SACRAMENTO – Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. on Friday signed 18 bills to strengthen the state’s business climate.

The action builds on the legislation Gov. Brown signed in July to revamp the state’s economic development program, known as the Governor’s Economic Development Initiative (AB 93 and SB 90).

The initiative, which received broad, bipartisan support in the Legislature, helps bolster California’s business climate and put Californians to work by establishing a statewide sales tax exemption on all manufacturing equipment and research and development equipment purchases for biotech and manufacturing companies; hiring credits for businesses in areas with the highest unemployment rate and poverty; and provides the opportunity for California businesses to compete for available tax credits based on the number of jobs to be created and retained, wages paid in those jobs and other factors.

Since taking office in 2011, the Governor has approved legislation to modernize the workers’ compensation system, the regulatory and fee structure for the timber industry, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance requirements and the facility inspection process for the life sciences industry.

In addition to these legislative actions, Brown has established the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz) as the state’s lead economic development office to advance business opportunity in California and enacted administrative changes to streamline the oil and gas drilling permitting process.

The governor signed the following bills:

AB 201 by Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) – Requires the Office of Small Business Advocate to post on its Internet Web site information on the programs administered through the statewide network of small business financial development corporations.

AB 250 by Assemblymember Chris Holden (D-Pasadena) – Codifies and expands the California Innovation Hub (iHub) Program at GO-Biz for the purpose of stimulating economic development and job creation through the coordination of federal, state, and local innovation-supporting resources.

AB 502 by Assemblymember Donald P. Wagner (R-Irvine) – Adopts various amendments to Division 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code governing secured transactions in personal property.

AB 781 by Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra (D-Los Angeles) – Makes it a punishable offense for any person to sell, purchase, install, transfer or possess software programs that falsify reported sales, as specified.

AB 786 by Assemblymember Roger Dickinson (D-Sacramento) – Amends the Money Transmission Act (MTA) to exempt certain payroll companies from licensure; changes minimum net worth requirements and establishes a maximum net worth requirement of $2 million; allows, as eligible securities, deposit accounts of a licensee held "for the benefit of" money transmission customers; and makes changes to enforcement provisions of the MTA.

AB 792 by Assemblymember Kevin Mullin (D-South San Francisco) – Until January 1, 2020, exempts from a utility users tax , the consumption of electricity generated by a distributed clean energy resource, as defined, for use by a single consumer or the customer's tenants.

AB 1067 by Assemblymember Jose Medina (D-Riverside) – Establishes the California Foreign Investment Program within the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development as the lead entity for overseeing the state's participation in the United States Citizenship Immigration Services' EB-5 Investment Program.

AB 1173 by Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra (D-Los Angeles) – Reduces the excise tax penalty from 20 percent to 5 percent for taxable years beginning January 1, 2013, amounts deferred under a nonqualified deferred compensation plan that does not meet the requirements of Internal Revenue Code. This bill also clarifies the scope of the California Motion Picture Tax Credit utilization and simplifies the process by which certain nonprofit organizations may obtain tax-exempt status in California.

AB 1247 by Assemblymember Jose Medina (D-Riverside) – Places administration of the small business financial development corporation (FDC) managed programs in the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank (I-Bank), within the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz).

AB 1255 by Assemblymember Richard Pan (D-Sacramento) – Authorizes a consumer cooperative corporation to (1) provide for preferred memberships and/or non-voting memberships in its articles of incorporation or bylaws; (2) divide a membership class into one or more series; and (3) authorize the board of directors to fix the rights, privileges, preferences, restrictions, and conditions attaching to any wholly unissued class or series of memberships.

AB 1400 by the Committee on Jobs, Economic Development, and the Economy – Permits a person requesting an export document from the Department of Public Health (DPH) to make the request in electronic format, and requires DPH to accept requests submitted by email or other electronic methods, including electronic copies of labels or advertising. This bill also increases the term of the export document from six months to one year after its issue date.

AB 1412 by Assemblymember Raul Bocanegra (D-Los Angeles) – Temporarily reinstates the income exclusion and deferral provisions for gain from the sale or exchange of qualified small business stock , as defined, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2008, and before January 1, 2013.

AB 1422 by the Committee on Jobs, Economic Development, and the Economy – Provides code maintenance and technical clean-up to the sales and use tax exemption program administered through the California Alternative Energy and Advanced transportation Financing Authority.

SB 12 by Sen. Ellen Corbett (D-Hayward) – Creates the "Made in California Program" within the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development for the purpose of encouraging consumer product awareness and to foster the purchases of products manufactured in California.

SB 31 by Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima) – Permits arenas to display advertising for products, goods, or services sold on premises as well as part of a sponsorship marketing plan if the arena is on public land and has a capacity of 15,000 or more seats.

SB 209 by Sen. Ted W. Lieu (D-Torrance) – Partially reinstates the income exclusion and deferral provisions for gain from the sale or exchange of qualified small business stock, as defined, for taxable years beginning on or after January 1, 2008, and before January 1, 2013. Note: Because AB 1412 has been signed, the provisions of this bill will not become operative.

SB 684 by Sen. Jerry Hill (D-San Mateo) – Amends the redevelopment agency (RDA) exemption to the Outdoor Advertising Act to reflect the elimination of redevelopment agencies and allow signs to remain in place through the original term of the RDA.

SB 694 by Sen. Lou Correa (D-Santa Ana) – Exempts, from the Outdoor Advertising Act, advertising displays at a publicly owned multimodel transit station that is to serve as a station for the high-speed train system, as specified, and requires revenues from the advertising display to be used to support the construction, operation, and maintenance of the transit station.

For full text of the bills, visit: http://leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html .