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Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Where Did the $750 Million Go? Hollywood Incentive Bill Passes CA Senate Without Newsom's Pledge
Legislation aimed at modernizing and expanding California's program that provides subsidies to film and TV productions has passed the California Senate, though this version of the bill doesn't commit to increasing the cap from $330 million to $750 million a year. Tuesday's near unanimous vote was 34 to one, with the only dissent coming from Sen. Roger Niello (R-Sacramento). The bill, which now heads to the state Assembly for consideration, would vastly boost subsidies to shoot in the state to at least 35 percent while expanding the category of productions that qualify to include shorter TV shows, animated titles and certain types of unscripted projects. More from The Hollywood Reporter New Report Portrays California's Film and TV Production Environment as Uniquely Burdensome and Expensive Steven Paul, Architect of Trump Ambassador Plan to Hollywood, Buys Production Facility L.A. Mayor Vows to Cut Red Tape and Make It Easier to Shoot Movies and Shows In the City Its passage is a crucial victory for workers across Hollywood who've seen significantly less work as productions increasingly opt to shoot in other areas that offer more tax credits. It's the first step in revamping California's program amid a tit-for-tat race to host the entertainment industry. 'We need to do whatever we can to make sure California remains the number one entertainment capitol of the world,' said Sen. Tony Strickland (R-Huntington Beach). 'In order to do that, we need to be in the ballpark. We don't need to top other states, but we need to be in the ballpark.' If passed, Senate Bill 630 would bring the most significant changes to the program since its inception in 2009. The bill, SB 630, was spurred by a historic downturn in filming in the state. The 20 percent base credit offered by California is lower than most competitive film hubs, including New York, Georgia and the U.K. There was broad bipartisan support for the bill, with several lawmakers stressing the impact that the downturn in production has had on their districts in recent years. 'The domino effect is vast,' said Sen. Carolina Menjivar (D-San Fernando Valley), whose district includes Burbank. 'This impacts dry cleaners and the people with small restaurants around these studios. They've noted a decreased amount of pedestrian traffic to their businesses because they're surrounded by studios and there's not a lot of work.' Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares(R-Santa Clarita) said that soundstages and postproduction houses in her district are suffering as productions opt to work with vendors in other states and countries. She pointed to the first season of Amazon's Fallout filming in New York despite the story taking place in a post-apocalyptic California (season two opted to shoot in California after receiving tax credits). 'We're losing significant ground,' she said. 'Other states have built entire industries luring production away from California.' Under the bill, productions could get 35 percent of their spend back for costs incurred in the states. An additional five percent credit would also be available for shooting in certain areas outside Los Angeles. And in a bid to keep up with other regions broadening the types of productions that can receive subsidies, TV shows consisting of two or more episodes of at least 20 minutes would qualify for the program, which currently only allows series with episodes of at least 40 minutes to qualify. Other productions that could get credits under the revisions to the bill include sitcoms, animated films, series or shorts and 'large-scale competition' shows, excluding reality, documentary programming and game or talk shows. They must have budgets of at least $1 million. The bill, however, doesn't contemplate allowing any portion of above-the-line costs, like salaries for actors, directors and producers, to qualify for subsidies. California is currently the only major film hub to maintain such a scheme. Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica) said that the state wants to 'avoid a race to the bottom.' He added that the program is 'grounded in jobs creation and economic activity' unlike Georgia's. The legislation is expected to meet more resistance on Thursday at the state Assembly, where lawmakers could express concerns over increasing subsidies to film and TV productions as the state proposes major cuts to health care and universities. Best of The Hollywood Reporter How the Warner Brothers Got Their Film Business Started Meet the World Builders: Hollywood's Top Physical Production Executives of 2023 Men in Blazers, Hollywood's Favorite Soccer Podcast, Aims for a Global Empire
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
California Senate Approves Film & TV Tax Credits Bill
