SB 51 (Permanent Standard Time) IS MOVING
First, the bad news. Second, the good news. Third, next steps.
SB 51 received the minimum number of votes of the 17-member Senate Energy Committee last Monday night to keep moving in the 2025 legislative process, representing the first time this issue has made it out of a legislative policy committee. It is hardly uncommon, indeed, many would say common, for bills to go through multiple failed efforts before becoming law, something to remember should SB 51 die somewhere later in the 2025 legislative process.
The proponents of permanent standard time are organized, dedicated, and persistent in the way all true believers are. While we have some confidence that the United States Congress may pass the “Sunshine Act” and make permanent daylight-saving time the mechanism by which Americans no longer have to switch their clocks twice per year, we are not confident that in its final iteration it will preclude states from opting out of permanent daylight-saving time by going to permanent standard time. Rather, it appears that its final language may substitute permanent daylight-saving time for the current clock-switching paradigm as the default position of the states UNLESS states take action to hew full-time to standard time. In other words, the true believers in the superiority of standard time are going to continue to press California to adopt their preference, albeit some of the arguments they now employ to advocate for their preference will no longer be available to them and they will still have to secure 2/3 support of both Houses of the Legislature to opt out of the new national standard.
The good news? Nine (9) members voted yes to move it. Eight (8) members either abstained, which is the equivalent of a no vote, or voted no. Among the eight (8) was Senate Appropriations Chair Ana Caballero, whose committee is where SB 51 goes next. The fact that eight members stayed off the bill indicates a measure of unease that presages difficulty for a bill that because of 2018’s Proposition 7, requires a 2/3 vote to pass.
Next steps? A meeting with the Appropriations Committee’s lead staffer to highlight all the ways passage of SB 51 would affect the state fiscally. Beyond that, it’s important that the constituent organizations of CAG (e.g., GCSAA, CGCOA, SCPGA) follow suit with the San Francisco Public Golf Alliance and pen their own organizational letters to begin building support for the bill being held in committee when the Appropriations Committee conducts its Suspense hearing the last week of May. Bills that involve more than $50,000.00 in costs to the state are placed on Suspense when they are first brought before the Appropriations Committees of both Houses of the Legislature. More important than building the case for Suspense is building the case against the bill securing 27 of the Senate’s 40 Senators should the bill escape Suspense and make it to the Senate floor.
This would be the right time to put the “Ambassador” programs to work. They are programs that the game’s national organizations have created to identify members willing to develop relationships with local officeholders. In addition, those of CAG’s organizations that have “alert” capacity that allows their members to input their addresses and be taken to their Senate Office to copy and paste one of 3-4 mock email messages should take the preparatory steps necessary to pull their respective “alert” triggers should it get to the point that SB 51 appears to be steamrolling toward a floor vote. CAG will continue to try to get some of the large municipal park/recreation departments to make known to the legislature what they have made known to us in multiple conversations — that permanent standard time would be a blow both programmatically and financially to their operations. And let's not forget the many multi-course operators active in the state. They have much to lose and ought to consider making that known.
NATIONAL GOLF DAY
Golf organizations and golf leaders from around the nation swarm Washington D.C. this week to conduct hundreds of separate meetings with House and Senate Offices, conduct meetings of national advocacy/government affairs committees, and advertise the societal, environmental, and charitable value golf brings to communities.
Each of the Congressional meetings will focus on two (2) items of intense interest to the golf community in all 50 states:
- Support of the “PAR Act” (Parity for Recreational Activity) that would remove golf from IRS Code Section 144(c)(6)(B)’s list of businesses/organizations ineligible for certain categories of federal disaster relief, a list that includes massage parlors, hot tub facilities, suntan facilities, racetracks or other facilities used for gambling, and liquor stores – a “sin” list if you will. Golf has lobbied this issue in the past but has its best chance at securing relief this year because it is all but guaranteed that Congress will pass a major tax bill in 2025.
