In December 2015, when the state Department of Motor Vehicles released draft regulations for the testing of driverless vehicles, California tech firms were stunned by their onerousness. Google immediately objected to a proposed requirement that drivers always had to be behind the wheel of autonomous test vehicles.

Soon after, a consortium including TechNet, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, the Bay Area Council, the Wireless Association, the Consumer Technology Association, the Information Technology Industry Council and the Auto Alliance issued a statement pleading with the administration of Gov. Jerry Brown to encourage, not discourage, the nascent driverless vehicle industry.

Instead, the DMV initially decided to allow each of the state’s 480-plus incorporated cities and 58 counties to set up their own rules for such testing – potentially creating an immense maze for driverless vehicle companies.

To the relief of executives with Google, Uber, Lyft, Volvo and 40-plus other companies interested in testing their vehicles in the Golden State, the state government reconsidered its position. Beginning in April 2018, new DMV rules allowed for autonomous vehicles to be tested without a human behind the wheel. So far, only one company has met DMV’s standards and obtained a permit for such tests – Mountain View’s Waymo. But far more could qualify in coming years.

Now, there is a fresh sign of the DMV’s willingness to embrace new vehicular technology. On April 12, the agency released draft regulations allowing for testing of autonomous delivery vehicles. Heavy-duty vehicles that weigh more than 10,000 pounds are not allowed, but standard cars, trucks and vans can be tested. The DMV will only issue permits for fully autonomous testing to companies that have met the same safety standards that Waymo did. The rules are expected to be finalized by December.

Driverless deliveries may face less public anxiety

With polls showing millions of Americans are very nervous about riding in driverless vehicles, tech and marketing experts told The Verge website in January they were much more likely to gain initial acceptance for delivery purposes.

Robot deliveries with much smaller vehicles have already proven instant hits. San Francisco-based startup Starship Technologies has enjoyed huge success since January, when its 25 robots began deliveries on the 800-acre campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Navigating campus paths and sidewalks at 4 miles per hour, the robots deliver small coolers capable of holding up to 20 pounds of groceries. Students use an app to direct the robots where to go and are sent access codes to open the coolers. Starship collects $1.99 per order.

A March 25 Washington Post story depicted university officials as initially unsure what sort of reception the robots would get. But on the first day of deliveries, “the machines were flooded by so many dinner orders that school officials had to pull the plug, shutting off orders so that robots weren’t operating late into the night, far behind schedule,” the Post reported.

Since then, they’ve become an accepted convenience of campus life at the university.

S.F. firm’s college delivery robots only the start

In late March, Starship announced that an even bigger order of food-delivery robots, 30-plus, had been shipped to a second U.S. college – Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Unlike George Mason, NAU leaders were so confident the robots would be a hit with students that the university issued a press release quoting NAU President Rita Cheng as welcoming them to campus.

But much bolder plans are in the works. The Verge’s report in January noted that Burlingame-based startup Udelv was partnering with Walmart on an autonomous grocery-delivery service that will use the sort of vehicles that the California DMV is now crafting rules for. Home-food delivery services could be a $100 billion annual industry by 2025, the tech website reported.

The Udelv report came shortly after Cruise – GM’s autonomous vehicle company – announced it was teaming with San Francisco-based DoorDash on the same sort of food-delivery venture.

The case, Dynamex Operations West, Inc. v. Superior Court of Los Angeles, dealt with a delivery service that classified its workers as ICs. A driver filed a class action suit, arguing that the classification was improper.

While the ruling did not resolve this specific case, it provided a new framework for lower courts adjudicating the dispute and others like it.

In an unexpected turn, the court established an entirely new test. Under the previous “Borello” framework, the main consideration was whether the company had the right to control the manner by which the worker performs the work.

But under the new ABC test, businesses must show that the worker is (1) free from the control and direction of the employer; (2) that the worker performs work that is outside the hirer’s core business; (3) and the worker is customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation or business.

“When a worker has not independently decided to engage in an independently established business but instead is simply designated an independent contractor … there is a substantial risk that the hiring business is attempting to evade the demands of an applicable wage order through misclassification,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote for the court.

The decision has particularly stark effects for the so-called gig economy, as ride-sharing giants like Uber and Lyft have increasingly come under scrutiny for classifying their workers as independent contractors and not employees. Additionally, the ruling is likely to have a major effect across almost all sectors.

The court provided other examples for occupations like plumbing.

