(a) The Wine Safety Fund is hereby created as a special fund in the State Treasury, in trust, to the State Department of Health Services for the purpose of providing funds to better enable its Food and Drug Branch to carry out and supervise a statistically valid testing program to ensure that levels of lead in wine sold in this state remain safe and within tolerances established by applicable laws and regulations, for the health and safety of the consuming public upon appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act. The fees collected pursuant to Section 23320.7 shall be sufficient to cover, but shall not exceed, the costs of administering the testing program, including the reimbursement of any importer or retailer for the wholesale cost of any wine tested, conducted pursuant to this section. All moneys collected under Section 23320.7, including any interest accrued thereon, shall be deposited in the Wine Safety Fund.

(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to appropriate moneys in the Wine Safety Fund in equal amounts of fifty-five thousand three hundred dollars ($55,300) over five years to the State Department of Health Services for expenditure exclusively for the purposes set forth in subdivision (a).

(Amended by Stats. 1999, Ch. 288, Sec. 1. Effective January 1, 2000.)