AB 1200: Emergency services: disaster preparedness.

Official summary

Legislative Counsel’s Digest (official, as of the latest version). Written by nonpartisan legislative staff; reproduced verbatim.

Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, authorizes the Governor to proclaim a state of emergency, and local officials and local governments to proclaim a local emergency, when specified conditions of disaster or extreme peril to the safety of persons and property exist. Existing law establishes the Office of Emergency Services (OES) within the office of the Governor and sets forth its powers and duties relating to responsibility over the state’s emergency and disaster response services for natural, technological, or man-made disasters and emergencies, including responsibility for activities necessary to prevent, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of emergencies and disasters to people and property.

This bill would require OES to biennially convene key personnel and agencies that have emergency management roles and responsibilities to participate in tabletop exercises in which the participant’s emergency preparedness plans are discussed and evaluated under various simulated catastrophic disaster situations, as specified.

This bill would require the tabletop exercises to be designed by OES to enhance the capabilities of the participants to do various things, including to engage the communities that they each serve, as appropriate, in the development of executable strategic, operational, or tactical-level approaches to meet defined disaster response objectives.

This bill would require OES to report on each tabletop exercise it conducts to the committees on budget, the Assembly Committee on Emergency Management, and the Senate Committee on Governmental Organization by February 1, 2028, and biennially thereafter of the calendar year following each biennial simulation and evaluation. The bill would require OES to use federal preparedness grant funding to offset the state, local, and tribal government costs associated with participation in the tabletop exercises to the greatest extent possible.

The bill would require OES to, in cooperation with California Volunteers, coordinate with local Community Emergency Response Team programs to conduct community disaster preparedness training in vulnerable regions of the state, as specified, to, among other things, increase community resilience to disaster. The bill would require those regions to be identified based on data from specified sources. The bill would require a training event to include testing of community notification systems in the area and would require OES to prioritize that testing in specified communities.

Sponsors

Sponsors by party (alphabetical): Democratic 1

“Support” is shown only as formal sponsorship recorded by the legislature. Roll-call votes are available on the official bill page.

Recent official actions

1. January 22, 2026Consideration of Governor's veto stricken from file.
2. October 11, 2025Consideration of Governor's veto pending.
3. October 11, 2025Vetoed by Governor.
4. September 15, 2025Enrolled and presented to the Governor at 4:30 p.m.
5. September 11, 2025Enrolled measure version corrected.
6. September 4, 2025In Assembly. Ordered to Engrossing and Enrolling.
7. September 4, 2025Read third time. Passed. Ordered to the Assembly. (Ayes 39. Noes 0. Page 2523.).
8. September 2, 2025Ordered to special consent calendar.
9. August 29, 2025Read second time. Ordered to third reading.
10. August 29, 2025From committee: Do pass. (Ayes 7. Noes 0.) (August 29).
11. August 18, 2025In committee: Referred to suspense file.
12. July 8, 2025From committee: Do pass and re-refer to Com. on APPR. with recommendation: To Consent Calendar. (Ayes 15. Noes 0.) (July 8). Re-referred to Com. on APPR.