“A plumber temporarily hired by a store to repair a leak or an electrician to install a line would be an independent contractor. But a seamstress who works at home to make dresses for a clothing manufacturer from cloth and patterns supplied by the company, or a cake decorator who works on a regular basis on custom-designed cakes would be employees.”

Furthermore, a worker won’t be considered an employee “only if the worker is the type of traditional independent contractor … who would not reasonably have been viewed as working in the hiring business,” the court added.

More broadly, the court also framed the issue as one of fairness, believing that denying employee status is harmful to a large swath of workers.

Companies have a substantial incentive to classify workers as ICs over employees, as they don’t have to pay their social security or payroll taxes. Furthermore, workers have additional protections if they’re employees, such as unemployment insurance.

Worker rights groups are hailing the decision as a win, with the National Employment Law Project declaring that “the gig is up.”

“It means that companies in industries from construction to tech to homecare and trucking will no longer be able to dodge minimum wage laws by pretending that the workers who form their workforces are somehow not their employees,” the group’s spokeswoman Rebecca Smith added.

To read the ruling, visit: http://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/S222732.PDF

SACRAMENTO – The city of San Francisco filed suit last week against the ride-sharing service Uber after the company filed a motion in court to block the release of a drivers’ personal information. This sets up the latest battle between the city and one of the leading transportation network companies over an issue that has privacy implications beyond the ride-sharing industry.

San Francisco’s tax collector wants the home addresses and other information of drivers to post on a web site that includes a map that pinpoints the exact location of registered business owners in the city. Because these drivers are independent contractors, most of them use their home addresses as their official business address.

The web site is publicly searchable, which means that anyone can easily find where these drivers live. “We’ve asked the city to allow us to get the consent of drivers and to remove their personal information from the public web site, but they have refused,” said Uber Northern California’s general manager, in a statement last week.

The city’s treasurer, Jose Cisneros, portrayed Uber’s actions as an effort to “circumvent the tax laws that apply to all businesses in San Francisco.” He notes that 130,000 other businesses – ranging from big ones such as Pacific Gas & Electric to small hairdressers – must also provide the information.

“San Francisco needs this information to determine whether Uber’s drivers are complying with San Francisco’s Business Registration Certificate requirement and paying annual registration fees,” the city wrote in its legal brief filed in San Francisco Superior Court. In a statement, City Attorney Dennis Herrera referred to privacy concerns as a “red herring.”

But critics of the city’s legal approach see it as its latest effort to hobble these increasingly popular ride-sharing platforms. For instance, Cisneros seemed to suggest in a statement that the dispute goes beyond a simple business-registration request, as he ticked off a variety of unrelated complaints that he has with the company.

“Once again Uber believes they are above the law,” said Cisneros. “If Uber is so concerned about the financial well-being and privacy of their drivers, I recommend they raise wages, convert the contractors to employees, or push for their driver’s inclusion in statewide licensing like limousine drivers.”

If this is a question of registration, then why bring up pay rates or drivers’ independent-contractor status or unrelated licensing issues?

The city attorney’s office likewise brought up other issues. It alleges that Uber has engaged in a “pattern of obstruction” because it “has refused to share information with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency about its operations, tested self-driving cars on the streets of San Francisco without a state permit, and has fought calls by the SFMTA and the San Francisco International Airport for stricter criminal background checks on its drivers.”

The city attorney’s office also complained that, because ride-sharing companies such as Uber are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission, it has “limited the ability of cities to provide oversight.” The statement criticizes Uber for its backing of Senate Bill 182, which “would prohibit local jurisdictions from requiring a transportation network company driver to obtain more than one business license, regardless of the number of jurisdictions in which they operate,” according to the Senate bill analysis.

That measure has passed two committees with little opposition. As the San Francisco Chronicle reported, drivers are concerned that myriad cities will require business licenses, which means they would have to register and pay fees in every city where they operate. There are dozens of cities in the Bay Area alone, and drivers frequently pick up passengers in, say, San Francisco and leave them off in Oakland or San Mateo. Only a handful of cities now require business licenses, but the requirement could easily spread across the region.

As the ride-sharing companies’ defenders point out, these statements suggest the city isn’t just looking for a little registration information, but instead are pursuing broader regulatory efforts against the companies, which have shaken up the established taxicab industry.

City officials also have complained about the number of ride-sharing drivers on the streets, yet if these services weren’t available people would be using other types of vehicles. San Francisco officials often boast about the city’s role in the New Economy, yet are taking an antagonistic approach to this emerging industry.

