Assembly Standing Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife

Good morning. Before we begin, we have one substitution today. Mr. Kalra will not be here. He is out. He's absent. And Assembly Member Wood will be substituting in his place. Thank you, Assembly Member Wood, for your help. So before we begin, a few announcements to ensure members of the media and public have access to our proceedings today.

This hearing will be streamed on the Assembly's website and members of the public can provide testimony in person here in Room 444 or via telephone. For any members of the public that will be providing comment via telephone, we're using a moderated phone service. The call in number for the hearing is 877-692-8957, and the public access code is 131-5444. Please call in when the author of the bill you would like to comment on begins his or her presentation.

The operator on the line will give you instructions on how to be placed in the queue. If you're calling in, please eliminate all background noise. This includes muting your live stream broadcast and your devices to reduce sound issues. As a reminder, the following bills were pulled by the Committee and will be heard at one of the Committee's upcoming hearings. AB 277 Rodriguez, AB 676 Bennett, and AB 828 Connolly. And the following bills are on the Consent Calendar.

AB 401 Mathis, AB 618 Bauer-Kahan, AB 655 Petrie-Norris, and AB 1150 the Committee bill. I'd like to now call this hearing to order. I think we have a quorum. Yes, we have a quorum, so please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

A quorum is present. So if any would like to move the Consent Calendar, we could move that now. Moved by Ms. Davies. Seconded by Ms. Pellerin. I will read the motions on Consent Calendar. We have AB 401 Mathis, do pass to Appropriations. AB 618, do pass to Appropriations. AB 655, do pass to Appropriations, and AB 1150, do pass to Appropriations. Please call the roll on the Consent Calendar.

[Roll Call]

The Consent Calendar is eight votes. Eight aye votes, zero no votes.

No votes. It is out, but we will hold the roll open for absent Members. Mr. Wood, you have so patiently waited for us. Thank you. We will start with your Bill, AB 1272. When you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members, I'd like to start by thanking you and your Committee staff for their work on the Bill. Members, this Bill is about taking proactive measures to prepare for times of drought. Can't think of a better day to do that when it's pouring down rain outside. But it actually does remind me.

When I was the mayor of the little City of Heelsburg in 2014, we had a hearing in our chambers on drought meant drought, and we were seeking and were successful in an effort to use recycled water for farmers in the area. So nothing like a good rainstorm to inspire proactive thinking about drought.

This Bill, AB 1272, authorizes the California State Water Resources Control Board to develop principles and guidelines for the diversion and use of water in some of the state's most critical salmon and steelhead bearing watersheds. The Bill will advance efforts to update our infrastructure and usage patterns to help water users become more prepared for the extended drought periods which have become all too familiar. Ultimately, these contingency plans will create transparency, predictability, and resiliency during times of severe drought.

And while the state has loosened some of its water restrictions because of recent storms, water shortage remains a concern in several parts of the state, including the Klamath River. It's time we started preparing for the next drought before it stops raining. Here to testify and support are Megan Cleveland with the Nature Conservancy and Kim Bezdeck with Caltrop. Go ahead. Yeah.

Good morning, chair and Members. My name is Megan Cleveland with the Nature Conservancy, and we're in strong support of AB 1272. TNC is a sciencebased organization that works around the world to deliver conservation solutions that support both people and nature. As our climate warms, California's weather has become increasingly characterized by patterns of extremes, wetter wet years and an unprecedented string of severely dry years. While California has experienced significant precipitation this year, including this morning, the state needs to prepare for dry years ahead.

California's coastal watersheds are especially susceptible to the extreme dry weather that we've been experiencing. These rivers and streams are home to most of the state's endangered populations of salmon and steelhead trout and provide crucial water supplies to numerous communities, rural residents, and tribal nations. Despite the importance of these watersheds, recent drought response has focused on other areas of the state, leaving these coastal watersheds vulnerable and also threatening biodiversity.

For example, this year, California is actually shuttering its salmon fishery because of Low fish populations due to drought. Conditions. If we invest in practical watershed management solutions now, like those included in AB 1272, our coastal watersheds could provide the conditions to facilitate the rebound of salmon and steelhead populations while balancing the needs of humans and nature. As such, we respectfully ask for your support on this Bill. Thank you.

Good morning. Chair and Members of the Committee, I'm Clarissa Bezdeck with California trout, and I'm here in strong support of AB 1272 on behalf of my organization. Most of California's watersheds lack guidance on how water should be used in times of shortage. Advanced planning that develops clear standards to guide water use during dry periods is crucial to protect our rivers and those that rely upon them.

AB 1272 would direct the State Water Board to select and analyze watersheds and to develop principles and guidelines to manage stream flow within those watersheds. These measures would help rural communities and other water users to develop plans to prepare for times of scarcity and to increase these watersheds overall drought resilience. Numerous studies, excuse me, show that coastal watersheds produce more than enough water to meet the needs of both humans and ecosystems if we manage them well.

AB 1272 recognizes this and directs the state to plan for the future with adaptive resource management. We can no longer afford to treat California's extreme weather patterns as emergency events, nor can our native fish. As such, we urge your support for AB 1272. Thank you.

Thank you. And do we have any other witnesses here in support? If so, name, organization, and position. Seeing none. Do we have any witnesses here in opposition? Seeing none, this is a great way to start the day. We will go to the phone lines. Moderator. Any support or opposition. Thank you. So please press 10 at this time. Again, that's 10 on your telephone keypad. And Carly, nobody in queue. Thank you. And I will bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments?

Seeing none, I will just know. Thank you, Assembly Member, for bringing this Bill back. I think it's really important. And sometimes when it is raining like it is again today, as it does every day when we have water, it's easy to forget that we're going to be in a drought probably next year and for the many years to come. And so I think this is really important planning that should be happening. We should be managing our resources in a more responsible way.

So I appreciate your commitment to continuing to move this Bill forward. And with that, would you like to close?

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members, I think that one of the challenges that everybody faces, and we certainly in the community I live in, is that when there's drought, we see curtailments happening pretty quickly at times, and I just feel like if we have better planning, we won't see these sort of quick knee jerk reactions sometimes. And I think that would be better for everyone, the fish farmers, the people who live in these communities. Better planning leads to better results in the long run.

And prevention dollars are much better spent than those we spend to deal with a problem after the fact.

Thank you. Do we have a motion on this? Okay, Shiva mood and Mr. Heller in seconds. Let's call the roll.

AB 1272. Motion is due. Pass to appropriations. [Roll Call]

The Bill has nine votes. It is out. We'll hold the roll open for missing Members. Thank you.

I was planning on going last, you know, advice chair is more than everybody.

So we will hear Mr. Alanis' bill, AB 308. When you're ready, sir. Motion from Mr. Mathis and a second from Ms. Davies, when you're ready.

Well, good morning and thank you, Madam Chair, fellow Members, for having me here today. I want to first, again, take the time to thank this Committee staff who has done such a great job to help us make this bill better. I also want to thank the many bipartisan group and legislators from both chambers who have co-authored this bill, and especially to Assembly Member Soria, who has joint authored this bill with me.

Gold Star families are those who have lost a member by enemy action in an active war zone in the service to our great nation. California has always led the way in honoring our state's fallen heroes. AB 308 would honor California's Gold Star families with no cost entry into our state parks. Oregon and Florida, as well as the Federal Government, have already provided similar exempted passes for Gold Star families to enter their park systems.

But beyond honoring the sacrifice and service on these Gold Star families, I truly believe this bill would provide access to healing and therapeutic activities and experiences across our beautiful state. It would open opportunities and access to our state park system for a very small but deserving group of individuals. California's Gold Star families would be receiving that honor. We have worked hard to ascertain the impacts granting this exemption, and it would be for the state parks and for the state park systems themselves.

Members, I can tell you, I believe those impacts would be very negligible. And the reward for enacting this into law would be very high. As of January 31, 2023 the DMV has reported only issuing 866 Gold Star family license plates across all of California. The DMV Gold Star plate program also gives us an idea of what to expect on the parks. This is a good notion, and it's about the kind of numbers that we are talking about.

I would say the impacts would be very minor, and I believe in my heart that the families of these fallen heroes have already paid the price in so many other ways. Colleagues, to add more to the point, I have with me two witnesses today. Testifying today is Tony Cordero. He is the gold star son of William E. Cordero, United States Air Force, killed in action June 22, 1965 during the Vietnam War.

And also here to my right, testifying today is Elaine Roach, who is the first gold star daughter of Harold Roach, United States Navy, missing in action October 4, 1964 over the South China Sea during the Vietnam War, and who is secondly, the gold star mother of Joel Brattain, United States army, killed in action March 13, 2004 during the war in Iraq.

When you're ready.

Okay, thank you for having me here today. I've lived this life, so it's pretty straightforward for me, but I wrote a few notes because I'm a little nervous, so I apologize. My family is actually 6th generation native-born Californians, and my father, Lieutenant Harold S. Roach Jr., was a pilot in the United States Navy. He ran 22 missions up and down the coast of Vietnam during the Gulf of Tonkin in early '64. He was subsequently killed when his plane crashed with two other men.

Also, I was eight years old, I was home making lemonade, and there was a knock on the door. I answered the door and there was a man in the uniform, which was common living near the base. And he told me that my dad's plane had gone down and that everybody was killed in it. And my mother basically crumbled before my eyes. I was eight years old, and all I could think was, I have to take care of her.

So I basically lost my childhood at that point thinking that I had to be grown up. It was 40 years later. My first born son came to me, and he graduated from high school right before 9/11. And he came to me and he says, 'mom, I want to do something important with my life, and I'm not afraid to die, and I want to go fight for our freedom, for our country'. Unfortunately, I got that knock at the door again.

He had been hit by an IED in Baghdad, Iraq, and my life stopped. I have a younger son that was 12 years younger, that was his hero. And a mother and her son is obvious to everyone, I think. I'm very proud of my father and my son and what they stood for. And I enjoy my freedom every day. And I appreciate that there's men and women that are willing to fight for our freedom.

When I go to the parks, I spend time with my son and my father. And so I appreciate if you guys can pass this for us. Thank you.

Thank you so much for sharing that. Go ahead, sir.

Good morning, Chairwoman Bauer-Kahan, Vice Chair Mathis and Members of the Committee. My name is Tony Cordero and I'm a resident of Yorba Linda and 9th generation Californio. My ancestors came to California long ago. They settled in Santa Barbara. And I'm proud today that the Cordero adobe in the Las Cruces area of San Diego Valley is part of Gaviota State Park. My father, William E. Cordero, was an Air Force ROTC graduate from Loyola University, which is now LMU in Los Angeles.

And seven years into his air force career, he was lost on a bombing mission over the Vietnam-Laos border in June of 1965. He left behind a Gold Star wife, five Gold Star children, and he also left behind his Gold Star parents and a Gold Star sister. In 1989, Elaine and I were both part of the formation of an organization called Sons and Daughters in Touch, the nation's first organization committed to uniting America's Gold Star children.

The organization got its nationwide start right here in California, and today three of the board members reside here in California. Assembly Bill 308 is an expression of gratitude to California's Gold Star families like ours. For many, free admission to California State Parks may seem like a simple gesture, however, when it's noted that 90% of all of America's Gold Star families received that designation for losses that occurred in wars and conflicts that occurred prior to 9/11, AB 308 takes on additional significance.

Older Gold Star families whose loved ones were killed or remain unaccounted for from actions when they confronted our nation's enemies in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War. They will embrace this gesture as a sign that California still honors their family's losses. Consider that 23,804 Californians were lost in World War II, 2,611 Californians were lost in the Korean War, 575 Californians were lost in the Vietnam War, including both of our fathers.

25 Californians were lost during the Persian Gulf War, and 776 Californians were lost during the global war on terror, including Elaine's son Joel. It's for Gold Star families like those that AB 308 extends this message of gratitude for that, and on behalf of all of California's Gold Star families, I thank you. Assembly Members Juan Alanis and Esmeralda Soria are to be applauded for introducing AB 308 and extending the gratitude of Californians to these Gold Star families.

