Assembly Standing Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife

Good morning everybody. Happy Monday. Before we begin 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 phone for any Members of the public that will be providing comment via phone. 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'd like to comment on begins presenting and be ready when you get called on. The operator on the line will give you instructions on how to be placed in the queue. And if you're calling in, please eliminate all background noise, which includes muting your live stream so we don't hear you. Echo.

We have two bills on the consent calendar today, AB 64 and AB 923. We do not have a quorum yet, so we'll take those up when we get a chance. Today, Assemblymember Patterson will be subbing in for Assemblymember Dahle. We will welcome Assemblymember Patterson when he gets here. Joe Patterson, it will be Assemblymember Joe Patterson. I thought I should clarify. We will now call the touring of Water, Parks, and Wildlife Committee to order.

We will start as a Subcommittee as we don't yet have a quorum and we will open with Ms. Papan's Bill AB 754.

Yes, good morning Chair. Thank you so much. And Members of the Committee, I want to start by accepting the Committee amendments, so just get that off the table. AB 754 will require urban and agricultural water suppliers who rely on reservoirs to initiate demand-side conservation when water levels drop too low. So it's essentially triggered by where you are in your reservoir curtain. Law requires water suppliers develop and implement water shortage contingency plans. However, these plans only trigger when total water supply is short.

As a result, conservation only occurs in a crisis. California reservoirs play an important role in the state's water supply and are increasingly more essential for managing ecosystems as temperatures continue to rise. In order to adapt to extreme temperatures and increasing drought severity, AB 754 will require existing conservation actions to be initiated earlier. Recognizing reservoirs frequently only constitute a fraction of a water supplier's portfolio. My office has been engaging with affected stakeholders to ensure this Bill is neither duplicative nor unworkable.

I look forward to continuing these conservation, these conversations, and I'm confident that we can reach a consensus that is workable while shifting our management practices from reactive to proactive. With me today to testify in support of this Bill is Cody Phillips, on behalf of California Coastkeeper Alliance. And on the phone is Don McEnhill on behalf of the Russian Riverkeeper.

Perfect. Two minutes when you're ready.

Good morning. Chair Bauer-Kahan and Members of the Committee. My name is Cody Phillips, the Policy Analyst for California Coastkeeper Alliance. California's normal climate is really weather whiplash extended and unpredictable. Drought is punctuated by incredible rain and flood. We must learn to adapt to these extreme weather fluctuations and conserve water from the wet years to sustain us through the dry. However, the state eagerly uses all available water immediately after the wet years and does not conserve until crisis hits.

As noted by Assemblymember Papan, under current law, urban water suppliers are required to develop water shortage contingency plans, but really only trigger when total water supply is outstripped by demand. This has impacts on water supply, but also downstream water quality and ecology. In addition, the multiyear analysis can be overly optimistic and some plans even expect a full return for water supply every year. For example, one plan noted that it could rely on a 4000-foot acre-foot per year from a reservoir.

But that reservoir only has a capacity of 3500 acre feet, implying that even in the driest five year drought, that reservoir will continually fill. AB 754 requires these water suppliers to take these forecasts and compare them to actual reservoir levels. And if actual reservoir levels fall below the forecasts, then preplanned shortage actions will automatically trigger. These automatic triggers will help take the politics out of shortage analyses and potentially unpopular conservation decisions.

Further, the Bill does not force water suppliers to take any actions they have not already considered within their locally designed water shortage contingency plans. In addition, drought plans exist within agricultural water management plans. But unlike urban plans, they're only triggered during drought and do not require clear description of any shortage response actions. AB 754 would require agricultural water suppliers to identify locally appropriate shortage response actions, tie those actions to various shortage levels, and implement those actions based on actual reservoir levels.

Instead of an on off switch where it either is or it is not a drought. This would develop a more holistic approach to water shortages. Instead of using water up to the point where demand is greater than supply, California needs to plan for long periods of drought and AB 754 will help accomplish this goal.

Thank you. Ms. Papan, the name of your witness on the line?

They should be on the line. It's Don McEnhill.

Don McEnhilll, are you moderator? Do you have him on the line?

If you are on the line, please press 10 at this time.

Good morning.

Thank you. Two minutes when you're ready.

Good morning. Chair and Members of the Committee, my name is Don McEnhill. I'm the Executive Director of Russian Riverkeeper. I've been working on water policy in the Russian and Eel rivers for the last 24 years. In the Russian River watershed, Lake Mendocino and Lake Sonoma are important reservoirs for water supply and ecology. Lake Sonoma provides a majority of Sonoma waters drinking water supply and releases from both reservoirs are essential for threatened Chinook and steelhead trout.

Because the Russian River is a managed system, reservoir releases an essential component to summer stream flows, ensuring aquatic habitat if reservoir levels drop too low, not only are endstream flows threatened, but the shallow water heats up and warm water is released, which can be lethal to oversummering steelhead and Chinook. Warm water temperatures can also increase the odds of toxic algae outbreaks in these reservoir systems.

Historical data shows that after rainfall and our reservoirs filling up, storage is quickly depleted, settings up poorly for bad years when rainfall doesn't replenish the reservoirs. A good example is late spring 2020, 15 months after a major flood topped off our reservoirs. We were alarmed by the reservoir's rapid drops. And by April 2021, the Governor was standing in the dry lake bed of Lake Mendocino declaring a drought emergency.

If we had kicked in mandatory conservation programs in 2020, we could have kept water in storage and averted very draconian water rights curtailments in 2021. By the time water shortage plans are triggered, we usually have mostly empty reservoirs. There's not much conservation can do because it only saves water we have doesn't make more. This Bill would ensure that conservation occurs before reservoir levels drop to perilous levels, protecting both our water supply and watershed against more frequent droughts. Thank you.

Thank you. Before we go to opposition, I have a quorum, so we're going to call the roll.

