The Brief

Jets are blazing across the sky in and around Huntington Beach on the first day of the Pacific Airshow that starts Friday and continues over this weekend.

In recent years, more than half a million visitors have come out to watch eye-and-ear popping aerial demonstrations from the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and other renowned daredevils.

The event has also become a political lightning rod in the increasingly fractious beach city.

Why opinions are divided

Some say the airshow promoter got a suspiciously sweet deal in a recent legal settlement with the city. Others say Huntington Beach should support the airshow, and its hometown promoter, in any way it can.

At issue are questions of political quid pro quo, transparency and how cities determine whether and how much to support special events put on by private companies.

The backstory

Fans watch the 2021 Pacific Airshow in Huntington Beach.

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Here’s a guide to what happened, why this matters for residents and what’s to come.

First the shorthand timeline:

• In October 2021, the city canceled the final day of the three-day airshow after oil began gushing from an underwater pipeline and moving toward the Huntington Beach shoreline. 

• A year later, in October 2022, airshow organizer Kevin Elliott sued the city, saying the previous year's cancellation amounted to a breach of contract. Elliott also supported the election of new city council members who promised to support the airshow. 

• Then, earlier this year, that new city council majority approved a minimum $5.4 million settlement with Elliott plus a potential additional $2 million if the city recoups money from the companies responsible for the oil spill. 

About Huntington Beach politics

The strong and distinct reactions to the deal from residents and officials in this city of 200,000 residents illustrate intensifying political divisions. While Huntington Beach is traditionally conservative, the electorate had been trending more purple in recent years. Then, in November, voters handed a solid victory to four ardently conservative candidates.

Huntington Beach Mayor Tony Strickland, a Republican former state legislator who ran Larry Elder's 2020 presidential campaign, said the settlement was good for the city.

"Anything that brings in $70 million to our local economy, that's worth it," Strickland said, referring to an economic impact report on the 2022 airshow.

On the other side, City Councilmember Dan Kalmick, one of three Democrats on the council, said Huntington Beach taxpayers got a "horrible deal." He and the other two Democrats on the council voted against the airshow settlement.

"The settlement, as publicized, goes well beyond any exposure the city had for cancellation of one day of an airshow, which it didn't even do," Kalmick said. He said multiple authorities — state, federal and local — agreed the airshow had to be canceled so that monitoring and clean-up crews could get to work.

Kevin Elliott, organizer of the Pacific Airshow and CEO of event company Code Four.

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What the airshow organizer says

Elliott, for his part, says he regrets that the airshow has gotten wrapped up in local politics. (We should note that after we published this story, it was announced that former President Donald Trump would do a flyover as part of Friday’s airshow lineup. Trump is on his way to the California Republican Party convention in Anaheim.)

Elliot told us that, at heart, he's a "plane brain" who's especially excited this year to watch the F-22 Raptor do "things that an airplane shouldn't do, including flying backwards and all kinds of really cool stuff."

"I just want to put on a great event and I want to go back to running my business and having a good time," he told LAist. "And staying out of the newspaper. That would be my goal."

The start of the problems: The oil spill

On Friday, Oct. 1, 2021 coastal authorities got a call reporting an oil sheen off the coast of Huntington Beach. Amplify Energy, ultimately responsible for the spill, later said it found out Saturday morning about the pipeline leak from one of its offshore oil platforms.

A worker with Patriot Environmental Services stands near bags of oil collected throughout Sunday morning near the mouth of the Santa Ana River and Talbert Marsh.

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That same Saturday, the Pacific Airshow went on, as planned as local officials tried to understand the extent of the oil spill and whether and when it might reach shore. By afternoon, boaters watching the airshow from the ocean began reporting oil in the water.

City and state parks authorities closed the water at many of the area beaches to swimming and surfing.

That evening, then-Huntington Beach Mayor Kim Carr appeared at a news conference with the city's marine safety chief, Eric McCoy, and several other officials. Carr said a decision about whether to cancel the third and final day of the airshow would be made the following morning.

At the time, the leak was estimated to be around 126,000 gallons of oil, which McCoy said was considered a major spill by the U.S. Coast Guard. Later estimates revised that down to a much smaller amount, around 25,000 gallons.

On Sunday morning, Oct. 3, 2021, the city announced that the airshow was canceled "in order to facilitate clean-up coordination efforts, and given the potential health impacts from the ongoing situation."