I appreciate being able to be here and share this message with you and am available to answer any questions you might have. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone from the public wishing to add as support? All right, we'll switch over. I doubt we have opposition for this, but you never know. Any opposition? Seeing none, we'll go back to the Committee.

Yes. Thank you. Really appreciate you bringing the Bill forward and would like to be added as a co-author, if you would.

Thank you.

All right, any other, go ahead.

I just wanted to thank you for bringing this forward. As the daughter of a veteran and sister of a veteran who came home, fortunately, and someone who grew up next to state parks and live right now next to a state park, I really believe in how therapeutic it is to get outdoors and so would love to be added on as a co-author. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you as well for bringing this forward. As Vice Chair on Military and Veterans, we couldn't ask for a better bill, and I think I've already co-authored. But thank you so much. Thank you for your service, your loss. It will never be forgotten.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing your stories and I'm so sorry for your loss. Very tragic. But yeah, I think this is very important bill. It's good for mental health. It's good for our state. So I'd like to be added as a co-author as well. Thank you.

All right. And then I got past a note. Mr. Alanis, for the record, you are taking the Committee amendments?

I'm sure I am, yes. Just got to clarify administratively.

I'd like to thank you both for sharing. I served in Iraq and was injured in Baghdad. So I just kind of want to give up and give you a big hug, frankly, I've lost more friends at home due to veteran suicide. My hometown of Porterville has the highest KIA/MIA from the Vietnam War. So your points about how many Californians have been lost, I think California has paid the toll for American freedom, frankly, more than any other state.

I'm already a co-author or I asked to be on there. But this is something very simple our state ought to already be doing. So thank you for bringing this forward. Thank you for sharing. I know it's hard to open those emotions and bear them out. And it's truly appreciated from all the other families who have not quite gotten to the fortitude to do so. So, thank you all. We have a motion and a second.

So with that, Secretary, please call the roll.

AB 308, Alanis, due pass as amended to Appropriations. [Roll call]

We have 10 votes. Your bill is out, but we will leave it open for absent members. Thank you.

I appreciate it. Thank you, everyone.

Thank you.

All right, Ms. Wilson, come on down.

You've got a motion and a second. A support-support. However, feel free to take your time.

I'll still--just for the benefit of all those watching this hearing--give brief remarks and let my testifier, my witness, come and share a little bit, too. So, good morning to Vice Chair and the Committee Members. Thank you so much for greeting me so well with a motion and a second already. I'm pleased to present AB 345, which will provide the Department of Water Resources discretionary authority to utilize an advanced payment option when funding local flood protection and our multibenefit habitat restoration projects.

Department of Water Resources already has this discretionary authority for certain projects. The State of California continues to make progress at undoing damage to our environment and protecting endangered species. However, much work remains to implement multibenefit projects that can protect our communities from natural disasters while simultaneously protecting the environment. State funding of these projects ensure that there are sufficient funds to pay for the project. Unfortunately, the state does not provide funds to local agencies until after the local agency has paid project expenses.

This bill would help alleviate cash flow problems that are created as a result of local agencies having to cover their own share and the state share before getting reimbursed. I want to thank the Committee for working with me on language that improves this bill. My witness in support today is Eric Nagy, Executive Director with the Little Egbert Joint Powers Agency.

Good morning, Chair and Members of the Committee. Eric Nagy, Executive Director of the Little Egbert Joint Powers Agency. I want to thank Ms. Wilson for her leadership on this particular bill. It's rainy mornings like this, but more important, it's rainy winters and snowy winters like this that remind us why having all the tools we can in the toolbox to improve our flood infrastructure is important.

And this bill provides a tool for allowing local agencies like mine to participate more efficiently and effectively with the state to advance those flood projects and habitat projects. And so, thank you, Ms. Wilson.

All right. We have any other in support?

Mr. Vice Chair and Members, Ivy Brittain with the Northern California Water Association, in support.

Thank you.

Good morning, Megan Cleveland with the Nature Conservancy, in support.

Good morning, Abigail Mighell, on behalf of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, in support.

All right. Do we have any in opposition? Going once. Going twice. We have none. Back to the Committee.

Yeah. My district has experienced profound loss due to floods. So this is very important to be doing, and I'd like to be added as a coauthor. Thank you so much.

Mr. Hart.

Yeah. I think this is a great idea. I actually have a bill that applies generally to nonprofits to advance payments, and it is so important to have the creativity and the expertise at the grassroots level. Many organizations just can't afford to loan the State of California money to do this work. So thank you for carrying this bill.

Mr. Bennett.

My compliments on the bill and the author. Thank you.

Anybody else? All right, my turn. I appreciate this bill. As most of you know, my district is literally flooding and underwater, and I wish we had this sooner. I would love to coauthor or joint author this with you, however you'd have me on it. This is extremely important, especially for our small districts that just do not have the capital. So with that, you may close.

Thank you. Thank you so much for your support, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

All right. Thank you. We have a motion and a second. Secretary, please call the roll.

AB 345: Wilson. Motion is 'do pass to Appropriations.' [Roll Call].

Bill has 10 votes. It's out. We will leave the roll open for absent Members. Thank you. zero, you have a second Bill. Look at us go. Which, yes, I do. Okay, so we will now hear AB 779. My apologies. No, it's okay. Don't think that's all.

I have some really cool witnesses today. There was a young gentleman who was very, very cute, who I offered to testify, but he didn't want to. When you're ready, Ms. Wilson. Thank you. Well, good morning again. After years of a severe drought and volatile weather, exacerbated by the climate crisis, California has increasingly been forced to rely on groundwater to meet its demand for water. In particular, groundwater is a lifeline for California farmers, particularly small farmers who have difficulty accessing or affording alternative sources of surface water.

In response to persistent conditions of extreme drought and concerns over groundwater depletion, the California Legislature enacted the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act Sigma in 2014. Sigma requires local and regional agencies to formulate plans to ensure sustainable groundwater use on a basinwide basis. The program is built around local control of groundwater supply, allowing regions to design groundwater control systems that work best for their own communities.

However, as the implementation of Sigma has continued to unfold, many have raised concern that small and disadvantaged farmers have not been adequately represented through the process. Some of the key burdens sigma places on small and disadvantaged farmers are related to the process of water rights adjudication and groundwater basins where rights are disputed. These adjudications take place in non specialized courts and can be lengthy, expensive, and opaque, all factors which exacerbate the existing resource disparities and underrepresentation of small farmers and disadvantaged communities.

Small and socially disadvantaged farmers can lack the time and resources to sit in on proceedings, track down court documents to stay updated on the process, and can often find difficulty affording the legal cost to stay apprised and fight for their water rights. In 2015, AB 1390 was passed to help streamline the adjudication process and align the process with the goals of sigma. However, stakeholders have raised several concerns around the abuses of the process and areas for improvement.

For instance, some community Members worry that bad faith actors resort to the adjudication process to extend the time in which they can pump groundwater without restriction. This past fall, my office and our witnesses here from the UCLA law put together a research project along with series of stakeholder interviews and identified several areas of possible improvements to the adjudication process that promote transparity, equity, and should benefit all parties involved. Those suggestions came together in AB 779, the Bill before you today.

Since introduction, we have received several suggestions in areas improvement from organizations such as the chamber, western growers, the Community alliance with family farmers, the groundwater coalition, Judicial Council, and others, and very appreciate the feedback that they have sent us. As these conversations are still ongoing, we are in the middle of coordinating a larger stakeholder meeting with these organizations to review possible improvements to the legislation and look forward to working with these organizations to improve the adjudication process, particularly on behalf of our small farmers.

I look forward to working with these organizations and just want to emphasize my appreciation for their feedback. Now I would like to introduce my amazing witnesses from UCLA law, Gabriel Rosenfeld, Adrienne Davies, and Owen McLaren. These are students who have helped us put together this important piece of legislation, and I appreciate the chair's allowance to let me have my witnesses here today.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Assembly Member Wilson my name is Gabby Rosenfeld, and I'm a second year law student at UCLA. I'm here in support of AB 779, which will improve the efficiency, transparency, and accessibility of the groundwater adjudication process. As a student in UCLA's California environmental legislation clinic, my colleagues and I researched the Sustainable Groundwater Management act and spoke with stakeholders, including environmental advocates, agricultural organizations, and water law experts.

We repeatedly heard that the groundwater adjudication process is slow and burdensome for all parties involved, especially small farmers and farmers of color. Despite a nearly decade old law to streamline the adjudication process, there remains room to improve transparency and fairness. Proceedings can take over 10 years, with legal fees in the millions of dollars. In some cases, small farmers have been forced to sell their operations because of the financial strain of the process. There are also barriers to incorporating neutral, sciencebased expertise from state agencies.

That knowledge can help align adjudications with sustainable management goals and fill gaps left when under resourced parties are not able to participate fully in the process. Finally, the lengthy adjudication process can frustrate Sigma's efforts to improve groundwater management. Because in some cases, Sigma's sustainable management controls can be suspended, AB 779 seeks to make the adjudication process better for all parties involved.

Good morning. My name is Owen McAlier, and I'm also a second year law student at UCLA here in support of AB 779 to address barriers that historically marginalized groundwater users have faced in the adjudication process. This Bill would make several changes, three of which I'll talk about now. First, to make sure all stakeholders understand the process when a new adjudication is initiated, AB 779 would require gsas in the basin to host a public meeting explaining the process.

As part of that public participation, state agency experts may weigh in with an objective, sciencebased view of the conditions in the basin. Second, to allow water users and the public to access information about adjudications, the Bill would make all relevant pleading and briefing materials publicly accessible on the Department of Water Resources website. Third, the Bill would streamline the burdensome process for courts to draw upon DWRs or the State Water Board's expert knowledge about basin conditions and groundwater management.

By inviting the agency's participation, AB 779 would speed up the proceeding, reduce administrative burden, and allow courts to get the clearest and most current picture of the situation in the basin, even when not every groundwater user can be a party to the adjudication.

Good morning. My name is Adrianne Davies. I'm also a second year law student at UCLA. I'm also a second year law student at UCLA here in support of AB 779. As my colleagues have mentioned, AB 779 promotes accessibility and transparency, but it also promotes sustainability and fairness for all parties by making sure groundwater users don't take advantage of ongoing adjudications to increase pumping.

To that end, AB 779 would also require gsas with jurisdiction over an adjudicated basin to submit a comprehensive monitoring plan to the court and report monitoring data to the court in DWR. Together, the bill's provisions would make the groundwater adjudication process more efficient and inclusive. We have read the support and the opposition letters that were submitted in this Committee's analysis and plan to work with Assemblymember Wilson's office and stakeholders to ensure the bill's goals are met.

We are committed to making AB 779 a Bill that lessens the burden and improves the process for all parties involved, and we look forward to these conversations. We support AB 779 because we believe it will help make groundwater adjudications more accessible and sustainable for all groundwater users. Thank you for your time and consideration today.

All right, thank you. Go ahead and bring opposition up now. We'll do that. Go ahead and come up if we can make some room.

Yes. Good morning, chair and Members. I'm Brenda Bass on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce, and we respectfully have an opposed, unless amended, position on AB 779. And so far we've been engaged in productive discussions with the author with our concerns. As we've just heard, it's well known even in the environmental law sphere, where cases are notoriously lengthy, that comprehensive groundwater adjudications are complex, expensive, and long.

We respect the goals of this legislation in trying to make a difficult proceeding more accessible to the landowners that are affected by it. We have some concerns with the current language of the Bill where things might be potentially a little bit duplicative of current law or otherwise increased burdens and may inadvertently add to cost and the length of proceedings. But, you know, long story short is we are excited to keep engaging and trying to resolve our concerns with the Bill going forward. Thank you.

All right, do we have any other support in the room?

Community Alliance with Family Farmers in support.

Good morning. Kyle Jones with Community Water Center. We're actually have a support if amended on the bill. Just want to note that adjudication proceedings are broader than just looking at rights under the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and hope to see technical assistance provided by the State Water Board include all the state's priorities, including the human right to water and Safe Drinking Water Act. Thank you.

All right. Showing no other in support. Do we have any others in opposition?