Bauer-Kahan here. Alanis here. Bennett. Joe Patterson. Davies. Friedman. Hart. Kalra. Pellerin. Schiavo. Villapudua. Ward. Weber.

We have a quorum. If there's opposition that would like to come up and testify, why don't you do that? In the meantime, would I'll entertain a motion on the consent calendar. We have 1 second motion by Mr. Matthew, second by Ms. Pellerin. Call the roll. Do you want to. We have AB 64 motion due past appropriations and AB 923 motion due past appropriations.

Bauer-Kahan aye. Mathis aye. Alanis aye. Bennett. Joe Patterson. Davies aye. Friedman. Hart aye. Kalra. Pellerin aye. Rubio. Schiavo aye. Villapudua. Ward aye. Weber aye.

That has nine votes. It is out. We will hold the roll open for absent Members. Thank you for your patience. When you're ready.

Good morning, Chair, Members. My name is Julia Hall with the Association of California Water Agencies. I appreciate the opportunity to speak on this Bill. We're respectfully opposed to AB 754, which seeks to ensure reservoirs are accounted for in urban and agricultural water management plans and to provide for automatic conservation measures. While we believe the Bill is well intended, it's largely duplicative of existing law and reporting requirements.

In 2018, the Governor signed SB 606 and AB 1668 into law, codifying his call for making conservation a California way of life. These bills established the statutory framework to improve drought preparedness and regional resilience. They also established and refined the requirements for urban and agricultural water management plans.

These existing planning requirements ensure that urban and ag water suppliers prepare and update a variety of drought related reports and plans, including these water management plans, which include drought risk assessments or drought plans, water shortage contingency plans, annual water supply and demand assessments and annual water budgets. Urban water retailers are also reporting water usage data on a monthly basis to the State Water Board and in January this year began providing additional quarterly drought related information to the State Water Board.

So, in addition to this extensive reporting, this Bill would require assessment of reservoirs and additional automatic conservation measures for those agencies that rely on reservoirs that they manage as a local water source, they are already accounting for the reservoirs in their management plans. For some agencies that receive water through a federal or state managed reservoir, it's not always practical to directly account for that supply in the way this Bill envisions, but it is identified as the supply.

Further, for urban agencies, the annual water supply and demand assessment also already accounts for reservoirs as a potential water resource. Much of what would be included in the required automatic conservation plan and the correlating conservation response actions would be duplicative of existing shortage response actions, communication protocols, and compliance and enforcement protocols that are already outlined in water providers water management plans.

This Bill seems to be creating a duplicative requirement without any additional benefits to either the state or local agencies, and for these reasons, we must respectfully oppose the Bill in its current form.

Pilar Onate-Quintana. On behalf of the Irvine Ranch Water District in opposition for the reasons outlined by Aqua. But we do want to acknowledge the author's comments and the sponsor's work as well as the author's office in engaging in conversations with us to see if the still quite large gap can be bridged on this. But we do appreciate those ongoing conversations.

Thank you. We love to hear that. Would anyone in the room like to come up and join on the mic in support of the Bill, name, organization and position?

Good morning. Aaron Wooley on behalf of Sierra Club California in support.

Thank you. And if anyone wants to join us at the mic to oppose or be a tweener, if you will, in the room seeing none, let's go to the phone lines. Any support or opposition on the phone lines. Moderator.

speak in support or opposition of AB 754. Please press 10 at this time. One moment for the first line. Here's line 17. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

And good morning. Paul Helleker from San Juan Water District in opposition.

Thank you. Bring it back to the Committee. Any questions or comments? Yeah, Ms. Pellerin.

Good morning. So I'm hearing from districts, water districts in my district, who are concerned that the bill is duplicative of current reporting that they're doing. So can you just help me understand how this is different.

Absolutely. So what's required now is a total plan based upon one's total water portfolio. What this bill does is specifically focus on reservoirs, and it requires that you have a certain level maintained in your reservoir. And if you get below that level, then automatically mandates come in to conserve water. And as my witness said, it is to take the politics out of when conservation kicks in.

And reservoirs are a really effective, predictable way of making sure that we have an initial supply of water and that we definitely keep supply on the downside of demand, if you will. And so that's kind of the difference. What's in effect now is the overall conservation plant. But this looks at one part of the portfolio and that one part of the portfolio is very effective at helping us ensure there will be water available when we need it. Did you want to add anything, Cody?

Yeah, just to highlight in the City of Santa Cruz's water shortage contingency plan, they even note that they would likely trigger the actions in the water shortage contingency plan before the law required it in order to maintain water supply in Loch Lomond reservoir, noting that it's a discretionary action that they're taking because of the benefits of doing these demand side conservation actions before supply is less than demand.

So in other words, your folks are already doing really good, and what they're doing kind of just backs up how this bill can be so effective in making sure that we have enough water. Thank you for the question.

Thank you. Mr. Ward.

Thank you. No, I appreciate bringing forward the issue and the need to be as careful in our planning as possible to make sure that we're looking ahead in time and knowing what the resources that we have right in front of us, particularly with reservoir systems, to be able to be as efficient as possible.

But I do share some of those concerns, too, whether or not this is duplicative, because I think a lot of both planning and our response measures that are both at local and state levels help us to address this.

And I'm worried that as the direction of this bill would prescribe, that this is just additional planning activities which come at a cost to those local districts passed on to rate payers and I wondered if a better way to achieve the same end is to really try to update many of our statewide standards that really try to use some of the same triggers on any given reservoir level to create requirements that are managed at a local level.

Go ahead.

Yeah, good question. So one of the issues that we've heard in conversations is the duplicative nature of creating a whole new plan. And we understand that. And we're working on amendments to not require the creation of a new plan, but to incorporate these reservoir triggers into the existing water shortage plans to basically get at the point that you were saying, instead of having a whole new issue going on, but just to have the existing actions triggered by those reservoir levels.

