Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 4 on Climate Crisis, Resources, Energy, and Transportation, Wednesday, March 4, 2026
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Speaker 3
Yeah. Indeed. So first of all, chair, and and our our consultants committee consultants, huge thanks for your leadership over the last several years. It is you know, we talk about partnership, but it is truly partnership assembling this budget, and this budget enables us to do everything that we do. So given this is our eighth and final opportunity to present a budget to this legislature within the Newsom administration, we do wanna share sort of an overview of the progress we've made and the challenges we continue to face.
And as we highlight though that that progress, just know that thanks to, you know, your guidance and your shaping the budget, we've been able to achieve that. So I'll start by saying it's been a it's been a remarkable decade. California is very much on the front lines of climate change and all that we're experiencing, both the impacts that threaten Californians and, of course, global leadership driving a safer, cleaner future. On the impact side, we have experienced two millennial droughts in the last fifteen years, so called because scientists told us they would happen once every thousand years. The second of those droughts was the driest three years in our state's history, followed six weeks later by what is probably the wettest three weeks in the state's history.
So, really epitomizing this weather whiplash, that we are experiencing. We ended that last dry period with 5,000,000 Californians underwater rationing and certain animals, including salmon runs, on the brink of extinction. 9% of our state has burned due to wildfire in the last decade, much of it catastrophically. That's been dangerous, obviously, to our communities and to our residents, but also damaging to our natural resources, including our our watersheds that provide our our water supply. In 2022, we experienced the hottest, driest heat wave in American history in the West that had that disruption to our grid, and we have doubled down on energy resilience since then.
And then and then sea level rise, which sometimes gets dismissed as a future planning exercise, is having impacts today. Whether it is saltwater intrusion into the delta or the disruption of passenger rail service between Los Angeles and San Diego as a result to erosion in part worsened, by storm surge and sea level rise. We are a Mediterranean climate, so we don't face these challenges in a unique unique way. There are different parts of the world that have the our exact challenges, and we formed Mediterranean climate action partnership with 15 other governments around the world that are facing these same challenges to roll up our sleeves to figure out how we how we protect, our our our residents and our communities and our landscapes. You mentioned the federal government.
You know, we navigated we governor Newsom came into office and navigated some points of tension with, president Trump in his first term on protecting and restoring the environment. We had four years from our perspective of remarkable alignment with the federal government and historic investments, and now we find ourselves again navigating what is in many ways, we think a hostile federal policy landscape to do the work that we do. Together, we've navigated very tight budget conditions, including this year, as well as historic surpluses that have allowed us to make generational investments in the work that we care about. And and and through this all, the challenges, the dynamic budget, the changing, federal relationships, we have made great progress. $40,000,000,000 of investment, thanks to this legislature and the governor on confronting climate change and protecting our our environment.
We are decarbonizing the grid as California, the fourth largest economy in the world, faster than almost anywhere else. You know that last year, two thirds of the electrons that powered this vast economy in our vast state were clean. 90% of days last year, at some point in that day, a 100% of our energy was delivered by clean energy resources. We're shifting to better, less polluting technologies faster than imagined. I worked for governor Brown a decade ago when we set a goal of one point five million zero emission vehicles, and we were laughed at.
That was seen as a moonshot, and we collectively met and exceeded that goal three years early. We've made huge progress towards building our resilience, our ability to adapt and weather and continue to thrive amidst all of these extreme events and challenges. Wildfire resilience, your investments, governor's investments have allowed us to get upwards of 2,500 to 3,000 projects on the ground across the state around communities before wildfires ever strike. These are fuel breaks around communities. These are restoring cultural and prescribed fire across our landscape.
This is ecologically based vegetation thinning, all which has made a difference. CAL FIRE has a portion of its website now that's dedicated. Every time we experience a wildfire, they assess whether there were wildfire resilience projects in the area and how they impacted the shape of the fire, and we're understanding it is working. Obviously, conditions are worsening across our globe with our atmosphere, so we our challenges, get deeper, and the investments we're making are collectively making California communities safer. Local water resilience is building.
You know, the sustainable groundwater management act, thanks to our Department of Water Resources, is being effectively implemented. Local groundwater basins are coming back into balance. We're finding better ways, faster, more nimble ways to collect these these these stormwaters when they come and get them underground, whether that's in our cities or in our rural areas. We and governor Newsom continue to believe that we have to invest in the backbone infrastructure of our water systems. We are a system of systems in California, over 3,000 water agencies, but two thirds of Californians get their water through our state water project.
And that's why governor Newsom is so focused on modernizing our conveyance through the delta, addressing subsidence and its impacts on the state aqueduct, and so much more. And then I'll say in the in in coastal communities, in both of our, elected members here today represent coastal communities, great progress has been made. The legislature had the foresight to invest funding that helps coastal communities plan to continue to thrive and adapt as sea level rise intensifies and that changes the the contours of our coast. So I believe we're making great progress there. You all passed a law, and with the governor's strong support of of setting a a legal target to conserve 30% of our lands in coastal waters this decade, and we're making progress.
Investments have enabled over 2,500,000 acres of additionally conserved lands in the last three years alone, and the work continues. Our wildlife conservation board just last week or the week before approved $60,000,000 more through proposition four funding for more conservation. Conservation is important, obviously, for fish and wildlife in this tremendous biodiversity we have, but also as our buffer to these impacts in our communities. We need nature as much as as nature needs us. I'm so gratified on this journey, that we're on, to address historic wrongs with California native American tribes and support tribal leadership.
California native American tribes have been the environmental stewards since time immemorial. We disconnected ourselves from that wisdom and that leadership for a very long time. And, actually, the agency I represent and other state agencies were openly hostile to that leadership. That has changed. I'm proud that state investments have helped to fund over a 100,000 acres of land return.
Many of the tribes, as ultimately getting land back, were dispossessed of land since California statehood for a hundred and seventy five years. We know that tribal leadership means, generally speaking, better protection and restoration of our landscapes. And it doesn't stop there. The comanagement, the tribal access, finding a respectful ways to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge. So gratified with this.
At the same time, your investments, our investments have helped more Californians get outdoors. The fact is a lot of Californians don't live in communities with safe and healthy welcoming parks, or or feel disconnected from our nature. So there have been upwards of a billion dollars of funding over the last decade enabling more Californians to actually get outdoors. That means more kids in parks. That means more people on the coast, and it's really, really exciting.
And then lastly, you know, we're we have collectively innovated and always focused on innovation. That includes Cal Fire now using satellite data to to fight fire and to manage forests and to and to measure methane over at the Cal EPA. We created California Nature, an online platform that really helps everybody plan out 30 by 30 in their own backyard, which is exciting. We've done things like brought fishing and hunting licenses online, so you don't have to carry a a heavy book, but you literally carry your smartphone, into the wilderness. So there's there's so much there's so much that we've done together, and I'll tell you this, which is we're not stopping here.
If you listen to governor Newsom, he talks about running through the tape, and I can assure you that that is a conversation that we have, outside of, you know, privately within our cabinet. So we are focused like a laser on completing key projects, whether it's the world's largest wildlife crossing North Of Los Angeles, Sykes Reservoir, and projects that are really important to communities like Fresno West, which is a 500 acre park along the San Joaquin River in Fresno, which is a community that needs more parks. Also breaking ground on projects that we're not gonna realize in this administration, whether it's improvements to Exposition Park, which is the large urban park in Los Angeles that our agency manages that will welcome the World Cup fan fest this summer, but also the Olympics in two years' time, as well as the Salton Sea, which has been a major area of progress but an ongoing challenge. How do we, reduce dust emissions that that impact communities and restore vital habitat? Streamlining project delivery.
We've heard this from the legislature and the governor. We need to do important things faster and more cost effectively. So I'm really proud that we found new ways to streamline wildfire safety projects, for example, getting projects over 250 projects streamlined through our permitting process to to happen in weeks, which would sometimes take upwards of two years. We have improved or or accelerated habitat restoration work. We call it cutting the green tape.
When I one of my first meetings in this role were concert when was with conservation groups who told me that a fully a third of of a project budget for stream restoration or purely environmental restoration project, could be taken up in environmental planning and permitting. So we set out to change that. And thanks to some statutory form that you all enabled, we're delivering environmental restoration faster and even expansion of our state park system. Senator Allen led a bill that many of, that the legislature passed and the governor signed last year that reduces the bureaucracy to bring in no cost acquisitions that conservation groups have have, aggregated that allows us to expand our state parks. So more on that to come.
We've got an updated action plan for wildfire resilience. You may have heard that the governor, thanks to legislation that passed last year, is launching an updated water plan, to focus on supplanting water supply that we're gonna lose in coming decades. We even have our next installment of our strategic plan to protect our ocean and coast. And we're doing this in a way that's trying to maintain continuity and our progress given just the urgency that the legislature and the governor brings to this while giving space to the next governor and the next administration to put their own mark on these priorities. I'll lastly say, this year, I'm I'm personally investing a lot of time in elevating, trying to drive forward our nature based solutions.
You all passed the bill the governor signed requiring our agency to identify specific targets to expand the way that we improve the health of our landscapes and our waterways, our watersheds to actually not only absorb more carbon and retain more water, but but preserve biodiversity and have all these benefits. So I'm really quite excited about that. And then I'll say that one one challenge we continue to face, and you'll hear more about this in the budget, is addressing human wildlife conflict. Lions, bears, wolves. You know, we can take great pride in California in that we are supporting, restoring the health of our ecosystems.
And what we've learned over a hundred years is our natural systems re require all the animals to be present to actually be a balance. And this provides challenges, particularly on wolves. How do we coexist? How do we ensure that, that small communities that depend on the ranching economy can continue to flourish even as this endangered species, continues to recover in California? So you'll hear more from my colleague director Megan Hertel about this.
Then that's an area of of real focus because it's a growing growing challenge. I guess last last I'll say is huge thanks for your leadership on proposition four, the climate bond. Much of what we're able to share in new investments comes through the climate bond. We took your direction last year that we need to make our funding programs clearer, easier to understand, easier to access by all communities across the state. So we're, we're really partway through making improvements.
And what I hope you hear from from groups that that you talk to in this budget process, and your residents is that the climate bond programs are actually making a difference and can make a difference. And as always, we're we're very open to, any suggestions or direction you have. So I'll leave it there, but just with a thanks to the members who who came in, before, before or actually after I had a chance to just say thank you. The progress that we talk about, it was only is only possible because of this partnership and these and these investments that you make year in and year out. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Well, this just reminds me of, how valuable your contributions have been to this state. And, I'm sure you if if this is the end, and we have no idea whether that's the case, it's a remarkable legacy that you're leaving for California. And so there will there will when people think about the Wade Crowfoot era, there's a lot for you to be very proud of, and we're very fortunate in California to have had your leadership.
Speaker 3
I I appreciate those kind words, but let me say this, which is I have one of the best jobs because I get to stand up and brag about our progress, but the people behind me, and the women and men that lead our departments, frankly, there's 26,000 people in our agency that get up every day and do this work. And they they were here long before I came, and they'll be here long after I came. And I just wanna acknowledge Brian Cash and Amanda Martin who, help us get smart for these budget hearings and really guide our our budget. It's a it's a team effort, and I couldn't be prouder. I mean and and I would say we should all be very proud of the the public servants across our agency.
Speaker 1
There's there's nothing more satisfying than being part of an important chain and and know you're doing your part, in an important chain, and you certainly have been a big link, in that chain. So thank you. You, my colleagues, I appreciate, assembly member Rogers, assembly member Lackey, coming in. We'll give you a chance in in a moment. I want to respond just at high level about California and California's environment about some things that I think, based on your overview, are important for us from my perspective to start out as an overview.
Then we'll have, my colleagues if they have any introductory, comments, that they'd like to make, and then we'll get into questions, after that. But, the the first thing I want to respond to or or point out is you talked about the variability going from our the worst the worst drought to the the, you know, the most intense rain that we have. When you think about it, everything about California suffers from and benefits from enormous variability. I mean, if there's if there's one thing that defines California, it's variability in in everything, from our income distribution to to our climate to just just enormous. And it's it's a joy and it's a benefit and it's a challenge all all at the same time.
And so we have to maximize taking advantage of this variability, but we also have to prepare for this variability. So groundwater storage, wildfire prevention, you know, looking at species and trying to keep them balanced in in the midst of of of all that variability. So one important thing I wanted to to point out. Second thing I want to point out since this is a budget committee is that, essentially, we don't use general fund for climate, environmental sort of investments. We count on the public to, every now and then, vote for a bond, and that gives us a climate bond to work on.
And we count on only one ongoing revenue source, and it's one dedicated to dedicated, essentially, to try to remove carbon from the atmosphere, and that's our greenhouse gas fund. And so it is important. I was just on a on a meeting yesterday, and people said, well, you know, climate doesn't need anything because we have some dedicated sources for that. And, you know, the the bond and this, and and and I agree from a general fund standpoint as long as we actually use those dedicated sources for the environment. So I know it's not a surprise to you, but we're trying to make sure that one of the legacies that we leave is that these two funds, bond prop four funds and GGRF funds, should really be used for the environment and for reducing carbon in our atmosphere, particularly the GGRF funds that are out there.
You referred to 30 by 30, and I want to emphasize how valuable I think marine protected areas are because of how special our coast is. And if we can make sure we ramp up our efforts on marine protected areas, that that pays huge dividends in the long run, and we've seen that over and over again. Two final things. One, if we don't adopt a better and new approaches to wildfire management, we're going to continue to have more and more communities burned down. You know, to have the eight largest fires in California's history take place in the last nine years means we've passed a tipping point.
There's no question. To have three whole communities burned down in the last eight years, we never used to have whole communities burned down. We have a crisis, and the crisis is basically ember showers coming in. And the solution to ember showers is hardening our homes, But it also means, I think, a rebalancing of our investments in wildfire prevention. We have been spending a lot farther away from urban communities, And I don't want to decrease that, but we need to balance that because lives are at stake.
So if we have to clear an area, I hope we'll start to say the closer we are to an actual life being saved, to an actual property being, protected, the better off, we will be, in California. And so I'm looking for that balance and hope that we'll have, great support from, all the agencies that you manage for this massive effort that we have to have to convince Californians in high fire risk areas to harden their homes. If people don't harden these homes, we won't solve this problem. We'll have a an insurance crisis that'll be enormous. And if California becomes unsustainable economically because of fire insurance, we can't support all the other things that we do out there.
So I have I have some questions. One of them will be the Mediterranean climate action. That's new to me to to be aware of, so I want want to hear more about that. But I'll ask that when I get into questions. I wanna turn the introductory comments by my colleagues.
Anybody have assembly member Rogers, assembly member Lackey?
Speaker 4
Yeah. Absolutely. And I I have mostly questions more than comments, but just really wanted to say thank you. As the chair noted, we don't know what comes after this year, but one of the things that I do think has been a hallmark of the administration's change in approach has been the relationship with our indigenous communities, and that's been felt particularly at my district up on the North Coast. People are grateful for it.
