Assembly Standing Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife

The in number for this 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 their presentation. The operator on the line will give you instructions on how to be placed in a queue. If you are calling in, please eliminate all background noise. This includes muting your live stream broadcast and your devices to reduce sound issues. We have an agenda update the following bills have been pulled by the author.

Agenda item three, AB 401, Mathis. In the absence of a quorum, we will begin as a Subcommitee. Mr. Alanis, like me to bang the gavel. This is for Juan. And so with that, we're going to invite Mr. Alanis if you'd like.

Mr. Alanis, if you'd like to come up and present your bill.

Mr. Chairman and fellow Committee Members, I am presenting AB 293 to you today, which would allow immediate family members of the Gold Star Families to obtain basic lifetime hunting and sport fishing licenses without cost to those Gold Star families or members. California has set a long precedent of leading the way in honoring our state's fallen heroes and their immediate family members.

This exemption would do more than just honor service members and their family who have fallen in the line of duty. It would help provide additional access to healing and therapeutic outdoor activities like sport fishing and hunting. According to the Gold Star Registry, roughly 7,000 Gold Star families have ties to California, of which over 5,500 come from the Vietnam War alone, around 700 from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

These numbers would indicate to us that the physical impact to the state and the Department of Fish and Wildlife would be minimal. Persons who are eligible for this award would have to meet the federal guidelines for qualifications of proof that they are the immediate family members of a fallen service member, a spouse or partner, a parent, a sibling, or a child who was killed in a war zone by enemy action.

They would also have to have never been convicted of a violation of a fish and game code. I appreciate the work Committee staff has done with my team to address questions and concerns. Should this Committee move this bill forward today, we will work to address finding an independent source to verify who is eligible for this program. We are actively looking at how the DMV manages Gold Star Family license plates as one example.

DD form 1300 and vehicle code 5156 are also helpful models for interagency, excuse me, communication. As we work to bridge the needed gaps in process between state and or federal agencies. I also want to point out before I close, this program would be only for the most basic hunting and fishing licenses. There would be no enhancements.

Qualified Gold Star Family members would still have to follow current state regulations to obtain any enhancements to their hunting and fishing licenses and also pay the cost of any desired enhancements. Thank you for your consideration, and I am happy to yield at this time to any other witnesses and questions from the Committee.

Then, are there any witnesses in support that like to speak on this bill? Is there? Operator, anyone on the phone in support? Hearing none. Is there any opposition in the hearing room? All right, you guys are making this easy. Operator, is there anyone on the phone in opposition? Okay, hearing none. Let's open it up to Members of the Committee for any questions. Ms. Davies.

Good morning. For we know that our men and women have given their lives for our freedom, and the least we can do is to extend this to the families that still have sacrificed so much. So I'd like to be a co-author. I believe I may be on there. And I'd also like to move the bill because I believe we have a quorum. Thank you.

Thank you.

We don't have a quorum at this time.

I'll come back.

Ms. Weber.

Good morning. Thank you so much for this bill. I, too, think it's an amazing bill. I know this isn't the fiscal Committee, but I was just wondering, as I was reading through, do we have any estimates on how much this might cost, especially given different sizes of different families?

I'm being indicated? No, not at this time, but I can get that.

Okay. All right. And to just clarify, just for me, so Gold Star, who would qualify would be a spouse, kids, parents, sibling and grandparents.

I don't believe grandparents is on there.

So not grandparents. Okay.

No.

All right. Thank you.

Dr. Weber, just to clarify on that, and the reason why that is, is we amended the bill early on to use the federal standard for who could qualify for Gold Star lapel pin, which is the most stringent application process for anybody to be considered a Gold Star Family member. So that is why the grandparents are not there. But I think we would be open as a staff, and my member would be open if you have concerns about no grandparents and how we could work to get there.

Thank you.

We can definitely raise the standard if we need to.

Thank you.

Mr. Alanis, would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you. Again, I just want to thank the Committee staff for their work with my team on this proposal. We will continue to work to make it better and give it the best chance to move forward successfully. I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

And it looks like we now have a quorum, so we will call the roll.

[Roll Call]

And so now we can take a motion on the bill.