In a near-unanimous vote, the California Senate today passed its version of legislation aimed at expanding and retooling the state's Film and Television Tax Credit Program. The vote on Senate Bill 630 was 34-1, with the only nay coming from Sen. Roger Niello, who represents the city of Sacramento and surrounding areas. The bill (read it here) now moves on to the state Assembly. More from Deadline Show Us The Money: When Can Productions Expect To Reap Benefits Of California's Proposed $750M Film & TV Tax Credit Expansion? SAG-AFTRA's 'Here's Looking At You L.A.' & Mayor Karen Bass Push For State & Federal Tax Incentives To Get Hollywood Working Again Sweetened New York Production Incentives A Go As State Budget Passes Along with Assembly Bill 1138 — which passed the Appropriations Committee last month — the legislation would expand the definition of a qualified motion picture, allowing additional projects to apply for the program, including series with episodes averaging 20 minutes or more, animation films, series, and shorts, and large-scale competition shows. After years of strife for the California film and television industry, Gov. Gavin Newsom in October proposed a significant increase to the overall cap on incentives, more than doubling it from $330 million to $750M annually. SB630 and AB1138 seek to do more than just provide additional finance incentives to studios who bring physical production back to California. The sister bills also are meant to 'amend, update, and modernize' the program. The legislation comes amid the latest spurt of runaway production as other states ramp up their film and TV tax incentives programs in an effort to lure production away from California. New York last month passed a state budget that includes expanded incentives. RELATED: Also getting Hollywood's attention is President Donald Trump's bombshell announcement of planned tariffs on movies produced outside the U.S., which were decried many in the industry, along with Newsom, who said Trump has 'no authority' to impose the tariffs. Here is how the voting on SB630 went: Best of Deadline 2025-26 Awards Season Calendar: Dates For Tonys, Emmys, Oscars & More Everything We Know About 'Nobody Wants This' Season 2 So Far List Of Hollywood & Media Layoffs From Paramount To Warner Bros Discovery To CNN & More
Los Angeles Times
08-03-2025
- Health
- Los Angeles Times
Daylight saving time starts Sunday. Why gaining an extra hour of sunlight matters
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Here's what you need to know to start your weekend: Early Sunday morning, the United States — minus Hawaii and Arizona — will enter daylight saving time, the annual tradition of springing forward one hour. Most Americans will lose an hour of sleep, but gain an extra hour of evening daylight. The country has been divided on daylight saving time ever since Congress passed a law mandating it in March 1918. Back then, the U.S. was trying to conserve fuel and energy for World War I and shifted clocks to make use of natural evening sunlight. There were no consistent rules for the practice until the Uniform Time Act was implemented by Congress in 1966, setting common start and ending dates for daylight saving time across the country. In recent years, some lawmakers have advocated for eliminating daylight saving time while others have introduced bills to make it permanent. Here's more on the pros and cons of daylight saving time and why it's probably not going away anytime soon. More people can make use of evening light than morning light For the first weeks of daylight saving time, sleep schedules may be thrown off. But for eight months, most people will have much more sun in their lives. With an extra hour of light, residents in Southern California can go horseback riding in Catalina, hiking ambitious trails or biking along L.A.'s coast. Crime is also down during this time. A 2015 Brookings Institute study found that daylight saving time reduced the number of evening robberies. The study also said that robbery rates didn't increase in the morning, even though those hours were darker. Sleep experts say standard time is the healthier choice While daylight saving time provides more sunlight and reduces crime, it also disrupts sleep patterns and raises the likelihood of collisions. 'The increased morning darkness, particularly in winter if daylight saving time were permanent, would create additional challenges, such as unsafe conditions for commuters and children heading to school,' according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine. Standard time, the academy notes, aligns more closely with our body's natural circadian rhythms, which regulate sleep-wake cycles. More sunlight in the morning helps people wake up and feel more alert, while less sunlight exposure in the evening signals to our bodies that it's time to wind down. Daylight saving time isn't going away anytime soon While all but two states in the U.S. continue to observe daylight saving time, there is still disagreement about whether the practice should be eliminated or made permanent. Twenty states have passed legislation or resolutions in the last seven years supporting year-round daylight saving time, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. California is not among them. State Sen. Roger Niello (R-Fair Oaks) has unsuccessfully introduced legislation over the years to eliminate daylight saving time and establish standard time year-round. He reintroduced the bill this year. In December, President Trump said Republicans would push to eliminate daylight saving time, calling it 'inconvenient' and 'costly.' This week, Trump said he won't push for eliminating daylight saving time or making it permanent, as 'it's a 50/50 issue.' How Trump's agenda is playing out in California Newsom's comments on transgender athletes draws swift criticism from other Democrats A law to ban homeless encampments threw a California city into chaos The Los Angeles fires are taking a traumatic toll on kids More big stories Get unlimited access to the Los Angeles Times. Subscribe here. Justin Baldoni's tumultuous road to the center of a Hollywood scandal: The actor-director built a career blending his Bahai values and storytelling. Now allegations involving Blake Lively and 'It Ends With Us' threaten his image. More great reads How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to essentialcalifornia@ Going out Staying in What species of patriotic raptor are Jackie and Shadow, the webcam-famous Big Bear birds who welcomed their first hatchling Monday night? Plus nine other questions from our weekly news quiz. Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on