- Farm Bill – When the Farm Bill is reauthorized in September, the national golf community wants to make sure that it is reauthorized with the National Turfgrass Initiative, which provides funding for turf research, and it wants to make sure that the FIFRA Interagency Work Group that was also part of the last iteration of the national Farm Bill (2018) is part of it as well.
Of specific interest to the California golf community and a topic of focus for those visiting California Congressional Offices will be the “Promoting Reduction of Emissions through Landscaping Act.” Introduced last Congress as H.R. 6013 by Representative Correa (D-CA-46), the Act would provide a 40% tax credit on the purchase of zero-emission equipment, up to $25,000 annually and up to $100,000 over the course of 10 years. It applies to zero-emission lawn, garden and landscaping equipment, and the equipment to retrofit existing equipment to zero-emission. Given that California already bans the sale (albeit not the use) of gas powered equipment under 25 horsepower, the passage of this bill would be of particular benefit to the California golf community.
Also of specific interest to California (and a number of other states) will be the American Golf Industry’s position on the Sunshine Act, which is a very carefully parsed one that makes clear that while the golf industry maintains no preference for permanent daylight-saving time when the choice is between it and the status quo (flipping the clock twice per year), when the choice is between permanent daylight-saving time and permanent standard time, the golf community prefers permanent daylight-saving time.
It goes without saying that many of the California visits (many of those in the greater Southwest as well) will involve generic discussions of water supply in general, the looming Colorado River reallocations in specific, and the golf industry’s continued dedication to reducing its water use – a dedication that has brought measurable and impressive results the last 25 years.
There are a couple of items that are part of the national agenda but not relevant in California and thus not likely to gain much if any attention – WOTUS (Waters of the United States) and the H-2B Visa program. As with so many regulatory matters, California hews to a separate and more onerous standard regarding “Waters of California,” which those who scrutinize these communications closely will recognize as the subject of a bill in this year’s hopper that we are tracking but not directly engaging – SB 601. Regarding the H-2B Visa Program, while an important issue for golf in many parts of the nation and something meriting the attention of a national advocacy effort like National Golf Day, it is a scantily used program in California.
HOW CAG COMPARES WITH CALIFORNIA’S OTHER ADVOCACY GROUPS
According to CalMatters’ annual report on governmental advocacy in Sacramento, lobbying groups spent more than ½ billion dollars trying to influence California lawmakers in 2024– a 10 plus percentage increase over 2023.
According to economists quoted in the CalMatters annual update, this should come as no surprise in a state that now hosts the 4th largest economy in the world, having recently displaced Japan, with the large government to go with it.
Top Spenders in 2024
WESTERN STATES PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION
$17,362,600.00
CHEVRON U.S.A., INC. AND AFFILIATES
$14,226,941.00
$13,491,845.00
$11,879,137.00
COMPUTER & COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY ASSN.
$7,397,595.00
CALIFORNIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
$5,376,949.00
CALIFORNIA BUSINESS ROUNDTABLE
$5,002,933.00
[Source: California Secretary of State / Cal Matters]
The top spenders were in the private sector. Only two (2) labor groups exceeded $1 million in 2024: The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the California Teachers Association (CTA), which spent $3.4 million and $3.1 million, respectively.
The state’s nonprofits, including the many environmental organizations in that category, trailed far behind; however, when aggregated, their contributions were still significant, particularly so where, as in the case of the state’s environmental advocacy groups, they acted in concert – a luxury that the California golf community has struggled to effectuate in terms of making common cause with similarly situated active recreational communities.
What CAG expended on lobbying activities in 2024 is miniscule by comparison. On the other hand, its success rate in recent years has been better than that of the private sector spenders (60% according to CalMatters) and labor sector spenders (70% according to CalMatters). Whether a result of dumb luck, the fact that so many in government play and love the game of golf, or that CAG’s success ratio database is so much smaller, matters little. What does matter and does bear repeating is the following. CAG can never compete as a traditional business lobby, but it can be effective if it makes its case not as a $15.1 billion California industry, but rather as a game that brings community, environmental, social, and charitable value to every locale that it touches.