Okay. AB 293. Motion is do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

So the motion passes, but we'll leave it open for absent Members.

Thank you.

Adoption of Committee rules. [Roll Call]

Good morning. Seems appropriate we're hearing an atmospheric river bill today. I just drove through one. We need to adopt Committee rules. Do we hear, will someone move? Thank you. Thank you. Call the roll, please.

The rules are adopted. We are no longer a lawless Committee. Good morning, Mr. Ward. I was just saying, how appropriate it is that we're hearing your atmospheric river bill today.

What are these things called atmospheric rivers?

If you want to see one.

You can go right outside or we can talk about it here in this nice, dry room. So thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Really pleased to be with you today to present Assembly Bill 30. As you all know, atmospheric rivers produce up to 50 percent of our annual precipitation in California, but can account for about 90 percent of the flood and insured flood losses in this state, and with climate change, most of the extreme atmospheric rivers are projected to become more frequent.

Now, there's an existing AR--atmospheric rivers--statutory research program, but since that's been adopted from about ten years ago, we've actually had improvements in our forecasting and improvements in best practices in the engineering practices for flood operations and for dam operations, also known as FIRO, the Forecast-Informed Reservoir Operations. Assembly Bill 30 seeks to be able to link the existing atmospheric rivers research and forecast improvement program with FIRO into the Department of Water Resources's water supply operations and flood and hazard risk mitigation efforts.

By aligning this forecast development, we will not only be able to better optimize our water management, both releasing ahead of these storms, but also capturing more on the back end, and in totality, hopefully be able to modulate and be able to preserve most of our water supply with existing infrastructure, but also we might be able to better leverage federal agency support and funding.

Today I have Sandra Kerl, the General Manager of the San Diego County Water Authority, and Mark Fenstermaker with the Sonoma County Water Agency to testify in support.

Thank you. Good morning. I want to thank you, Chair Bauer-Kahan, and I want to thank Assembly Member Ward and Assembly Member Mathis for Assembly Bill 30. As stated, my name is Sandy Kerl. I'm the General Manager of San Diego County Water Authority, and AB 30 really brings together the science and hands-on water industry experience to promote more effective management of water resources.

The Water Authority really has long recognized the challenges of climate change and has really been posed to dedicate ourselves in the region to proactively addressing these issues. Improved prediction and forecasting of atmospheric rivers improves reservoir planning, operational management for not only the state's reservoirs, but for our local reservoirs as well.

Being able to predict when atmospheric rivers will reach San Diego region allows us more time to remind the public of the things they can do, like turning off their sprinklers and taking advantage of the atmospheric rivers. The Water Authority appreciates your support of AB 30. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Committee Members. I'm Mark Fenstermaker, here on behalf of Sonoma Water. Want to first thank Assembly Member Ward for bringing AB 30 forward. We are proud cosponsors of the bill. My comments are going to focus a little bit more on what happens when we don't have atmospheric rivers. Seems a little ironic, given the weather, but it's really drought conditions that brought Sonoma Water into this conversation.

Back in 2013, the U.S. Army Corps, who manages our reservoirs and a lot of the reservoirs across the state, told us we had to release water. That's what the rule said. These rules are from the 60s, and so that's what we did. We released about 30,000 acre feet, and then it didn't rain for about three years, and so we knew we had to do something different. We had to do better to adapt to climate change.

And that's when we started really working with Scripps Institute to understand our precipitation patterns, understand atmospheric rivers, and start working with the U.S. Army Corps on how we could better manage our reservoirs. I like to think of FIRO as bringing 21st century technology to our 20th century infrastructure and then bringing the rules from the 20th century into the 21st century. So what happened as we went forward, we worked with the core, got a minor deviation, it allowed us to hold more water back into our flood pool, and we did that in 2019.

And as you may recall from the last couple of years, this most recent drought, Governor Newsom went out to Lake Mendocino, one of our main reservoirs, when he announced the drought proclamation. He stood on a dry lake bed there at Lake Mendocino, and as the drought went on, it was really that little bit that we held back into the flood pool, about 11,000 acre feet, that was all that was left when the drought really took hold.