Hi. Good morning. I'm Gail Delihant with Western Growers, and I appreciate the Member's willingness to work with us on this legislation and also the law students. Thank you very much.

Good morning. Taylor Roschen, on behalf of a broad array of ag stakeholders, also oppose unless amended, but thank you very much.

All right. We'll bring it back to the Committee. Mr. Bennett and then Mr. Villapudua.

I really appreciate the author's efforts with this, bringing in the stakeholders and the young students from UCLA. As the staff has reported, we both have adjudication bills in front of Committee today, and I appreciate the staff says that they're complementary to each other, and that's certainly helpful. And I'm happy to be in a position where we have a bill that's complementary. So, number one, I would appreciate being a co-author of this bill and supporting your efforts as it goes forward.

I look forward to working with you to see how we can help each other with adjudication. But I want to point out and emphasize a point that you're making. The reason I'm bringing forward an adjudication bill is the same as yours, and that is if the current system moves forward.

I'm afraid that adjudications will override the decisions of many of the groundwater agencies at the expense of the lowest income people, the people that have the fewest resources to be able to access adjudications. Because adjudications will be dominated by the most powerful and the people that can hire the biggest and most expensive law firms, et cetera. And so both of our efforts are complementary from that standpoint.

And that is the fundamental reason for mine, is to not create a situation that encourages high-powered people to go around the GSA findings and go to adjudication and try to make something happen. So congratulations for getting this far, and good luck with this bill as it moves forward. And congratulations to the students who get to work on something very meaningful for people in California.

Yes, thank you.

All right. Any others? Villapudua.

Just a quick comment. I will be supporting this today, but I just hope that the author would just work with some of the amendments that's being asked. Just a comment. Thank you.

All right. Ms. Weber.

Thank you, Vice Chair. I just want to thank the Member for bringing this goal forward and also thank her witnesses. You got some from the best law school in the country. But I might be biased since my father's a UCLA law alum. I really appreciate the fact that you specifically focused on the fact that the court should need to take into account the needs of small farmers and disadvantaged communities in your bill. I think that's so very important.

And we talk about that a lot in the Assembly. We've talked about that a lot. Even when we're dealing with water, always remembering, and businesses, remembering our smaller businesses, our small families, our small growers. And also the fact that, during the adjudication process, there will be monitoring to make sure that people aren't taking advantage of that time and continuing to pump even more than what they should be.

So when I read through this, I said, there are some really key points that you all have touched that we need, that we've heard has been issues in this Committee. People take advantage of those kind of like in between times before they actually have a set decision. So thank you so much for all the research. Thank you guys for coming up, and thank you for bringing this bill forward.

Thank you.

Right. Anybody else from the Committee? Okay. Seeing none. Well, I like where you're going, and I appreciate you working with the students. I would encourage you all to get some dirt and mud on your boots and go out into the field. You're welcome to come to my district and meet some guys that live this day in and day out. There's a lot going on with adjudications, especially for the small farmers. And the technical assistance piece that was brought up is extremely important at the lower level.

So I look forward to seeing some of that. I don't think it's quite there yet. I think there's definitely some amendments and some working stuff that needs to be added to it. So I look forward to seeing what that looks like. So I'm going to lay off today with the hopes that some of these things get brought into it. And with that, we'll pass it back to the Chair as she shows up right in the nick of time.

Swooped in right at the right moment. But I just want to thank you. I think we have a really important issue on our hands here where we're going to incredible lengths to make sure that we're managing things properly and then handing it off to... And Mr. Bloom actually had a bill that did not make it to the Governor's desk for signature last year that would have helped our judges understand this process better.

There needs to be more coordination between what we're asking of our groundwater agencies. There is a certain amount of water that we can pump. And if courts are just pulling a number out of the hat because they don't understand sustainable yields, we have a real problem. And so, in order to make this work, I think you've created a bill, it's incredibly thoughtful, that will help us get us part of the way there. So I want to thank you. And we had a motion in a second. Oh, we need a motion in a second. Okay. Dr. Weber moves, and Ms. Pellerin in seconds. Call the roll.

Do I get to close at all?

Oh, yes. Sorry. Thank you for calling me out. Ms. Wilson, please close. I just wanted to close for you.

I appreciate that. But I definitely want to thank everyone who's been involved in this process, from the UCLA law students who've done their research and testimony, and the feedback we've received from everybody, especially people who I'm typically allied with. And look forward to working through the process. I respectfully ask every. Excuse me. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. I'm sorry about that. With that, we will call the roll.

AB 779, Wilson. Motion is do pass to Judiciary. [Roll Call]

The bill has 10 aye votes, two no votes. It is out, but we will hold the roll open for absent Members. Mr. Connolly is here. So we will hear AB 953 by Mr. Connolly next. Excuse me. Are you ready, Mr. Connolly?

Yes. Thank you. Chair and Members, for the opportunity to present AB 953. Like to begin by thanking the Committee and staff for your work and input on the Bill. I will be accepting the Committee's suggested amendment to add the coast guard to the Bill. I'd like to call out Assembly Member Hart as my joint author. Thank you, Greg. And in brief, AB 953 requires the Ocean Protection Council, or OPC, to create a statewide voluntary vessel speed reduction and sustainable shipping program for the California coast.

The primary objective of this program is to reduce air pollution, the risk of fatal vessel strikes on whales and harmful underwater acoustic impacts. OPC must develop this program in coordination with the local air districts along the coast and in consultation with the federal Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, as well as the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the United States Navy, the California Air Resources Board, and other stakeholders. This Bill would codify and build upon the existing local vessel speed reduction programs.

The program created by this Bill will provide publicity to participants, collect data on program benefits, and will provide financial incentive to participants to the extent funding is available. With me today to testify in support of this Bill and the co sponsors of this measure are Alan Abbs, legislative officer for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and Aaron Allen Janay, Air Pollution control officer for the Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District. So we kind of have Northern California and Southern California in the house.

We'll start with Alan.

Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Alan Abbs. I'm the legislative officer for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, one of three co sponsors of AB 953. AB 953 would establish a process to expand existing voluntary vessel speed reduction programs along the entire California coast.

I'd really like to thank Committee staff for a truly excellent analysis of this Bill because when you read it, you can understand why the Ocean Protection Council identified voluntary vessel speed reduction as a desired program to develop all the way back in their 2020 to 2025 strategic plan, which they released in 2020. This Bill would task the OPC to work with stakeholders to look at existing voluntary vessel speed reduction programs and then fill in the gaps to cover the rest of the state.

These existing voluntary programs reduce air pollution in coastal communities, reduce underwater noise, and reduce threats of ship strikes to several species of whales, some of which are listed as endangered species. The National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, estimates that approximately 80 blue fin and humpback whales are struck off the West Coast every year. Our existing programs have been embraced by many international shipping companies who routinely tout their participation, as you'll hear next.

As the analysis notes, expanding this voluntary program to other parts of the coast and recognizing participation by shipping companies would increase marine mammal and air quality benefits. And have I mentioned that the program right now is voluntary? AB 953 is supported by over 20 organizations, including coastal air districts, the Marine Sanctuary Foundation, Ocean and Mammal Protection groups, and other environmental groups. It has no listed opposition.

I'd like to thank Assembly Members Connolly and Hart for their leadership on this issue, and I'll now defer to my counterpart from Santa Barbara. I look forward to answering any questions you may have, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Motion by Friedman and a second by Bennett. And when you're ready.

All right, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, my name is Aeron Arlin Genet. I'm the Air Pollution control officer for Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District, one of three co sponsors of AB 953. Each year, thousands of vessels transit the Santa Barbara Channel and pass our 100 miles of coastline. The emissions from these ships blow onshore and affect our local communities. Emissions from vessels are outside the district's regulatory authority, and they make up over half of our ozone precursor emissions.

Finding an innovative solution to reduce emissions from this sector was critical to ensure we reach and maintain health based standards for health based air quality standards. In 2014, Santa Barbara County Air District and a group of local stakeholders started a pilot program for cleaner air, safer wells and quieter oceans. This project became what is now called Protecting Blue Wells and Blue Skies program. Shipping companies that volunteered to participate agree to slow down to 10 knots.

The program runs from May to November, coinciding with peak ozone season and well migration season. Since its inception, the Protecting blue wells and blue Skies program has grown to include shipping routes in Santa Barbara County, Ventura County, La Port, Los Angeles Port, Long Beach Port, and the Bay Area. Over the years, vessel participation has grown. Back in 2018, only 36% of the participating vessels slowed down to 10 knots or less in 2022.

The data is preliminary, but we have our highest performing season to date, with the results showing more than 70% participation rate. In addition to the small financial incentives that are provided to companies that reach the highest level of participation, each company that receives a Sapphire or gold award is recognized in news releases, on our website, in events, as well as trade journals.

The recognition is an essential component to the point where a significant number of the companies actually turn back their money to the program so they get additional recognition. This program has created tremendous air quality benefits to air quality and endangered wells. Creating a statewide program will allow even more emissions to be reduced and wells to be protected. I'd like to thank Assembly Members Conley and Hart, who was a prior APCD board Member in Santa Barbara county, for their leadership on this issue.

I look forward to answering any of your questions and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Do we have any additional witnesses here in the room? In support?

Thank you, Madam Chair Members Jean Hurst here today on behalf of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors in support. Good morning to the Committee. Jacqueline Moore, Pacific Merchant Shipping Association we represent the owners and operators of the vessels that operate along the US west coast. Being the intended subjects of this Bill, our position currently stands as support if amended again, if amended.

We've already had our first constructive discussions with author, staff and other stakeholders. So thank you very much for that. And we look forward to further conversations. I do want to note that we are unfortunately not noted in the analysis because of a slightly tardy letter. But I'm very happy to speak to you today. So again, we stand in support, if amended, and thank you very much for consideration. Thank you.

Hi, good morning. My name is Cody Phillips. On behalf of California Coastkeeper alliance and the auto project, we're in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any witnesses here to testify in opposition? Seeing none, we'll take it to the phone lines. Any support or opposition on the phone lines? Moderator thank you.

Please press 10. If so, again, it's 10. Give me just a moment here. All right, we'll go to line number six, please. Go ahead. Good morning. My name is Aaron Woolley. On behalf of Sierra Club California, in support. And again, please press 10 and none further in queue at this time. Thank you.

Moderator bringing it back to the Committee. Anybody have any comments or questions? Mr. Hart?

Yeah, I just want to thank Mr. Connolly for carrying this Bill. As a co author, I think it's a great idea. And I just want to point out the genius of this idea is the voluntary reduction and the recognition of the companies. There's a small compensation to the companies for the additional fuel that it takes to move more slowly. But by making this program statewide, I think that the ability to leverage that recognition is going to be dramatically increased.

There will be more eyes on the effort, and that will make it more successful, and the results will even be more profound. And this is really a great idea.

Thank you, Mr. Hart. Ms. Pellerin?

Yeah, this is a great Bill. I love the protecting the blue whales and the blue skies, and I'd be honored to be added as a co author.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Davies.

Thank you both. Thank you both for bringing this forward. And as a representative of Dana Point, who is now the number one place to whale and Dolphin watch in the world, we thank you for that.

Learn something new every day. Thank you, Mr. Bennett.

I'll add my voice to the co author line that we have going here and compliment you. We have seen this Bill at a smaller regional level be very effective. And I think Assemblymember Hart makes an excellent point about how much more visibility your efforts are going to bring to this. So congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you. Yeah. Dr. Weber, I'd like to thank the author for bringing this Bill forward. Would love to be a co author as well, and I also want to acknowledge staff of this Committee for putting together an amazing, very thorough, very scientific analysis. Really appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. I didn't realize how many coastal Members we had until this moment. And I want to thank both the witness and the Members for acknowledging the incredible work of our staff at this Committee.

We do actually have incredible staff that do a lot of work. So it's very helpful seeing no additional comments. Would you like to close?

Yeah. I appreciate the conversation and support and respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. With that, we will call the roll. AB 953. Connolly, do pass as amended to natural resources.[Roll Call] Bill has 11 aye votes. It is out. We will hold the roll open for absent Members.

Thank you.

