Governor Signs Federal Laboratory Contract Bill

Senate Bill 1629, sponsored by Senator Jackie Speier along with Assemblymembers Sally Lieber and Betty Karnette, was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. SB 1629, enacting the Federal Laboratory Contracting Act, modifies the existing state's contracting procedures and policies to enable California to contract with Department of Energy and NASA federal funded laboratories.

Previously, differences in accounting procedures between federal and state policies made it virtually impossible for the state to contract with these facilities, making much of the lab's cutting-edge research and development inaccessible to the state. CCST helped bring this procedural roadblock to legislators' attention with its January 2006 report, California's Federal Laboratories: A State Resource. Senator Speier proposed SB 1629 in response to the CCST report.

Federal Laboratories

• SB 1629 (Speier) Chaptered. Creates the Federal Laboratory Contracting Act.
• HR 29 (Houston) Adopted. Resolved, That the Assembly supports the Governor's efforts to direct the appropriate state agencies to assist and partner with the national laboratory partnership of Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in advancing their petition to the United States Department of Energy to establish the Joint Bio-Energy Institute in California.
• SR 26 (Perata, Migden, and Speier) Adopted. Resolved by the Senate that it appreciates and commends the national laboratory partnership of Sandia National Laboratories, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory for their plan to bring the National Biological Foundry to California, and affirms the Senate's support of efforts to locate the National Biological Foundry in California; that the United States Department of Energy approve locating the National Biological Foundry in California; and the appropriate state agencies assist with this effort.

Governor Signs Health Information Technology Order

Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an Executive Order (S-12-06) which outlines the state's plan for the advancement of health information technology (HIT).

The order directs the secretaries of Health and Human Services and Business, Transportation and Housing, and the director of the Department of Managed Health Care, to devise financing strategies to allocate part of at least $240 million to develop public and private financing alternatives to expedite HIT adoption by hospitals, physicians and health care providers. It also directs agencies to report back within 60 days of the forum and, implement a comprehensive HIT program by July 1, 2007. The bill includes many provisions from SB 1338, proposed by Senator Elaine Alquist, earlier this year.

"The only difference between the Governor's Executive Order and my measure is that the Governor's action forces a more aggressive timeline, which I welcome since it may mean that we realize all the goals of my legislation much sooner," said Senator Alquist. CCST has been highlighting the importance of HIT for California since last year. At the October 2005 Council meeting, held jointly with the Institute of Medicine, CCST concluded that the implementation of health care information technologies (HIT) in California was both a huge problem and an opportunity for closing inequities in health care costs.