So for us, it's become a really key part of managing droughts. But we are hearing atmospheric rivers. Obviously, this past couple of months, we've seen atmospheric river after atmospheric river, and we've been able to apply furrow to flood control as well. The town of Guerneville is really prone to flooding. We saw that back in 2019.

And so back in January, as we were able to work with Scripps and see these ARs coming in, we were able to time releases based on when the next AR would hit. So we didn't add to the elevation of the Russian River, swell up the river because of releases that we otherwise would have made without this predictive capability, and so we were able to avoid flooding in Guerneville and along the Russian River because of the way FIRO can be used.

And so we're really excited to see AB 30 start to expand this out to other parts of the state. Obviously, we have partners in a big coalition that's implementing this, but we know that more can be done, and obviously we need all the tools we can to better manage our water in these times. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have anyone else here in support of AB 30? If so, you can come to the mic. State your name, organization, and position.

Good morning. Cindy Tuck with the Association of California Water Agencies. Strong support.

Good morning. Alyssa Silhi with the City of Santa Rosa, in support.

Good morning. Aaron Avery with the California Special Districts Association, in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Brenda Bass with California Chamber of Commerce, in support.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Rosanna Carvacho Elliott, here on behalf of the California Groundwater Coalition, also in support. Thank you.

Madam Chair, Jeff Neill, representing Contra Costa County, also in support.

Morning. Frank Hilliker, representing Lakeside Water District, also in support.

Hello. Kristin Olsen with San Diego County Water Authority, but also United Water Conservation District and San Luis/Delta-Mendota Water Authority, here in support.

Thank you. We'll see if there's anyone on the phone lines in support, those that decided not to face the atmospheric river. Operator, do we have anyone?

Yes.

And again, organization--

So go ahead, Operator.

If you would like to speak in support of--

Okay, thank you. We'll open line 18.

Read and Associates, representing the California Association of Professional Scientists, in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. And we have a couple more. One moment, please. We'll go to line 13. Line 13, your line is open. Line 13, please unmute your phone if you're muted. We'll move on to line 15. Your line is open. Line 15, your line is open. Please unmute your phone. We'll move on to line 12. Your line is open.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Martin Radosevich, on behalf of Santa Clara Valley Water District, in strong support.

Thank you. We'll go back to line 13. Your line is open.

Good morning. Pilar Onate-Quintana for the Yuba Water Agency, in strong support.

Thank you. There are no further in queue.

Thank you, and do I see anyone in the room in opposition? Seeing none. We'll go to the phone lines. Anyone on the phone lines in opposition? Operator?

And if you'd like to speak in opposition of this, please press one and then zero. And there are none in queue.

Thank you. Bringing it back to the Committee. Mr. Bennett?

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Want to compliment the author on the bill. We are in feast and famine in California, and this helps us prepare for the feast a little bit better, and so I'd like to ask to be a coauthor of the bill. I think it's a great bill.

Absolutely.

Ms. Pellerin?

Yes, this is a great bill. Very timely. My district--that includes Santa Cruz and Santa Clara counties--have been pummeled by these atmospheric rivers, so I'd like to be added as a coauthor as well. Thanks.

Absolutely.

Anyone else? Ms. Friedman?

Yeah. I appreciate your leadership, and I'd also like to be added.

Thank you, Ms. Friedman.

And I'll move the bill if you don't have a motion.

Ms. Schiavo?

Yeah, obviously timely today that you're presenting this, but in general, and would be happy to be a coauthor as well.

Thank you.

Seeing no further comments, thank you, Mr. Ward, for bringing this bill. I think, as you heard, it is so critical that we move the science to where it can be and enable ourselves to prepare for the dry years and capture all this incredible water during wet years like we have this year. So appreciate this work, and we have a motion and a second, so we will call the roll.

AB 30: motion is do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call].

15 to zero. You are out, and we will call the absent Members. For anyone who missed AB 293, stick around.

For anyone who missed AB, 293 stick around.

AB 293, do pass to Appropriations. [Roll Call]

That's 14 to zero. That bill is out as well. And this hearing, oh, do we. If Members want to add on to the rules, we'll call the absent Members.

So, adoption of Committee rules. [Roll Call]

The rules are still adopted. Thank you, everyone. With that, we will adjourn. This hearing is adjourned.