And Mr. Bennett, I think you are up here.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. For the benefit of the witnesses, so that they can move on. On one of the shorter bills, AB 809 is the one I'd like to start with.

That's the fish program. And Madam Chair and Members-

Okay.

Motion by Ms. Friedman, second by Mr. Villapudua.

The California Monitoring program is an existing program at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. It monitors populations of salmon and steelhead trout in their habitats. AB 809 simply codifies the program to ensure that the critical data collected will allow the state to make strategic investments in watershed and fishery restoration to effectively support salmon and steelhead recovery. California's wild salmon and steelhead are on the brink of extinction due to habitat degradation, climate change, drought and migration barriers.

Nearly all the state's populations of these species have declined to the point of being listed under the California Endangered Species Act. Recovery plans for endangered species require monitoring to measure the progress of the species towards recovery. With me today is Matt Clifford from Trout Unlimited and Megan Cleveland from the Nature Conservancy. There is no opposition to the Bill.

Thank you. When you're ready, five minutes between the two of you, please.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Matt Clifford, I'm with Trout Unlimited, the nation's oldest and largest organization dedicated to the conservation of coldwater fisheries and their habitat, and I'm here to speak in support of AB 809.

In 2011, CDFW, working closely with the National Marine Fishery Service, created what was then known as the Coastal Monitoring Program, or CMP, in order to provide a scientifically sound means of monitoring the state's populations of salmon and steelhead trout species, which provide enormous commercial, cultural, scientific, and recreational value to the people of California.

Since that time, CDFW has worked every year with a dedicated statewide network of NGOs, water districts, local governments, universities, tribes, and others to collect the data that are used to assess the status of these species, to guide management decisions, and to track the effectiveness of the millions of public dollars that are invested every year in restoring habitat for these species.

Despite the by now well-established nature of this program and the critical importance of the data that it provides, CMP has never been formally established in the fishing game code. AB 809 would formally codify the program and enable the Legislature to appropriate funds to support the program when necessary and appropriate. Now, I know it's commonplace now to hear in the context of water that we can't manage what we don't measure. Everyone knows that, right?

I would submit that's no less true in the context of these fish than it is in water. It's just common sense. And for that reason, I urge you to strongly support AB 809. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. My name is Megan Cleveland with the Nature Conservancy, and we're in strong support of AB 809 as well. Reliable funding for this program is essential, and it's necessary to continue to ensure continuous operation of the program and eliminate data gaps. To date, the CMP has been funded through temporary funds that no longer exist and are no longer sufficient to maintain the program's essential monitoring activities.

AB 809 would provide a solution by codifying the program and establishing a fund to allow the state to provide appropriations to the program in the state budget. By providing a dedicated source of funding to the CMP, AB 809 will ensure robust, comprehensive, and long term monitoring of salmonid species. The critical data collected through the CMP will allow the state to continue to make strategic and cost effective investments in watershed and fishery restoration and will support salmon and steelhead trout recovery.

As such, we urge your aye vote on AB 809. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any additional support here in the room? Name, organization and position, please.

Good morning, Abigail Mile. On behalf of the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, in strong support.

Thank you.

Madam Chair, Members. Ivy Brittain with the Northern California Water Association, in support

Morning Chair and Committee. Claire Sebastek with California Trout, a co-sponsor to this bill. We would like to register our support and register the support by the Defenders of Wildlife. Thank you.

Raquel Ayala with Reeb Government Relations on behalf of Solano County Water Agency in support.

Thank you. Seeing no additional support, any opposition in the room? Seeing none. We'll go to the phone lines. Moderator, any support or opposition on the phone lines?

And again, it's 1-0 at this time, please press 1-0. And give me just a moment here.

You. All right? We can go to line 15, please. Go ahead.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Roger Dickinson, Policy Director for civic, well, formerly the local government Commission, in support. Thank you very much.

And none further in queue at this time.

Thank you. Bringing it back to the Committee. Any comments or questions from the Committee? Seeing none. Would you like to close, Mr. Bennett?

Thank you very much. I've respectfully asked for an aye vote.

Great. We have a motion and a second. Please call the roll

AB 809. Bennett. Motion is do pass to appropriations. [Roll Call]

The Bill has 11 votes. It is out. But we will leave the roll open for absent Members. Mr. Bennett, we will move on to. Which one would you like to do next?

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'd like to address the two Bill option that I have in front of the Committee, which I realize is a bit unusual. I am pulling AB 429 for consideration. So there's only one Bill now to consider, and I really want to thank your staff, Madam Chair, and your support. Groundwater is extremely complicated.

So just for clarification, so everybody knows what we're doing, you're going to pull AB 429 by the author, and we're going to hear AB 1563? That's correct.

Yeah. All right, good. We're on to 1563, but your staff has done just a terrific job in terms of working with us on the complicated issue of groundwater. We have a number of bills in front of you. In my mind, I think it speaks to the importance of the water situation in California and the need for us to try to do everything we can to improve the situation that we have. So, anyway, your staff has done a great job.

Sigma was the law passed in 2014, and California was one of the last states in the union to regulate groundwater at all, and groundwater pumping. And it is part of why we have such a serious overdrafting problem, where we're taking more water out than is being replaced from our groundwater. And with your indulgence, Madam Chair, I have just. This is the headlines in the Los Angeles Times article, and it reads, despite law. That's the Sigma law that was passed eight years ago. Aquifers keep dropping.

And here we are eight years later, and we still have made very little progress in terms of actually changing the demand for water from the groundwater, aquifers and basins that are out there. And we have a serious problem. Now, NASA, just to give you an example of how serious the problem is, NASA scientist recently wrote in his op ed for the LA Times that since 1961 alone we have dropped 93 million acre feet of water of groundwater in the Central Valley.

It's simply not sustainable, what we're doing. And we have to make sure that the Sigma law that everybody worked hard to pass in 2014 is an effective law that's out there. One of the problems that is causing, just one of the problems that's causing this is the fact that new wells continue to be sunk in basins where there is already identified as already critically overdrafted basins, where there needs to be an effort to actually decrease the amount of pumping.

And yet over 6000 new wells went into the Central Valley overdrafted basins alone since Sigma passed. And when you go and try to scratch the surface and find out, well, who's approving those new wells and how is this consistent with Sigma? You find out that nobody has the responsibility to make sure that the new wells are consistent with the groundwater plans being created by the groundwater agencies.

The counties are approving these wells with just ministerial approvals and not checking to see whether they're consistent with the groundwater agencies. And the groundwater agencies do not have the authority to say yes or no. So nobody has this responsibility. It's a fundamental flaw. And it just makes common sense that in a state that has a serious overdrafting problem, we should have somebody responsible to say yes or no when a new well is being proposed after checking to make sure it's consistent with groundwater plans.

So that's what 1563 does. And 1563 is similar to the Bill that was in front of this Committee last year. That's 2201. That Bill passed out of this Committee, it passed out of every Committee in the Assembly, passed off the Assembly floor, passed through every Committee in the Senate, passed off the Senate Floor, but with one change. And that one change made the Bill so that it was not consistent with the governor's Executive order.

And so the governor's office asked us to hold the Bill so that the Governor would not be faced with a Bill that was inconsistent with his Executive order. This Bill, we have listened, we've tried to listen really hard to major stakeholders involved. We welcome their input. We know groundwater is a complicated issue and all voices should be heard we have changed the Bill to have it focus only on critically overdrafted basins, whereas last year the Bill focused on all medium high and critically overdrafted basins.

We also changed the Bill so that replacement wells are exempt, because that was a major concern raised by many people in the ag industry, was, if I have a well that goes out and I have a crop, I don't want to have to go through this process to get that. And so we have exempted that also. We're still open to more discussions as the Bill moves forward, but we need people to come forward with actual solutions.

And unfortunately, in spite of the fact that many well intentioned people are working in water management and in groundwater agencies, et cetera, we also have significant and powerful forces that are much more interested in kicking the can down the road, not taking effective action, and just always saying later, it doesn't make any sense for us to continue to let this significant hole in the Sigma law stand, which is that nobody is responsible for monitoring whether the new wells are consistent with our efforts to get our basins into sustainability.

And with that, I appreciate that we have here, and Dave Rudston, on behalf of the California Association of Family Farmers, and thank you very much for being here, Mr. Rutstein.

Thank you, Dave. Five minutes.

Okay. Happy to comment on this non controversial Bill. Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. David Runsten, Water Policy Director for the Community Alliance With Family Farmers. We support AB 1563 because the frenzy of well drilling that has occurred in the last decade has hurt many small farms and rural residents who did not have deep wells. And so they saw their wells go dry. The assertion of the opponents that this Bill will burden small farms is simply not true.

What burdens small farms is having to deepen a well or drill a replacement well because some investment group planted a large orchard next door and started drawing down the groundwater. Groundwater is a common property resource, but the people drilling deep wells for their permanent crops don't seem to care what effect they have on their neighbors. The governor's Executive order that required review of all well permit applications by gsas has led to a variety of responses by the counties. Some have complied with the order.

Some have even instituted moratoriums on well drilling. And Sonoma requires a licensed professional to sign off. And by the way, we have 10 million from the Legislature last year for technical assistance to small farmers. And we've been negotiating with DWR about putting that into action. And a couple million of that is set aside for engineers and hydrogeologists to help small farmers. And so if they need that assistance that will be provided for them for free. But the compliance across counties is uneven.

Many of the local gsas lack the data, money, staff and will to deny well permits. Many of them fear being sued. We did not support AB 221 last year because we asked that true replacement wells be exempted and that amendment didn't happen. As Mr. Bennett explained, we are pleased that this year AB 1563 exempts all agricultural replacement wells in addition to the residential and community drinking water wells.

This focused the requirements on new agricultural wells, which are the ones that have the potential to cause problems. The Bill is limited to critically overdrafted basins. We would actually prefer that, like the governor's order, it apply to all medium and high priority basins as well, since the problems of the southern San Joaquin Valley are just being shifted north to any place that has groundwater.

In Yolo County, where we have our offices, in a 10 year span, 800 new wells were drilled and 47,000 acres of perennial crops were planted, with 75% of this acreage planted on historically non irrigated land, that is, on pasture land. Essentially, some people say this Bill takes away local control, but in reality, it would just reinforce the message to counties and gsas that they need to exert control over well drilling. The Governor has right to keep his Executive order in place, but it's an emergency order.

It won't last forever. And so this Bill would essentially put it into statute. CAF was the only agricultural organization to support the passage of Sigma in 2014. We did so because we did not want California to become southwestern Kansas, where the locals have decided that they'll just pump out their portion of the OgalaLA aquifer and then go somewhere else. We hoped that Sigma could protect the small farms. The jury is still out on that, but this Bill could help.

There will always be those who don't want regulation. But as we see around the world, the demand for water is too great. The 20th century is over and it's not coming back. Groundwater needs regulation and we ask for your aye vote on this Bill.

Thank you so much. Any other witnesses here in support of this Bill?

Actually, I have a support if amended. So if I could just have.

Go for it, Tweeners.

Kyle Jones with Community Water Center with a supportive amended position on the Bill. We just wanted to reflect on some of the changes from AB 221. And first of all, is the removal requirement that there be a finding by a local government on the record that there weren't any impacts that are found when a report is submitted.

And the reason we are looking for something like that is because if we don't have any action by the local government to approve these wells to actually make a finding then we're just continuing down the path of having some sort of ministerial approval in which there is no enforcement by folks on the ground who are actually being harmed and organizations like ours who are trying to work with those people to mature access to water.

And then secondly we also just wanted to mention on the replacement well exemption that a replacement well permit authorizes a well anywhere on a property and so there could potentially be harms if you're just getting a replacement well permit, especially if you have larger properties. And so we'd be interested to see if there's any way we can talk about getting some sort of setback from domestic wells or communities as part of that process.

But happy to work with the author on these and look forward to more conversations. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no additional support, do we have chief witnesses in opposition here today? So.

Thank you. Thank you. And like the proponents, five minutes between the two of you. As you wish.