In other words, if you already have a plan, this just says, when you trigger that plan. This bill does not come in and tell you these are the mandates that you need to do. You're correct. Each agency has its own plan for mandates in conserving water. This bill does not seek to interfere with the mechanics of those plans, just when they kick in based on reservoir levels.

Okay.

Right. But those plans are required to be updated every so often. And so this bill would then require them to do additional analysis that incorporates a conservation plan based on reservoir capacity.

Yes, it would require additional analysis to look at actual amounts of water in reservoir or to do a bit more work on predicting the levels of water in the reservoir needed to satisfy the population and then to compare that to actual levels in the reservoir. So that would be additional work that isn't currently being done.

Okay.

And the reason for this, and I mentioned this before, is that a lot of, oftentimes these plans can be a little bit rosy in their predictions that even in the worst five year droughts, every reservoir is going to be filled to the brim almost continuously. And so to have more careful predictions compared to actual reservoir levels, we'll deal with that issue a little bit more.

Yes, but two things. One, urban water management plans do have to create at least three different scenarios based on high, average or low rates of precipitation or availabilities. And again, I think some of our existing, as we have been responding more and more to climate change related drought circumstances and have been at risk of running out of water in some areas, I think that we have improved our legislation and our administrative responses to these.

So I appreciate hearing that that's something that you've noted as well and want to be able to work on that issue should this move forward. I'd like to see where that kind of goes, but I'm nervous about additional requirements when water rates are already so high.

Ms. Schiavo.

I just wanted to make sure I'm understanding. So the levels of the reservoir is a trigger for planning, but there's not a requirement around levels of reservoir levels. There's not going to be a tension between releasing water to folks, water that people need, and where the levels of the reservoir need to be, correct?

This Bill doesn't dictate certain levels for any agency, no.

Okay.

The agency itself has to figure that out.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other comments or questions? Seeing none. Would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you, Chair. I think, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, this bill does not intend to be duplicative or require folks to do unnecessary work. It really emphasizes the value of reservoirs themselves being a key part of one's portfolio and maintaining water in that portfolio. And as we said, folks have their own plans and they can implement those plans. It's just when they feel it necessary, when things go too low, then they should, in fact, implement mandates.

So the reservoirs are really a key component of maintaining our water supply. Thank you. And I respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you. We have a quorum, so I can entertain a motion on the Bill. Thank you, Dr. Weber. And we have a second, Mr. Villapudua? Call the roll, please.

[Roll call]

Bill has six. We'll leave that on call for the absent members.

Thank you, Chair.

Don't go anywhere. You have another one now. We will go to AB 755.

Thank you, chair. Members of the Committee. Assembly Bill 755 requires public utilities to determine how major water users affect system wide cost. This analysis will serve as a necessary foundation for a more fair and equitable rate structure. Identifying how major water users have driven system expenses will shine an important light on the root cause of rising costs of water rates.

The maximum demand for water is often driven by the affluent single family residences that are notorious for using excessive amounts of water for outdoor irrigation. And while those with smaller meters pay proportionately less based on meter size, if they have no need for the new infrastructure, they are subsidizing the cost of water for those that do need that water. To be clear, AB 755 is not focused on the cost of water.

AB 755 specifically focuses on the fixed costs that are driven primarily by unnecessary use. In addition, AB 755 requires public utilities to post the price tag attributable to the major water user on their web page, along with the overall cost savings if the major water users had met efficiency targets. Understanding how our daily usage affects our monthly bills can be complicated. This lack of awareness can often hinder water saving efforts.

Furthermore, comparisons are helpful in illustrating how consumers consumption compares to that of their peers. Being those who are comparable households in the same area. This behavioral intervention can prompt positive competition effects and motivate users to reduce excessive water consumption. With me today to testify in support is Cody Phillips on behalf of the California Coastkeepers alliance and Abraham Mendoza on behalf of Community Water center.

Thank you. Two minutes each, when you're ready.

Hi Cody Phillips on behalf of California Coastkeeper alliance when utilities conduct cost of service analysis, they look at how much water is currently being used by their customers to determine the future water needs. And those future water needs in turn, dictate the size and scope of any new investments needed to satisfy peak future demand. As a result, above average demand on a system can increase utility operating costs and drive the need for new investments in additional plant and system capacity.

These costs are reflected in water bills, and those bills are composed of two portions, the variable cost of water, which tracks directly to how much water is used, and the fixed portion, which is usually based on meter size and stays the same regardless of the amount of water used. Peak demand costs are generally considered fixed costs, and single family residences may all pay the same for those costs regardless of actual water use.

In this way, those that conserve the most water can end up subsidizing water for those whose above average use drove the need to invest in new infrastructure in the first place. And researchers have studied a variety of cities to determine which factors are associated with the highest water use and found that increased vegetated cover combined with larger lots in newer homes with higher assessed values were associated with higher water use in each city. And that's a quote.

In other words, large, affluent single family residences with outdoor irrigation needs tend to use the most water in any system and drive costs for everyone. And when more customers conserve and utilities cannot sell enough water to recover on those infrastructure investments, these utilities are forced to increase the fixed portion of water bills, which exacerbates this issue even further.

AB 755 requires public utilities to take a hard look at who is driving the need for new capacity expanding infrastructure and to determine the overall savings had those customers been more efficient. This General information will then be made available on the cost of service analysis, which is a public document. Importantly, AB 755 does not require these utilities to change the rate structure, only to take a closer look at this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members. Abraham Mendoza on behalf of the Community Water center proud to support the Bill. In 2012, California enacted the human rights of water, which includes access to safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water. Still, statewide, Californians are approximately $600 million in debt specifically for costs associated with their drinking water. And statewide water rates continue to climb as climate change and drought change California's water landscape, water affordability is an issue that will continue to be exacerbated.