They're grateful to see that leadership and that partnership. And and for me, when I think about all of the things that this administration has done that other administrations have have not done particularly well, that stands out to me in in that recognition. So I wanna thank you for being a leader in that space, and for pushing projects forward, and I will have, some questions as well. Great.
Speaker 1
Thank you. So many member Lackey for your introductory comments. Yeah. Thank you.
Speaker 5
I guess one of the, the most salient points that I'd like to make is the fact that I appreciate the fact that you and I may see some things differently, but, your level of engagement is greatly appreciated. One thing I've noted is how much you show up and not just staff, but you yourself. And I think that's refreshing. And I I wanna at least commend you on that front, and I hope that other secretaries will follow your lead. Because it it really does make a difference when we're able to actually address you personally.
And, I I wanna recognize that, and thank you for it.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Any other introductory comments? Okay. Great. So can you tell me real quickly Mediterranean climate action since you brought that up before I forget?
Speaker 3
You know, in in the role I find myself in, I'm involved in a lot of international discussions with other governments in other parts of the world. And over years, we would hear from other governments saying, yep. We hear we we know about your wildfires. We have the exact same thing. And it turns out that there are a number of governments that govern over climates just like ours.
So think about the European Mediterranean, but then parts of Australia, Chile, South Africa. And it has to do with your distance from the Equator, and, essentially, we all have Mediterranean climates, generally temperate climates, wet season, dry season, all facing worsening wildfire, heat, and drought. So we decided to essentially roll up our sleeves and build this partnership, not wait for our national governments to get us together. And this partnership is all it's not actually focused on anything related to clean energy or the energy transition. It's all focused on how do we do a better job protecting our folks from heat, wildfire, and drought.
We've had three global convenings, and I'm I'm excited to say that next month in April, we're having our global our our sort of our global meeting in Los Angeles where we're going to be able to we're doing a day each on on what we're what we've learned in California on wildfire and drought and extreme heat. And I'll tell you, we've learned a lot from each other, and it's helping us take faster, better action to protect our communities.
Speaker 1
Wow. Love to be kept informed or get a summary of what happens at the Absolutely. Meetings and stuff if you could And now you're in your invitation
Speaker 3
to to our to our convening in Los Angeles. So open invitation for any legislator who wants to join.
Speaker 1
Wonderful. We'd like to have more information about that. Appreciate it. Could you we're we're as a my colleagues that came in late, we're trying to make sure that the presentations don't dominate the question and ask answer and the interaction part of this. So we want people to focus on the important things, but we're all going to have to try to be efficient to be able to get through, the questions.
But we're trying to make sure we get all the questions covered here. So without without going too far into it, because we could spend a lot of time on it, but could you summarize the biggest impacts of the federal cuts on on the state in this budget for area? And, you know, what what kind of things you think we have to do to adjust as a result of those? But mostly, I wanna get on record. What what are the federal cuts doing to us?
Speaker 3
Yeah. I'll be brief on this. Obviously, there's a lot of attention to what the federal administration is seeking to do with California's authority to protect air and water, and I won't really focus on that because that's those are my colleagues at CalEPA. I will say that, you know, last year was a very chaotic year from the perspective of our agency working with the federal government because almost overnight, our key partners lost huge amounts of their capacity. And so much so that things were changing week over week, And that is our Bureau of Reclamation, which manages the federal water project that intertwines with our own, our US Forest Service that manages a large portion, over a third of our our state land, our national parks, our Bureau of Land Management.
All told, the federal government owns and manages about 50% of our land mass in the state. So when they lose capacity in a pretty chaotic way, it it impacts the state. I'll give you one example. The river forecasting center. So there is a joint flood operation center here in in Sacramento where federal, experts and state experts sit.
And when these atmospheric rivers are bearing down on California, we're using federal technology through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In some cases, planes literally flying into the storm to collect data. And that is feeding into the flood operations center, the river forecasting center, and we've made great strides at understanding or predicting where the specific impacts of those storms will be and then prepositioning national guard equipment, etcetera. Well, overnight, we lost the federal staff to that river forecasting center. So we had to make an emergency decision to actually supplant the loss of that capacity with state funding because we couldn't let this winter happen without that that river forecasting center being in operation.
So that's one example. There's other examples, including losing this really important network of storm buoys off our coast that predict storm swells that could impact our coastal communities. And our federal partners on the ground in California are great. So this was not a decision that that that they made, but it just has created a a lot of challenge and and and, and frankly, a bit a bit of chaos.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I I I think it's very hard to measure just how devastating the loss of quality public servants, can be, to these programs that sort of the public takes for granted that we we have this information. We ought to be able to predict the weather. We ought to be able to predict floods, etcetera. And certainly, the public expects those things to happen.
If I could jump to a a philosophical issue that I think we constantly wrestle with, which is much of what we do is to try to prevent catastrophes, try to prevent things from happening, try to prevent species from going extinct or whatever. But it's really hard to measure that and do a cost benefit analysis of prevention. And if you have any insights on, how we can or whether you folks are focusing on things that we should get out to the public more and better about how do we measure and put a dollar figure almost, or some kind of value on prevention of bad things happening.
Speaker 3
It continues to be a really huge challenge. You know, the metaphor I I use is health care, which is you're always going to pay for that emergency room care for the patient that's in acute condition, but it's much, much more expensive than keeping the patient healthy in the first place. We know, for example, on the wildfire front, the the ratio that's often used is upfront proactive actions before wildfire ever ever starts. Spend If a dollar, on those types of actions, you save $7 on the response costs. I'm really proud that we've surged, you know, our wildfire response.
We have the most sophisticated wildland firefighting response on planet Earth, thanks to CAL FIRE. It's also really expensive. And so we've been trying to focus more, obviously, collectively on these upfront actions, but it's really it's we haven't we haven't we haven't found a way to quantify and really create the apples to apples comparison that we really ultimately need to. Thank
Speaker 1
you. I have some other questions, but I want to let my colleagues ask some questions, and then we'll go from there. Go ahead. Assembly member Rogers.
Speaker 4
Thank you. And I wanna start off by thanking you for mentioning the buoys and the role that that plays. In my district, we're particularly concerned about the loss of tsunami technology that, you know, Crescent City has relied on for a number of different incidents to be able to to plan. And so if you wanna talk a little bit more about sort of ways that we still have not closed those gaps, if there's anything that you see that the legislature can can help in assisting with in in that front because this certainly has exposed vulnerabilities for California without those good federal partners.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Well, I'll just say that, you know, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, has really been the science leader on on understanding and and monitoring and being sort of early warning systems on these issues. And Noah is being and has been disassembled. So we've lost all of that scientific capacity. And I'll tell you, it's not like they send a memo and say that we're stopping this.
A lot of this is you know, we've we've really had to had to react to. So I will say, I'll take it as homework with our ocean protection council to understand if there are specific equipment requirements that we haven't been able to supplant that more funding could could provide. But simply put, you know, science has made significant advancements in protecting our coastal communities as you know better than I do. And we we we can understand when storm surge is coming thanks to that that monitoring network. And if we don't have that monitoring network, literally, our our communities are less safe.
And where you represent, you know, the tsunami danger there is among the highest in the world. Mhmm. That's hard for people to understand that don't haven't really dug into the science, but it's a it's a it's a clear and present danger not to have that that technology and that monitoring. So I I'll we'll get back to you on on the specifics there. But generally speaking, you know, we've we've also not wanted to simply default into supplanting what the federal government, you know, refuses to do because we need we need federal investment.
You know, this is not something that all of a sudden state taxpayers can take over. Yeah. On the land side, as I said, federal agencies manage half of our land mass, and the only waters we manage is up three miles off our coast. The other three to 200 is the federal government. So we need to continue to make the case that, you know, we'll do what we need to and step in to you know, in these acute emergencies, but the expectation has to be that the pendulum swings back to federal investment in this.
Speaker 4
Yeah. And that was exactly kind of what I was curious about is especially since we only have that three miles, most of this data is being collected further out in federal jurisdiction. And so I don't know what tools we have to try to correct some of that. One of the questions I wanted to ask you is, you know, obviously, we we've talked about the governor wants to wrap things up. We've heard him say that before, wants to bring things to completion.
A lot of the things that he has done that have been really great have also been done through some executive orders that haven't been codified. So do you have any that you are particularly interested in that you think have really had a meaningful impact on California that the legislature should look to see if it's worth putting in statute so that then it doesn't matter what the next administration comes in with that that we have some protections in place for that work.
Speaker 3
Well, I'll I'll always be careful not to share any legislative advice because, ultimately, that's the governor's office. But but I will say that, you know, our streamlining processes have worked, and in many cases, they're temporary. So for example, we have, a an exemption. It's called the SERP, and it allows the director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, to waive certain environmental permitting requirements on pure environmental restoration. And what you'll hear from conservation groups, I believe, is that it's been an absolute game changer.
It's reduced the time and cost and let the conservation funding spread. That has a sunset. For example, over the last year in another in another area, we have been able to vastly accelerate the getting wildfire safety projects on the ground. The governor issued an emergency or sorry, an executive order under his emergency powers that enables myself and secretary Garcia, Cal EPA, to waive environmental permitting requirements if those projects abide a 13 page environmental protection plan. So what this means is a fuel break, for example, that a fire state council was planning around a community used to have to go through upwards of two years of environmental review, CEQA, Endangered Species Act, Coastal Act if it was in the coastal zone.
We've waived that, which is, you know, we we don't take lightly. But in exchange for what is a very robust set of environmental permitting or environmental protection requirements, that's temporary, and that expires in May. So, you know, there are there are those are just two examples, I won't belabor this, that we put in place that we believe are working, and then would leave it to the legislative leadership or you all if if it makes sense to codify.
Speaker 4
Yeah. And last question for you. Prop four had a requirement of at least 40% of the funds going to vulnerable communities. How are we monitoring that, and how do you track that progress?
Speaker 3
Great question. First of all, I'm proud to say that I think the programs and the spending for this this bond are more transparent than ever. So we now have one stop shopping for folks that wanna understand what this bond is funding. If you're a community or a group or a government, you wanna understand potential funding, you could actually go on there and and and search for funding sources. Including in this is guidelines for all the entities within our agency to improve their processes, including a shared definition of the 40%, threshold that we need to meet, on on disadvantaged communities.
As you know, there are different definitions in in state law and policy, and that sometimes creates real confusion. So we've just rolled out an online tool, geospatial tool, that actually enables you one to be able to pinpoint if the area a project would be or their own community falls within this, this threshold or is a is a community that, that falls within this threshold. That's really important for for for tracking. So in really, in real time, I might get in trouble for this, but in real time, we'll be able to provide reports to you all as funding is going out the door, how we're meeting our goals. Our expectation is not just to meet the 40%, it's to exceed the 40% over the life of the program.
So we're we're creating more transparency for interested nongovernmental entities to track this, but then also to be able to provide you much much more nimble reports around how we're doing on this on this target.
Speaker 6
Great to see you. Sharing and really, thank you for your leadership, for the relationship, and let's have a great final year. Right? So a little bit of a follow-up on Assembly Member Rogers. Obviously, the goal, and I think the chair spoke to this as well, is to make sure that prop four monies are getting out to communities, to individuals, whether we're talking about things like home hardening, other aspects of bond funding.
So one of the goals of prop four, is to make the bond funding more accessible, to people. What have historically been the challenges for the agency in increasing accessibility? What have you done or planning to do to address those challenges with prop four?
Speaker 3
It's an excellent question because I think if we're being honest, state funding programs have been too complicated, too long, too cumbersome, and uncoordinated. Mean I and that's not to be too hard on ourselves, but the fact is we built we built some funding programs that historically are very complicated. And what that means realistically is only the most well resourced communities can compete for those those funds. So if you're a smaller community or you're a poor community or you're a a community based organization that doesn't have a big budget, you you can't you can't compete for that funding. For in the past, for example, we never did any advanced pay, or essentially advancing the funding.
So so conservation groups or community based organizations literally have to carry millions of dollars of cost. They have to do the work and then submit for the reimbursement, and the state process has taken too long. So we've made progress over time, and there are a couple of of key examples or models. The state coastal conservancy and the wildlife conservation board have sort of flipped the the funding construct on its head to say, rather than us, administer 17 different programs with different time frames and different requirements, and then you actually have to be an expert in in weaving those programs together. What they said is, we're gonna take our our different programs, and we're going to essentially pull the funding, and then we have a rolling application process.
So if you're a community and you think you have a good idea, come to us. And you you submit what's called a pre application, a concept, note. So you don't spend six months or nine months and a lot of a lot of city funding, putting together a proposal if it's not feasible. So when for those two agencies, they they approach the agency. They come with that concept note.
If it's got potential because it meets certain criteria of these programs, then the agency staff provides feedback, then they do more, of a of an application. That's those are those are two examples of where we've we've really worked to try to change this. Include and and also maximize, you know, advancing funding, and then also require our agencies to coordinate on similar programs. Because the fact is, you know, you all, established a really broad bond, and a lot of these these programs do overlap. So if I'm a community and I wanna improve the fire safety, of my community, there's not just one program.
There's several programs. And so we've really driven our departments, and you should ask them about this when they come up, how they're coordinating with others. Sorry. I put them on the spot there. Nervous laughter.
Because it's true. I mean, we have to be far more sort of customer oriented. You know? Think in the past, what we've done, and and you can understand why it gets done like this, is a very fastidious, application process that's really long, that's seeking to eliminate any risk. But the risk is moving too slow and eliminating communities that are most vulnerable when you have these processes.
So, yes, we need to manage risk. Yes, we need to ensure transparency and accountability, but we have to get the money out faster and more accessibly. And and I believe we're on that path.
Speaker 5
Yeah. Thank you. Well, one of the more obvious questions, obviously, we're we're a budget subcommittee. And what I'd like to know is where's our focus need to be on providing more effective, wildfire prevention? Because everybody is motivated, we've seen the the immense tragedies.
Where should we prioritize our focus on budgeting? Where where's the big demand?
Speaker 3
Yeah. Thank you for that question. I would say, you know, first first and foremost, you all have almost doubled, if not doubled, Cal Fire's budget in the last several years for important reasons. CAL FIRE is a stronger responder than it's ever been. We have more boots on the ground, over 12,000 CAL FIRE employees, the vast majority wild wildland firefighters on the ground every day that are either fighting fires or getting these protective projects in in place.
We have more aerial assets than we've ever had, including these c one thirty tankers that were surplus from the military, including night equipped Black Hawk helicopters, including utilizing satellite technology. So the response is really, really strong. And and when you're out there explaining to residents or your constituents, you know, we can say with confidence that we have strengthened the ability of CAL FIRE and partner agencies to protect us and to keep fires small before becoming large and catastrophic. As we've talked about, that's necessary but not sufficient. We have to get in there before wildfires that and ever strike and take, a concentric model approach, which is one, hardening and preparing communities for wildfire.