Okay. Thank you. Chair and Members, I'm Brenda Bass on behalf of California Chamber of Commerce, and we respectfully oppose AB 1563. As you've heard, AB 1563 would create a new permitting regime for groundwater wells that will negatively impact agriculture for businesses, people and other businesses that rely on a thriving agricultural economy for their livelihoods and for food security in California. We believe this Bill is overly prescriptive because it dictates the way that counties and gsas are supposed to deal with well permits.

Sigma currently provides these entities with options for groundwater management that they can select from, but this Bill is providing a single way of dealing with well permitting sigma as originally agreed upon amongst a broad group of stakeholders, even if they didn't ultimately support the Bill intended to equip gsas with many tools to achieve their sustainability goals. And we believe this Bill limits that discretion?

Yes. Okay. The Bill requires a permit applicant to hire a licensed professional to make a written report that finds, in short, that a proposed well will not have adverse impacts on other wells or infrastructure. That sounds great in theory, but in reality this is very expensive for applicants to the tune of potentially millions of dollars, and the requirement may be impracticable for an applicant and or engineer to actually do.

Furthermore, the point of GSA's looking at sustainability is from a basin wide perspective rather than a well to well perspective, and we're concerned that this will narrow the view of gsas to just one specific well, which may not be able to see what the whole impacts are on the basin very well or very accurately.

We're also concerned that some of this new consideration will actually inject the opportunity for more litigation to occur, to challenge county findings and well permit approvals which further delay needed wells and can jeopardize agricultural operations in the interim. I think I'll pass it over to Chris with that. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Chris Anderson, on behalf of the Association of California Water Agencies, just first want to apologize. Our opposition is not listed in the analysis. We took a formal position after the deadline, but I have been in communication with the author staff for several weeks about our concerns with the Bill. As you've heard, this Bill is modeled after an Executive order issued by Governor Newsom in March last year.

The EO specifies the findings that well permitting agencies and gsas need to make when permitting certain wells, but not the process agencies go through to make these determinations.

The result has been, over the past year, agencies employing various practices in order to make these findings in light of these various practices, the Department of Water Resources is currently developing an analysis of the actions taken locally by county well permitting agencies to address how location and construction considerations of proposed wells can identify, minimize, and or prevent and mitigate well interference in land subsidence.

The intent of the analysis is to summarize recommendations that can be used to develop future solutions, both legislative and otherwise, that align land use planning and groundwater use. DWR is currently conducting outreach to local agencies and expects to release the analysis later this year. This type of analysis is really essential to understanding actions that have been successful to inform thoughtful policy decisions moving forward. ACWA appreciates the author's interest in continuing the conversation in this issue.

Unfortunately, this Bill is rushing to codify the Executive order without the benefit of understanding how the order is playing out in basins throughout California. Legislation at this time is unnecessary, particularly given that the EO is still in place. Instead, ACWA believes that it would be appropriate to wait for DawR to release its comprehensive analysis and then think about how to craft long term policy that facilitates a robust, useful, and feasible well permitting process. Thank you.

Thank you. And I would just urge ACWA in the future to submit a letter. This is meant to be the time when we work forward on bills, and having those positions in advance of the hearing, I think helps both the Committee Members to review those thoughts and the author with that. Any additional opposition in the room, please come forward. Position organization.

Ivy Brittain with the Northern California Water Association, in opposition.

Raquel Ayala with Reed government relations on behalf of Valley Ag Water Coalition, in opposition.

Good morning, chair Members. Lily Mckay on behalf of United Water Conservation District, in opposition as well. Thank you.

Good morning, chair Members. Dean Talley with the California Manufacturers and Technology Association, respectfully opposed.

Good morning. Katie Little with the California Farm Bureau, opposed. Thank you.

Good morning. Noel Kramers with Wine Institute, in opposition.

Gail Delihant with Western Growers, in opposition.

Madam Chair and Members. Tricia Geringer with Agricultural Council of California, in opposition.

Taylor Roschen on behalf of various Ag associations, in opposition.

Dennis Albiani on behalf of the California Seed Association, California Grain and Feed and California pear growers, in opposition. Thank you.

Thank you all. Seeing no additional opposition in the room, we'll take it to the phone lines for both support and opposition. Moderator when you're ready. Thank you very much. Please press 1-0 at this time.

Again, it's 10. We can first go to line 15. Please go ahead.

Madam chair and members, Roger Dickinson, Civic Well policy Director, in support.

Thank you.

And we can go to line 13. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Lucia Munoz on behalf of California environmental voters calling in support of AB 1563.

Thank you. Bring it back to the Committee. Ms. Friedman. Thank you.

Again, it's 1-0 next. We can go to line eight. Please go ahead.

...Okay. This is Cheryl Cuneo representing the California Coalition of Climate Reality Chapters in support. Thank you so much.

And at this time, none further in queue.

I have a question for the opposition witnesses. And first, this is obviously a difficult Bill, but a really big problem. So I commend the author for taking it on, making sure that we do have groundwater for all the uses that we needed for agriculture, human use. It's very, very important and we certainly know that we have overdrawn well.

So my question was your opposition about the concept of hiring an expert before you do a new well to make sure that you're not overdrawing and you pointed to the financial impact that that can be understood. I'm sure that it can be very expensive and not something that a property owner would want to go through.

But in lieu of that, what would you suggest the mechanism be to make sure that if you're going to draw more water out of a basin or insert a new well, that you're not having really negative impacts, what would the mechanism be? I mean, there's got to be something between then hiring an expert and allowing a judge who's never even been to the property to sign a piece of paper and say it's okay. So what would you suggest?

That's a very good question. I don't know if you have a response right now.

ACWA represents public water agencies, groundwater sustainability agencies. So we're not involved in the licensing portion of the Bill.

Okay. So I guess it's on me. I was trying to buy myself a little bit more time to think. That raises a good question. I think part of the question is it's not just the hiring of a licensed professional, it's what the report that the professional is supposed to produce is where the cost concerns really come in. Subsidence is really tricky to model and that's where a lot of the expense comes from. Groundwater is not like a river.

It behaves in a very amorphous way and levels can change from area to area. Quality can change from place to place, even within the same basin. Because of that, it's very hard to model accurately. So sometimes it's what the report is supposed to be saying. And one of the things that a lot of well drillers would look at is they use what the groundwater sustainability agency, like the GSP, has already produced.

And so perhaps it's referring back to work that's already been done so you don't have to incur significant additional expense when there's data already available. That's something that I think might be some kind of middle ground.

So your suggestion is that if there's already data about the impact, that it be allowable to be used as long as it can be verified. Because when you say that, it's very difficult to tell what the impact is going to be because the water levels change and because the basin has different qualities in different parts of the basin.

To me, sounds more like an argument for having someone do this review, not against it, because it may not be easy to extrapolate the impact of a new well in a basin where that well hasn't been contemplated in that place. So to me, that's not an argument against it. But I could see if you think there's already data. So I'm assuming that that's a suggestion maybe that you've made to the author that if there's already comprehensive data that be allowed to be used.

I think not in so many terms, but I think that's something that we should look at further to see if there's somewhere we could go on that. I think what our position has been is that even if you have a licensed professional, it is really hard to determine what the impact of one individual well is. And that's one of the reasons why Sigma did not adopt sort of a well to well analysis, looking at each specific well, because of how dynamic groundwater is.

And so that's been one of our concerns with this particular approach, is that if you're trying to pin down what one individual well is going to do on the basin as a whole, it can be really hard to accurately determine that. So to the extent we can link to existing evidence and make the findings somewhat less onerous, this is a good point that I think we should probably continue to consider and go back to our membership on in terms of where they feel they have.

So then, is your opposition less about the idea of as you're going to do anything that's going to allow for more water to be taken out of a basin, it's more of the mechanics of how you would evaluate it. In other words, are you okay with the basic premise that before more water being drawn is signed off on through the adjudication process, that there should be this higher level of review? You're agreeing with that, you're just saying that doing it well by well may not be the best way of doing that.

I will say that sigma does allow currently for a GSA to allocate certain amounts of water to come to a pumper or out of a well, and that the adjudication process, which is separate, can actually adjudicate water rights beyond those two kind of existing things. I wouldn't say that we support cutting off potential groundwater rights.

Well, let me ask this. You had mentioned that the other concern you have is about the possibility of lawsuits over these reports. So who would be filing those lawsuits? So if you're someone who wants to do a New well, you go through the process and then someone's going to file a lawsuit. Who would that typically be?

Well, it's speculative, but it could be an aggrieved neighbor. It could be.

Why would that neighbor be upset in that case? Why would they be concerned enough to file a lawsuit?

Well, that's just one potential plaintiff, but it could be anyone. I mean, they could just not like their neighbor. I mean, we have neighbor type lawsuits in any kind of civil proceeding.

But would they be suing in that? Excuse me? Would you be suing in that? Would the neighbor, then, in that scenario which you raised, you raised this as a concern, be suing because they would think that that well would have an impact on their ability to draw water out of an existing well.

I'm sure that would be their argument. It absolutely would be their argument. And whether that's reality or not is a separate question.

But isn't the court using the data that's provided by both sides? Wouldn't it be helpful for the court, when they're making that decision over that lawsuit, to have the data from both sides, from an independent expert who's saying whether or not that well is going to have an impact?

Typically during litigation like that, you would hire experts anyway. So I don't know if you would need that to be preexisting.

It was your argument that having this requirement is going to lead to further lawsuits. But I don't understand. If people are suing now because of somebody trying to do a new well into a basin, why would them just having more information? Wouldn't that be more protective of an individual? If they could show through the data that they wouldn't be having an impact.

It would provide a new type of claim, because now the defendant isn't the well driller or the well applicant. It would be the county who has approved the well. Because you could attack the decision made by the county for a rid of mandamus type action. Sure. And that does potentially broaden your class of plaintiffs beyond just neighbors who are directly impacted to people who would be bringing a lawsuit based on a collective benefit.

Right. So wouldn't that then make the counties be a little bit more careful about giving those permits?

I mean, it could, but that also could result, like, as we've seen in some other cases where they just put a moratorium on wells because they don't want to deal with it. And that's not really because they think they would lose.

Possibly, yeah.

Or maybe they just don't want to incur the cost of litigation, which is significant in its own right. Thank you.

I appreciate your answering the questions.

Thank you. Ms. Friedman and Ms. Dahle.

I just have a couple follow up questions as well. So to have a licensed professional, wouldn't the liability then possibly land on that licensed professional that signed off on the wells? I mean, actually, I would say it would give the county some layer of protection. But what about the licensed professionals? Will they then be liable also because water does move, as we know. I mean, they've signed off on it. So if someone's going to sue, who are they going to sue?

But they don't issue the permit, the county issue.

Right. But they signed off with the science supposedly.

Well, it would be a different type of lawsuit.

Right. But, yeah, I think there's potential liability, Dave, correct? Yes. Okay. So you said Sonoma county is already doing this?

Sonoma county is requiring you to have a hydrogeologist sign off on it before they entertain a permit.

Could you speak to the cost of that?

I don't know the cost of that, but I think we could. I'm not talking, I don't know the cost of that, but I think it's not $2 million. I think we're not asking that you do a whole modeling exercise and stuff. I think people rely on the data that the GSA has or the county has and so forth, and they make a judgment about that. I mean, we're assuming that we can have Dudek, for instance, do that for the small farmers.

But they are relying on the data that's coming from the GSAs to sign off, which is currently already being produced.

I think so, yeah. I don't think we're asking for a whole new analysis in this kind of.

But an extra layer.

It's just somebody to evaluate it. Unless you're going to have the county or the GSA staff up with these kinds of experts. It's like right now the GSAs say, well, we don't have the staff. We don't have the money to do this kind of thing. The counties often just have somebody in an office. Right, issuing the permit.

But you just spoke to the fact that the licensed professional would go to the data they have been able to produce or collect?

Yeah, I think so. That's what I'm imagining.

You complete, Mr. Mathis?

All right, so as we know that the counties issue the permits, they work with the local GSAs. They also have representation on the boards for the GSAs. So when it comes to issuing well permits, the professional goes down and gets the permit. From there, the data is collected, as we know, annually. In my district, they use lidar and track the geology and track the shifting, as they do everywhere else in the state. I don't really see this Bill as necessary.