Beaches were closed and remediation workers were dispatched to mop up the oil that had already washed up on the shore and into several sensitive wetland areas. The coast reeked of petroleum.

A sign keeps beachgoers off the sand.

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Impact of the 2021 cancellation

The airshow cancellation was devastating for Elliott. "It was probably one of the worst days of my professional life," Elliott said. "What we had put together in 2021 was essentially the Super Bowl of air shows."

Plus, the previous year, 2020, the entire airshow had been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Elliott, who also runs an event company called Code Four, said he lost "in the multi-millions" the day of the oil spill. "We put over $750,000 worth of catering in the trash," he said.

It was also upsetting for patrons, some of whom had spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on premium tickets for the last day of the show.

The airshow is free to watch from part of the city beach and nearby state beaches. But Elliott also sells tickets, for example, for seating on the Huntington Beach pier or for a private cabana on the beach. This year, prices range from $25 to more than $5,000 for a group.

Elliott said he eventually reimbursed everyone who had bought tickets "out of my own pocket."

The legal battle that followed

The following year, 2022, Elliott asked the city to give him a break on some of the fees and other expenses involved with putting on the airshow — as the city had in previous years. Specifically, the city had previously credited Elliott up to $110,000 in parking revenue generated over the airshow weekend toward his bill for permits, reserved parking, and extra public safety staff needed for the event.

Elliott's city bill for the 2022 airshow, according to a presentation at the time, was expected to be around $257,000.

This time, though, Elliott made a last-minute request that all of the city's parking revenue generated by the airshow be credited toward his bill, with no cap.

The city council at the time denied his request by a vote of 6 to 1 and decided to revoke the parking credit completely. City officials and staff at the time noted that Huntington Beach didn't grant this kind of credit to the organizers of any other big events in the city, including the U.S. Open of Surfing, which has drawn crowds similar in size to the airshow, although over a longer period of time.

Former Councilmember Mike Posey told LAist the parking "subsidy … was always supposed to be temporary" until Elliott could attract a corporate sponsor for the airshow. A smaller, previous iteration of the airshow, before Elliott took it over, was sponsored by Swiss watchmaker Breitling.

But Elliott saw the city's decision to revoke the parking subsidy as the latest in a series of efforts, starting with the 2021 post-oil spill cancellation, to shut the airshow down.

The following month, Elliott sued the city and then-Mayor Carr.

In his complaint, he alleged the 2021 cancellation amounted to a breach of contract and damaged the airshow's reputation. He also claimed that subsequent actions taken by Carr and the city, including removing the parking subsidy, were retaliation for Elliott raising concerns about the cancellation.

Elliott told LAist he felt slighted after investing heavily in the airshow to try and make it profitable and to bring tourism benefits to the city.

"I wish that the city had come forth and said, 'Hey, you've been a great partner to the city, you're a local kid … we understand that you've been damaged by this and we want to try to do the right thing.' But instead they basically told me to pound sand and left me with no choice but to protect my interests."

Initially, the city tried to get the lawsuit dismissed, claiming it had no factual basis. But then it seemed to do an abrupt about-face, settling with Elliott for at least $5.4 million, to be paid out incrementally through January 2029. What changed?

How the air show became a hot-button campaign issue

A seat on the Huntington Beach city council is generally considered a non-partisan position — a candidate's political party is not listed on the ballot. But Huntington Beach had traditionally had a conservative-leaning council. That changed after the 2020 election, but not the way you might think.

Tito Ortiz, a mixed martial arts fighter and staunch conservative, won a seat on the council in 2020 and then resigned six months later. In his place, the council appointed left-leaning attorney Rhonda Bolton, giving Huntington Beach's city government a majority Democrat block.

They passed pro-housing measures and voted to fly the Pride flag outside city hall every June — with the support of the council's moderate Republicans. A backlash ensued.

A group of residents attempted to recall six of the seven council members in 2021. But the effort failed to make it to the ballot. They set their sights on the 2022 general election.

The Lincoln Club and several other conservative political action committees coalesced around a slate of four conservative council candidates — Strickland, Casey McKeon, Pat Burns and Gracey Van Der Mark — dubbed by supporters the "Fab 4," plus city attorney Michael Gates, who was running for re-election. (Huntington Beach is one of the few cities in California where voters elect their city attorney.)

They paid for mailers and signs saying the candidates would "save" Huntington Beach — and "save" the airshow.