Because wildfires are part of our natural environment in the West, and so we're never going to prevent wildfires nor should we because if we do, then our forests build up and we have these catastrophic wildfires. So in the community, around the community with fuel breaks, and fuel breaks have again and again, demonstrated their effectiveness. The idea being you reduce the vegetation right around neighborhoods and communities, and you give firefighters an opportunity to to make a stand. And then more broadly than that, we need to get back, and I the way I talk about it is restoring the health of our landscapes. The fact is before we were a state, the native American tribes were doing a whole lot to manage our landscapes, particularly in Central And Northern California, and we outlawed those practices.
So we gotta get back in there and reduce the density of our forests Mhmm. In an environmentally responsible way, get prescribed fire back on. What that's gonna mean is wildfires not picking up, all that momentum that these gigantic catastrophic wildfires have done. I do appreciate and agree with the chair's, priority for in community mitigation because I think we can we can demonstrate that we made a lot of success on vastly scaling out those projects around communities, fuel breaks, vegetation thinning, prescribed fire, and we need to continue to invest more within our communities. What we saw with the LA firestorm was a wildland fire that became very quickly an urban fire where, you know, houses were catching each other on fire.
So I'll just share that. I I don't think that there has been a bad investment that this legislature and governor have made because it's an all of the above approach. And I will say this year, particularly as a result of, bills that you all passed and a report that's due through the earthquake authority in April, We're really focused on what additional mitigations can we drive in the state within communities, the hardened communities.
Speaker 5
Okay. Thank you. The my last question has to do with dam safety funding. It was just a few years ago where we almost had a catastrophic flood right into the spillway and Orville Dam. Very few people realize how much water is stored and and how important of a feeder that that dam actually provides.
But I'm worried about, again, prevention, the the dam safety measures that have questionable funding in the future, and I I find that to be very disturbing. Is there anything that you any enlightenment that you could give us on the dam safety funding and
Speaker 3
its future? Yeah. So first of all, I'll I'll I'll agree with you on the importance of dam safety. A lot of us, you know, see a dam or a reservoir and we think about water supply, but a lot of these dams that exist in California serve primarily as a flood safety and a protective measure. And, of course, we're protected here in Sacramento from Folsom Dam, which provides supply, but it's really fundamentally about protecting us, from from flooding.
And we know that the most catastrophic extreme event in terms of, loss of life can be flooding. The division for the safety of dams, which is part of the Department of Water Resources, I believe is provides very strong oversight for dam safety. The challenge is that many of these dams are owned and managed by local water agencies. And the challenge is a lot of those dams are coming, are are quite old and are revealing themselves to have seismic challenges and and major major structural challenges that are quite expensive. So I'll tell you that the biggest sort of point of vulnerability intention is, you know, the how how can those locally managed dams be refurbished, moving forward and what amount of state subsidy, you know, would or should they require?
There've been a little bit of that to date, but the state hasn't subsidized those those those local dams to date. I do think, though, at any point, you know, we can provide real time briefings through our division for the safety of dams, DWR on specific on specific dams across the state.
Speaker 1
Thank you. So I'm gonna just very quickly, try to follow-up on a few things because we are, fighting time here now. But, I appreciate that your response on wildfire, the question, that you had started with prioritizing community hardening because I think that's the area we have been deficient in, and it stays it's it is fundamental to the solution. As you pointed out, wildfire is part of the natural environment here. I don't think as climate change gets worse, we're likely to be able to say, oh, we we've been able to keep all the fires small.
Right? It's it's just not very likely that's gonna be the case. But as assembly member Conley has been pointing out a lot, the value of community hardening is really important. And that means hardening the homes and the other the other infrastructure that is there in those communities. So appreciate our opportunity to work with you and your agencies on on trying to make sure we get that done.
It's it's absolutely critical to California, and there's just no way around that. Second thing is, in prop four, there's a requirement that 40% of the funding go to vulnerable populations. We've had a couple questions about that. But are we actually tracking that, and do we have, do we have numbers on that at this point in time? And I see your deputy nodding his head, so I'll, I'll let him answer if you'd like, but go ahead.
Speaker 3
I'll I'll defer to him on the specific numbers because I don't have those off the top of my head. But I can tell you this, which is we have built a structure and a system to track, you know, each and every allocation that gets made within prop four around, is it heading to those communities and if it's not? So as I said before, that system will allow for, I think, a really nimble way to update this legislature.
Speaker 1
Great. Thank you. And we've spent a fair amount of our time budget time here talking to you because I think it's so valuable. You have such a great perspective, and it's really been helpful. So I'm gonna ask you for one final sage piece of advice, and that is you've been here eight years.
You've seen the big stuff. What is it that is most important in your mind that we try to continue for the next eight years?
Speaker 3
Well, I'll share that it is important to help important things happen faster and better than they can. You know, I I I'm really proud of our progress, but I also we have real challenges, economic challenges of building more housing, environmental challenges of building more clean energy, and restoring. And I'll observe, you know, seven years into this job that well intended, you know, system that we built up over time is not optimized to move quickly and effectively. So I'll tell you what I'm passionate about, moving forward is maintaining, you know, this level of environmental quality and safeguards that we have in California, no doubt, and ensuring public participation and tribal consultation and figuring out ways to get this get to get this work done more quickly and effectively. That's what we have to do because climate change is not waiting for us, and it's bearing down, and conditions will become worse.
So we have to while we've while we've achieved a lot together, we have to continue to achieve more and do it in a faster, more effective way.
Speaker 1
Great. And since it's a great segue into the rest of our hearing has to be prompt and quick. We have a 12:30 sort of 12:45 deadline with, that's with comments too. So thank you very much.
Speaker 3
And we're a we're a phone call away through this process as always, sir.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Alright. We'll now go to, the legislative analyst office, and ask to pick the pace up now for everybody here. Alright? Thank you.
Speaker 8
Good morning. Rachel Ehlers with the legislative analyst office. I will be as quick as I can.
Speaker 8
we're looking for. I will be speaking from a handout, which, you all should have a framework for approaching natural resources budget, which is also on, our LAO website and on the committee website. And it takes comments from two reports that we put out, in the past couple weeks, which you should also have and which are also on our website. So I think my intention here today is to provide some context over in our overarching budget comments on the environmental budget. I'll use environmental budget as a shorthand for departments within the Natural Resources Agency, Environmental Protection Agency, and the Department of Food and Agriculture to help set the context for the discussions you'll have later today as well as in the coming weeks.
So turning to page one of the handout, I think one of our most important points that is kind of the blanket under all of the comments is the state budget condition. The good news is the stock market has been booming and, is continuing to boom. In fact, about a week and a half ago, our office updated our revenue estimate to to reflect that. The question is just how long will that last? And, as I know you heard in full committee hearing from from Gabe Pettig, the legislative analyst, my boss, there are a lot of concerning signs based on what we've seen historically of an overheated market.
And so the question is how long will that last and and at what degree? Also, even just this weekend, changing international, context that could affect our economy. Even with the booming stock market, the budget is only precariously balanced. The budget budget proposal before you from the governor relies on new borrowing, $6,000,000,000 in new borrowing, which brings the total wall of debt, as we call it, to 34,000,000,000, as well as using 10,000,000,000 in reserves. So usually when a stock market is booming as it is, that's a time you're putting money into reserves, not taking money out.
So there are a lot of concerns we have about this. Looking ahead to the coming years, both our office and the administration forecast multibillion dollar deficits, 20 to $30,000,000,000 a year. That is the structural gap between our forecasted revenues and forecasted expenditures, even not forecasting a downturn in the stock market. And and the governor's budget proposal before you, while balanced in the coming budget year based on the administration's assumptions, does not really materially address these challenges and these out year deficits. There's been some indication the administration may come before you with some proposals in May.
We don't think that gives you a lot of time to think about some of the hard choices that will be before you. And addressing these challenges is going to be difficult given that a lot of the kind of easier tools before you, like pulling back one time spending, using reserves, using borrowing, are already tools that that have been utilized. So you're looking at really looking at ongoing program reductions or raising revenues. So turning to page two of the handout, while we have concerns about the overall structure of the administration's proposal, when we look specifically at the environmental proposals, we think the administration deserves a lot of credit. They really, for the most part, focused on really high high priority immediate proposals.
There are some exceptions which we can talk about, but we think it's a really good starting place for you. But even in this budget context, even proposals with really strong justification come with trade offs. Every new dollar you're spending in a deficit situation means you're having to make reductions or raise new revenues elsewhere. We have a lot of special funds within the budgets discussed in this sub committee that can be really helpful, particularly when there's a general fund shortfall. However, we think the bar should also be high for special fund proposals.
Special funds can be tools to help you across your budget. It can loan to the general fund. They can absorb expenditures that historically have been funded by the general fund. So thinking about that high bar of is this an actual essential activity regardless of fund source we think is important. And we also recommend that you start thinking about solving those out year budget deficits and preparing for a potential revenue downturn now.
So turning to page three, we took sort of a different approach this year with our budget publications for you. As always, we looked at each individual proposal and and looked at its merits, but as I mentioned, we found that a lot of them did have some justification. So given the budget condition, we thought what would be helpful for you is to provide this kind of a framework to think about how do we approach the various proposals given the larger context and help guide your decisions. These criteria we came up with may not be your exact criteria, but we thought that they would be a helpful starting place. So I'll walk through them quickly and recognizing that you had a question in your agenda, I'll try and be efficient and address one of those questions as well and give you some examples of what some of these criterion might how they might be applied.
So the first apply a very high bar when approving new proposals. We would suggest thinking about health and safety and immediate pressing needs when you're thinking about what you are going to spend new funds on. So the some examples that may will come before you in the coming weeks and and even in your agenda today are things like new contracts for pilots for CAL FIRE's fixed air aircraft. You wanna be able we we as a state wanna be able to use the tools that we have like our aircraft when there are fires and not have them grounded because we didn't provide funding to be able to utilize them. That to us is the kind of example of something where it's pressing, it's immediate.
If it's not funded this year, then there's a problem. There's a proposal for fish and wildlife to address nutria, the invasive species. If we took a couple of years off of that, for example, the population could explode and start chewing through levees. These are the types of immediate pressing proposals that even in a budget problem, we think merit very strong consideration. There are some proposals moving to the second that we think fail to meet this high bar that may have really strong policy rationale behind them, that in a in a different budget condition, would really want to support.
These would be things like making ongoing the the farm to school program, providing fresh fruits and vegetables to, students. There are billions of dollars in federal and state funds already going to to student nutrition, and there may be ways to kind of fold that some of those activities in, but that isn't in our mind while there's, again, a strong rationale for it from a policy perspective meeting that health and safety immediate pressing need. So we also offer some suggestions of ways you might wanna modify proposals to reduce pressure on the general fund even if the proposals have a strong rationale. Thinking about alternative funding sources, are there fees you might be able to raise? Always come with trade offs for the fee payers, but thinking about other alternative sources you could generate to support some of these activities, thinking about funding priority proposals at a lower level.
Sometimes doing a little bit of something is better than not doing it at all even if you can't afford to do it at the level that is proposed. So, again, there's some of these on your agenda today that you'll be discussing, but maybe you bring on new, conservation corps members, but fewer than you than you would have. Or repairs at the at Expo Park. Maybe you do some of them, but not all of them. These are the types of trade offs, unfortunately, that you are facing.
Taking steps to address the budget condition, I think one of our big pieces of advice to you is be careful not to make the problem worse even as you're trying to, solve it. So thinking about, activities that are just being phased in, it might be easier to pull them back or slow them down or pause them rather than moving forward now. Beginning the process of identifying additional budget solutions using these hearings that you're gonna have over the next few months to think about things like raising fees, that takes time. Takes time to implement. You can't just turn it on if there's a budget downturn.
So thinking about potential trade offs, structures, unintended consequences, using the time now to get those plans in place even if you're not ready to implement them yet. And then, again, avoiding policies that will create additional out year budget pressures. Some of that is happening on the policy process, and we know that you always have that strong oversight, through the appropriations process. But, again, we think that the, bar should probably be even higher in this budget context. And then finally, ensuring remaining expenditures focus on the most important priorities.
Even though you're in a limited budget context, that doesn't mean you can't fund the most important things. It also doesn't mean you can't spend more money on something you're not spending on now. It just means making the, trade off and the reduction and pulling back elsewhere. So a couple of examples we give in our report is thinking about zero emission vehicles, for example. What are your highest priorities there?
Do you want to spend more on medium and heavy duty? Well, maybe that means spending less on light duty from the existing funding that you have. How do you weigh charging versus vehicles in the in the context there? Similarly with wildfire, it's already been touched on, as there is when you figure out how much you can spend, then it's thinking about how much for forest health activities as compared to community protection activities. It's not that there aren't resources to spend, it's just a matter of thinking about what the highest priorities are.
And that can be harder, especially coming off of a surplus years. It's a different mindset. It is a really different mindset to think about shrinking and reprioritizing rather than just adding. And then finally, turning to the final page of the handout, just some high level comments on Proposition four. As you can see here in the figure, the governor's budget includes 2,100,000,000.0 in new spending from proposition four combined with the funding that the legislature provided in the current year.
That's just over half of the total funding, authorized by the voters. As we looked across the proposals, it seemed reasonable to us, consistent with bond requirements. We didn't see anything that seemed to jump out at us as inconsistent with the bond or or problematic. You can see across the different chapters, there are different levels of funding moving out the door and proposed to move out the door, but the rationale the administration provided to us made sense for for why those differences. You may recall that last year, the administration had provided a multiyear plan for funding to kind of put it on autopilot in response to feedback from you all.
They have changed that plan and now are providing, budget change proposals at one year at a time to give you more opportunities to weigh in. So we we thought that that, was appropriate. We did we have heard that there have been challenges getting prop $4 out the door. It is pretty slow at this point thus far. A lot of that has to do with the emergency regulation process that the departments have had to go through.
So you all just passed a b one zero seven, which will help that process in the current year, but there is still out years and what the regulatory process will be. There is policy bill moving through the process too that that could address that. We highlight in our prop four report, there are a few new activities proposed for the first time. A lot of proposition four is just continuing long standing state programs, but there are some that are new where there is really an opportunity for the legislature to weigh in and express your priorities if you have them. You also could defer to the administration to make a lot of those decisions.
There are a lot of experts, as the secretary mentioned, what did he say, 26,000 just in NCNRA. But if you had ideas when you were crafting the bond, you may want to express those. Now I'll just give you a couple of examples. There is a category called reduce climate impacts on disadvantaged communities and expand outdoor recreation. That's pretty broad.
You could do a lot of things with that money. So that's an example where do you want to defer to the administration to decide, or is that something where you wanna express your priorities? Nature, climate, education, and research facility grants. Again, pretty high level. Even in a category that's a little bit more narrow like home hardening, there are as we talked about in hearings last year, there are a lot of decisions about what size are the grants, how many communities can can get access to that funding.