City officials rebut the privacy concerns by noting that drivers can provide post-office boxes or separate business addresses on the registration forms, but drivers complain that it adds costs and hassles – above and beyond the $91 annual fee the city collects from drivers. Uber officials say they’ve heard from thousands of drivers who have expressed concern about privacy issues.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.

Companies in the region are increasingly offering their employees paid time off to participate in protests, marches and other demonstrations as part of civic engagement policies.

“Democracy is a participatory institution; it’s not just something that takes place every four years when you have a candidate in a race,” Adam Kleinberg, CEO of San Francisco ad firm Traction, told the San Francisco Chronicle.

The company gives its workers two paid “Days of Action” per year.

Furthermore, tech giants like Facebook recently allowed their employees to take a day of paid leave to participate in the May Day immigration rights demonstration in San Francisco — a rally that was largely a protest of Trump’s agenda.

“At Facebook, we’re committed to fostering an inclusive workplace where employees feel comfortable expressing their opinions and speaking up,” a spokesman explained in an emailed statement. “We support our people in recognizing International Workers’ Day and other efforts to raise awareness for safe and equitable employment conditions.”

Major tech figures like Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and co-founder Sergey Brin have all spoken out against the president, illustrating this administration’s frosty relationship with the industry.

And even those who showed a willingness to work with the White House have faced a wave of scrutiny. For example, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick resigned from the president’s business advisory council earlier this year after facing intense backlash, seeing #DeleteUber trend at the top of Twitter over his decision to offer guidance on a job growth agenda.

The policies appear to reflect a growing discontent in the heavily liberal region that Trump presents more than just policy differences — but an existential threat to their well being and daily life.

“It’s a recognition of the fact that civic engagement is something that we should be doing not just as individuals but as a company,” Buoyant CEO William Morgan told CS Monitor about his software company’s policy. “I wanted to make it more clear that we could not be passive citizens in this world.”

While the policies aren’t new — as companies like Comcast have been offering such leave for years — they appear to be taking on new life in the Trump era.

“People were wishing that I was dropped off in an (Islamic State) territory, calling me an idiotic libtard, candy-ass, saying they hope we’ll go out of business. Really nasty stuff,” Kleinberg told the Chronicle about the backlash to the policy.

Overall, Trump’s policy proposals have been met with a particularly strong response in Silicon Valley due to his stance on issues like the controversial H-1B visa program that tech companies say they rely on to recruit top talent — but one critics say comes at the expense of American workers.

And the president’s rhetoric may be having some effect, as the number of H-1B applications dropped to under 200,000 in 2017 — a 15 percent decrease from a year earlier.

“Tech companies in San Francisco and San Mateo counties lost 700 jobs from January to February and tech employment has dropped by 3,200 jobs since hitting a peak last August,” the New York Times observed, citing chief San Francisco economist Ted Egan. “Venture capital has peaked and has been going down steadily since 2015,” said Egan. “A lot of the employment in our tech sector is in companies that are not profitable. If they can’t secure new venture funding, some of them run out of cash. If we see a real downturn in the tech sector we could be in a situation where the U.S. economy is doing better than San Francisco’s.”

For months, Bay Area businesses and investors have had to adjust to unfamiliar economic terrain. “The drop continues a year-long slowdown of the economic machine that powers Silicon Valley’s tech sector, leaving some startups resorting to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures to make ends meet,” the San Jose Mercury News reported. “But analysts say they’d better get used to it — investment activity isn’t going to return to the highs the industry saw in 2014 and 2015 any time soon. Instead, they say, the lower numbers represent a new, more sustainable normal as investors become more selective.”

High stakes

The Valley’s outsized importance to California’s economic fortunes has shifted expectations for tech nationwide. “Nationwide, the number of angel and seed stage funding rounds — which generally mark a company’s first fundraising efforts — dropped 62 percent in the first quarter of 2017 compared with the first quarter of last year,” the Mercury News noted. “Though startups closed fewer funding deals, the amount of money investors spent actually ticked up in the first quarter of this year compared to the quarter before — largely thanks to Airbnb raising $1 billion this year, and Instacart and online personal finance company SoFi each raising more than $400 million. Smaller, early-stage startups suffered most in the slowdown.”