On Oct. 27, 2022, the candidates held a "victory rally" at the Huntington Beach pier. Elliott's company, Code Four, provided the sound and some of the signage for the rally, he said.

Elliott said the work was "pretty simple" and cost him less than the $1,089 that the four city council candidates claimed as in-kind contributions in campaign finance disclosures.

Elliott did not donate money directly to any of the four council candidates or city attorney Gates. (His company Code Four did give money, the maximum $4,900 allowed, to the 2022 winning campaigns of state Republican state legislators Diane Dixon and Janet Nguyen.)

"Franky, I supported them as much as I could without creating any kind of a conflict of interest for them," Elliott said of the council candidates. "Because, you know, they campaigned on saving the air show and I've invested millions and millions of dollars in saving this air show for the city, so our interests were pretty aligned in that regard."

But looking back — post-election and post-airshow settlement — some political opponents and civic watchdogs see the rally and Elliott's work on it as part of a suspicious pattern.

"I have substantial questions about the relationship between the four newly elected council members, the city attorney and Elliott," said Kalmick, one of the liberal council members.

Kalmick also pointed to several photos from the 2022 airshow posted to Facebook showing Elliott and his wife posing on the beach with the "Fab 4" candidates. (Elliott said he regularly invites candidates, council members and many others to the show, "Democrats, Republicans, my mom's friends, you know, my friends that were my teachers in the first grade.")

All four council candidates and city attorney Gates won their election in November.

The settlement and concerns about quid pro quo

In March 2023, Gates, the city attorney, filed a request in Orange County Superior Court to have Elliott's airshow cancellation lawsuit dismissed. Gates and deputy city attorney Lauren Rose argued that the city was "legally permitted to cancel the Airshow due to unforeseen circumstances rendering performance impossible due to health and safety reasons."

They also said this about Elliott's claim that revoking the parking subsidy was retaliation: "it is speculative and unsubstantiated how this was in any way connected to [Elliott's] negative comments regarding the City's reaction to the unexpected and disastrous oil spill."

But less than two months later, Gates, Elliott, Strickland and two of the other conservative council members held a news conference announcing a settlement. "Ladies and gentlemen, we saved the airshow," Strickland said to applause.

"The previous city council was not business-friendly and not airshow-friendly," he went on. "The Fab 4 …saved the airshow by putting the hard work and leadership required to solve this conflict."

In dollars, what they put in is $4,999,999 of city funds spread out over seven years, with the first payment of $1,999,000 due before July 31.

The city also agreed to:

• Forfeit $194,945 in fees still owed by Elliott for the 2021 airshow.
• Refund him $149,200 from the 2022 airshow, when the city council declined to give him the parking subsidy. 
• Reinstate the parking subsidy, starting at a minimum, rather than maximum, of $110,000. Plus, waive parking fees for up to 600 spaces for airshow setup and takedown.
• Pay Elliott up to an additional $2 million of any money the city recovers from the oil companies responsible for the 2021 spill. 

Those are the details in the settlement summary released to the public. Gates has declined to make the full settlement public, raising questions about what else the city may have agreed to.

A legal push for more transparency

Gina Clayton-Tarvin, a local school board member and former city council candidate, has sued Gates under state public records law in an effort to get the full settlement released.

Gates told LAist earlier this year that he hasn't released the full settlement agreement because there's still pending litigation in the airshow saga and doing so could compromise the city's position in that litigation. "But if a judge were to order the release of [the settlement], I'm happy to release it," Gates said.

Both sides of the settlement say it was a tough negotiation and neither side got everything they wanted. "We get a lot more as a city than we're giving out," Strickland said. "It's not even a close call."

Earlier this year, a former Huntington Beach mayor and a former planning commissioner tried to intervene to halt the settlement agreement. Thus far, they haven't been successful, although Lee Fink, a lawyer working with them, has said they haven't given up.

At the same time, Elliott hasn't dropped his lawsuit against former Mayor Carr for her role in canceling the 2021 airshow. In his complaint, he said Carr "unilaterally" canceled the airshow because of her personal feelings towards Elliott, and in order to garner media attention to “further her own political career.”

Carr told LAist earlier this year that the claim was bogus. "He's created a completely fantastic tale of somehow I unilaterally canceled the air show," she said. "As the mayor of Huntington Beach, you do not have the authority to issue permits, consequently, you don't have the authority to cancel permits."

She said she didn't understand why the city would offer millions to settle what she called "an easily dismissible lawsuit." Then she corrected herself.