Do we wanna protect fewer homes or more homes at a at a lesser level? Lots of policy decisions. So these are the types of areas where this is the moment for you when the funding is being appropriated to weigh in with, statutory language if you wanna help guide the direction on how those funds are spent. The last two two bullets here, there is some budget control language. I think you'll have it on a separate agenda item in a future hearing, that would allow the administration some flexibility to spend money across departments.
We think that sounds reasonable. We can talk about that when that item comes up. And then there are some proposition four proposals that interact with other proposals, general fund proposals, some on the flood area, some in the defensible space area. So when we will highlight these for you when they come up and we think it makes sense to think about proposition four and other funding together so you're not taking an action on one side of the budget that may throw off the proposal on another side. And with that, I'm happy to answer questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. I'm gonna jump with my comments, which are once again, you've come up with LAO's office has come up with some, I think, very insightful suggestions and recommendations for us. There's everything in here is what I think we should use as we try to deal with the budget crisis that we have coming forward, and particularly the principles that you've identified on page three. So for anybody listening, coming through budget sub four, I hope we would all be in agreement that these are really sound principles that we ought to follow. And then your suggestions on on page four, increasing the reporting language, trying to review some things in tandem, I think are excellent.
So I've just mentioned to staff, I want to make sure we try to follow these principles as we go forward. So thank you very much for that. And colleagues, any questions? Great. Thank you.
I have one specific question, and and that is we're a small part of the budget relative to the massive amount that is out there. And there is a question as to as we hear as we're gonna be in real crisis when it comes to health and and human services, this real crisis. And I think the case has to be made from our side of it why this small amount that we spend here is essential for us to continue to spend it here. And if if the LAO's office has any insights in the future or if you have them now at the top of your head, off the top of your head, why, what are the long term health and human services impacts if we don't do a responsible job with our climate, environment, energy, transportation spending here? Any any quick thoughts on that?
Speaker 8
Just, yes. I think the the the programs that are funded through this budget have real impacts both on humans as well as our our natural environment and intertwined. We at the LAO have never suggested that the legislature take a across the board approach, you know, 5% cut to everything. Or if if resources is just 4.2% of the budget, then all of the it should be 4.2% of the solutions. It's really an issue of priorities the same way in your household.
If you lost your paycheck, you wouldn't cut all of your expenses across the board. You would prioritize your housing and cut your Netflix. Right? So I think I think thinking about your priorities.
Speaker 1
LEO's office have a thought on the funds raised with the auctions greenhouse gas funds raised with the auctions. Should they primarily be focused on trying to reduce carbon emissions in in California?
Speaker 8
I think our long standing message to you is that those are legally flexible to use for any purpose, and so we would suggest that you use that as a tool to focus on your highest priorities, whatever those are.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Alright. We're ready to move on, to issue three. And, again, as representatives as representatives come up, if you'll, please introduce yourself and who you are with. And this is safe drinking water, drought, flood, and, water resilience.
And I'll remind you again, try to hit the highlights, and, we can all get the details, out of the report. Thank you very much. Who would like to go first?
Speaker 7
I'll start. Good morning, Churn members. My name is Bidlong Wing with the Department of Finance. I'll be giving a brief overview of the water related chapter in the climate bond. Okay.
The climate bond allocates $3,800,000,000 for safe drinking water, drought, flood, and water resilience over the lifetime of the bond. This funding is allocated across various programs administered by the state water resources control board, department of water resources, and other departments within the California Natural Resources Agency. The 2025 budget appropriated $1,200,000,000 across these departments with significant investments in water quality, safe drinking water, water reuse and recycling, and dam safety. The governor's budget, proposes an additional $792,000,000 in twenty twenty six twenty seven to support these programs. A couple of the most significant 2627 proposals are, for example, $229,000,000 to the Department of Water Resources for various flood projects such as levees in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Delta and flood control and flood risk reduction projects both within and outside of the state plan of flood control.
There is also $75,000,000 to the water board for grants for water recycling projects, $38,000,000 to the water board for grants and technical assistance for multi
Speaker 1
bin Excuse me. Yep. It's it sounds like you're doing exactly what I was concerned about. $75,000,000 for this, $38,000,000. We we don't need to hear we need to hear what the new different programs are.
What's what's the what's the new emphasis? And we can we can get those details. Otherwise, I think we have, for example, six important questions we have for for you folks here and stuff. So can you hit the highlights without without doing the dollar figures? Right?
Speaker 7
Yes. One of the new programs is the $38,000,000 to the water board for, stormwater projects. 2627 is the first year of local assistance or project funding for that program, so I wanna highlight that as one of the new programs. And for for other new programs or specific questions on new programs, I'll have to defer to our representatives at the department, which are all here today as well to answer specific program questions.
Speaker 10
Alright. Good morning, mister Bennett and members. I'm Sonya Pettig with the legislative analyst office. Just a few comments. I mean, first, we just point out that the proposed approach in the water chapter of proposition four seems reasonable and appears consistent with the requirements of proposition four.
We also would note that across departments, the planned approach really took into account the long term planning process that departments started last year for how to spend Proposition $4 over the course of the bond, and also departmental capacity. So in some cases, some of the departments are still trying to get that funding that was appropriated last year awarded, and in large part because of developing emergency regulations, which as my colleague pointed out, will now new decisions will have to be made in light of AB 107 exempting that spending from the APA. We'd also note that there are a couple areas where we noticed there wasn't spending being proposed in 2627 or not a lot of spending being proposed. One of those was in the groundwater management and in stream flow bucket as well as in the dam safety bucket issue that you just brought up. However, when we talk to the Department of Water Resources, things still seem on track.
So for example, in the groundwater management area, the department really took a step back ten years after more than ten years now after SIGMA was passed, taking a step back, working with the groundwater sustainability agencies to see what projects they're going to need as they're implementing SIGMA. And the plan is to really get guidelines in place and solicit the proposals and get spending going in 'twenty seven, 'twenty eight. And then when it comes to dam safety, there was a lot of funding approved last year. So that funding, they've been developing the regulations, and then that funding will go out in 'twenty six, 'twenty seven. And then they will likely come back next year with some additional proposed funding.
Speaker 1
Great. Well, I certainly welcome the fact that the administration is actually pulling back in some areas, particularly if we've made a substantial investment a year ago and those funds haven't gone out. It buys us time to sort of analyze what are the best expenditures, etcetera. So, I certainly welcome the fact that that's happened. With dam safety, $2,000,000 is in the budget for this year.
What are the lessons that that we've learned here? It's the first question that we've identified for you. What are the lessons that we've learned from the twenty twenty one, twenty twenty two climate package for the whole issue of dam safety. We've had, my my colleague, mister, assembly member Lackey, ask about that. So, can you fill us in on lessons learned?
Speaker 11
Yeah. Sure. First, I'll address your first question on the 2,000,000 in the budget right now. That is for state operations to actually administer the program, the $228,000,000 that you approved for the program last year. The 47,500,000.0 that is mentioned in your question, in the in the packet, that was appropriated as general fund, but it was a budget solution then that's that shifted to prop four.
So that funding did not, go out the door. It was shifted to prop four as part of that 228,000,000. We did though into anticipating that funding due to did a solicitation of dam owners and what we saw is the need is great. We had about $1,000,000,000 worth of proposals come in to to our shop to try to prioritize for that 228,000,000. So as as we heard, there is a great need out there in this program.
We're looking forward to getting the funding out the door this this summer. We're working on the guidelines now, not not regulations we have shifted to get that done.
Speaker 1
Great. Thank you. Do you have questions? Great. The $45,000,000 for the state water project, those funds, instead of being going out for competitive grant.
I want to, emphasize asking the question doesn't mean I think you shouldn't be doing this, but it means I want to get on record why are you doing this when there are people coming to us and asking for the others. So can you help us with this? And people on question three, if you'll be ready to to come up, go ahead. Question two.
Speaker 12
Amanda Martin, Natural Resources Agency. The state water project supplies, you know, water to 27,000,000 Californians, and three out of four are disadvantaged communities, rely on the water from the from the state water project. So that's a big bang for our buck when we're talking about the number of people served meeting our disadvantaged community targets, etcetera. This is important to address the California aqueduct maintenance and repairs of those those damaged areas. It's a high priority, and it's also consistent with the 2021 California Water Commission white paper on where we should be investing in infrastructure, specifically sort of the backbone of our of our water infrastructure.
And the 45,000,000 is for that, but there is some for competitive grants as well.
Speaker 1
Great. Thank you. Anything else you wanna add? Alright. No.
Thank you. There might be another. Wanna before you leave yeah. What's the total anticipated cost for the state water project repairs that we need? How how much how far does the 45,000,000,000 go?
Speaker 13
So the 45,000,000 will get us oh, I'm sorry. John Yarborough, deputy director for the state water project. And so the 45,000,000 will let us build five, temporary projects, interim projects that are gonna, buy us time to do the planning for a long term effort. Right now, the the total for the long term effort, we are expecting around 3,900,000,000.0, over the next twenty years.
Speaker 1
3,900,000,000.0 over the next twenty years. Right? Correct. Wow. Significant investment in the state water project.
Alright. Great. Thank you very much. Question three there, grant outreach. What what grant outreach has occurred for the $75,000,000 for the water conservation in the agriculture and, urban areas?
In last year's BCP, the department stated they plan to refine, its out year request based on findings from the previous years. What did you learn?
Speaker 14
K. Good morning. Glad to be here. Paul Gossett, deputy director for sustainable water management with the Department of Water Resources. So we, earlier, a couple weeks ago, have started the outreach on doing scoping.
We've done a survey to get input. And I think that's really important with, this step this year coming in to make sure that we go out, we do the scoping, we hear from the local agencies and communities as to where the priorities are so we can develop the guidelines, regulations, whatever vehicle we use, to make sure that these funds get used to the highest priority, for the needs out there. So we've started that process right now.
Speaker 14
Yeah. And and, actually, that's that's one of the things that, we're hoping to learn from the scoping sessions is to hear from from the local agencies. We know ourselves that having, you know, as much efficiency in in the grants that that are put forward is gonna be real important for cost savings for the agencies and our own process to make sure that that, they get out as as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Question four. The department said, shared they expected a delay in implementing, grant programs because of the emergency regulations process. Can you share your revised plans considering the passage of a b one zero seven and the APA exemption from, for previous years and current year prop four appropriations? Okay.
Speaker 15
Hi. Good morning. Joe Karkoski. I'm with the State Water Resources Control Board. I head up our division of financial assistance.
So, one of the things we're able to do right now is actually get money out the door and committed. So, we adopted our board adopted in the summer our intended use plans for our drinking water state revolving fund and also for our clean water state revolving fund. So embedded in those, intended use plans included guidelines for distribution of, proposition for funding. So for both, drinking water and clean water, now with the APA exemption, we're able to rely on those, previously adopted guidelines. Our our board actually processed emergency regs for water recycling, and I think it was the day after we got OAL approval, we got the APA exemption.
So we're good either way, but we basically have we were working on staging a water recycling grant projects prior to that. So we anticipate getting the the funds appropriated for this fiscal year for water recycling committed. We anticipate on the, wastewater side, you had had a question about, vulnerable communities. So all of those grant funds for the small community wastewater will be going to disadvantaged communities, so we anticipate getting that funding. So it's about half of the total appropriations going to wastewater, the other half to drinking water.
So the half going to small community wastewater will get committed, this fiscal year. And then, we also have a, actually some, workshops going on for The US Mexico border funding that are taking place, this week. So we're going to, San Diego and then, Calexico. So those have, funding guidelines associated with them. They we were able to drop the regulatory provisions.
So that should speed up the funding by, I'd say, a month or so, and then it eliminates the risk that we might have gotten sideways with the APA in some in some way. So we'll be able to get the money out the door much more efficiently. And you all appropriated all of the local assistance funding for The US Mexico border funding, so we're golden.
Speaker 1
So along the lines of secretary Crowfoot's comments about we need to do things faster. Right? Are there other departments out there that would like to comment on one zero seven and the APA in terms of its impact?
Speaker 14
Yeah. I'll I'll just add from the department standpoint. We started the, again, the scoping process to Yeah. To the normal process if we had guidelines because we need to do that first whether we had regulations or not. What one zero seven will do is allow us to continue with our normal process of getting guidelines out, without a redundant, you know, regulatory OAL process.
So it it will keep us on track where we originally had scoped and planned the timing to get, these grant programs out the door. So it will keep us, on track on a a normal, bond grant program.
Speaker 1
It's good for us to get on the record what the values are of of this, and so that's why I'm asking this question. And I think, we have you would like to also respond to that. So we're gonna ask there you go.
Speaker 17
Hi. Brian Cash from the Natural Resources Agency. I just wanted to echo those comments. Across the board, departments within our agency and EPA and, CDFA will be able to speed things up faster. We there are departments like the wildlife conservation board and Stakeholder Conservancy.
They've actually moved forward and are gonna be making awards very shortly or already made awards. So this will really move things along. Thank you.
Speaker 1
It reminds me, some of when we were working on a project when I was a county supervisor, and we were doing mitigation for the environmental impact, and then we were asked to do mitigation about the mitigation that we were doing. And it was like, where does that end, right, in in in terms of going forward? So thank you very much. The question number five, Salton Sea people who would like to respond to that. But we have sort of been factoring in revenue from the salt and salt and sea lithium fund that hasn't materialized.
We're and you've read the question, but I am concerned that we we we project this revenue, but it never comes in. And so we're talking about trying to resolve our structural deficit issues, etcetera. Can you enlighten us on how long first of all, just how long have expected revenues, how many years in a row have they not come in as we projected they were coming in, and what's the plan for the future?
Speaker 18
Hi. Good morning. Andrew Hall, Department of Finance. Just wanted to acknowledge that we have brought, a member from our revenue team who's gonna be able to get into some of the details here.
Speaker 19
Yeah. Good morning. William Flores Jones, Department of Finance. So the 2324 to give you a bit of context on what past forecasts assumed about the projected revenue timeline here, the 2324 budget act anticipated revenues, lithium revenues as early as the 2425 fiscal year. The twenty twenty four, twenty five budget act anticipated revenues as early as the twenty twenty five, twenty six, fiscal year.
I can provide you a bit more context for how our office, conducts that revenue forecast Sure. If you'd like. Yeah. So given that the, lithium extraction excise tax is a new tax with no historical revenue data, in order to produce this forecast, our office essentially tracks the activities of firms which we know to be investing in lithium mining operations in the region. We do this by consulting mainly publicly available information, including press releases, announcements, and executive statements from businesses which we know to be, invested in operations here.
Yeah. We do this in order to track planned start dates, deduce production timelines, and estimate expected volumes as the businesses increase production. So bit more context. Right? Salton c lithium extraction requires significant significant capital investment, and a firm's financial viability is significantly dependent on the price of that lithium carbonate, which they plan to extract.