But larger, established tech firms have encountered new problems, too — including fierce challenges in potentially huge markets, like the one for driverless cars, that are now crowded with heavyweight competitors. “Google’s lawsuit alleging that Uber straight-up stole its autonomous vehicle technology won’t go before a jury until October, but Uber already finds itself on dangerous ground,” according to a Wired report on the conflict. Last week, the magazine observed, “the judge presiding over the civil case said he might just grant Google’s request for a preliminary injunction, which could force Uber to rein in or even stop testing its robocar technology testing until the case is resolved.”

Pumping the brakes

Prognosticators have altered their outlook accordingly. “Extrapolating from Q1, the full year 2017 is on track to hit the lowest level in terms of dollars since 2012, and in terms of deals since 2011,” Business Insider noted. “But it’s not for a lack of money. In 2016, VC funds raised $41 billion, the best year in a decade. In Q1 2017, they raised another $7.9 billion.”

According to some analysts, the combination of big war chests for funds and more modest pathways for founders was likely to translate into slower but more sustainable growth. Eric Buatois, veteran venture capitalist at Benhamou Global Ventures, told Marketplace that while a crash was unlikely, a cooling-off period would probably help avoid a hard landing. “Like most people in Silicon Valley, Buatois doesn’t use the words ‘tech bubble’ or ‘bust’ when describing the recent tech economy. Instead, he describes it as ‘frothy,'” according to the program. “‘Froth’ is the Silicon Valley term for when startups are valued at much more than they’re worth. Unlike a bubble, froth doesn’t pop — it subsides. Buatois thinks that could be a good thing for Silicon Valley.”

In it’s announcement, the DMV emphasized that changing technological standards had shifted expectations. “The draft regulations would expand the state’s existing autonomous vehicle testing program to keep pace with the rapid development of the technology,” Bloomberg BNA reported, citing the Department of Motor Vehicles. “The newly proposed rules would not require a human in the car, a change from the current rules.” The news was a boon for competitors in the crowded driverless space, which includes key legacy manufacturers as well as new tech entrants. “Tesla Motors Inc., Ford Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co., Honda Motor Co., Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Volkswagen AG and Baidu Inc., are among the 23 manufacturers on the list of approved participants for the California testing program,” Bloomberg BNA noted. 

The list also included “self-driving startups such as Zoox, Drive.ai, AutoX and PlusAI,” Fortune reported, along with “China-funded electric vehicle startups NextEV and Faraday Future. Earlier this week, California granted a testing permit to ride services firm Uber Technologies after a legal standoff last December.”

Hailing robots

The Uber grant signaled a real sea change in life on California roads. Although autonomous cars could fan out across roads as soon as this year, the bulk of consumer experiences was expected to shift away from owned cars to pay-per-use. “Among other things, the revisions would permit ride-hailing services to pick up passengers in cars without human drivers on board,” Car and Driver observed. “For now, these rides would remain solely in the realm of testing, and companies providing them would be prohibited from charging fees for those services. Nonetheless, the prospect of ride-hailing services like Uber or Lyft picking up riders in autonomous vehicles within a matter of months is the latest sign of just how quickly the autonomous age may be approaching.”

Both tech and safety advocates have found reason to cheer the promised transformation. “Some 3,000 people die on its roads every year, and self-driving cars could eliminate the human error that causes 90 percent of crashes,” according to Wired. “They could make more people more mobile, reduce emissions (maybe), and boost the economy.” 

New frameworks

Driverless car companies were not released from key regulatory obligations at the sometimes blurry nexus of state and federal rules. “If companies test vehicles without conventional controls, they have to show the California DMV that they have approval from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,” Bloomberg reported, citing California DMV Chief Counsel Brian Soublet. “NHTSA said in early 2016 that self-driving software systems, not just humans, can be considered drivers.”

But federal regulators, in turn, will be looking to California’s unfolding experience for cues going forward. “The DMV’s rules are going to shift a big part of the conversation to the federal level,” University of South Carolina driverless expert Bryant Walker Smith told Wired. “Federal regulators seem eager to advance autonomy (chiefly for the safety benefits), so what happens on California’s roads may well be replicated across the U.S., and even internationally,” the magazine added. 

That has meant a special burden for Sacramento, where the ins and outs of insurance and other questions must be hammered out a step at a time. “California state lawmakers are starting the long process of deciding who should be held responsible when these new vehicles crash on state roadways or are potentially hacked by criminals,” as Capital Public Radio reported. “The California State Senate Committee on Insurance heard testimony on those questions and others at the state Capitol [March 8]. The informational hearing raised more questions than it answered.”