I think it's a massive redundancy on what's already being done. To the point, the counties don't have money to have a full on staff for this. That's why DWR provides technical assistance to many of the counties and to the gsAs, for that matter. What's happening is that you run into Hatfield and Mccoy situations all the time where this neighbor only had enough money to drill their well a certain depth, and so the other neighbor had saved up a little bit more.

Theirs comes online later, they want to go deeper, it goes back and forth. So what happens? Well, we're the most litigious state in the damn country, so they sue. Sometimes they sue just because it's a competitive edge, just because it can slow up the farming of the neighbor who is their competition. These things happen all the time. We see it in business inside of agriculture and out in other areas. Suing has become a weapon that is used in business when it comes to groundwater.

What's really got me extremely concerned, especially with the floods that are happening, is that pretty much every well in my district that's not on high ground is becoming contaminated. So we're going to have massive permits coming up, and the last thing we need is something like this that's going to add another layer of getting those wells fixed. The other thing, and it was mentioned, is that when you go to replace a well or to fix a well, you're not dropping in the same hole.

Oftentimes you're going farther and farther away, because it's not just there's a hole in the ground and we're going to fix the hole that's in the ground. No, you've got to fill that in. You've got to do other things, you've got to move that, and that's how these things work.

Frankly and bluntly, it kind of pisses me off that a lot of my colleagues do legislation to address wells from districts that have no idea that this is the day in, day out living conditions of the people in my districts.

I've spent 10 years working on making sure that GSAs are done right, making sure that water infrastructure is done right, and making sure that the poor people in my communities, communities of color, are getting every resource possible to ensure that they can have wells, because that's just the way it is where we live. We don't need more burdensome legislation. We have an emergency order in place. We already have counties that are shutting down. The counties have the ability to do this on their own.

I don't see the counties here asking for support and asking for help to do this. There's a lot of legislation that's already out there. There's a lot of things that are already at work. There are processes that are ongoing. There's data that we're waiting to receive. DWR is already working on this. Let's let what's in play work itself out before we try to add another layer in, especially another layer why we have an emergency, a disaster area that's affecting people that have to deal with this. I ask for a no on this.

Thank you, chair. So, to the author, in light of what our fellow colleague just said, that there is a system in place. Do we need this Bill? If there's already a system in place, why do we have this Bill? Why are you presenting this Bill?

I really appreciate the question, and I guess I go back to this. We have the law. The groundwater is still dropping. One of the reasons the groundwater is still dropping is new wells keep getting approved, taking more and more draw from there. I certainly completely disagree with the last comments that were made. Number one, the idea that lawmakers presenting this kind of Bill don't have any background in this. We have one of the oldest groundwater sustainability agencies in the State of California.

It was created back in the 1980s by the State of California because we had saltwater intrusion. I spent 20 years working with and being on that groundwater agency, either working with or being on it, on it for the last 10 years. I have a deep background, pardon the pun, there, in terms of wells and what's going on with groundwater pumping. It is very complicated. It is one of the easiest issues in the world to find, and I've seen it for 20 years.

It's one of the easiest issues to find some technicality and say, zero, we can't really determine sustainable yield this year because we don't know this yet, we don't know that yet, et cetera. So the fundamental question you're asking is, do we need this Bill? And we have right now mischaracterization in terms of what counties are doing. Counties are simply ministerially approving wells. Ministerial approval means that if you fill the form out correctly, you get stamped and approved. That's what most counties are doing with water wells.

And when you have a critically overdrafted basin and you have a groundwater agency working hard to try to figure out how they're going to decrease pumping and how they're going to do that, to have a out of state private equity firm come in, as Mr. Runston talked about, and say, and buy up the property next to an existing farm and decide that they're going to sink half a dozen super deep wells and plant a new irrigated crop.

All they have to do is go down and the county gives them a ministerially approved permit with no review of what the impacts are in a critically overdrafted basin. That is a serious problem. That's what's going on today. If there is nobody. We all are serving on the Water Committee of the State of California. We have an important responsibility to make sure that we come up with the proper rules and regulations for groundwater pumping.

And we simply have in front of us a law that has a huge hole in it. That example I just gave you is a true example. That happens in California with only ministerial approval. No review of the impacts of that well at all. Happens over the counter, happens quietly. Other people don't even know about it. It's not published. This is a hole that has serious problems, and we're endeavoring to try to fix that. So in answer to your question, I really appreciate that.

I hope that helps.

So essentially what you're saying is that even though we have processes in place, they are clearly flawed and not working well.

I would offer it. We don't even have a process in place. Everything is optional. You can if you wanted to, but there's no requirement at all that a new well must be reviewed for its consistency with the groundwater sustainability agency. There's no requirement at all.

Okay. And we've heard testimony on the opposition about how implementing new rules, regulations and other layer would potentially have detrimental impacts on some of our smaller farmers that may not have the resources. Who is being impacted by these critically overdrafted basins?

Well, certainly small farmers certainly domestic water users. That's particularly in the Central Valley, Low income farm worker communities. You're seeing it in the newspaper constantly. We in the State of California have to truck water to communities whose wells have gone dry. And right across the freeway from them, they're watering almond orchards.

And they have wells because they have more resources and better ability to go get these deeper wells put in with no analysis in terms of what's going to be the impact on a farm worker community right across the road, right across the freeway from offer. And I tremendously appreciate the support of the California family Farmer Association because they're calling it out. It's the small farmer that's getting.

They're getting hurt much more by this than the few times that the small farmer needs to go get a new well, not a replacement well, a new well. New wells. The new wells we're talking about are somebody comes in, they want to expand acreage.

They want to expand irrigated acreage over a basin that is in critical overdraft, those wells, to say that it's too much of a burden for them after they've purchased the land, decided they're going to plant the crop and say, zero, it's too expensive for them to hire a lawyer. Not a lawyer. I'm sorry, a scientist, an expert, to give them the permit. My apologies to all the lawyers in the room. Right. There you go.

That's not the burden that we are trying to create in this situation at all. And I have a number of other things that I can say with regard to that in my close in response, but I hope that that helps.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Weber. I don't know if Mr. Villapudua, did you raise your hand? Okay. Mr. Hart, thank you.

Yes. I just want to very specifically ask about the replacement well issue that one of our colleagues mentioned in this instance. This Bill exempts replacement wells specifically, right? That's right. So even if it's dug a little bit further in a different place, as long as it's not an additional straw into the aquifer. That's right. It's qualified.

The language is attempt to try to say, if you're going to decommission this well and replace it with this well, you're not increasing take on the aquifer on the basin, I should say.

Thank you, Mr. Hart. Anyone else? Okay. Motion by Friedman. Was that Mr. Hart? Second by Mr. Hart. Thank you. No further comments. Okay. Would you like to close? You good? I can't figure out what's happening over there. But I want to be respectful if you want to speak.

Yeah. And I appreciate, I'd rather have more conversations.

Appreciate the author, I really do, because I know he's been working hard on this stuff. But for me it's like timing.

Especially the scare on food that we're facing in the state. Right. I'm from an ag community that all of us are. Right. The state what delays and how that's going to hurt not just the state but this nation and delays on the, I mean, how is this going to hurt the economy as we start thinking about, we haven't seen the impacts. And that's where I'm trying to understand this, the delays, how does that impact our ag community, our food source?

So that's where I'm scared about this Bill. And I'm just being honest to you. I mean, I know you've been working extremely hard on this and I respect you for what you do for your community and for the state, but I'm just scared on the delays and the impacts. So it's just more of a comment.

Thank you. Did you want to address that, Mr. Bennett?

Sure. The existing wells, the existing farms, the existing operations are what's most essential for us to protect. If you're concerned about our food supply, ask yourself this. One of the major expansions has been almond orchards in California, right. I don't think most of us would say that is the expansion, not the existing almond orchards.

The expansion of almond orchards that's taken place in the last decade is not anywhere near the value, the benefits of that is not anywhere near the potential risk of running out of water is going to have on all of the existing agriculture that we have in California. And if we go, we're concerned about a delay, a 30 day delay like this Bill calls for. If we're concerned about that, for expansion, we're saying that concern is bigger than the concern about what's happening with overdrafting of water.

And every new well that gets a permit and gets built gets a vested right. And that groundwater agency has a much more difficult ability to try to decrease the water being pumped from a new well once it gets invested. Right than if it just didn't get approved in the first place. So your concern about delay causing some impact on agricultural production is if it included replacement wells, and all of these replacement wells can, but we're exempting replacement wells.

So if you're concerned about expanding some almond orchards and you say that's greater than the concern about 1400 domestic wells went dry last year. 1400. That's all of those people ran out of drinking water. All of those communities. Right? That's a big impact. We're spending an enormous amount of state money just supplying water to them. So we're having impacts. All Right, which one is better to slow down, mildly, potentially slow down the expansion of irrigated farmland until all we're asking for. We're not saying no.

We're just asking for an appropriate review. Right now, there's no review. It just happens. And I'm going to end with this in terms of response. And, Madam Chair, I really appreciate the time. This Bill is going to have a fair amount of conversation as we go forward, so the more we can get out. But I will share this final thing with you. When Sigma passed in 2014, as I mentioned, we already had a groundwater agency in Ventura County. I sat on that board.

Immediately there was a run on new well permits. Our new well permits dramatically increased from whatever their average was, many multiples higher each week. And all of a sudden, we said, wow, all these new wells are going in, and we're on the groundwater agency. We're supposed to decrease the pumping, right? According to Sigma. And yet we have all these new wells going. It's going to be very hard for us to even calculate how to do that when you have more and more straws going in.

So we proposed a moratorium on new wells just until we created our groundwater sustainability plan and it got approved by the state. That seemed like a modest thing to do, just like here. And I really appreciate that. When Sigma passed in 2014, there was only one ag community that stood up in favor of Sigma, and that was California family farm Association. Everybody else was opposed to it. Now, if those people had been right, we would still have no Sigma law today.

We would have nothing out there if we had allowed them to do that. But just like that, in Ventura County, every ag organization in Ventura County, every landowner, et cetera, got notices, go to the Board of Supervisors hearing and block this. And it was amazing. 200300 people in the boardroom all angry, how could you do this moratorium on us, et cetera. Meanwhile, I got phone call after phone call the night before from farmers who said, landowners, I should say, mostly.

And farmers said, I'm going to be at the meeting tomorrow because I have to, because of the pressure I'm feeling. But I want you to know, I actually hope your Bill passes, because the only thing that's going to protect my farm from these new wells going in is your moratorium. But I can't say that publicly. So my point is, when it comes to water, there's an inherent effort to block any changes because the status quo. There's powerful people in the status quo.

Those farmers thanked me afterwards because the moratorium passed on a three to two vote, and they thanked. Said, you know, literally, we would be out of business if you had not done that, because that run on wells was so bad. I would suggest the same thing's happening since Sigma's happened in the State of California.

Thank you, Mr. Bennett. Okay. Now, seeing no additional Members, would you like to close?

I would. And again, your indulgence, if you don't mind. I need to get this stuff on the record when people have said things. And first of all, I appreciate the question from Assembly Member Dahle about lawsuits and the concern about lawsuits and stuff. And I would ask this question of the opponents. How many lawsuits have been filed since the Executive order was issued? There certainly has not been some groundswell of lawsuits yet. The Executive order has been out there for over a year.

So there's not some evidence this suddenly leads to an explosion of lawsuits. Right. As I pointed out, every ag group opposed Sigma back in 2014, except California Association of Family Farmers or California Family Farmer Association. Right.

Call it Caff.

Yeah, Caf. There we go. Be much better, right? And where would we be today in California, had we listened to that opposition? But there is always going to be opposition. The first statement made by the witness in opposition, and I very much respect the communications we've been able to have with them. And that's why I want to respond in this public setting, is that this is over prescriptive. Right. And I would offer to you, what is the prescription right now for new wells? It's nothing.

It's just a ministerial permit. No public notice, no review, no check even with. No. There's no requirement to even check with the groundwater agency to say whether this is so over prescriptive or no prescription at all. No solution at all. That's what we have at this point in time. When Assembly Member Friedman asked, what is the solution if it's not this Bill you heard, there's not really another good solution. Right. There's a struggle to say, what is it? We're struggling.