To provide a bit of context here, the per ton price of lithium carbonate fell to all time lows in 2024 in the 2025, where it was trading around 7 to $8,000 per ton. We have regained a bit of that price momentum the 2025 and the 2026, now trading around $16,000 per ton. But for some context here, right, when this tax was initially implemented and passed, the per ton price of lithium carbonate was around all time highs of $70,000 per ton. So we can see how that may affect an individual firm's timeline when trying to establish financial viability here. Additionally, each project is contingent on a variety of state, federal, and local permits, assessments, and approvals, as well as the successful implementation of a new and developing extraction technology referred to as direct lithium extraction, which is needed to collect lithium from this reserve in the Salton Sea specifically where the lithium lies in geothermal brines underneath the crust of
Speaker 1
Yeah. Great. So this is this reminds me of the comments that we made earlier, which is the state of California has to deal with such great variability. We've gone from the price of lithium of $7,000 a ton to $70,000 a ton, and we're trying to create business plans and projections and revenue flows, in the midst of all that variability, which in my mind means that we have to be more cautious about expecting, certain revenues from, these funds if we're going to do the hard work of actually getting rid of this projected structural deficit that we have coming forward. Thank you very much for that, but I have a great staff person who we want to make sure we're complete when we're finished.
So she's rapidly writing the next question, alright, that I want to make sure we have the answer on before we leave, which is, in the meantime, using prop four to fund positions meant to be funded by lithium, the what will we use next if we don't have these, lithium funds? It's not sustainable with this lithium fund.
Speaker 18
Andrew Hall with Department of Finance. You know, this is sort of something that we deal with every year. You know, luckily, over the next few years, we're gonna have prop four that is an eligible funding source. We will have to come back and see, you know, what happens in a few years, and, we'll find a solution. We always do, but I think it's too early to to be able to speculate on that.
Speaker 1
But I'd like to make sure that we've used this to clearly call out we have a problem here, and it's it's not sustainable. And we are relying on prop four funding that is supposed to be for capital cost, and we can't we can't always we can't always do this. We're gonna have to make sure those projections that we just deal with this crisis along with many others as we go forward. One of the things I'm concerned with is I don't want us to lose our credibility with these with these efforts. If we lose our credibility and we don't imagine where we would be in the state of California right now if we didn't have prop four funding.
I mean, we would be really in trouble in terms of our climate efforts and and and what we're trying to do. So thank you very much. Question six. Alright? And the sustainable groundwater.
I don't think mister we probably should have asked this question while you were up here already. Alright? But, you know, can you can you expand on the scoping process for the sustainable groundwater management grant program? We have we we heard lots of people want this funding. How do we figure out with all these groundwater agencies out there?
What what what's gonna be the prioritization method you're going to follow?
Speaker 14
Yeah. And thank you. And Paul Gosling again. The scoping for this is gonna be really focused per the bond language on implementation projects. Previous bonds and grants, at the time when Sigma was coming into play, it was a lot of planning activity going on.
So there was a lot of grants going out to critically overdrafted basins in 2021, $7,600,000. A lot of that they used to update plans, prepare their plans, and start the process for implementation. That round for noncritically overdrafted basins is kind of points to your, demand. There was roughly a $187,000,000, in in the bond. We had, almost $800,000,000 in, applications.
So it really spoke to the, demand that are up was out there. So for this, money and and funds for sustainable, groundwater management, it is gonna be focused on implementation and not planning. There could be some planning component, but it has to lead to a physical project on the ground that's going to improve groundwater conditions. So, again, we're going out. We're scoping.
We're hearing a lot from local agencies because right now, they're in the throes of implementation, and and the necessity of that is gonna be very, very important. We do have a number of areas that we may consider focusing the funding on. One is, usually, we keep a open ended, you know, option for them to just bring in what what their needs are. But I think we also, as as a state, have some some interest. One is we have issued corrective actions to the agencies about things they need to do to improve.
Even though we've viewed them as substantially compliant, there's a number of things. We may want them to at least have some balance and focus on those improvements as well as these other drivers going on. Subsidence management, which we just issued a best management practice document ties in absolutely to the long term solution for conveyance and other problems caused by subsidence. So we are going to really look towards those districts that do have subsidence areas to to focus in on resolving that as quickly as possible. So I think some of those areas we're we're going to float out as part of the scoping process.
Speaker 1
You know, we're we're in a catch 22 to some extent in that we I think we want to use our funds to try to reward people who are do GSAs that are doing the right thing and doing good things. And at the same time, some GSAs that maybe aren't, you know, doing appropriate things and stuff will end up with needs that we may have to end up fixing. I hope we can we can find a balance. What's what's your sense in terms of what we should prioritize at this point in time?
Speaker 14
I I think our intent going in is it's gonna be eligible to all of the groundwater sustainability agencies and other agencies. You know, we do have some agencies that we found were not substantially compliant. And following the process, they were, sent to the water board who intervened, and and they are going through their their process. So the process of the act is actually working. We've seen the return of some basins that we sent to the board through their process, their deliberation, resolved issues, and have returned basins back.
So I think it's gonna be a natural process where we may have basins throughout the implementation period that may go from us to the board if we feel they're getting they're not keeping on track, and and they'll return to us. So I I don't just because they fall into disagreement with us on on where they're at doesn't mean that they're should be harmed or or not supported. So the our level of support, technical assistance, other assistance is is across the board. And and some of these agencies that are having problems that go to the board actually need a lot more guidance and assistance. Great.
Speaker 1
Thank you. And that's it for the questions here on this. We're gonna move on to, issue four, coastal resilience. While people are coming up, I'm gonna take a quick sixty second break.
Speaker 20
Oh, are you too? It's gonna be, like, thirty seconds. I don't know. Thankfully, I don't have a list of allocations. Yeah.
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Funny. I I write with my left hand, but I do everything else on my right side. I always write
Speaker 20
Good morning. Courtney Massengale with the Department of Finance. I'm going to provide a brief overview of the coastal resilience chapter k. Of the climate bond. The climate bond allocates 1,200,000,000.0 over the lifetime of the bond.
The funding is allocated across various departments, including the State Coastal Conservancy, Ocean Protection Council, Department of Fish and Wildlife, and the Department of Parks and Recreation. The 2025 budget act appropriated 279,000,000 across these departments for programs such as coastal flood management, sea level rise mitigation and adaptation, and climate ready fisheries management. The governor's budget
Speaker 20
The governor's budget included a 107,000,000 for coastal resilience to continue supporting these and other coastal resilience programs. I am joined by representatives from these departments, and we are available for questions.
Speaker 10
Hi. Sonia Pettig again from the LAO. Just a couple quick comments. We would just note for you that relative to the other chapters of the proposition for bond, spending spending is not happening at the same pace in the coastal resilience chapter. And there are a few reasons for this.
We we talked with the administration about this. The bulk of funding in this chapter goes to the state coastal conservancy, and they've had a few constraints in terms of spending funding. One is staffing capacity. And you may note that the proposal this year for 2627 includes a proposal for five new positions at the coastal conservancy, and we think this makes a lot of sense. They just need more people to help manage these proposition for expenditures.
In addition, they and experienced some unanticipated delays in the emergency regulations process, which is something they don't typically have to do. So a lot of the $25.26 dollars and awards have not been made, have not gone out the door yet. So, of course, a b one zero seven should help with that. However, we'd note that depending on what happens, we don't know if there's going to be a similar APA exemption in for future years spending. But, anyway, we would just note that the sort of relatively smaller amounts being proposed for 2627 sort of reflect those some of those realities, for the state coastal conservancy, and they'll be getting the previous year's funding out the door in the upcoming year.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Just picking up on that thread, and I think you noted that about 32% of the bond chapter has been allocated in the first two years. Understand why. But the LAO also notes that this budget is really focused on near term issues. And this specific portion, I think more so than even other areas that we touch, we really do see long term impacts or long term giant liabilities that are out there.
So I'm wondering just a little bit about how the administration is trying to balance that challenge that you're having getting the dollars out the door with understanding that some of these things like coastal erosion and, low lying areas where people live, become exponentially more expensive the longer that we wait to actually address them?
Speaker 20
Yeah. So as the LAO mentioned, we've had difficulty getting funding out the door. And for specific details, I'll defer, to the coastal conservancy. Yeah. The delays are related to the emergency regulation process, but noting that there are some long term and short term difficulties there.
But we are trying to balance kind of that with how we've allocated funding throughout the bond.
Speaker 4
And do you think the five additional positions, is that sufficient to be able to move this money faster?
Speaker 20
Yes. We do think that those positions will be able to support getting this funding out the door. And with the help of a b one zero seven, that's gonna be very significant contribution to getting that funding rolling to grants and other entities.
Speaker 22
I'm happy to speak to that as well. Hi. I'm Evan Bourgnes Sloan, deputy executive officer at the Coastal Conservancy. So given a b one zero seven, passage last week, we are actually able to start moving grants out the door at our February 19 board meeting, which was the same day it was signed. So that was really serendipitous.
So we are moving forward with our f y twenty five funding. And given that the bond passed in November 2024, we've been working with partners over the entire year to, get applications through our rolling grant process. And so we have, a large suite of projects that we're planning to move forward. And, yes, there's been some delay, but we're confident that we can move them forward quickly.
Speaker 4
Great. And then kind of picking up on the theme that the secretary started off with around green tape. There are many examples within sort of this space where there still exists substantial green tape that also is slowing down these projects. Point to you. Have cited in the analysis kelp restoration projects, for instance.
Is the administration proposing any changes procedurally to to couple it with the dollars that are being pushed out the door as well to get more projects faster.
Speaker 4
We'd like to see if we can bring everybody up at a different point during the Great.
Speaker 23
Perfect. Good morning. I'm Jen Eckerly. I'm the executive director of the California Ocean Protection Council. And just in response to the question about kelp restoration, you know, we've been working very closely for many years with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to coordinate our efforts on kelp recovery and restoration.
So we've made over $10,000,000 in investments to support near term science, pilot restoration projects in the water, activating commercial fishermen to help with those efforts. And, the department is now in the process of developing, kelp restoration and management plan. So that's really kind of the foundation for how we're gonna keep this, effort moving forward, the near term investments that are making those long term impacts on the ecosystem. So in addition to that, the Ocean Protection Council has a meeting on March 23. We will be bringing, as an informational item, a a science guidance about coastal, and ocean rest habitat restoration.
And I think that's a really good next step to help inform priorities, and investments as we move forward for restoration in the ocean.
Speaker 4
Great. Yeah. And just as an aside, you know, I hear all the time from educational institutions that have a role in this, whether it's, white abalone or kelp, whatever have you, that that sometimes they're treated more as commercial operations than educational operations, and that might be an area where we can find some streamlining of these projects as well.
Speaker 23
Yeah. Thank you. To bring that up, we are also working on, an aquaculture action plan to address some of those issues and really think about the difference, and the needs for commercial aquaculture permitting versus these other efforts that are, targeted around restoration and bringing back, endangered species.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Excellent. I know, Washington has a one stop shop for aquaculture projects. I know we're kind of spread across multiple agencies. So anything we can do to try to kind of pull it all together and make it easier for folks, I think, is a good thing.
Speaker 4
Great. Great. Thank you so much. Last question, Potter Valley Potter Valley Dam. Yeah.
Thank you.
Speaker 4
Can you talk just a little bit about timeline of it, how the, I think the technical term is, mucking from the federal government, with that process is moving forward, and what, what do you anticipate in terms of complications that that might present in this budget and in future years?
Speaker 22
Yes. Definitely. So the primary federal involvement at this time is their review of the hydroelectric license surrender application that PG and E submitted. In the near term, we don't anticipate that process to really impede our spending of the 5,500,000.0. There is a number of projects that are needed downstream and above stream the dam in terms of habitat restoration in order to get the system ready to receive all of that sediment and water.
There's fish passage projects that need to occur as well as, potentially some of the planning that's needed for the water security and resilience planning for the two basin solution. So in terms of the allocation for
Speaker 22
It's a proposal that Huffman congressman Huffman helped facilitate, the two basin solution where essentially a facility would be built that could allow for diversions from the eel to the Russian. And so that was developed with lots of community and partner engagement and, is a potential project that we could be involved with. And lastly, I did wanna mention that federal delay with the license surrender in the long term could definitely impact, the timeline of the two basin solution as the and the timeline of the dam removal. But at this point, we are operating under the assumption that the dam will be removed given PG and E's position, and, and we think that a slow FERC process, you know, won't impede our current spending. Great.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Absolutely. And, I know congressman Huffman has secured funding from the army corps of engineers and others for some of this work. So grateful to him for that effort.
Speaker 1
Thank you. That's it. We're gonna move on to, issue five. Thank you very much, everybody. Outdoor access.
And I'll point out we have questions for fish and wildlife and for state parks.
Speaker 20
Good morning. Courtney Masniel with the Department of Finance again. I'll be giving an overview of the outdoor access chapter of the climate bond. The climate bond allocates 700,000,000 for park creation and outdoor access over the lifetime of the bond. This funding is allocated across various programs administered by the Wildlife Conservation Board, Department of Parks Parks and Recreation, and other departments within the California Natural Resources Agency.
The budget act of 2025 appropriated 466,000,000 across these departments with significant investments in the statewide park program, reduction of climate investments on disadvantaged communities, and expanded parks and trail access. The governor's budget includes an additional 35,000,000 for these port programs as well as investments in the Department of Fish and Wildlife's outdoor recreation program and the Sonoma Development Center open space lands operated by the park Department of Parks and Recreation. I'm joined by representatives from these departments who are available to answer questions. And more specifically, I'm joined by Liz McGurk, the deputy director of Department of Parks and Recreation to talk more about the Sonoma Development Center open lands.
Speaker 21
Thank you, mister chair and members. My name is Liz McGurk with, California State Parks. And in 2023, the department, the Sonoma Development Center open space was transferred to the Department of Parks and Recreation to be managed as both a public recreational space and in recognition of the diverse sensitive habitats and natural resources in the area. Since 2023, the department has invested roughly $3,000,000 to support basic operations at the Sonoma Development Center, including permanent and seasonal staff and maintenance, vegetation management, natural resources management, etcetera. The governor's proposal, would create an actionable road map for the long term stewardship of these lands.
The program focuses on, creating a general plan process by which, we will guide the site's future. It will, take into consideration the preservation and restoration of sensitive habitats and natural resources in the area, specifically the protection of critical wildlife corridors that exist. And it will offer the public an important opportunity to weigh in on the future of the space, including trails, recreational spaces that complement these natural resource values. And with that, I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Just, diving in a little bit on that since I think we've been dealing with SDC since 2013 or 2012. How are those efforts going to partner with some of the efforts around the new Cal Fire station that's gonna be out there, the housing proposals that the county of Sonoma has been particularly interested in partnering with the state on? How is that all gonna be integrated into one process, and how do you envision that the folks who live there in Glen Ellyn and others, can participate?