As Silicon Valley rushes to stake out a lead in what’s hoped to be a robust market for driverless cars, the company spun off of Google has established a clear lead — perhaps giving the competition a reason to consider focusing their efforts outside the Golden State. 

“New data on tests of self-driving car technology in California suggest that Alphabet Inc.’s efforts remain ahead of many rivals in the intensifying race to bring fully autonomous vehicles to the roads,” the Wall Street Journal reported, noting that the company’s driverless unit, Waymo, clocked nearly 640,000 miles on California roads in a 12-month span encompassing the end of 2015 and most of 2016.

Pulling ahead

The newly released figures underscored how significant of an advantage in experience and testing the Google-spawned enterprise has gained over its rivals, which now include not only the likes of Tesla and Apple but old-line auto companies like GM and Ford that have begun to move into the driverless space as well. “The data show that Waymo, the driverless car unit of Alphabet, logged 30 times more miles of testing in autonomous vehicles than all of its competitors combined last year in California,” according to Financial Times. “Its cars were also the most accurate, with human intervention needed for safety reasons only 0.2 times per thousand miles.”

“The data provide the most comprehensive snapshot yet of competing driverless car technologies, at a time when carmakers and technology companies are racing to be the first to perfect autonomous vehicles. It shows Waymo, BMW, Ford and Nissan as the most accurate systems. California is unique in the U.S. for requiring that companies testing autonomous vehicles report their miles driven and ‘disengagements’ (when a human driver has to take over the wheel) each year. In the absence of federal laws on self-driving cars, these disclosures are the only comprehensive information that allow for side-by-side comparisons between carmakers.”

Only by racking up lots of miles on the road can driverless companies accumulate enough instances of disengagement to correct and refine its programming. Human takeover, Waymo explained in its report, “[is] a natural part of the testing process that allow our engineers to expand the software’s capabilities and identify areas of improvement,” Marketwatch reported. “It marked a 50 percent increase in total autonomous miles within California compared with the prior reporting period, which was two months longer than this reporting period, it said. The number of disengagements fell 75 percent to 124 last year from 341 in 2015, Waymo said.”

Greener pastures?

Despite the flurry of activity, some in Sacramento have found cause for concern. The same absence of federal law that helped make California such a hotbed of activity brought with it a potential downside — regulatory reactions against the modest risks that the development of driverless cars can bring to streets. In fact, in a recent tiff that rattled nerves, Uber refused to apply for state permits for its self-driving vehicles, drawing a reprimand that saw the powerful ride-sharing company opt to ship its driverless fleet to welcoming Arizona. Hoping to head off a stampede, a new bill introduced by State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, “would require the DMV to immediately accept or reject an application to put a driverless car on the road,” as the Los Angeles Times reported. If passed, the legislation would clear a considerable hurdle now facing companies like Uber in California. “The regulations the DMV has proposed, by contrast, would give the agency 180 days — nearly half a year — to decide yes or no.”

Competition has geared up nationwide for the favor of driverless car companies, which especially covet urban environments where they can be free to test their vehicles in complex but reasonably controllable environments. GM President Dan Ammann told the Chicago Sun-Times, “GM is awaiting the state Legislature’s approval before it can consider testing self-driving cars here, as it does already in California, Arizona and in the Detroit area,” the paper noted. “Yet even without the legislation, GM has introduced in Chicago its Maven car-sharing service, which is envisioned as eventually operating with driverless cars for hire, and Express Drive, which lets drivers for GM’s partner Lyft rent a car at a subsidized rate. The rental program is GM’s entry into developing a network that will eventually include driverless cars.”

Enough blame for everyone with Oakland housing crisis

Good morning! The governor gives his State of the State address today and it’s a pretty good bet he’ll discuss housing and the shortage of affordable options.  

From the Mexican border to the Bay Area, local governments along the California coast fret about short-term rental operations such as Airbnb eating up already limited housing stock.

In response, homeowners who use such rentals to deal with the high cost of living fire back with claims that they’re being scapegoated for local officials’ ineffective response to the Golden State’s affordable housing crisis.

In Oakland, these arguments keep growing more intense as tech workers keep moving in. Uber’s plan to build a new headquarters in the city by 2018 only adds to city leaders’ concerns about housing costs.

But recent reports and surveys leave little doubt that in Oakland, both short-term renters and local officials bear responsibility for severe housing headaches.