We're struggling to try to come up with the best legislation we can to address these concerns. That's why we changed. We took out replacement wells. Quite frankly, taking out replacement wells. A whole lot of people were concerned that, zero, the people will game that now, that that new organization that wants to expand will use replacement wells somehow to game the system, saying, we're taking these out, but we're really going to plant these over on new irrigated land, for example, without analysis.

A statement was made by the opposition that needed wells shouldn't have to go through this. And I would emphasize, like I did with the Assembly Member here, that the needed wells in California are the existing wells. And the best way to protect the existing wells is to make sure new wells don't go in right next to them that draw the water down even further and more rapidly, drain the aquifer at a faster rate than is sustainable. Those are the needed wells.

That's what needs to be protected. And we will not hear from those voices during this debate, just like we didn't hear from them in Ventura County when we did a temporary moratorium on new wells. But I can tell you I've already had people in California who confidentially have come to me and said, we own land in the Central Valley, and we don't appreciate these new wells going in around us without any appropriate oversight as we go forward. A few other corrections.

Opposition stated that this Bill is modeled after the Executive order. I think those of us that are in the know, the Assembly Member, chair, et cetera, my Bill was submitted in January. The Executive order didn't come out until six weeks after that. I would offer that the Executive order was modeled onto the Bill rather than the other way around. And I think that that's important for us to know, because we then tried to modify the Bill to match the Executive order.

Some things are in the Executive order that I think I would rather not have in the Bill. But we're trying to match up with the Executive order for the benefit of the Governor, et cetera. And we'll close with just three final points. And that is, what are the solutions if it's not this right, if you strip it down to its essence? This is a very simple, common sense modification. It simply says, the people responsible for getting the pumping down, that's the groundwater agency.

The people responsible for that ought to have the authority to say no to a new well in an aquifer, that they are responsible for getting down to sustainable pumping levels. It's just that simple. It's a common sense, logical solution. And if somebody said, we ought to write a Bill and we ought to create an agency that tries to get the pumping down to sustainable levels, but we shouldn't let that agency have any voice in the new wells going in.

If you started from scratch and just posed it that way, almost everybody would say, that does not make common sense. And that's what we're trying to address here, but it is always difficult when you're dealing with something as complicated as groundwater. I am very proud to have CAFA here today. The only organization that was here in 2014 speaking in favor of Sigma. I'm very proud that Kyle came up to speak today.

And those people who have the common sense to see the benefits of this kind of change are the people that. Whose voices I certainly will respect a great deal as they ask for modifications as this moves forward. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote and appreciate your indulgence.

Thank you. No, I appreciate. And that's why I wanted to make sure our colleague had a moment to comment, if he wanted to, is the work that we do here is really important. Right. And I think that the Bill has changed since last year. And I hope that there will be continued work, and it will be even better when we see it in the future, on future votes. But I think it's really important.

And I want to highlight something that we discussed briefly in our oversight hearing, which is what is happening in California right now, but is actually happening across the west, which is a gold rush for water. And our neighboring states are seeing it even worse than we are. The Saudis are buying up land. They are pumping, they're selling that water. They are starting new farms that grow alfalfa to sell in the alfalfa to the Mideast.

And water is a commodity, as we know in California, that is going to be more and more precious. And when we hear about those domestic wells that have gone dry, and we know that we're sending bottled water at our communities in some of these basins, we know that we have to take this resource, this life sustaining resource, incredibly seriously. And I think the discussion here was great.

I think it's really important that we have a conversation about these new wells, because, as I mentioned, a lot of the new wells going in across the west are not for purposes that I think many people on this Dias would like to be the priority. And so the fact that our sustainable groundwater agencies don't have the authority to ensure sustainable yield in those instances is really something we need to be paying attention to.

And I appreciate the family farmers for being here, and also Kyle for representing the domestic well holders, as he always does, because their voice is often not at the table. The communities of color who need that water to live and to drink and to bathe. And I also want to highlight the important comment. That is not the jurisdiction of this Committee, however, is really integrated with the conversations we have here from the Vice Chair around the pollution in much of our groundwater.

It's something that we need to take incredibly seriously because again, as this resource becomes harder to get, the fact that it's not able to be used because it's not clean is incredibly a dire situation in many of these communities. And that is the jurisdiction of ESTM. But I think it's always important for us to keep in mind as we think about how to allocate these resources. And we have a motion and a second. And with that, let's call the roll AB 1563 Bennett.

Motion is do pass to appropriations. [Roll call].

Okay, the bill is on call. Strict instructions about what I'm supposed to say. The bill is on call. We'll leave the roll open because the absent members will return soon. Thank you all for being here for so long. Again, robust conversation. Yes. Bennett, you have one more bill. So now with this time, I know which one you're presenting. AB 560.

Thank you.

On adjudications. Do we have any witnesses that want to join you? When you're ready.

Thank you very much. AB 560 is complementary to Assemblymember Wilson's Bill that we approved earlier. I appreciate thatAssemblymember Wilson and I sort of separately came to the need for adjudication. She came to it through the lens of what's happening to low income people. I came through to it for the same concerns, but through the actual reality that Ventura County, because we were an established groundwater agency, actually moved faster than most other agencies in approving groundwater sustainability plan.

That plan then called for a 30,000 acre foot sustainable yield. There is an adjudication going forward, and it looks to me, and looks to many people like there's a good possibility the judge is going to approve a 40,000 acre foot adjudication.

And that is, and I think, that is serious concern, because what we have is the potential, if this litigation is approved, it will send the message that litigating is the way to simply get out of the Groundwater Sustainability Agency's findings, particularly the scientific findings that go forward. And so this bill is much simpler and straightforward and not as comprehensive. And that's why they're complementary to Assemblymember Wilson's bill, which I really appreciate, with the safeguards that are built in.

It simply says that before a judge issues a ruling, she or he needs to submit that tentative find ruling to DWR and the State Water Board for them to give the judge advice as to whether it is consistent with the groundwater agency. Now, if you combine that with all of the other safeguards that Assemblymember Wilson's Bill has in it, I think you have a much greater chance that we will find that the judiciary branch is not unintentionally overriding Groundwater Sustainability Agency scientific findings.

And that's what makes these two bills, I think, complementary and very valuable. If we don't make these changes, and hopefully that Assembly Member Wilson's bill will sail through along with this bill. If we don't make these changes, we risk empowering the most powerful to control groundwater pumping policy in California. In spite of SGMA and the creation of the groundwater agencies, because those with the fewest resources will simply not have an equal seat at the table.

Thank you, Mr. Bennett. And I will point out that both, and I should have said this during Ms. Wilson's bill, both are referred to Judiciary after this. There are obviously, I think, open questions about where in the judicial process this should all happen, and I think that is best handled by the Judiciary Committee. The question before us today is whether this is the right approach as it relates to groundwater management. So with that, any witnesses here in support of AB 560.

Michael Jared, on behalf of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers in support of this bill. Thank you.

Thank you.

Sorry, another 'tweener position. Kyle Jones with Community Water Center and also Clean Water Action. So just with this bill, we raised the question about having the Water Board. Come in at the end of the process and whether or not that lets them properly influence the process and whether it could delay an already long court proceeding that's over a couple of decades. And then secondly, with this one and with the Wilson Bill, just suggesting that if the board is being brought in, that they be able to consider their full range of powers and authorities the state considers, including the human right to Water, Safe Drinking Water Act, et cetera.

Thank you. Seeing no additional support here in the room, do we have any opposition that would like to testify? Come back up, Brenda. You can have a different seat this time.

So good morning again. I'm Brenda Bass with California Chamber of Commerce. And we are right now in respectful opposition to AB 560.

And really, the concern is not so much about the substance so much as it is about particular language, because right now we're kind of seeing that it could be interpreted in one of two ways, either requiring a court to seek expert counsel from the State Water Board at basically the last stage of an adjudication, or sort of providing an opportunity for the State Water Board to maybe veto a court's proposed judgment.

So under the first interpretation, oddly, I think our comments kind of align with Community Water Center. We're concerned that potentially this is too late in the game for the State Water Board to really have impactful input and then could also end up adding delay at the end of an already very lengthy process.

Our second concern is that this could present maybe a separation of powers concern, where if the State Water Board is an arm of the Executive, comes in at the end and can basically give it an endorsement or not an endorsement, then there's a concern that then the judiciary is sort of being hemmed in by the Executive in a way that kind of violates some of our constitutional principles. And I think in this room we could agree that that's not the proper interpretation.

But until the language gets fixed such that somebody later, years down the road who's not present for this discussion, knows what the interpretation is and can't interpret it in a way that creates a separation of powers issue, that would be something we would like to see. So that would be my comments on this, but thank you.

Thank you. Any other opposition in the room? Name, position and organization, please.

Raquel Ayala on behalf of Valley Ag Water Coalition, in respectful opposition of the bill. Thank you.

Good morning. Lily Mackay with United Water Conservation District. We share concerns, appreciate the author's office for having conversations with us. Thank you.

Gail Delihant again with Western Growers. We are in opposition.

Taylor Roschen on behalf of various Ag associations, in opposition. Thank you.

Good morning. Tricia Geringer with Agricultural Council. Respectfully opposed.

Katie Little with California Farm Bureau, respectfully opposed.

We will take it to the phone lines for any support or opposition. Moderator?

To express public comment, please press one, then zero on your telephone. And again, that's one followed by zero. We do have two lines with operators. If anyone else would like to join the queue, you may press one followed by zero. And we'll go first to line number five. Five, your line is open.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Kendra Daijogo with the Gualco Group, on behalf of the California Association of Wine Grape Growers, Kings River Conservation District and Kings River Water Association, in opposition to the bill. And also the Kern County Water Agency, we support the position of the California Chamber of Commerce. Thank you.

Next we have line 16. 1-6, your line is open.

Madam Chair and Members, Roger Dickinson, on behalf of CivicWell, in support. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

With that, there are no other lines in queue at this time.

Thank you, Moderator. Bringing it back to the Committee. Okay, then I'll ask. So again, I just want to say that most of the issues raised, I think, are really in the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee. But I assume that you. I guess I won't assume, are you open to working with the future Committee on the separation of powers issue?

Absolutely. And we have an opponent saying, until the language gets fixed, I would love to have whatever proposed fixed language they would suggest well before we go to Judiciary Committee, so that we can evaluate that and consider it, we're always open to doing that.

Perfect. Their staff is excellent and have been helpful to me in the past. So I'm sure they will weigh in on those issues and help you correct those. And again, the question about when and how I think these factors are weighed in the court process feels in the jurisdiction of the Judiciary Committee. I think the question before us today is if we think there needs to be input from these elements in that process. With that, do I have a motion? Ms. Schiavo moves.

Do I have a second? By Mr. Hart. Let's call the roll.

I'd like to close, please.

Oh, sorry. The second time today, and both on the adjudication bills. Please, Mr. Bennett.

I would only like to say, certainly, I want to just publicly say on the record, my intention is not to step on the Judiciary branch. The language currently clearly says an advisory. It's not a veto power at all. So I just want to make sure that that's clearly on the record. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you for reminding me. Let's call the roll.

AB 560, Bennett. Motion is due passed to Judiciary Committee. [Roll call]

That has eight aye votes and four no votes, if I'm reading correctly. It is out. But we will leave the roll open for absent members. We have two bills.

Mr. Mathis, where would you-

Well, we can, more than happy to go file order.

Okay, so we'll start with AB 66.

That's fine.

When you're ready, Mr. Mathis, apparently everyone's leaving for your.

Sounds like we've.

Don't go anywhere, Members.

Two more emotion in a second.

Wait. Do we have a motion? Okay.

I will, for the record, say thank you and the Committee staff for working on the amendments. We do accept them quickly. AB 66 is all about making sure that we get permits done in a timely manner. As we've seen with the recent floods, we definitely need more infrastructure in this state. The Governor has goals to get more infrastructure in this state, and this is about making sure we do this in a timely manner.