An estimated 13 million Californians living in Low income households bear the brunt of these soaring water costs. In 2020, the State Water Board estimated that the average family was paying 45% more per month for water in 2015 than in 2007. And as utilities attempt to drought proof their water rates, people's water bills are increasing, even if they are actually using less water. Public water agencies are additionally restricted in assisting these Low income customers with their water bills.

Unlike investor owned utilities whose lifeline rates can subsidize Low income customer bills, Proposition 218 prevents public agencies from creating these lifeline rates. When a basic need like water becomes unaffordable, hard decisions need to be made and Californians are forced to choose between water and other necessities like food, electricity and medication. The issue of water affordability needs to be examined closely to more clearly understand who is driving systemwide investments with increased water bills and who is paying those associated costs.

AB 755 sheds an important light on this issue to help ensure that water rates throughout the state are equitable, and we ask for your support.

Thank you. Do we have any primary witnesses in opposition to AB 755? Welcome back. Thank you.

So once again, I'm Julia Hall with the Association of California Water Agencies. Again, appreciate the opportunity to speak on this Bill. The Bill would require a public entity in a cost-of-service analysis to identify the incremental costs incurred by major water users and the incremental costs avoided if those users met the State Water Resources Control Board's urban water use efficiency standards.

I think the first thing to understand is that the State Water Board's urban water use efficiency standards are for an overall water budget for an entire agency and not for a single household. So I think that doesn't really work. Water rates reflect the overall cost of service incurred by a water agency to deliver water to customers, including the operation, upgrade and maintenance to the water delivery system, treatment plants and other water infrastructure.

The process for developing water rates and fees requires a detailed, independent study of the actual cost of supply and service. This approach helps ensure that rates are fair, equitable, and tied to the demand customers place on the water system. In addition, the cost of water reflects a combination of fixed costs and how much water is used, measured through water meters.

The requirements in this Bill would pose significant challenges for water agencies to determine the direct impact of major water users on a wide range of costs necessary to provide water service, including capital costs and operation and maintenance costs. The Bill would also require agencies to determine the incremental costs that would be avoided if major water users met water efficiency standards. These evaluations would force agencies to incorporate hypotheticals into their cost of service analysis. The inherent uncertainty of this analysis could expose agencies to liability.

The hypotheticals would also be based on the premise that, quote, major water users cause water systems to incur costs that far exceed what they're paying. The Bill does not account for how agencies ensure that customers pay their fair share. Developing rates and fees requires a detailed, independent study of the actual cost of supply and service. This approach helps ensure that rates are fair, equitable, and tied to the demand customers place on the water system.

While the majority of agencies costs can be fixed, the cost of water service is based on a combination of fixed and how much water is actually used. Water meters help determine how much water is being used so that water rates reflect usage. The Bill assumes that customers with large properties are water wasters. Water agencies have the ability to dress water wasters through other methods, but this is not done through the size of the property. For these reasons, we're currently opposed to the Bill.

Thank you, thank you. Seeing no other principal witnesses in opposition, we will take those here in support at the Mic if you want to say your name, organization and position. Good morning.

Aaron Wooley on behalf of Sierra Club. California in support, thank you and any folks that want to join us at the Mic to share their opposition name, organization and position. Again, pilaranate Quintana on behalf of the Irvine Ranch water District in opposition consistent with Aqua's comments, thank you.

Seeing no additional folks in the room, we will go to the phone lines operator anyone supporter opposition on AB 755 to speak from the phone lines on AB 755, please press 10 at this time. Line 24, your line is open. Danielle blasted hydran with the California Municipal Utilities Association respectfully opposed to the Bill and associate our comments with Ozavacqua. Thank you, thank you and we'll go to the line 17, your line is open.

Good morning. Paul Helleker with San Juan Water District in opposition consistent with Aqua's comments. And we have no further comments. Thank you. Please continue. Thank you. Moderator bring you back to the Committee.

Mr. Ward, thanks. Want to thank the author for bringing this forward. I actually think we're onto something really interesting here. Coming from local government, it was frustrating as well, trying to figure out how we could use options to be able to try to encourage, reduce the highest utilized users as well. And knowing that Prop 218 was sort of a barrier to that, it sort of left us frustrated. We know that very high users are going to induce demand.

That induced demand is going to actually create more, a higher price in addition to additional systems that would need to be able to be employed, fixed systems that would need be employed to be able to responsibly deliver that water throughout the lifetime. And then that really circles back to the fact that the rest of the users then are subsidizing that incremental, that marginal difference that again sort of spiral back to the additional demand that may be above what's necessary.

So I think that as this Bill were to move forward and actually be implemented, the analysis is interesting because it could help to sort of tease that out. It might be able to provide some kind of an understanding for what Prop 218 constraints are doing for our abilities to use other tools and try to reduce some of the most highly consumptive users. But were agencies actually trying to implement that based on that updated cost of service analysis alone?

I worry that they would be counteracted by suits alleging Prop 218 issues. I'm interested in that information, though, because I think that's something that could be very useful for us. And I actually think as this Bill moves forward, it would be great if we actually could look not just at the fixed service costs as well, but the pricing of the variable price of water, too. That comes at a cost as well.

And the more that we're trying to import into a region, the higher the cost it's going to be on everybody, and we're importing it for some more than others. So might want to think about that as move forward. But I appreciate where this is going, and I'm happy to move the Bill.

Thank you. Mr. Ward. Yeah, Dr. Weber. So thank you so much for bringing this Bill forward. I am honestly having a hard time understanding how individual customers would be teased out from the aggregate data, to be quite honest with you. And there's also another portion of it that it states that the major water users would be made publicly available on their Internet website why would we be doing that?

Yeah, I can take that. So the first part about individual customers being teased out. So the information that needs to be collected is how much water the major water customers are using, which is something that should already be available based off of pricing for the water that is used, and then to go back to the conservation as a way of life regulations, the efficiency regulations that the state waterbird is promulgating.