Associated Press
21-02-2025
- Automotive
- Associated Press
California lawmakers scramble to fix ‘lemon' vehicle law — again
For more than half a century, California's 'lemon' law was considered one of the best in the nation at giving consumers the legal right to demand car companies fix or replace defective vehicles still under warranty. Now, California lawmakers are scrambling to repair recent changes they made to the law to satisfy the very car companies accused of making so many lemon vehicles that their lawsuits have been clogging the state's courts. But the 'fixes' lawmakers are considering have angered consumer groups, frustrated legislators and seemingly divided the car makers between ones that face a lot of lemon lawsuits and the ones that don't. 'I think what we have is a messy and frankly — all due respect — illogical resulting situation,' Sen. Roger Niello, a Republican whose family owns several car dealerships in the Sacramento area, said at a hearing last week. 'I feel like I'm in Alice in Wonderland, quite frankly. What's up is down and what's down is up.' With hope of granting relief to the courts, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation last year intended to speed up the process, in part, by cutting years off the time consumers can exercise their rights to get their defective vehicles fixed or replaced. The law also puts more responsibilities on car owners to initiate claims instead of on the car companies. But that law divided car makers because those that face fewer lawsuits wanted more time to prepare their best defense, and they felt it was too friendly to lemon law attorneys. So when he signed the bill, Newsom told lawmakers to act quickly this year to allow car makers to opt out of the new process and continue to work under the old rules. Now, legislators are racing to pass the changes before the new law takes effect April 1. And they need a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to make the bill effective immediately. Meanwhile, they're hearing concerns about a confusing two-tier lemon law with fewer consumer protections that is primarily intended to help the companies facing the most lawsuits. Just four companies are responsible for more than 70% of California's lemon law cases: GM, Stellantis (formerly Fiat Chrysler), Nissan and Ford, according to consumer group s. It makes Susan Giesberg furious. She spent almost a decade working on lemon law issues at the California Department of Justice. Now retired, she says she and her husband had to invoke their rights under the state's lemon law under the old rules when their Chevy Volt broke down last summer. 'This lemon law has gone through Republican and Democratic (attorneys general) and governors with support over the years,' she said in an interview. 'It's just so shocking that under Democratic leadership that this would have gotten through.' So how did it? To answer that you have to go back to August, in the final chaotic days of the legislative session. How lawmakers jammed through new lemon law As lawmakers were rushing through hundreds of pending bills – most of which had been under discussion for months – two Democrats, Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana and Assemblymember Ash Kalra of San Jose, changed a stalled child-support bill into new, never-vetted legislation that sought to reform how lemon law disputes are resolved. Stripping out stalled legislation, replacing it with a completely different bill and jamming it through at the last minute is disparagingly known in the Capitol as a 'gut-and-amend.' The lawmakers acknowledged that the bill, Assembly 1755, was the product of months of secret negotiations between U.S. car companies – primarily General Motors – consumer attorneys and judges who were frustrated that their courtrooms have become clogged with lemon law cases. Between 2018 and 2021, GM's 9,800 lemon law suits accounted for nearly one in three lemon law suits filed in California, according to the most recent stats from consumer groups. A company spokesperson in a written statement to CalMatters defended its record and the new California law. 