California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday signed into law two bills that aim to ensure employers provide and stockpile personal protective equipment for health care workers and will impose up to $25,000 in penalties on those that don’t comply.

A.B 2537, which passed both the state Assembly and Senate in August, requires public and private general acute care hospitals to supply employees who provide direct patient care or provide services that directly support personal care with the PPE necessary to comply with existing workplace safety regulations.

Employers are also now required to ensure that employees use the PPE supplied to them and, beginning April 1, 2021, maintain a supply of specified equipment in an amount equal to three months of normal consumption. They must also provide an inventory of their stockpile and a copy of their written procedures, as specified, to the Division of Occupational Safety and Health upon request. Those out of compliance could be fined up to $25,000.

Among other changes, the new law also requires general acute care hospitals, on or before Jan. 15, 2021, to be prepared to report to the Department of Industrial Relations, under penalty of perjury, its highest seven-day consecutive daily average consumption of PPE during the 2019 calendar year. It exempts general acute care hospitals under the jurisdiction of the California Department of State Hospitals from this requirement. Also signed into law was S.B 275, which also passed both chambers in August and requires the State Department of Public Health and the Office of Emergency Services, in coordination with other state agencies, to establish a state PPE stockpile.

The department is also required to establish guidelines for the procurement, management and distribution of PPE, taking into account, among other things, the amount of each type of PPE that would be required for all health care workers and essential workers in the state during a 90-day pandemic or other health emergency.

The new law, among other requirements for managing the stockpile, establishes the Personal Protective Equipment Advisory Committee, consisting of representatives from an association representing skilled nursing facilities, a statewide association representing physicians, and labor organizations that represent health care workers, among other groups, to make recommendations for the development of guidelines for the procurement, management and distribution of PPE.