Cal/OSHA to Turn Attention to Shade Rules

Cal/OSHA to Turn Attention to Shade Rules:

Shade requirements to prevent heat illness in outdoor workers are expected to be the focus of a new Cal/OSHA regulatory process in a few weeks.

Public Affairs/Politics:

11th-Hour Votes on State Budget Fail With a day to go until a cash crisis would force the state to stop paying its bills, lawmakers and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger worked into the night Tuesday but failed to reach a budget agreement. The state Senate, in late session, voted several times as midnight approached in a last-ditch effort to approve $3.3 billion in cuts to education and other programs and stave off, at least temporarily, the IOUs that California Controller John Chiang is set to begin issuing Thursday in lieu of some payments. Los Angeles Times

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Human Resources/Health and Safety:

California Chain Restaurants Must Post Calorie Counts Starting Today California becomes the first state in the nation to legislate the cheeseburger today, when a new law — aimed at reducing obesity and heart disease — forces restaurants with at least 20 locations to reveal the number of calories in most of the food on their menus. The new law is expected to affect about 17,000 of the state's 80,000 restaurants, many of them fast-food outlets that initially resisted the change, but later began posting the information voluntarily. San Jose Mercury News

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The Economy:

Obama Sends Consumer-Protection Bill to Congress President Obama, pushing a key part of his overhaul of financial regulations, sent to Congress a draft bill that would create the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which he said would better protect Americans from unscrupulous practices and make financial products easier to understand. Under the 152-page bill released Tuesday, the new agency would bring together what the administration called the "fragmented" system of responsibility for consumer protection. Los Angeles Times

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Environmental/Agriculture:

EPA Gives Green Light to California's Pollution Rules The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday granted California the right to enforce a 2002 law that mandates deep cuts to automotive greenhouse-gas emissions through 2016, marking an official truce in a long struggle among automakers, the state and the federal government. The ruling follows a settlement on the issue brokered by the Obama administration in May. While to some degree a formality, Tuesday's decision sets what environmental groups and some in the auto industry say is an important precedent. The Sacramento Bee

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International:

China Is Expected to Block Imports of Chicken From U.S.

China is expected to ban imports of U.S. chicken in coming days, a move likely to deliver a blow to the struggling American chicken industry and escalate trade tensions between the two nations. James H. Sumner, president of the Georgia-based USA Poultry & Egg Export Council, said he learned Tuesday from "several importers" in China that the U.S. wouldn't receive any import permits from the country's ministry of commerce starting July 1. The Wall Street Journal

The CalChamber Council for International Trade (CIT) is urging members of the business community to join its coalition working to secure congressional approval of the free trade agreements (FTAs) with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. Companies or associations that join the California Coalition for Free Trade will be included on the rapidly growing list of FTA supporters. There is no cost to join the coalition, which will keep members apprised of its activities and how to be supportive of the FTAs. For more information on the FTAs or to join the coalition, visit www.calchamber.com/international

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Infrastructure/Education:

Appeals Court Rules that California Officials Have Illegally Used Transportation Funds

A state appeals court ruled Tuesday that California officials have illegally siphoned away billions of dollars from mass transit in the last two years to balance the budget. The decision by a panel of judges in the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento would put the state on the hook for $2.5 billion in transfers made in the last two years, said H.D. Palmer, a spokesman for the Department of Finance. Los Angeles Times

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Opinion/Editorial:

Squeeze Play Exacts Price for a Budget

The Capitol's budget game has evolved into a predictable pattern of political moves, one of which is a late-blooming demand for something not directly tied to the budget as a price for its enactment. Demanders, usually the governor or minority legislators, justify their genteel extortion on the grounds that without the leverage provided by the budget, the majority party would simply ignore them. Dan Walters in The Sacramento Bee

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