The California Public Records Act requires state and local agencies to promptly provide copies of identifiable public records upon request, as long as the requester pays any applicable duplication or statutory fees, unless the records are legally exempt from disclosure.

This bill would add that if fulfilling a single request requires more than two hours of search time, or if a requester’s total requests exceed ten hours of search time within a month, the requester must also pay a fee set by the agency to reasonably cover the administrative costs of processing those requests. However, this additional fee would not apply to journalists, newspapers, or qualifying educational or noncommercial scientific institutions. The bill would define “search” for these purposes as the process of reviewing agency records - whether manually or through automated methods to locate records that are responsive to a request.

Cal Cities has not taken a position on the bill. 

This proposed action is not subject to review under the California Environmental Quality Act (California Public Resources Code §§ 21000, et seq., "CEQA") and CEQA Guidelines (Title 14 California Code of Regulations §§ 15000, et seq.), because it does not involve any commitment to a specific project which could result in a potentially significant physical impact on the environment; and, constitutes an organizational or administrative activity that will not result in direct or indirect physical changes in the environment. Accordingly, this action does not constitute a "project" that requires environmental review (see specifically 14 CCR § 15378(b)(4-5)).