'General Motors is continuously recognized by top consumer intelligence groups for vehicle reliability, quality, and customer loyalty,' GM spokesperson Colleen Oberc said in an email. She called the legislation 'a pro-consumer bill that will help drivers get back on the road sooner, while also helping clear court backlogs, benefitting both customers and the auto industry.' California defines a 'lemon' vehicle as one that has serious warranty defects that the manufacturer can't fix, even after multiple attempts. The lemon law applies only to disputes involving the manufacturer's new vehicle warranty. If the manufacturer or dealer is unable to repair a serious warranty defect in a vehicle after what the law says is a 'reasonable' number of attempts, the manufacturer must either replace it or refund its purchase price, whichever the customer prefers, according to the California Department of Consumer Affairs. Disputes can be resolved through arbitration or in court if a buyer sues. The number of lemon law cases in California courts climbed dramatically since 2021. There were nearly 15,000 filings in 2022 and more than 22,000 in 2023. In Los Angeles County, nearly 10% of all civil filings are now lemon law cases. Kalra and Umberg pitched their legislation last year as a way for auto companies and car buyers to settle their disputes quicker and without needing as much time in court. But Tesla and several foreign auto companies including Volkswagen and Toyota that aren't sued nearly as much said they were cut out of negotiations. They opposed the legislation. Consumer groups, meanwhile, called the legislation a blatant and shameless attempt at weakening the lemon law by the very companies that get sued the most because they sell the most defective vehicles. There was a lot more in the bill, which was about 4,200 words long (the equivalent of a 16-page double-spaced term paper). What's more, the bill's legislative analysis, intended to explain the context and impact of a bill in non-legal language for lawmakers, was more than 10,000 words. The bill passed easily even though some lawmakers complained they were uncomfortable with having to decide such a complicated, confusing piece of legislation so quickly. 'There wasn't a single person who represents the people of California who knew about this and was a part of those conversations – for months,' Democratic San Ramon Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan told her colleagues on the Assembly Judiciary Committee in the final days of the 2024 legislative session. 'They dropped this in our lap, and they expect us to buy an argument related to the urgency that feels, to be honest, not real. And we're supposed to move this in a week's time.' Newsom signed the bill in September, with an accompanying letter to lawmakers demanding they fix the law. Meanwhile, just a few weeks after Newsom signed the bill, the California Supreme Court weakened California's lemon law even more. The court ruled that the state's lemon law doesn't require manufacturers to honor a car's warranty when it's re-sold as a used vehicle. Before the Supreme Court's ruling, courts had interpreted the lemon law to require manufacturers to replace or repair a defective used car or truck if the clunker was sold within the window of its original new-vehicle warranty. Uncomfortable lawmakers pass bill anyway Fast forward to last week and the Senate Judiciary Committee's first hearing of the new two-year session. There was one bill on the agenda: Senate Bill 26, the legislation that Newsom requested. The new bill does not address the state Supreme Court ruling. And again the clock is ticking toward a new deadline. The bill frustrated Sen. Aisha Wahab, a Democratic senator from Fremont. She told her colleagues she was worried the two-track legal system for different car companies would make an already confusing scenario for desperate car owners more difficult to understand. 'I'm very concerned about those first-time buyers, those immigrant communities, those people that don't have the privilege to understand half of the stuff that was mentioned here,' she said. 'It makes it too hard to begin with.' Umberg, the bill's author, suggested that after lawmakers pass this bill to meet the April deadline, they might need to pass other legislation to address lawmakers' concerns as well as the Supreme Court's used-vehicle ruling. That didn't sit well either. 'It's unfortunate that protections for the consumers have gotten so complicated that we can't more easily explain this law or the previous law, and I thought this was a clean-up (bill),' said Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Democrat from Los Angeles. 'Now it seems like there may be a clean-up to the clean-up, maybe another clean-up, you know, after that.' Nonetheless, the bill ended up easily passing the 13-member committee. Wahab declined to vote, and Democratic Sen. Angelique Ashby of Sacramento cast the only 'no' vote. Ashby was one of the lawmakers who opposed last summer's bill as well. 'I still believe that it does not do enough to remove unsafe vehicles from our communities,' she said of this latest bill. 'In fact, I argue that this might have more unsafe vehicles in our communities, and I think I would not be alone in that assessment. I don't think it holds manufacturers accountable.' Sen. Niello said he had to reluctantly vote for Umberg's bill since it would help negate – at least for some auto companies – the legislation he also opposed last summer. He said he wished lawmakers would just scrap the bill Newsom signed last year 'and bring all of the interested parties together' to re-negotiate reforms to the lemon law, which he said probably could use some after five decades. Instead, he had to hold his nose and vote for another rushed bill. 'This is a perfect example of why we should not be approving legislation that is a gut and amend at the last minute of the end of session,' Niello said. ___