"Well, I do understand why the new council majority would settle. I mean, [Elliott] is their friend, their ally," Carr said. "To me, it smacks of corruption, definitely feels like a pay to play."

What about the oil company responsible for the spill that caused the 2021 airshow to be canceled? Amplify Energy recently settled a $45 million class action lawsuit with impacted businesses and property owners.

Elliott's company was not part of that settlement, but he said he's been "in very intensive pre-litigation settlement discussions" with the company.

The city of Huntington Beach also plans to pursue money from Amplify. How much could come back to city coffers after the Pacific Airshow gets its $2 million cut is unknown.

Fink, the lawyer, said his clients would likely be enjoying the airshow this weekend. "No one’s against the Airshow," he wrote in an email. "The Airshow will go on regardless of the litigation. But people are against a $7 Million giveaway to a political supporter under the guise of a settlement agreement in a frivolous case."

California under a law taking effect today seeks to uphold the labor and unionization rights of private-sector employees, as the federal agency that has held that power for decades is in limbo.

But the new law’s future is unclear because the Trump administration is challenging it.

The law, which grants more powers to the California Public Employment Relations Board, is a response to the National Labor Relations Board lacking a quorum.

President Donald Trump fired the NLRB’s chairperson, Gwynne Wilcox, days after he began his second term in January. His two nominees to the board have yet to be confirmed, so the federal board has been without the three members it needs for a quorum for months.

Assemblymember Tina McKinnor, the Inglewood Democrat who wrote the bill, said when the governor signed it in September that “California will not sit idly as its workers are systematically denied the right to organize due to employer intransigence or federal inaction.”

The NLRB sued California over the law in October, saying in its lawsuit that the state is trying to assert authority over “areas explicitly reserved for federal oversight.”

On the legal challenge to the law, Terry Schanz, McKinnor’s chief of staff, referred CalMatters to the state attorney general. Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office is responsible for defending the law in court. A spokesperson for Bonta said the office would have nothing to say about it.

With the NLRB unable to fulfill its duties, states are trying to fill the gap in enforcing the National Labor Relations Act, which Congress passed in 1935. But labor experts contacted by CalMatters do not have high hopes for the California law, which is similar to a law passed in New York this year. They said courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled that states cannot decide matters pertaining to federal labor law because of preemption, the doctrine that a higher authority of law overrides a lower authority.

“It’s difficult to imagine a scenario where the courts do not overturn these (state) laws,” said John Logan, professor and chairperson of Labor and Employment Studies at San Francisco State University.

William Gould, a former chairperson of the National Labor Relations Board during the Clinton administration and a professor emeritus at Stanford University, agreed: “In the courts the matter is a dead letter unless (the Supreme Court) shifts gears.”

That’s what the California and U.S. chambers of commerce, along with other business groups, are hoping, according to their amicus brief in support of the Trump administration’s lawsuit against California: “Under California’s view, every state could have its own labor law for private-sector workers. Dozens of laws would overlap and collide.”

The California Labor Federation, an umbrella organization for unions that represents about 2 million California workers, said in an amicus brief that even before Trump fired the NLRB chief, the federal agency’s backlog had been a problem, leading to companies being able to delay bargaining in good faith with their employees’ unions without consequences.

If the California law is overturned, employees who have formed unions but have not succeeded in securing contracts with employers such as Amazon and Starbucks — which are among the companies seeking to have the NLRB declared unconstitutional — may continue to face delays, according to Logan. Or, he said, it’s not clear what would happen if other workers tried to organize and their companies simply fired them.

“The NLRB defunctness is a scandal which cries out for political reform,” Gould said.

As the clock strikes midnight across time zones, people gather to celebrate the new year.

We take a look at the shared joy and traditions in these photos.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Reveler use their smartphones to film the falling balloons and confetti as they celebrate the start of 2026 during the New Year countdown event held at a shopping mall in Beijing, early Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.

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Revellers watch a fireworks and light show for children on Museumplein as part of New Year's Eve celebrations in Amsterdam on December 31, 2025.

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Members of the public gather to celebrate the New Year during the annual bell-tolling ceremony at the Bosingak Pavilion on January 01, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea.

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Fireworks explode over skyscrapers during New Year celebrations on January 01, 2026 in Makati, Metro Manila, Philippines.

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People buy batons that read happy New Year 2026 on December 31, 2025 in Bangkok, Thailand. Thousands lined the Chao Phraya river in Bangkok as the country welcomed the new year.