It is correct that those are holistic for the entire utilities area, but they do look at total irrigable lands and potentially irrigable lands. And if there is an efficiency factor that comes with that. And so being able to just identify the size of the property is part of it, to tease out the individual. And that may sound like a difficult task, but many water agencies are already doing that.

They have something called budget based rates, where they have a specific rate for individual customers based off of the size of their property and how much water they're using to irrigate their lands. So some water utilities may need to gather new data, other utilities should already have that data there, and then tying that all to the cost of infrastructure improvements.

When you look at forecasted rates, they do take the total volume of water that is being used and determine how much water will be used in the future. If you were to just take out a certain percentage of that volume based off of what you need to be more efficient, then you can come up with these hypotheticals to figure out what the potential savings would be.

For example, maybe there's a storage tank that needs to be met in the future with the current water use, but that storage tank is no longer needed in the future, saving everybody a bit of money on that infrastructure investment. I'm sorry, what was the second part of the question again?

Putting their information on the Internet.

Yeah. This is not supposed to be a public shaming. It's not supposed to be this person at this home, is there? It's just to say that the 10% of water users are putting this price tag on the system. So it just is supposed to be more of an awareness of how these water rates are being set, which is the whole point of the cost of service analysis, and just an overall understanding of who is driving the system wide costs.

So what you're saying is that. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Oh, I just wanted to add a comment that the so called major, excuse me, water users change on a monthly basis. So, I think that that's one of the things that would make this challenging, because the amount of water use varies significantly from month to month. And so I think that's. I didn't speak about it in my testimony, but just since it was pertinent to the discussion, I wanted to mention that.

Right? Yeah, that was another question. Because it says, whenever a public entity conducts a cost of service analysis, I don't know how often you all do that, because I assume it probably would change potentially from month to month or every time you do these things. What you're saying is that when you're talking about placing these things on the Internet, it would not be this house, this location, this particular individual.

No, it'd just be the class of water users.

When you say class, what do you mean by that?

What we're calling this Bill is the major water users, which are single family homes that use the top 10% of water among single family homes.

So give me an example of how that would be posted on the Internet, please.

It could be something along the lines that say, using the cost of service analysis, they break it down by customer class, which can include single family homes, commercial, institutional, irrigation, things like that. And so when there's analysis on the cost of water for single family homes, there could be an additional section that says, and among single family home customers, we have these major water users that use top 10% of water among single family homes.

But how would you be classifying them? Would you be saying, these single family homes in, I'm from San Diego area, let's say, La Jolla, is that how you're doing it?

We don't have those kind of requirements in the Bill. It's just for the class of major water users among all single family homes within the service area of the utility.

Okay, yeah, I'm not understanding that. I don't get that at the addresses or names, since it's the same question. May I? If Mr. Rio jumps in, Dr. Robbins.

So what's the point? What's the point of the Internet if you're not going to know ABC company, because you say it's not public shaming, but you're saying, what is the purpose of that information being on the Internet? How is one supposed to use that?

So there's two points. One is the analysis that the utility is supposed to conduct just to understand who's driving the system wide costs. And the second is just to make that information available, saying that those who use the most water in the system, as a generality, the top 10% of water users.

I understand that part. But available to whom? What's the point? What you're assuming is that I as a rate payer is going to go on and say, zero, top 30% are homeowners that are using it. And then what?

That information is just not currently available. And so having an understanding of it, it's not supposed to be an inventor, it's an informational piece.

I know, but what I'm saying is.

What is the purpose?

What are you going to use it for if it's available?

Well, I think it's that the larger water users are using this significant amount of the water that a provider is providing.

I understand.

So people can look and they go, well, wait a minute, if we have these big end users, like say, you have a lot that's four acres and I live in an apartment, and maybe we break it down by the size of the lot that it is, that single family homes that are this size are using 10% of the water. So that indicates that. And again, this is just based on information and equity.

That's the purpose of it, to show that, hey, some of these bigger folks are why we have to have a system that has a capacity of x when really based upon people in usage, it should be much smaller. Because I live in an apartment, why am I paying for huge infrastructure costs? So this Bill is to analyze that data, and so to post it on the Internet is just to provide that data to the public. That's all it is.

I know, but what is the purpose of providing it to?

Ultimately, we'll have an analysis of whether it should be equitable, that I in the apartment should pay as much for infrastructure costs as you need for your four acres, if that makes sense. If it doesn't, let me know.

It does. No, I get that, but I think one of the other, I mean, there's so many different variables that go into that. Right. And this is just, we're talking hypotheticals at this point. So you live in apartment by yourself? I live on an acre farm with 20 other people. That information is not included in the analysis, nor the information that you're reporting out. So I think you have dependent and independent variables when you look at different studies.

And so I just think it could be kind of skewed in how it's put out there because you don't have all of the information. You're just really looking at one data point instead of all of the potential data factors that go into it. But thank you for Rio. Yes.

So this is obviously statewide, so in the central valley, all of the ag folks are going to get dinged or published and published on the Internet, but we all know that they use water. I understand transparency, I guess, is what you're trying to do. But I don't see what outcome are you hoping to achieve by having this information on the Internet? That's the part that I'm not understanding.

I understand the data collection, et cetera, but putting it on the Internet, you said it's not publishing, but it feels like it is because there's no real usage, no pun intended, for the information. As a consumer. Okay, so do you expect that folks like me are going to say, darn it, those darn apartment buildings, let me go protest, or let me go to the water district and demand that they restrict the water from?

That's the part that I understand the information being there, but I don't understand what the end game is. As a consumer, what am I going to do with that information? Are you expecting that we're going to protest? Are you expecting that by having them on there, then people are going to reduce their water use? Because if that's the outcome that's expected from providing the information on the Internet, then it makes a little bit more sense. But then that it is public shaming. Right? At what point?

Again, I don't understand the purpose of posting it online if it's transparency purposes. I, as a consumer, I know the water districts have to do an annual report. Couldn't we just say in your annual report, can you put that data? Because I think, if I'm not mistaken, I was a Water Board Member, so we were supposed to do, every year we did our water report, water usage report. Wouldn't that be a better place to place that information?