Speaker 21
So not to speak on behalf of my colleagues from other agencies that are advancing those efforts. I think state parks plans to play a key partnership role in those efforts as we are managing the recreational spaces that will be available, to the public and to those communities. So we'll work with our, partners at Cal Fire as as they're, you know, executing their plans for the fire station and as the you know, the other development is happening. I think we'll play a key role. Our focus will be to, advance the efforts of the public recreational needs, the community needs of the open space, and to ensure that those voices are heard as we're planning, for that park and for the future of that space.
Speaker 4
Yeah. And just, kind of as an aside, for folks who don't know what the Sonoma Developmental Center was, it was a dual diagnosis patients center in the Sonoma Valley that actually does have a long history of, mistreatment of individuals there that goes back, almost a hundred years. So there have been cases where in which the remains of family members, have been guarded by the state, not returned back to family members. And I think as you walk through this process, you're gonna hear a lot from folks about, that history, about helping to rectify that, about, tribal involvement in the area and recognition of that. And so I would encourage you to have a very clear plan on how the the public can participate because they're gonna they're gonna force their way into the process one way or another and understandably so.
I think being proactive about that could be helpful.
Speaker 21
Yes. Thank you. I appreciate those comments, and we definitely agree with you. I think a robust public engagement and engaging with our California native tribal partners is going to be essential as we move forward. So thank you for that.
Speaker 1
The great advantage of, the citizens voting for prop four, you know, and for for our ability to have bonds. These kind of things just would not be undertaken without that. My question is for Department of Fish and Wildlife. You saw the question, but for the benefit of public, basically, we've appropriated $10,000,000 to you. You're now asking for another 20,000,000 for visitor access, and we'd like to have, more information about how you plan on using the funds for visitor access to state owned open space lands, which is a little bit different than state parks, etcetera.
Right? So
Speaker 24
Thank you, chair and member. My name is Megan Hertel, and I'm the new director of California Department of Fish and Wildlife. I'm thirteen days in, so lucky number. But given my newness, I've actually brought some colleagues to answer that, but I didn't wanna miss the chance to thank you for all your work and introduce myself. So with that
Speaker 9
Thank you, mister chair and members. My name is Chad Dibble. I'm the deputy director for the wildlife and fisheries division at the department. It's a fair question, and we're pretty happy to talk to you about it. We actually have given you a handout, I think, that's now in front of you, and it talks about first what we're doing with the 10,000,000 that that we've received this year, looking forward to the 20,000,000 that we're requesting for next year.
We've identified eight projects across the state that will be use utilizing these funds. This is really us building on money that you invested in us back in '21, I think it was, '21 or '22, where we were able to enhance some of our properties. This includes things like, cleaning up in, the properties, bringing in interpretive, panels across certain different places. You'll see some examples in the handout of bridges that we've recreated, ADA access, providing public bathrooms at some of our facilities that we don't have regularly. So this is building on what we did before, and we've identified eight properties that we've started engaging now.
As you know, construction can take a while, and it takes some there's some things to go through. So we're working through that process with those. Additionally, the 10,000,000 is gonna support us in our land management plans. The department owns, over a million acres. We have 700 properties.
Some of those aren't accessible at all. And that's just due to the fact that we haven't been able to utilize, or have the opportunity to evaluate the resources on those properties and to determine what type of public access they should have and what things could be, allowable on the property based on the resources that are there. So we're gonna invest a little bit of those dollars just to go into those some of those properties we haven't been able to get to to think and and look at how we can potentially open those up in the future. A second piece is something that's pretty important to us. We have a lot of properties that we call unstaffed vans or unstaffed lands, and we don't have access to be everywhere.
We in some cases, we don't know what the public access is or how many people are coming or not and how well these investments are working and if we're seeing improvements. So some of these funds will be for us to invest in some of the technology that we have today to assist us because we don't have the resources to have somebody sitting at a gate or a front kiosk counting cars or asking for people as they come in. Many of these are really wild places, and we wanna keep them that way. So it's kinda nice to just have it open to the public, but we do need to have an accountability, and we'd like to know how well they're being utilized and hear from people. So these are things like QR codes, drive strips, camera traps, investing in some of those things that will allow us to track user user frequency.
And then lastly, there's a portion of the 10,000,000 that we're spending now that's helping with our statewide education interpretation. So this is really enhancing our interpretive panels. Everybody loves to go look at the pictures and see what you're going to see on this property, what sort of animals are there, what are what am I expecting, learn a little bit of history about them. We need to update some of those. Some of those are old.
Some of them have changed. They need new languages. They need additional assistance for our for a more open, inclusive access. So we're working on a lot of those. We did a lot of that in 2122, and you'll see some examples there of what that looks like.
And so that's really important for us working with the tribes to try and better hear their voice voices and and help put some translation in what these properties how they were valued traditionally, and and it just sort of explain that to the public and have an educational moment there. So that's really where we're at with the 10,000,000. The 20,000,000 is to invest in more of that. We've identified 21 other properties, that we would continue on these activities. We have a list of things that we've been working through of what types of, upgrades they would have.
You have a map in front of you that shows where in the state those are located. We are trying to expand across the state. There's always concerns of investing in only one area, and you'll see that we're we're trying really hard across our properties to spread these resources across the state. And you'll also notice that we are complying. Our target is a 100% on the DAC, disadvantaged communities.
We're using a, like, a five mile radius that that seems reasonable that somebody in those communities could get to those properties, and we're trying to identify properties that meet that with a 100% to ensure we're meeting the bond commitments, but also the department's just putting our best foot forward.
Speaker 1
This was very helpful, and that's, I think, the advantage of you having the questions in advance and being able to be prepared. So we really appreciate this. I would strongly encourage you to try to use technology to, as efficiently as possible, keep track of our unstaffed lands. I think there will be increasing pressure on those unstaffed lands. As technology gets better, people find ways to be able to access unsaffed lands.
And I I think of how fast swimming holes suddenly with the rise of the Internet went from, you know, 50 people being there on a weekend to 500 people being there on a weekend. We need to counter at the same time with with our resources to be able to track and and manage and and stay on top of that. But thank you very much. This is very helpful. I really appreciate it.
Any other questions on this and stuff? Right? We're ready to move on. Issue six, river forecast and snow survey resources. And this is one that's important to me to focus on a few particular things.
Right? Good
Speaker 11
afternoon. Laura Hollander, deputy director of flood management, dam safety from the Department of Water Resources. I'll do a few opening remarks, and then happy to answer your questions. Alright. So, I just want to start out by saying that with the reduction in federal resources and services, California is now vulnerable to gaps in flood emergency forecasts that are essential to public safety and also to gaps in critical snow survey data that is essential to water supply forecasting for the state's water supply.
This proposal is intended to address those gaps. Since the nineteen fifties, state law has required DWR produced river stage forecast and water supply forecast. Beginning in the nineteen seventies, the state of California began to partner with the National Weather Service and other federal entities to perform these services, and you heard a bit about that from the secretary, earlier this morning. Over the decades, it has been a strong partnership, formed between the state and the federal government that shared in these forecasting responsibilities. This proposal seeks to restore some of the capacity that was lost or the capacity that was lost and to insulate these critical functions that the state is required to do from further future further future disruption.
These funds will also help us do some of the state's most important initiatives including forecast and form reservoir operations without accurate forecasting. It is very difficult to, do FIRO, as, you know, we need the data and information for our reservoir operations. So with that, I'll stop there and, happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 10
Sonia Pettig with the LAO. In thinking about the framework that my colleague, miss Ehlers, presented earlier, we find that this is one of those proposals that meets that very high bar for your consideration due to the health and safety critical health and safety factors at play, including water supply forecasting, emergency response, and flood management?
Speaker 1
Thank you. Anything? So I would like to focus on the board. I I agree with the assessment that that meets the LAO's sort of standard there. I agree with the decision of the department to make this permanent and then not not temporary.
But what I would like to do is have you clarify for the public a little bit more how much is at risk as a result of this federal cut. What are the real impacts for California? Why is it why was it better to have this partnership working, you know, in the first place? How unprecedented is it to have this partnership end, you know, at at this at this point in time. Because as I look at it, the significance of the money the federal government is saving on this pales by comparison to the benefits that were being provided to the public.
And compared to the trillions of dollars we seem to be spending in federal adventures abroad Right. We're ignoring some of these very basic things that we should be doing here. So could you fill me in in terms of impacts, please?
Speaker 11
Yeah. Absolutely. So there's two primary impacts. One is directly to lives and safety and property. We use river forecasting and forecasting in general to be able to tell the locals when high water is coming, you know, when they need to maybe make some evacuation decisions, you know, where storms are likely to hit, where we might see thresholds, where, you know, we need to preposition materials and that type of thing as a state.
The other side is water supply. We, as a state, have responsibility to accurately, do water supply forecasting, and that is important for things like drought, to prepare and plan for drought, but also so all the communities sort of know what is coming down as far as if there's any gonna be any restrictions that way or or other things. And so it's it's just many, many, many, many impacts. I mean, you know, earlier this year, we were worried about in this winter whether we were gonna be able to do twenty four hour forecasting. You know?
And when you see many storms and especially atmospheric rivers, come down the horizon, it's just very important to be able to have those capabilities.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. The second half of the of of the question is, how is the federal government able to even make decisions without the watershed data that that it's been been gathering in the past? And would the state end up sharing our data with the federal government so the federal government can do its job? Right. Next question.
Speaker 11
Yeah. No. Happy to answer that. Yes. So, operation of reservoirs is subject to many, many rules.
So there's inflow and outflow requirements, delta requirements, many things, snowpack, and having accurate water supply inflows is is a large piece of that. And so without that data, you tend to make more conservative decisions about how much water might be available. And so we do plan and have plan to share, our our information. It's it's online. It's required as part of the California Open and Transparent Water Data Act.
So we will do that. We have, as far as cost sharing, you know, routinely in the past, we have had the the federal government. They have paid for quite a bit, and there's been frankly more than the state. So in some ways, having more state investment for state required responsibilities is also important.
Speaker 4
Alright. So not really a question, more of just kind of a comment about how important FERO has been in my region
Speaker 4
In Mendocino and Sonoma County, and shout out to Marty at Scripps for his work on this. But especially coupling it to the conversation we had just a minute ago about Potter Valley and water security in the area, we would like to see an expansion of that as much as possible across the state and would like to better understand what types of resources as the the chair was sort of asking about. Thinking about California as its own kind of nation state, how do we continue to advance this from its pilot project stage where we've seen huge success to something that could be a water management tool for folks across the state?
Speaker 11
Yeah. Bureau is, absolutely a tool we want to invest in further, you know, apply across the state. Absolutely.
Speaker 1
How have you been able to contact the federal employees that were laid off, and are they candidates for the positions for this?
Speaker 11
Yes. Yes to both questions. We've had long standing relationships with a lot of those employees that had either decided to leave through the sort of fork in the road or or or were laid off. And, yes, they absolutely are candidates for the positions that this this budget proposal would allow us to hire.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. We're gonna go on to, issue seven, wildfire readiness, seven day per week schedule, CCC hand crews.
Speaker 25
I'll go first. Good morning, chair Bennett and member. My name is JP Patton, director of the California Conservation Corps. It is my honor to serve your corps members, and I wanna appreciate you for your the time you extended our corps members to their government education day when they paid a visit to you and your offices. I'm also excited to share that this year marks the CCC's fiftieth anniversary.
As you well know, the CCC is one of the state's most cost effective investments and dual benefits, protecting our natural resources and communities while preparing the next generation of our workforce to meet the challenges ahead. While we have few other budget proposals today, my opening remarks will focus on an attempt to answer one of our most urgent priorities, providing the support necessary to align CCC hand crews as close as practical to Cal Fire's seven day a week, sixty six hour operational schedule. Therefore, our proposal requests 49 staff positions and 47 corps members in order to make this transition. However, I want to reemphasize the current landscape. California, as you well know, no longer has a wildfire season.
Rather, it is a year around occurrence. Our our corps members already work side by side with our CAL FIRE collaborators. And when CAL FIRE responds, there's often a CCC crew right there with them. Given this new reality, the CCC's model and program are not designed nor have sufficient depth for the new reality of year round seven day coverage while also meeting consistent supervisory, statutory, and mission mandates. CCC hand crews are currently on a four ten schedule during base time and surge to a seven day schedule a week during peak season, which is April through November.
These hand crews are also under the dispatch authority of CAL FIRE, not the CCC, as they are part of CAL FIRE's direct resource count and control. As such, they're called out to serve whenever they are needed. However, due due to staffing capacity issues caused by sickness, unplanned absences, vacancies, burnout, and the like, twenty percent of these hand crews end up being downed by CAL FIRE and unable to respond or be dispatched. On top of that, the culinary, training, and administrative staff under this new reality are severely strained as well. In addition, when hand crews are called out, they are often called out at the expense of the training and the education opportunities that they are entitled to as part of the participation in the program.
That is one of the elements of what separates or is the distinction between a CCC crew versus the CDCR crews versus the CMD crews. The core model is not just about the labor. It is the educational and personal development core members undertake as well. And when crews are exclusively used for hand crew labor to meet workload demands, it undermines the legislative intent of the program and limits corps members' abilities to gain the job readiness and other skills and development necessary for their success. The proposal provides the resources that CCC hand crews can be fully staffed and supported to meet today's operational reality.
It means supporting CAL FIRE in a faster initial attack and containment more reliably. It means more proactive fuel reduction to protect homes and communities. And more importantly, it means improved safety, reduced burnout, stronger operational stability for our program. To address a few of your questions in advance, if we focus on a solely relief staffing pattern, that cost would be about 7,500,000.0 in the first year and 6,700,000.0 ongoing. That funding would only support 15 conservationists, which are the crew supervisors, and then 12 con supervisors who oversee and mentor those crew leaders.
It would also supply four culinary positions and 43 core members. What this would not include would be the six admin positions to do workers' comp, health and safety, and then the 12 sort of intermediary c two positions. So I would caution that we can if we make this transition, we would still remain on a four ten schedule and that there would be gaps in coverage between what our schedule looks like and the overlay schedule of what Califier offers. Know that, again, I just wanna reiterate, this does not include the training and education component of our program. To the question of reimbursement as an alternate funding source, reimbursement is a foundational element to our baseline crew operations and accounts for 45% of our overall funding.
However, our specialized crews, like the the fire crews, operate under a model of full funding, which has a different fiscal and administrative structure that is incompatible with going out for federal reimbursement. In fact, really undercuts the idea of the problem that we are trying to solve, meaning that if we need them to be available to be dispatched by CAL FIRE and yet they are on a project where they can't be pulled from, that creates attention. Additionally, the federal funding landscape and uncertainties surrounding the consolidation of federal wildland wildland firefighting programs makes reliance on federal funding also a challenge and an issue for as well. Do remember that every dollar invested in fire prevention saves more in disaster response and recovery down the road while strengthening California's climate resistance. To wrap, in addition to the hand crews, our other budget proposals also ensure we fully activate and re our rebuilt Greenwood Center, replace aging emergency response vehicles, and address critical deferred maintenance, all of which comprehensively ensure that we shore up against the risk of stranded investments and future proof them.