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Fireworks explode from the Taipei 101 building during the New Year's celebrations in Taipei, Taiwan, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.

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Revellers watch the New Year's Eve fireworks from the The Huc Bridge at Hoan Kiem Lake in Hanoi on Jan. 1, 2026.

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People attend the New Year countdown event to celebrate the start of 2026 in the Central district of Hong Kong, on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.

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Fireworks explode around the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, during New Year's Eve celebrations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026.

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People pose for pictures near illuminated decorations on New Year's Eve in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.

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Revellers watch fireworks during the New Year celebrations in Karachi on January 1, 2026.

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Iraqis gather in Baghdad's Al-Zawraa Park during New Year's Eve celebrations on December 31, 2025.

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Onlookers stand beside light ornaments on New Year's Eve at Bakrkoy Square in Istanbul on Dec. 31, 2025.

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People strike a giant bell to celebrate the New Year at the Zojoji Buddhist temple, minutes after midnight Thursday Jan. 1, 2026, in Tokyo.

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A couple takes a selfie as the last sunset of 2025 is seen over the Mediterranean Sea in Beirut, Lebanon, Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025.

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People watch and take photos as the Ferris wheel displays "Happy New Year" in 16 different languages at Pacific Park on Wednesday, Dec. 31, 2025 in Santa Monica.

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Millions of Americans are facing higher health care premiums in the new year after Congress allowed Affordable Care Act subsidies to expire. But earlier this week, a bipartisan group of senators worked to strike a compromise that could resurrect the enhanced ACA premium tax credits — potentially blunting the blow of rising monthly payments for Obamacare enrollees.

"There's a number of Republican and Democratic senators who are seeing what a disaster this will be for families that they represent," Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., said on Morning Edition Thursday. "That's the common ground here, and it's a doable thing."

Welch said he joined a bipartisan call Tuesday — first reported by Punchbowl News — in which a handful of senators charted out a possible health care compromise.

"We could extend the credits for a couple of years, we could reform it," Welch said of the call. "You could put an income cap, you could have a copay, you could have penalties on insurers who commit fraud. You actually could introduce some cost saving reductions that have bipartisan support."

But according to Welch, this legislation is only doable with President Trump's blessing.

"It would require that President Trump play a major role in this, because he has such influence over the Republican majority in the House and even in the Senate," Welch said.

Last fall, Republicans and Democrats fought bitterly over the Obamacare subsidy extension, causing a political standoff that led to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Meanwhile, Trump has remained relatively hands-off, withholding his support for any health care legislation.

Despite these obstacles, Welch said he believes the jump in prices that people across the country now face will break the logjam in Congress.

"A farmer in Vermont, their premium is going to go from $900 a month to $3,200, a month," Welch said. "So they're going to really face sticker shock. There's going to be a secondary impact, because the hospitals, particularly in rural areas, are going to lose revenue."

But even if the Senate advanced a compromise bill on the ACA, the House would also have to get behind it. And the lower chamber has its own bipartisan effort on an ACA subsidy extension.

Just before the recess began in mid-December, four House Republicans joined Democrats in signing a discharge petition on a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies — forcing a floor vote on the bill when the House returns.

Hours after bucking House Speaker Mike Johnson and joining Democrats, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., told Morning Edition back in December that he thinks this vote will get even more Republican support.

"I don't like the clean extension without any income cap," Fitzpatrick said. "But given the choice between a clean three-year extension and letting them expire, that's not a hard choice for me. And I suspect many of my other colleagues are going to view it the same way."

Fitzpatrick and Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., have held meetings with moderate senators on legislative paths to extend the ACA subsidies, a source familiar with the talks but not authorized to speak publicly tells NPR.

The Senate returns on Jan. 5 and the House comes back to Capitol Hill on Jan. 6.

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California is once again taking steps to limit the influx of dogs from out-of-state puppy mills with a package of laws that take effect in the new year.

AB 519, authored by Assemblymember Marc Berman, D-Menlo Park, prohibits both in-person and online pet brokers from selling dogs, cats or rabbits under a year old.

“The goal is that this will … funnel Californians into the legitimate avenues for either purchasing or rescuing an animal, and it’ll make it harder for bad people to do bad things,” Berman said.

The bill defines a broker as a person or business that sells, processes or transports a pet bred by someone else for profit. It carves out exceptions for shelters, rescues and educational nonprofits teaching kids to care for animals. Service animals and those involved with government agencies, like police dogs, are also exempt.

