C.F.R. 661.21). The State of California currently has no such preference law.   (f) It is in the best interests of the State of California, as well as the manufacturers across the nation, to authorize state and local agencies to give preferences to bidders on rolling stock contracts that provide domestic content above the minimum requirements set forth in federal "Buy America" laws. Each state and local agency should have the discretion to apply those preferences.   SECTION 1.   SEC. 2.  Section 13985 is added to the Government Code, to read: 13985. The Secretary of Business, Transportation and Housing shall authorize a state or local agency receiving  state   federal  funds for transit purposes to provide a bidding preference to a bidder if the bidder meets or exceeds Buy America requirements applicable to federally funded transit projects.