Because on the Internet, not everybody has access to their Internet. So you're putting this information out there for whom? Right. If the goal is to talk people into, hey, maybe we're using too much water in this apartment building, the annual water report would be more the place because everybody's getting it. And the Internet, like the old folks home, is using too much water, like they're not on the Internet. You see what I'm saying?

Absolutely.

What the goal is.

Absolutely. And you raise a great point that it may be better placed in the annual report. I know, like when I get my property tax Bill, I get a breakdown of where the money is spent, an hour just spent on my local library or whatever it is. I'm not sure that I see it entirely differently. And if we put it in the report, wouldn't the report be online anyway? So I don't know, but that's the point.

If it's online, anyway, it's been a long time since I've been on the waterbird, but I do get those annual reports.

No, I agree with you, and I appreciate that you have that background. Excellent. And we can work with the language. Certainly if it is something from Weber, a separate posting that is uncomfortable for folks, we can certainly make it as part of the annual report.

But it's not that it's uncomfortable. I just want to understand what the end goal is. I mean, the whole purpose is to figure out what context, what is the end goal? And if there is a valid reason, then absolutely. But there isn't. It just seems like more paperwork for every agency for no real reason other than just placing it online.

Absolutely.

I guess that's what I'm getting at.

Yeah. Well taken. And it puts it more in context if it's in the annual report as well. Thank you.

If I may, I just want to point out two things that I want to make sure clear. One is this only applies to urban water districts. So the central Valley concern is a little bit muted by that in addition. Okay. But it does also say water users in the single family residential class. So I guess I don't know if those. But you could clarify if those are classified different than the single family residential class. But I assume they are.

So there's a couple of things in here that I just wanted to clarify.

And we'd be happy to clean up the language very clear. Maybe it is we only put in the annual report and then we are talking about what does that class consist of? Is it four acres with 20 people that we know of, or is it just four acres? That kind of thing? And that can certainly be clarified. I mean, the point is to not misconstrue data, but rather be as transparent as possible so that we ultimately end up with something that is more equitable.

Yeah, and it's mean. What I learned through this conversation was that my water district might be the only one that does public shame. East Bay mud does public shame. It's in the newspaper every year who our highest residential water users are. You can look at it. Some of my neighbors have been on that list. So I'm not saying that that's what this Bill does, but this data, I know at least where I live, is available because it's publicly available.

So I don't know that this is when I read this. I guess with that perspective, it seems like a much easier thing. But I'm learning that actually that's maybe unique in the state from my colleagues who are in different water districts. And I think one of the things that I always think is really valuable about the public access to this information is sometimes our NGOs and our academics are the ones that do the best with this data. Right.

Especially when it's data like this to provide us, I think, as policymakers, with the information necessary to see if a change needs to be made for equity. And so that piece of it, I actually think is interesting, although I appreciate the conversation around burdens and making sure those burdens are the least possible. But there is a real question here. And again, if you want to go look at the East Bay mud list, it is large single family homes in affluent suburbs.

That's who you're seeing using multiples of other folks water. Right. There is definitely, at least in what we can see in my community, this issue is alive and well. And to your point, we've had this conversation about energy at great length in this Legislature with them. Right. And it's a time we have this conversation around water. And I know Prop 218 is an important piece of that conversation, but. Mr. Mathis, did you.

Yeah, I was just going to say, with East Bay mud and current water districts, they report who violated. Who violated the water orders versus what. Yeah. The top hundred violators. I align my concerns with Dr. Weber in a lot of this. When we get into these academic studies and we're looking at data, when we focus in on one variable, we often miss the full picture on what's going on.

I do appreciate the discussion on wanting to fine tune the language, but until I see fine tuned language, I'm not going to be able to support this because water is used completely different in different areas. There's water abundance in some areas in the state. There's massive drought conditions in parts of the state. And when we start getting into this logic of, and we look at these numbers in some of these drought orders, the World Health Organization says, well, per person, you get 50 gallons of water.

That's all you need. Well, in a state as vast as California, we actually have the natural resources. If we get our act together and manage things better, where we could have water abundance instead of going in these drought flood years that we are. So with that, I will not be supporting this today. But I do encourage you to work with the opposition and work with others to make sure that if you are going to have something like this in the state, it paints the full picture.

Thank you. Anyone else? Such a robust conversation on a Monday morning? Yeah. Back to Dr. Weber. I know that coffee is very large, Ms. Rubio. It might get us in trouble. So I understand what you're trying to do, and equity is extremely important. Excuse me. I think that this particular Bill needs a lot of work. I think there's some generalized or some generalizations that you're kind of putting into this Bill. And I hope that we're not trying to publicly shame anyone. How maybe some jurisdictions do.

I believe that you will continue the conversations and improve it if it is to get out and hit the floor. So I will be supporting it today, but I do want to see some changes and some clarifications, and maybe we can have some more conversations offline before this gets to the floor, if it gets out. Thank you. No? Okay. Seeing and hearing. No further conversation. Ms. Pappin, would you like to close?

Absolutely. I agree. Thank you for the robust discussion. And so we will work to define the language a little more carefully, because the goal is important, that folks that are using a lot more water, thereby creating the need for a larger infrastructure, pay their fair share. And so the goal is equity. And this is a study to figure out how we get there, but we'll certainly work with how the study needs to be done to make sure that we're revealing where equity can be best achieved.

So we will go forth and do that, but the need to analyze so that we ultimately achieve equity in these rates is desperately needed. So I request for an I vote, please. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a motion by Mr. Ward. Did we have a second? Aye don't know. No. Okay. Fellow in seconds, please call the roll. AB 755. Motion is do pass to appropriations Bauer-Kahan? Aye. Bauer-Kahan, aye. Mathis? No. Mathis, no. Alanis? Alanis, no. Bennett? Joe Patterson? Davies. Davies, no. Friedman? Hart, aye. Kalra. Pellerin. Pellerin, aye. Rubio? Rubio, aye. Schiavo? Schiavo, aye. Vilipudua? Villapudua, aye. Ward? Ward, aye. Weber? Weber, aye. That Bill has eight votes. AB 755 is out.