In addition to the pet broker ban, the “Stop The Puppy Mill Pipeline” legislative package includes two other bills that aim to protect consumers from deceptive third-party pet sellers. The laws are part of a slate of statewide animal protections that will go into effect on Jan. 1, including a ban on declawing cats.

AB 506 by Assemblymember Steve Bennett, D-Ventura, voids any pet contracts that include a nonrefundable deposit or fail to disclose the pet’s medical information and breeder origin. If a contract is voided, the purchaser is entitled to a refund and is not required to return the pet.

SB 312 by state Sen. Tom Umberg, D-Santa Ana, requires dog importers to send health certificates to the buyer and the California Department of Food and Agriculture at least 10 days before the dog enters the state. The CDFA must keep these records for five years and make them publicly available.

Lawmakers introduced these bills to close loopholes that emerged after California’s initial effort to shut down the puppy mill pipeline.

In 2019, California led the nation in banning pet stores from selling dogs from commercial breeders, also called puppy mills, which prioritize profits over animals’ welfare. But the law did not cover online marketplaces, and resellers cropped up to take the place of pet stores, as revealed by a 2024 Los Angeles Times investigation.

The report detailed truckloads of designer dogs, many of them abused and neglected, shipped into the state from commercial breeders in the Midwest. Consumers were advertised puppies from small, local breeders on online marketplaces and unwittingly ended up with sick puppies requiring expensive veterinary care. In one case, a puppy died within weeks.

Brittany Benesi, the senior legislative director for the Western division of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said these online marketplaces hide the origin and condition of animals even more than brick-and-mortar pet stores do.

“You can go to these websites and they will tell you the astrological sign of a puppy, but you could not find out who that puppy was bred by,” Benesi said.

She argues that the 2019 bill effectively shut off one valve of the puppy mill pipeline, but the online market took advantage of that absence. The ASPCA, which co-sponsored the legislative package, expects these new laws to shut off the online valve as well.

“I think California is such a large, powerful market that these retailers are going to have a really hard time making up for the loss,” Benesi said. “And it may force their hand to change their business models or their business practices in order to regain the California market.”

Opponents of AB 519 argue the law will have a similar unintended consequence as the 2019 retail ban, which they see as having worsened the underground market for puppies.

“You’re once again removing the ability for Californians to access well-regulated, well-run and folks that have oversight, both in the animal welfare and consumer protection areas,” said Alyssa Miller-Hurley, the vice president for government affairs for the Pet Advocacy Network, a national trade association representing breeders, retailers and distributors. “And it’s just going to exacerbate a problem that, unfortunately, already exists.”

By preventing USDA-licensed pet brokers from selling puppies under a year old, Miller-Hurley said this law will push consumers “into the shadows” and force them to work with unregulated online markets like Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace and even TikTok.

“How do you enforce something … over some random person selling an animal on TikTok Live?” Miller-Hurley said.

Animal welfare groups have long been critical of the standards for licensed dog dealers. In 2024, USDA investigations at commercial breeding operations found more than 800 direct violations, according to an ASPCA report. Only two dealers lost their licenses and not a single dog was removed from the facility.

“The federal laws around animal welfare are very, very low bars to meet,” Benesi said. “The USDA licensure allows for dogs to be kept in wire cages with only six inches of space on any side of them for their entire lives, breeding out litter after litter after litter.”

California Attorney General Rob Bonta supported all three bills, and Benesi said the office has made it clear they are committed to enforcing them. She said groups like the ASPCA, as well as the public, will help monitor and file complaints to the attorney general’s office.

Although they oppose the broker ban, the Pet Advocacy Network supports stronger regulations on the puppy trade, like Umberg’s bill, streamlining pet medical information to a single department.

Previously, California required importers to send certificates of veterinary inspection to individual counties. However, many counties were unaware they were supposed to receive them, and many importers would send them to the CDFA, which deleted the files.

“We’re happy to see California join what most of the states already do, which is allow the state department of agriculture or department health to have oversight of these critical pieces of information,” Miller-Hurley said.

This holiday season, as Californians welcome new furry family members to their homes, Benesi encourages people to consider adopting through a rescue or shelter.

For those working with a breeder, she urges prospective pet owners to see where the puppy was raised, meet its parents in person and vet the breeder as carefully as the breeder should be vetting them.