And with that, I will ask for an aye vote, since we have a support. Support. And everybody's ready to go.

Thank you. And I think I heard you correctly. You accepted Committee amendments? Yes. Thank you, sir. That's why I started with that and I know we're working on something here because we didn't hear the motion, which I'll repeat just for the record. Motion by Ms. Davies, second by Ms. Shavo Schiavo. I'm going to get that right one day. Any witnesses here in support?

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members name is Joe Criscione. On behalf of the State Building Trades, we're in support of AB 66 is currently in print, and we're in the process of reviewing the amendments. And we support bills like AB 66 that have skilled and trained proponents and project Ledberg amendments. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair Members. Mike West, also with the State Building Trades. These large scale water projects are obviously going to be prevailing wage. You may hear from the opposition that Plas will drive up the cost of public works projects. We believe that the use of skilled and trained workforce, or a PLA, would provide a better chance that a project would come in on time, on budget, and use the least number of workers to complete the project most efficiently.

In addition, North America's building trade unions are the second largest organization in comprehensive training of women and men, next to the US military. These life changing opportunities provide a path to the middle class for disadvantaged people, many of which are emancipated youth, foster youth, or formerly incarcerated, and provide a living wage and the opportunity to eventually retire with dignity. Thank you.

Thank you. And since we didn't have a witness in support, I decided to cede the time. Raquel Ayala with reap government relations on behalf of Valley act water coalition in support. Katie Little with California Farm Bureau in support. Thank you. Any witnesses here in opposition to the Bill? Are you a tweener again? I guess, technically, let's remove opposition.

Well, still evaluating. I wouldn't go that far yet, but Kyle Jones, The Community Water Center. We just want to thank the agreement on the amendments. I think that takes the Bill in a better direction. Just want to say, oftentimes these projects are very complex, or the conditions around water quality can be very complex. So just trying to get a permit done in 180 days can be infeasible and deeming that approved could cause harm. So thank you.

Thank you. Any other opposition there? And then we will take it to the phone lines. Any support or opposition on the phone lines? Moderator thank you. Please press 10 at this time. If so, again, it's 10. And we'll first go to line 14. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Committee. My name is Richard Marcuson and I represent the Western Electrical Contractors Association and the plumbing, heating, cooling contractors of California. As the building trades delivered my testimony, we are in strong opposition to the project labor agreement provisions in the Bill. Thank you very much.

And again, it's 10. We'll go next to line six, please. Go ahead. Good morning, chair and Members. My name is Aaron Wooley. On behalf of Sierra Club California, we appreciate the Committee's amendments, but remain opposed to AB 66 for attempts. The streamlining makes this process really complicated, especially with the projects that this Bill is focused on, and they are potentially harmful and need adequate time to allow the agencies to consider and review and thoroughly address any potential environmental consequences associated with them. Thank you.

And none further in queue at this time. Thank you. Bring it back to the Committee. Any questions? Yeah. Dr. Weber, good morning. Still, thank you so much for this Bill. I understand that there are a lot of concerns around the time it takes for our infrastructure projects to be put in place because of the different rules and regulations that people have to go through. So with the amendment, it takes out the automatic permitting process after the 180 days?

Correct.

And I understand that there's this transparency piece, but I guess with the amendments, how does that help ensure that we are able to get these projects done safely, but quickly it's.

Moving forward. I think the biggest part, and frankly, I like the better Bill better before the amendments. I feel like it does take a little bit of the teeth out, but it's important that these agencies do their due diligence to come together. And frankly, a lot of our other agencies already have the 188 rule. Like, I didn't just make this up, this is a rule that's used across different agencies for other projects and it's about time we have this for water.

So this is kind of a step to push them forward, to say, hey, it's time to actually get to work and get these done and get these approved.

I would recommend, as we continue this discussion, just kind of look at data. I know that you can have things that are outliers, but I've heard many concerns, complaints about the lengthy time to get a lot of these projects done. And if 180 days isn't long enough, then I think we need to look at data to see what is the length of time. But this Bill just kind of keeps it open with the amendments and I'm not sure how that's going to solve the problem.

I am 100% for transparency, putting that information out there, but I just don't understand with the amendments how we're actually going to solve the problem. I will support the Bill. I just don't know how we're going to solve a problem that's clearly been there for a while. Thank you. Well, why don't I just take a point? Do you mind if I take a point of personal privilege and just address. Since chair, I was part of the amendment process.

I will say that I don't know how many of you sit on ESTM with me, but we went through a process with DTSC where we forced them to create a portal on their website with full transparency of the permit process, where it was in the process, how many days. Now the public can entirely see that. And it has been a game changer because there is something about the sunshine that actually forces agencies to do what they're supposed to do. And they definitely didn't have 180 days.

We had permits that were 20 years out of compliance with that agency. So I do think that I've seen the value of that piece of it. And I think the environmental concerns were real about the automatic trigger. And so the other thing is working with the building trades to understand these projects. There is a lack of, they've done a great job on the local level to try to figure out what's going on, but it's hard, right.

They have their locals out there trying to dig up what the answers are for why these projects aren't moving forward. And so one of the things that I do think we need to do is try to figure out why these projects are being held up in real and meaningful ways. And I do think that will move us forward in those directions. Now I feel bad. Mr. Rollin, he stepped out. It was his want to.

I also think the permit tracker is going to do a great deal because we have constituents that come to us all the time with permits. I wonder why they can't, whatever agency it is. So I appreciate the addition, this amendment. So thank you. And I'd also like to be added as a co author.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Okay, well, Mr. Alanis isn't here. He was probably going to say all sorts of wonderful things. We'll just put the words in his mouth. Seeing no further discussion. We do have a motion in a second, so would you like to, you.

Absolutely, you know, the purpose of this Bill is to speed up the process to light a fire underneath the agency, to add that transparency. I'll share with you. Just this last week, being down in my district as it was flooding and we're in a town hall and you've got angry residents going, could this been avoided? And I had to answer no, because we don't have the infrastructure and the reality of it is the only way you do avoid these catastrophic events is to build up the infrastructure.

And I think 180 days is more than enough time. When you consider the fact that we are the fourth largest economy in the world, we have better resources than pretty much other countries abroad. And the fact that it takes 180 days for an agency to move I think is ridiculous. I think personally it should be a lot faster. The data is there, the things are there. These things are being looked at. They're not just being haphazardly put together.

A lot of these projects that we're looking at are things like sites reservoir. And looking at the time that that's taken. I mean, our voters voted on this over 10 years ago. And look at where we're at, it's still not being done. I know there's some opposition about the PLA requirement. Look, this is the State of California. This is how we get things built. We need people that are professionally trained. And I'm not saying that others aren't, but we need to get things done.

We need to get things built. So frankly, districts like mine are getting flooded because we don't have with that. Members, I ask you for your support on this measure. Let's build California's infrastructure to where it needs to be. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's call the roll. AB 66, Mathis, do pass as amended to appropriations by our cahan. Aye. Bye. Mathis, aye. Mathis. Aye Alanis. Bennett. Dahle. Aye. Dahle. Aye Davies. Davies. Aye Friedman. Friedman. Aye heart. Heart. Aye Wood. Wood. Aye Pellerin. Pellerin. Aye Rubio. Rubio. Aye Shiavo. Shiavo. Aye vilipudwa. Villapudua. Aye Ward Weber. Weber. Aye. Bill has 12 aye votes. Ayet is out. But we will leave the roll open for absent Members and our final Bill, Mr. Mathis. AB 606.

All right. So AB 606 originally was going to be removing the sunset, but I appreciate working with the Chair and the team. So what we're doing here is once again moving the sunset back. And this is dealing with our state Endangered Species Act. This will protect our farmers and other landowners who provide habitat for endangered species. And we've been doing the same deal since 1997. And it looks like we're going to continue to push to do that. With me today. I have Katie Little from the California Farm Bureau and Noelle Cremers from the Wine Institute. I'm going to hand it over to you ladies. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much. My name is Katie Little, and I'm with the California Farm Bureau. Farm Bureau is pleased to sponsor AB 606, which would move the sunset of the California Accidental Take Provision in the CESA Act, California Endangered Species Act. Farm Bureau represents over 30,000 members and strives to protect and improve the ability of farmers and ranchers engaged in production agriculture to provide safe, reliable food to consumers throughout the state.

Section 2087, which is recognized as the Accidental Take Provision in CESA, provides California farmers and ranchers the ability to produce food and fiber without fear of penalties under CESA if they accidentally take a species listed as candidate, threatened, or endangered. Incidental and accidental take are complementary mechanisms that act as an incentive for farmers and ranchers to enhance wildlife habitat throughout agricultural properties. Farm Bureau thanks Assembly Member Mathis for carrying this bill that allows farmers and ranchers to continue to build and enhance these natural habitats and respectfully ask for your aye vote today.

Good morning. Noelle Cremers with Wine Institute. I don't want to repeat what Ms. Little said or the author said, but do want to just reiterate the importance of the Accidental Take Provision in California law. Its purpose is to really promote and incentivize California's farmers and ranchers to provide habitat for listed species. So it's very important that this continue.

Now, from Wine Institute's perspective, we have members who produce wine grapes, and so they're out there on the land and have interactions with endangered species. Specifically, right now in Lake County, there's significant concern about impacts to the Clear Lake hitch, which is a large minnow endemic to Clear Lake, and our members are working to implement conservation actions to help ensure that the hitch does not go extinct.

Having the Accidental Take Provision is very important to help folks feel comfortable that they won't be in violation if they accidentally take the hitch while they're trying to undertake actions to help it. So it's for that reason and many others that we're in support and respectfully request your aye vote this morning. Thank you.

Is there any other support in the room?

Hi, Dennis Albiani with California Grain and Feed, California Seed. I was just saying, I think this is the very first bill I ever worked on in 1996 was created this one. But anyways, things go around, and we had a sunset then too.

Madam Chair and Members, Tricia Geringer with Agricultural Council in support.

Taylor Roschen on behalf of the Nisei Farmers League, African American Farmers of California, American Pistachio Growers, California Walnut, Tomato, Olive Grower and Fresh Fruit Associations, Apple and Tomato, Apple and Blueberry Commissions, Pest Control Advisors, Western Ag Processors, and Western Plant Health. Thank you. In support.

That might have been all the foods we grow. Seeing no further support in the room. Do we have opposition in the room? Let's come up and testify. Seeing none, we will go to the phone lines for support and opposition.

Thank you. Again, it's 1-0. Please press 1-0. We'll go to line 17.

Good morning. Staci Heaton with the Rural County Representatives of California in support.

And currently nobody else in queue.

Perfect. Thank you. Bringing it back to the Committee. Ms. Dahle moves. Ms. Davies seconds. Anybody have any questions or comments? Yeah, Ms. Dahle, did you?

Yes. Thank you for this bill and I'd also like to co-author. Thank you.

Absolutely.

I think we've worn them out. No other questions or comments? Okay.

There's added benefits to waiting to the end.

We have a motion in a second. Would you like to close, Mr. Mathis?

Absolutely. It's important that we have this safeguard for Accidental Take. This provides an incentive for local partners too, as was shared with the minnow. We did this with the pupfish in Inyo County. This is something that's continually done. It lets people feel like they're able to take part to help protect endangered species and to be part of the solution. I wish we weren't doing a sunset, but that's what we have in front of us. So, Members, I ask you for your aye vote and your support moving forward. Thank you.

There is no sunset, Mr. Mathis.

Oh, we got rid of it. All right. Let's celebrate.

So give us credit where credit is due. I would, thank you, I would appreciate it.

So we're done. Yeah, let's be done. No more sunsetting this. Mr. Albiani work well done, sir.

And we will call the roll.

AB 606, Mathis, do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

It has 14. It is out.

We'll close the roll on that one and call the roll again on the other bills for Members that were absent. Yeah. We'll start with the consent. And Mr. Alanis did not have the opportunity, but would like to add on as a co-author to AB 66. We said we were sure you wanted to say wonderful things. So there you go. Yeah. We will start with the consent calendar.

Okay, consent calendar. [Roll Call]

This hearing is adjourned. Thank you.