With that, I'm happy to answer any questions about those proposed investments as well.
Speaker 26
Brian Metzger, LAO. We find that this augmentation of the hand crews would provide relief to existing hand crews and allow them to maintain their current capacity, when some members are temporarily unavailable. And if fully funded, would allow them to operate on a daily year round schedule that is consistent with Cal Fire's requirements. But as we presented in our framework at the beginning of the hearing, this proposal could be funded at a lower level to make progress towards some of those intended objectives without spending as much general fund. And as you heard, there is a lower amount that could potentially be considered, you know, that would allow for prioritizing relief funding, for existing hand crews and, of course, would come with trade offs with which is reduced hand crew availability during certain times of the year.
But in light of the budget con condition, we recommend that the legislature consider this as a potential alternative. I'm happy to answer questions.
Speaker 27
Yes. Hi. Julian Roll from Department of Finance. I I wanna, highlight one thing about the core and how their program is working now. They're already strained during the peak season to meet the seven day a week.
And while, the relief staffing could help in those those months, fires don't care in the off season if it's base or peak, and they also don't care if it's a weekend or not. And so we wanna make sure that we are prioritizing our fire response as a state. And this proposal seeks both the relief staffing so that we meet, you know, the operational needs as close to a 100% of the time as well as providing seven day coverage. And one of the things to note too is while we're reducing to the standard 19 crews on a given day, that can surge up to the full 33 crews with this proposal. And so we wanna make sure that, you know, the state is is able to address any fire, situation throughout the entire year, throughout seven days a week, for the fifty two weeks of the year.
Speaker 1
K. Thank you. Number one, I really appreciate you answering the questions in your presentation. Saved some time. And it it it did save time, but it also helped focus us on the on the key differences and and the importance of and stuff.
Do you have questions? Right. O overall, I think that there significant value in CCC, but it's I think it's underappreciated in the public because people don't know that much about what is going on. But to the extent that we can marriage this with the great efforts being made by Cal Fire and the expansion of that, what I'm concerned with is as this is an expansion of expenditures by the state that is this an expansion of expenditures that is going to move us even to more of an imbalance in terms of how much are we focusing on community hardening versus how much are we focusing on, hardening at a greater distance away from communities. So I will be advocating and trying to push for CCC projects to be those projects that are immediate community hardening right around communities, immediately helping in terms of home hardening kind of efforts, etcetera.
And if CCC can find a way Mhmm. To move itself into the whole field of home hardening in an appropriate way, whatever the I think it would be, really beneficial for everybody
Speaker 1
Because it would help us, with this balancing that we really desperately need, I think, which is greater prioritization on our expenditures being closest to the lives being protected. A dollar spent right there keeping a structure from burning with somebody inside of it is, has to become a higher priority in California than a dollar spent 75 miles away from a community that's going to burn. So Okay. And so I hope you could look into that. We'd love to my office would love to talk with you more about the about your ability to to potentially make that transition.
If there are no other questions, we're all set. Then we're gonna go on to issue eight, and we made it through our eight topics if we pull this off here. And that's the California State Parks Library Pass program. Then we'll be ready for, public comments, comments up to one minute. You like to go first?
Sure. Great. Pull that microphone nice and close to you, please. Thank you.
Speaker 29
Good morning, chair and and members. It's a real pleasure to be here. Armando Quintero, director of California State Parks.
Speaker 1
You're close, but you could get even closer. That that's better. Alright.
Speaker 29
Thank you very much. The governor's budget requests on ongoing, transfer of $6,750,000 from the general fund to state parks and recreation fund to transition the library parks pass program from prior one time funding to an ongoing program. The program was launched under the California Outdoors for All initiative as a three year pilot from '21 or in '21 and '22. And this program provides 33,000 state park library passes to more than one more than 1,100 libraries across the state, and in in tribal libraries as well. 60% of these past users report an annual household income below $60,000, demonstrating that this program, is really expanding access.
And in fact, this pass is the most checked out item in our public libraries in California. And I might just say, if you ever go by a library, go in and talk to a librarian and and, ask what they think about the State Park Pass. It's really a popular item. While the department does offer other free and low cost pass programs such as the adventure pass for fourth graders, the golden bear pass for income eligible Californians, the distinguished veterans pass, and the disabled discount pass. These are all tailored to specific groups.
The library pass is the only free pass available to anyone with a library card, and half of the population of California has a library card, and 5,000,000 of those are children. The time spent outdoors and in nature is crucial for both mental and physical health and well-being, we all saw what happened during COVID. Public lands were packed. And and and also since COVID, attendance at public lands and parks continues to be higher than before COVID. Scientific studies estimate that every dollar spent on creating and maintaining trails can save almost $3 in health care costs.
Additional studies show that access to parks and open space can re reduce stress in children, improve academic performance, increase physical activity, and improve sleep. Excuse me. Numbers of visitors remain high, as I just said, and the demand for open space continues across the state. This proposal represents a modest investment with proven exponential outcomes, and we appreciate your support and are happy to take questions.
Speaker 26
Brian Metzger, LAO. We find that this proposal does have merit as one way of increasing access to state parks. However, using the framework that we presented to you at the beginning of the hearing, we recommend the legislature reject this proposal. In our framework, we encourage the legislature to apply a high bar to new spending proposals and prioritize those that address near term significant immediate health and safety risks as well as other time sensitive objectives. We find that this proposal does not clear that bar.
Furthermore, the proposal commits the state to ongoing general fund spending at a time when significant deficits are projected, and other programs that are currently funded and offered by parks, will continue to provide additional access to state parks if this program does not continue in its current form.
Speaker 31
Daniel Ross Jones, Department of Finance. I would just amplify something that the director had mentioned that 60% of users of this program report income under $60,000 annually. And unlike the many other good pass programs that the department has, this is the only one that does not come with other additional requirements for access to it.
Speaker 1
So my question is, do you track how many of the 30,000 plus passes that go to the library? How many of them actually get used at the park?
Speaker 29
Oftentimes, people are there's several week waits for the passes, and that's really across the board.
Speaker 1
So everybody that's take everybody that goes into their local library that gets a pass ends up showing up at a state park?
Speaker 21
So, yes, we the passes are scannable, and we do have data on where the passes are being used at which parks. It does depend on the park having the capability to scan. So we do have some remote parks that you might not have right now a person there scanning that pass. So it's definitely also being used in areas we're not tracking, but we are where we are able to track it, we can see where it's being used and
Speaker 1
So how of the ones you're tracking, how many of the 33,000 were used last year?
Speaker 21
I could get back to you with more data on that numbers. I think that, for the most part, overwhelmingly, they are used. Typically, people are planning ahead. They know that they wanna go to certain parks over a weekend, and they will either get on the waiting list for that library pass or they'll check it out with that plan to go to those parks. And, typically, libraries allow two to three weeks for you to have that pass, and then you return it, after that time period is up to allow you to go to multiple places.
Speaker 1
So and the identification was sixty percent of the people that are taking those passes qualify as low income disadvantage according to Department of Finance?
Speaker 29
Sixty percent of the people who report. If you look at the back of the pass, you can see a QR code, and we ask folks to report out what their experience is, and also they can volunteer what their income is. Uh-huh. So
Speaker 26
Brian Metzger, LEO. Just wanted to clarify that this is survey data that's being collected and report and people are self reporting their income.
Speaker 1
Right. Got it. Thank you. So this committee has been big supporters of our state parks and the value and the importance of state parks. And I think we LAO is doing the responsible thing by trying to make recommendations to us.
So I take this LAO and and quite frankly, I just look at the standard, is is this a very, very nice to have? Yes. Is it a must have? It's only a must have in my mind if the cost of these 33,000 passes. If the marginal cost of servicing those people is actually, as much or greater than the revenue that we're providing here.
If that's the case, then we would be having a significant impact on state parks if we didn't do this. If on the other hand, these 33,000 people didn't come, do your expenses drop by the $6,000,000 or so that that we have allocated for the past? I'm having trouble thinking that the state parks has a direct relationship between increased expenditures and the number of passes. You have huge fixed cost. The park's there already.
Whether seven people come in today or 14 people come in today, probably didn't double your expenditures for, you know, for that day in terms of marginal cost. Can you help me with that
Speaker 29
thought analysis? We based the request on our annual income from park passes that we comes into the state parks fund state parks recreation fund, and that's about 8,000,000 8% of our income I mean, of our expenditure. What's that?
Speaker 29
Sorry. Mhmm. So, yeah, we figured it in in terms of our revenue, and also the reason that we've requested this pass is that we don't have an alternative way of fulfilling an opportunity for the individuals that are served by this pass.
Speaker 21
And I if if I might add to that and apologies. Liz McGirk, with State Parks. The the $6,750,000 is based on the cost of an annual pass, which is currently a $195. That's our estimate. So what that will help cover is the increased usage of parks.
So with more people, you have increased maintenance costs. You have increased use of the restrooms as an example, just more wear on the facilities. So the department, when we created the cost for that annual pass, knowing it was gonna be used multiple times, thought that was an appropriate cost for that pass. So what we're doing here is saying that that's our that's our way to tell what those increased operational costs will be from using those passes, and that's that's what the $6,750,000 represents. So it really is trying to capture that the increased use that might not be there absent the past.
Speaker 1
I I I appreciate that and understood that when I when I read that. I'm I'm but I'm trying to identify whether, in fact, that is what is the increased marginal cost of these people coming to the park. And is it 6,700,000, or is it less than that, more than that? And so I won't spend more time in this hearing, but that's the question that I will have as we carefully consider the recommendation from LAO that this is a nice to have and not an essential to have request. So we will be reaching out and asking more information about what that what that the impact is and what the impact will be on your budget.
I mean, bottom line is you have an overall budget. Does this blow a hole in your budget, blow a hole in your deferred maintenance, and and all of that? That's those are the questions that are in my mind as we go forward. And I'll turn it over to my colleague to see if he has any questions.
Speaker 4
No. Just kind of a, I guess, similar thinking. For me, I think about it very similar to public transit that you have most of your costs are fixed costs, and you might have a little bit of additional wear and tear by having additional people on it. But overall, you turn people into public transit users. In this case, you're turning people into, environmentalists and and conservationists.
And I don't understand the disconnect for some folks at the state of putting enormous amounts of money into maintaining our state parks system while also then not being supportive of everybody having an opportunity to to go ahead and see that. And I'm not that's that's not a reflection on anybody at the table. I'm just saying in general, this is the gem of California. This is one of the major things that makes the cost of living in this state doable and worth it. And and so I'm I'm very supportive of this program.
And as you were noted, without this program, there are folks that cannot go into our state parks without having to pay. And that's exclusionary and and deprives some folks of the ability to really enjoy all that California has. So I I get the conversation about nice to have versus, you know, whether it's vital. I personally think that, it's a a vital component of what we provide here in California.
Speaker 1
So I I have a question for you on that because your your justification was, is one that I share, but I'm not sure it's a proper justification for this. And that is that we think it's the parks are really important. We've been strong supporters of the parks, one. Two, we think it's really important that everybody have access to these parks, so so disadvantaged low income people should have access. But this pass isn't limited to just low income people.
It's for everybody. And that's the question I have. If this pass was limited to just low income people, then it would fit the criteria you're talking about, which is everybody has has the opportunity to go. Should we be subsidizing higher income people who just go, hey. One more way I can I I can cut my cost going to the park?
Should we should we be subsidizing those people is the question I have.
Speaker 4
So I think there's two assumptions that I push back on. One is the amount of money that we assume this this cost that that the the pass is is assuming that every single person who uses the the pass would have paid to go into the state parks as opposed to looking at it as a way for people to preview what the state parks have. And, again, hearing that there's multiple weeks wait, if what you wanna do is visit every state park or visit every state park every weekend, waiting multiple weeks for a pass is it's more of a a teaser that gets people to see whether or not they would be interested in buying a full time pass. Right? That's one way that you can look at it.
Because I don't think for a second that every single person who is checking out this pass, absent having the pass, would then go and buy their own pass. I think they just wouldn't show up to state parks. That's one. The second one is you're assuming that a $198 is something that is insignificant to folks who aren't low income in the state. I think at a time when we're talking about all of the cost pressures on people, whether it's electricity rates or rent, I think that that $198 actually does matter for folks even if they're not low income, but still might be stressed in terms of what they're spending their money on.
My assumption is that a $198 for the amount of value that you get for the past is something that I would weigh and say, that's my entertainment budget more so than other things that I might do. But I can't make that that same determination for everybody. And I think that it's a way to pull people into the system to where maybe they try it out a couple of times and decide that that is what they and their families want. And then they do end up buying a pass where where they might otherwise not have bought a pass.
Speaker 4
I I always love when the things that are the lowest dollar amount take up the most discussion. That's good.
Speaker 1
Well and and and and and I would I would so I appreciate that we had a healthy discussion. I would offer that what I'm hearing are these are very good things to have, but I'm not hearing that this is essential. If if I had the for we've talked about deferred maintenance. I would call deferred maintenance as essential for state parks. Is this essential?
I think it's really nice that a higher income family can say, we'd like to go to the state parks, and we're gonna go down to the library and be able to pick this up. And that we might have other people who say, I probably wouldn't have gone to the state park if I didn't have this pass. But is that essential for the healthy operation of our state parks with when we have other other programs that would are focused on on lower income people and fourth graders and all of that. That's that's what still is a question in my mind in spite of your very eloquent
Speaker 4
The I key question for me is I don't believe that these free passes actually cost the state that much money. I don't think having, on average, three passes in a library because you said 11,000 libraries, about 33,000 passes. I don't believe that every single person who's checking out those passes would otherwise spend money. And the wear and tear on our parks, like I said, with public transit, I don't I I'm not convinced it's so exorbitant that we need that additional revenue for the added load of people that are there.
Speaker 1
So that strikes me as an argument in in opposition to what you want. So they don't need $6,700,000. We could still do the we could still do the pass program. We could just cut it from $6,700,000 down to $3,000,000 if you're saying it doesn't really cost 6,700,000.0.
Speaker 4
No. I I'm saying for the purposes of accounting, I understand why they're putting that number in there, but I I don't think that the wear and tear on our parks is is an issue by having these these passages.
Speaker 1
What what keep the program, but at a lower dollar figure if it's not costing the park 6,700,000.0? You you're saying it's not costing the park 6,700,000.0. It's not that much wear and tear. So why give them 6,700,000.0?