But we will leave the roll open for absent Members. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Um, thank you for being so prompt this morning. You got us started. I appreciate that. Mr. We are going to take up Mr. Via Poodwa's Bill AB 305.

Okay. When you are ready, Mr. Villapudua.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Members. I want to start by thanking you and your staff for working with my office. This is an important, timely measure, and I accept the Committee's amendments. AB 305 will ensure that the state can adequately protect Californians from catastrophic flooding by enacting the California Flood Protection Bond Act of 2024. Climate change in California is increasing water related events such as drought and mega floods.

2023 has seen one of the wettest years on record after several years of drought, and although the water we have received is a blessing, we have also seen the devastation it can leave behind due to major flooding. Many areas of the state experience severe flooding leading to river banks overflowing, flood towns, debris flows, and loss of lives. The recent series of storms is also likely to cost billions of dollars in damages and likely more once our snowpack begins to melt.

Rapid snow melt this spring and summer could mean more flooding, especially if it coincides with more heavy rain and higher temperatures. The increased volume of water may cause rivers, dams and levees to overflow, further flooding nearby communities and farmland. As we have seen time and time again, we are not prepared for episodes when we receive too much water. Unfortunately, the infrastructure we currently have in place is not built for the needs of 40 million people and more intense, extreme events.

Our infrastructure simply has not been able to keep pace. In some places, it has not been able to handle the floodwaters, and there's been a lot of flood damage to homes and businesses in towns across California. This has impacted lives of people in the communities like mine, San Joaquin county and those in communities like Planada, Allensworth and Pajaro. Flooding has also affected farmers who have lost parts of their crop production.

This should be trouble to all of us because we depend on them to produce our food and provide jobs. The devastating floods that have affected California this year highlights the urgent needs for further investment. Unfortunately, the lack of funding continues to be a major challenge implementing needs flood protection projects.

The most recent budget proposal seeking to cut funds for projects currently are on the table, demonstrating the needs for flood protection bonds measure. I introduce AB 305 because we need to ensure that just we are preparing for drought years. We are also preparing for flood years. For these reasons, it is important that we focus on making investments that would protect our rural and urban communities.

These include multiple benefit flood improvements, flood plains restoration, groundwater manage, aquifer recharge, levee improvements, levee repair, infrastructure improvements, dam safety, and funds to support communities with limited resource to deal with large flood events. AB 305 will enact the California Flood Protection Bond Act of 2024, which, if approved by voters, would authorize the assurance of multiple billion dollar bonds for flood protection across the state.

AB 305 will protect rural and urban areas of the state to ensure we prevent the loss of lives and infrastructure which increase water supplies and restoring natural habitat. With me today to testify and help any questions is Julia Rentner, President of River Partners, and Glenn Prasad, Deputy Executive Director of San Joaquin County Area Flood Control. Thank you.

Awesome. Thank you. Would either of you like to provide testimony? Yeah, go ahead.

It's an honor to address the Committee. Thank you for your attention on this important matter. My name is Julie Rentner. I'm the President of River Partners, which is a not-for-profit that specializes in habitat restoration in rivers in the Central Valley. But I'm also the President of Reclamation District 2092, which is responsible for maintenance of rural levees along the San Joaquin river.

In that role, for the last 15 years, I've had the privilege of partnering with Stanislaus County and the California Department of Water Resources to complete watershed wide flood management planning for the region and for the entire San Joaquin system. The act before you today represents the needed infrastructure investments and alignment amongst multiple sectors in the San Joaquin Valley to bring us into a modern flood management era.

Our climate change projections show that flood risk in Stockton and Manteca and Lathrop is projected to increase three to five times our flood of record as of right now, and that requires significant investment to protect life and property. Upstream of those urbanizing areas, though, we have a great opportunity to expand reconnected floodplain corridors for the benefit of wildlife habitat restoration, public recreation and preservation of our agricultural economy.

This act is also of importance to the entire State of California in that it modernizes our water supply infrastructure in ways that optimizes the use of the aquifers beneath our feet for water storage and protects important infrastructure that's necessary to move water to southern parts of the state. I appreciate your time and thank you for any important questions.

Thank you. Do you want to add anything?

Sure. Thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Glenn Prasad and I'm the Deputy Executive Director for San Joaquin Area Flood Control Agency. I'm here to offer testimony in support of Assembly Bill 305. The San Joaquin Area Flood Control Agency, or SJAFCA, is grateful to Assemblyman Villapudua for his leadership in introducing this bill and drawing attention to the significant resource shortfall around the state and to fund essential flood protection infrastructure to protect lives and property.

In partnership with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the State of California, SJAFCA is currently implementing an over $1 billion project to protect north and central Stockton from the kinds of devastating floods that are becoming all too common. This project will bring nearly one billion dollars of federal investment to the region, but the state and SJAFCA will still be responsible for over $400 million. And this project is merely the first of several large scale flood protection projects needed in our region.

In December, the Central Valley Flood Protection Board, a board within the state's natural resource agency, estimated that more than $20 billion of investment is required in flood protection in the Central Valley over the next 30 years.

On top of that need, tens of billions of dollars will be needed to combat sea level rise along with coast repairs, levees such as those that recently fail along the Pajara river in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, develop and implement a plan to protect tens of thousands of acres of farmland now under the Tulare lake and address other essential projects around the state. We have not passed a flood protection focused bond since the passage of Proposition 1E in 2006, and we cannot wait any longer.

For these reasons, we offer our strong support for Assembly Bill 305 and we request your support.