CalWatchdog has more.

In other news:

• Agriculture: “Agriculture leaders expressed disappointment over President Donald Trump’s decision Monday to pull out of a 12-country trade deal that would have boosted exports from San Joaquin Valley farmers,” reports The Fresno Bee. 

• Regulation: “Under legislation passed in 2011, environmental lawsuits against mega-projects would face significant restrictions, forcing any litigation to take no longer than nine months. Instead, the Warriors’ case lasted nearly a year. Overhauling the environmental law, the California Environmental Quality Act, is a perennial issue at the Capitol, and the measure benefiting the Warriors arena was one of the most high-profile CEQA reforms in recent years. But the failure of the 2011 legislation to meet its stated goals reveals the difficulty lawmakers have had in making meaningful changes to the law.” The Los Angeles Times has more. 

• Politics: “Orange County could hold the key to Republican success nationwide with the fastest growing slice of the electorate, Asian American voters.” The Orange County Register has more.

• Poverty: California has the highest real poverty rate in the country, reports PolitiFact California.

Legislature:

• At the State of the State festivities.

Gov. Brown:

• Swearing in ceremony for state attorney general and State of the State address at 10 a.m. in the Capital.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @SD_TaxFighters

Lawmaker targets Uber’s self-driving vehicles in new legislation 

Good morning! TGIF. One lesson for the day: If you want to do something in the state, don’t try to get around the permitting process. 

It’s not enough that Uber killed its unpermitted, self-driving-vehicle pilot program in San Francisco just a week after it started; an assemblyman wants to squash any further attempts to test vehicles without a permit as well. 

Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, introduced legislation requiring the DMV to revoke registrations for self-driving vehicles in violation of the state’s Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program. The bill is a response to Uber, which last year began testing its vehicles without a permit, even picking up passengers, violating state regulations. And one of the vehicles ran a red light. 

Under Ting’s bill, law enforcement would have the authority to impound violating vehicles and the DMV could fine as much as $25,000 per vehicle per day. 

“I applaud our innovation economy and all the companies developing autonomous vehicle technology, but no community should face what we did in San Francisco,” Ting said in a statement. “The pursuit of innovation does not include a license to put innocent lives at risk.”

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• “The Coastal Commission’s stated concern that a proposed Huntington Beach desalination plant’s intake pipes pose a threat to small and microscopic plankton has been rebutted in a letter from three prominent California marine biologists.” CalWatchdog has more. 

• “Consumer Watchdog collects millions, but does it lower your insurance rates?” The Sacramento Bee has the story. 

• “Jerry Brown doesn’t want to give doctors a cut of the new tobacco tax money,” writes The Sacramento Bee. 

• “Days after Governor Jerry Brown called for an extension of California’s signature greenhouse gas reduction program and threatened to withhold money it generates until that happens, Assembly Democrats introduced legislation.” Capital Public Radio has more. 

Legislature:

• Assembly is in at 9 a.m. to vote on the appointment of Xavier Becerra as state attorney general.

Gov. Brown: 

• No public events announced. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @ChrisLevinson

Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, introduced legislation requiring the DMV to revoke registrations for self-driving vehicles in violation of the state’s Autonomous Vehicle Tester Program. The bill is a response to Uber, which last year began testing its vehicles without a permit, even picking up passengers, violating state regulations. And one of the vehicles ran a red light. 

Under Ting’s bill, law enforcement would have the authority to impound violating vehicles and the DMV could fine as much as $25,000 per vehicle per day. 

“I applaud our innovation economy and all the companies developing autonomous vehicle technology, but no community should face what we did in San Francisco,” Ting said in a statement. “The pursuit of innovation does not include a license to put innocent lives at risk.”

Permits

Twenty companies have 130 test vehicles on the road under permits, which cost $150 each. To get permitted, vehicles must be registered and insured. Documentation both certifying the vehicle is for testing only and describing the technology must be provided as well.  

Last year, Uber refused to get permits before debuting its pilot program. The DMV revoked the cars’ registrations and offered to expedite permits, but Uber packed up its driver-less car program and moved to Arizona instead. 

“We have stopped our self-driving pilot in California, but remain 100 percent committed to our home state and will be redoubling our efforts to develop workable statewide rules,” an Uber spokesperson told CalWatchdog. “Our cars recently departed for Arizona by truck. We’re excited to have the support of Governor (Doug) Ducey.”