Speaker 4
Why do give them 3,000,000? You doubled the amount of passes, which in the accounting from the Department of Finance and others would double the amount that this program costs, I don't think that you are doubling the actual where and there or actual costs that are realized. Okay. But that I think it is making an assumption that the money that this program costs is based on lost revenue by not having people pay for their own parks, and I don't think that that is a a real assumption. I I think that
Speaker 1
Okay. Yeah. I'm just alright. Well, anyway, good good good conversation and healthy for us to talk about about this. We'll be in touch as we have more questions about this as it goes forward.
And I'm sure my colleague and I will have more conversations also. And we'd
Speaker 29
you about it. And thank you so much for all the support you have given Parks over over the years. It's really astonishing. Also, we're doing pretty well in the deferred maintenance. We'll send you some invites to some of the openings of some projects that are being done.
Speaker 33
Good afternoon. Alex Lemmer on behalf of a number of clients. On issue three for the Environmental Defense Fund, Union Concerned Scientists, Resource Renewal Institute, the Environmental Protection Information Center, we strongly support the proposed 65,000,000 for the Department of Conservation's multi benefit land repurposing program. Also on issue three, the Karuk tribe supports funding for streamflow enhancement and stream flows, fish passage, and additional funding for stream gauges and monitoring. Golden Gate State Golden Gate Salmon Association strongly supports the administration's prop four funding proposal for hatchery upgrades and parental based tagging to better protect salmon.
And on issues three and five, the California Association of Zoos and Aquariums strongly support using the last $10,000,000 in the nature of climate education research facilities funding for a grant program for organizations to be able to compete for those funds instead of earmarking them in the budget. Lastly, on the fiftieth anniversary of the coastal act, the California Coastal Protection Network requests the appropriation of at least $2,000,000 of outdoor recreation bond funding with the Coastal Commission's whale tail program. Thank you. Good
Speaker 34
afternoon. Jamie Miner, Nemo Pappas and Associates on behalf of a a large coalition of water agencies and agricultural groups throughout the state. We are here on item number six, DWR's river forecasting and snow survey item. To be clear, we support this backfilling of funding for critical operations for reservoir management and manual snow surveys. That's an important word.
Is a Band Aid to the status quo of those capabilities. And while they're important, they barely scratched the surface as far as what we need to be able to adapt to these changing weather weather conditions to precipitation. Our our coalition is asking for funding of the airborne remote sensing of snow program, which measures snowpack with 98% accuracy. Because in these whiplash times, we simply cannot rely on these manual snow surveys anymore. The state has invested in this program before, and the the years that they have, the savings have been billions of dollars in, mitigated flood damages.
So, we agree with the LAO that this is a critical item for health and human safety and support funding that program.
Speaker 30
Thank you. Danny Merkley with the Guaco Group on behalf of Kings River interests and Modesto Irrigation Districts, and we align ourselves with previous comments from miss Miner.
Speaker 35
Good afternoon, mister chair, mister Rogers. Beth Olasso, on behalf of a couple clients, the water blueprint for the San Joaquin Valley Advocacy Fund, also want to align our comments with miss Miner on the aerial snow surveys. For water reuse California, we really appreciate, the comments, the the staff analysis of the water recycling funding, noting that our projects from last year are already out the door, and mister Karkovsky said that today. So we think that is a good reason to increase the water recycling funding from a 100 from 75,000,000 to a 115,000,000. That's about half of what's left.
Since we already have our money out the door, let's get more out the door, since we've shown we can do it really well. So we appreciate, that consideration. Thank you.
Speaker 28
chair and members. Rico Mastro Donato with the Trust for Public Land. I wanna highlight, at least one program, the statewide park program, which, over the years has been only funded by bonds. Yet this is a critical program, I would say essential program to healthy humans, healthy communities. There's community coherence and better air and water quality, but COVID laid bare how important local parks are, and they're not equitably distributed.
You don't have a problem finding parks in Brentwood, but if you go to some low income areas in California, densely populated areas, you're not gonna find a park within walking distance, and it has a detrimental impact on, family health, children's health, and, it's been oversubscribed by $6,500,000,000. So we're not coming close to meeting the need yet we're you chair, you said earlier I I know. Thank you. You said earlier that, god, where would we be without prop four? One of these days, the legislature isn't gonna get a two thirds vote.
Thank you. And we'll be in those kinda shoes.
Speaker 36
Hi. Good afternoon, chair. Andre Abarjal with the California Municipal Utilities Association. Earlier this morning, secretary Crowfoot mentioned the California water plan. SB 72 was passed last year to modernize the water plan and set an interim planning target.
The governor's proposed budget has a 1,000,000 shortfall annually for this very important plan that is going to result in DWR's delay of implementation from five to ten years. So we're here in support of full funding for s p 72, annually. So that's 1,000,000 extra to the amount that's in the budget, change proposal. I also wanted to support the comments made by miss Miner earlier to fund the airborne remote sensing of snow program. Thank you.
Speaker 30
Thank you again. You're not seeing double. Danny Merkley with the Gawko Group, on behalf of Modesto Irrigation District and San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District, also in support of the full funding for the s b 72 DWR.
Speaker 37
Good afternoon. Julia Hall with the Association of California Water Agencies. I'm gonna provide some very quick comments on a few different things. So first, we would support some additional funding from proposition four in the water and the wildfire chapters. We're gonna be providing some more detailed comments about that, especially if we're
Speaker 37
expediting the the funding by removing the APA constraints, then I think that that really justifies the additional moving of funding going through that. Second, I would align some comments with miss Meiter about the airborne snow survey. We would support that as well as supporting DWR's backfill of just the the very base level of what we need for keeping track of our snowpack. Also support the comments of my colleague from CMUA for the full funding for SB 72. And then finally, last but not least, senator Caballero has a request for 6 and a half million for extended range atmospheric river forecasts.
We were talking about FIRO earlier. This is also something that helps us predict for flooding, water flows, better protection of our natural resources. These are all very critical as we manage our water resources. Thank you very much.
Speaker 32
Good afternoon. Kyle Jones today on behalf of the San Joaquin Valley Water Collaborative Action Program, who's in support of most of what's included in the governor's proposed budget for proposition four, including safe drinking water and multi benefit land repurposing program. We wanted to highlight the importance of getting more groundwater recharge funding out the door. There's more projects proposed in groundwater sustainability plans than there is funding in prop four available, so the projects are there. Additionally, a lot of these plans are getting in good shape, particularly the ones who have moved through the waterboard process that have strong protections in them, that deserve state funding so that we can succeed.
There's only fourteen years of Sigma implementation. That could mean three to four really white years that we really need to critically move on this. And so we believe with prop with a b 35 potentially moving through, that this tranche of funding should all move through so that we can get these projects going. Then we also wanted to support, repairs in the California Aqueduct and making sure that those allocations get what they need. Thank you.
Speaker 16
Hi. Good afternoon. Michael Chan on behalf of Audubon, California and the Power and Nature Coalition. On issue three, four, and five, we would like to urge future expenditures of prop four funding to to contain the APA exemption similar to what was passed under AB one zero seven earlier this year. We also strongly support the inclusion of 65,000,000 for the MLRP program proposed in the budget.
We also like to support the inclusion of $30,000,000 in public access funding under prop four for the Salton Sea area. Lastly, we also support the inclusion of 2,000,000 going to the Wheel Tail grant program for the coastal conservation. Thank you so much.
Speaker 38
Good afternoon, chair Bennett and assembly member Rogers. Megan Cleveland with The Nature Conservancy. I'm providing, comments on issues three and four. We really appreciate the administration including $2,100,000,000 in additional Prop four funding this year to support biodiversity conservation and, natural resources protection. However, we do have a concern about the administration's proposal to provide an additional $10,000,000 in FY twenty six, twenty seven, and twenty nine million in additional out year investments to CDFW for the salmon parental based tagging program.
This would come from a prop four secondtion that's designated to protect islands and to advance climate ready marine fisheries and restore and manage kelp ecosystems. This proposal would significantly reduce the funding for clearly defined legislative investment priorities outlined in this section of prop four. PNC respectfully urges the legislature to ensure that this critical funding is invested in islands, diverse marine fisheries, and kelp restoration in accordance with legislative and voter intent. Thank you.
Speaker 39
Good afternoon. Chris Anderson on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce. Just wanna echo the support for the airborne remote, surveying of snow program. There's a significant return on investment here, billions of dollars saved and avoided flood damages, maximizing groundwater recharge during wet years, better management of of reservoirs. So we certainly support the full funding for that program.
And also wanna echo, the support for fully funding the SB 72 and implementation of the California water plan update. Thank you.
Speaker 40
Chair and members, Alex Torres with Golden Bear Strategies on behalf of a few clients. First, assembly member Gallagher and senator Dolly have a request, to assist with the critical dredging for the Conkai Reservoir in Oroville, which, services roughly 12,200 Californians. They're losing 2,000, acre feet of storage every year because of, sediment buildup from the Camp Fire. And so really consistent with secretary Crowfoot's remarks on the purpose and the goal of prop four, this is exactly the type of backbone of water infrastructure project, that the legislature should be supporting, so would urge your support for that. Secondly, on behalf of Perimeter Solutions, Perimeter is Cal Fire's partner providing aerial firefighting retardant for suppression, but also the only product approved for US forest surface are ground applied mitigation.
And so also for Aurora Tech, which does a proprietary satellite constellation used in Europe for thermal imaging to be able to detect ignition, up into the granularity of one acre. And so, both those clients, in terms of the wildfire section, very supportive, and I think, there's a lot of opportunity to leverage that innovation, for those dollars going out. So thank you so much.
Speaker 32
Good afternoon, mister chair. Carlos Gutierrez with KAC here on behalf of California Rice Commission. We respectfully request a 5,000,000 in one time general fund support to continue the California winter rice habitat incentive program Okay. Administered by the Department of Fish and Wildlife. With more than 95% of California's historic wetlands lost, the rice fields in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley provides essential replacement habitat for millions of birds along the Pacific Flyway.
We believe this one time investment will strengthen the critical habitat protection while advancing the state's biodiversity, environmental, and agricultural goals. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. Charles Delgado speaking for California State Association of Counties.
We were a cosponsor on SB 72. We'd like to lend our support to what's already been said by Aqua, CNUA, and others for fully funding California Water Plan for DWR. Also adding our support for the expeditious funding or the allocation of funding from prop four through APA exemptions both in the private previous year's allocations and ongoing, and also for, additional funds for groundwater recharge projects. Thank you.
Speaker 7
Good afternoon. Jack Worsen from Nossiman on behalf of the Santa Clara Valley Water District, the Padre Dam Municipal Water District, and the Levenhine Municipal Water Municipal Water District in support of fully funding SB 72.
Speaker 41
Good afternoon. Lily McKay on behalf of San Luis Delta and Mododa Water Authority. Here, she will align ourselves with two prior comments made, fully funding, airborne remote technology for snowpack monitoring, and then the also 70 s b 72, aligning with CMUA and Aqua and others to fully fund that, implementation. Thank you.
Speaker 34
Okay. Real quick. Different item. Prop four, California storm water quality association supportive of the 38,000,000 for the storm water funding. Thank you.
Speaker 42
Clifton Wilson on behalf of the South San Joaquin Irrigation District on item six, just aligning ourselves with the previous comments and everyone else in support of the governor's proposed budget increase in funding to the DWR to backfill the declining federal support for manual snow monitoring and runoff forecasting. As you heard, just a Band Aid status quo, so we would appreciate if DWR's airborne remote sensing of snow program is fully funded as well. Thank you.
Speaker 2
Good afternoon, chair. Katie Hawkins with Trout Unlimited. Just wanna, on speak to agenda item number three. We strongly support the $65,000,000 for the Department of Conservation's multi benefit land repurposing program. And then I'm speaking on behalf of Cal Trout and Trout Unlimited, of our support of the $11,000,000 in prop four funding for WCB for the streamline excuse me, streamflow enhancement program.
Issue number four, speaking on behalf of, again, Trout, Trout Limited and Cal Trout, we support the administration's proposal for the bond expenditures and urge that we that there be an APA exemption similar to what was on AB one zero seven. And then lastly, just, appreciate your support on the San Joaquin River restoration project. We are very excited to see the funding that's in the governor's budget. So thank you.
Speaker 43
Good afternoon. My name is Cam Besdeck on behalf of the Northern California Water Association. I'd like to align ourselves with miss Miner's comments on the Airborne Snow Observatory Program. We're in full support of funding for that program. I'd also like to pledge our support for the funding for the implementation of the update for the California water plan and SB 72.
Thank you.
Speaker 44
Good afternoon, chair and assembly member Rogers. Ryan O'Jackson with the Regional Water Authority. I wanna speak to the groundwater funds, and I really wanna get to the question that you raised about the catch 22. I would argue that prop four answered that question with half of the funds go to projects that are the, most challenging, and then half of the funds go to projects that are going to be most responsive to the variability that you described. Right?
So those projects are going to address holistically environmental needs, supply needs, and equity issues. Right? Prop four answered that question. I don't think that the administration's proposal is answering that question the way that prop four did. We have concerns with that, and we would love to see the legislature come back to what we described in prop four.
Thank you.
Speaker 34
Good afternoon, chair and member. Brenda Bass on behalf of the, Western Municipal Water District here to reiterate CMUA's request for full funding of the improved California water plan through SB 72 and to lend support to the continued funding of the airborne snow monitoring efforts that the state is undertaking. Thank you very much.
Speaker 27
Chloe King with political solutions on behalf of the California Water Association, echoing the comments made by ACWA to request full funding for SB 72 implement implementation. Thank you.
Speaker 43
Thank you for your time today. Faith Borges on behalf of Rancho California Water District echoing comments in support of fully funding the implementation of s v 72.
Speaker 45
Christella Chavez on behalf of the Mid Peninsula Regional Open Space District, providing comments for issue four on respectfully requesting the SEC's COSA program from the governor's proposed 33,000,000 to $60,000,000. And on behalf of the California State Parks Foundation and 34 organizations, I know to recently submitted letters this committee, we request that the legislature support the governor's proposed 6,750,000.00 $6,750,000 continuous allocation to the California State Library Parks Pass program. Thank you.
Speaker 46
Chair and members, Jay Jefferson with the Metropolitan Water District. Wanna speak in support of additional funding for snowpack measurement. We see this as a small investment that's absolutely critical for our ability to manage water supplies. Also wanna note our support for additional funding for SB 72 implementation. California is a large economy, but we've gotta be planning for the future when it comes to where our water's gonna come from.
And then lastly, just wanna highlight our support for the use of climate bond funds for a drought resilience project that's gonna benefit LA County and Ventura County. Back in 2020, we had a severe drought in California. We're working on a project to make sure that we are able to bring appropriate supplies to areas that depend on the state water project and appreciate your support on these proposals. Thank you.
Speaker 46
Yeah. So back in 2020, we were cut off from the state water project. And so we're, building out our system so that we can connect our Diamond Valley Lake supplies and our Colorado River supplies Recommend. To those areas. Great.
Speaker 1
Unless do you have anything else you'd like to add? Alright. This meeting is adjourned.
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