Thank you. I do not think there's any opposition on this. Correct me if I'm wrong, seeing none. Would anyone like to join us on the microphone to provide support or opposition in the room? Thank you, Ms. Rubio. Motion by Ms. Rubio. Do we have a second? Second from everybody.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. Adam Quiñonez, on behalf of the Association of California Water Agencies, we have a Support If Amended position. Happy to be working with the author and staff on our amendments. Thank you.

Thank you.

Pilar Onate-Quintana for the Irvine Ranch Water District and Yuba Water Agency in support with a particular appreciation for the substantial dam safety and climate resilience funding.

Good morning, Mr.- Madam Chair and Members. Kristin Olsen, on behalf of the San Diego County Water Authority and United Water Conservation District. Want to express appreciation to the author for including the dam safety funding.

Thank you. Okay, seeing no additional folks in the room. Moderator, do we have anyone on the phones? Support or opposition?

Thank you, Madam Chair. We do have at least two people who have signaled that they wish to speak. Anyone else who wishes to speak, please press one, then zero.

And for those on the phone, name, organization and position, please.

We're going to first go to line 33. Your line is now open.

Good morning, Chair. Martin Radosevich, on behalf of Santa Clara Valley Water District with the Support If Amended position. Would like to thank the author for the dam safety funding included, and just like to seek geographic balance for the flood protection-

Just name, organization and position, please.

Line 34. Your line is now open.

Good morning, Chair, Members. Eric Turner, on behalf of the California Stormwater Quality Association with a Support If Amended position.

Thank you.

There is no one else who signaled that they wish to speak.

Thank you. Bringing it back to the Committee. Yeah. Mr. Ward.

Just want to thank the author for bringing this forward. And to the extent that there's any synergy with, I know another bond measure out there, AB 1567. It's a little more comprehensive. I appreciate we're focusing on flood control and dam safety provisions as well. Definitely want to highlight groundwater storage support that we know is desperately needed out there across our statewide water systems. So I'd love to see how this is going forward and how everything sort of is able to kind of reconcile as both go forward. Very supportive of your work today.

Thank you.

Ms. Pellerin.

So certainly this winter has taught us how important it is that we have aggressive flood protection measures and dam protections as well and safety. And, I mean, there was a concern about the geographic balance. And are you working with the folks on doing some amendments to the bill in that area? Yeah? Okay, great. And I would like to be added as a co-author as well. So thank you.

Ms. Davies.

Thank you so much for bringing this. I just want to make a comment. I think it's really important that whatever we can do to make sure that if this goes through, projects actually happen, because we know we've got a bond that was supposed to provide storage and that was how many years ago, and we still haven't done that. So that's my biggest concern as we go ahead. And if this goes forward and we have a $30 billion bond, what's going to happen with those projects? Are they going to sit there as well?

And we're going to be having the same over and over. So whatever we can do to actually start putting pressure when the people actually approve something or they don't approve it, but if they approve it and they're paying the taxes and these projects aren't getting anywhere, someone's got to be held responsible. So I think it's up to this body to start holding the state responsible for actually doing what they are supposed to do. Thanks.

Thank you. Oh, yeah, Mr. Mathis.

I'm like, yeah, I guess I'll go ahead and step up and say something. I think it's no secret I'm not a fan of bonds after we've seen what happened with Prop. 1. And my concerns get to the fact of everything that you're trying to do absolutely needs to get done. And I think we're all in agreeance that we need to take action. That's why I've taken efforts to push for ballot measures to look at a percentage of General funds.

I know we have an author in the room that is looking at an ACA to push similar things, but we as a body have to put funding forward ongoing to tackle our water concerns, our environmental concerns, whether it's flood or storage or what. But until we dedicate ourselves to do that ongoing, we're going to continue to have these problems because the concerns with the bonds is by the time we get it certified, by the time we get the projects done, we look at our inflation rates.

And now what we knew as a cost fix today is now a quarter of what we thought we were going to be able to get. I think we need to look really deep and hard on how we fund our massive projects. And I applaud Mr. Villapudua. I applaud your efforts. And I know you're a valley guy. I'm a valley guy. Water is everything for us.

And I appreciate the approach, but we have to do something more than borrow from our great grandkids in their futures and hoping that these things will get done. So I'm off on it. But I do appreciate your work.

Thank you, Mr. Mathis. Oh yeah, Ms. Schiavo.

So I want to thank you also for bringing this forward. Obviously, coming out of LA, we need to do a whole lot more and have been working to do a whole lot more, but need this kind of support to be able to capture more water especially and prepare for floods in a very urban.

I guess, you know, I wonder if there's anything that can be inserted to kind of address the concerns of Assemblymember Davies around making sure that this money gets out and put to use quickly. And I think goes to Mr. Mathis, concerns around also increased costs, the slower we are turning things around, right.

And if there can be just consideration of kind of deadlines or goals or goal posts to hit, to be able to make sure that we're moving it forward as quickly as possible, report backs, something that will flag for us how quickly this money is going.

And if it's not, and we need to grease the wheels or push in some way and make sure that it's happening, because I think everyone here agrees this is really important and we want to make sure that it does what it's supposed to be doing and gets out as quickly as it can.

Yeah, well, through the Chair, I concur with everyone that has spoken today. One of the water gurus was a good friend of mine, Assemblymember Adam Gray, who I learned a lot from and asking him questions and, you know, we need to do more. Three months, we're going to be talking about fires. It's going to happen. It's California. But I don't want to turn around and wait another 10 years. What was it, 2006? I mean, we can't wait. We can't do that anymore.

If you've seen not just my or the valley, but other cities that it's hurt their cities and we don't know the outcome of it yet, and it's going to be in the millions of dollars and that sometimes goes back to a taxpayer. So what the bond really is doing is really to protect California so that it doesn't happen in your community, and we need to do more.

So, yes, I would agree that we have to make sure if we're going to talk about it, let's do it. We have to push this forward. And it's going to be us here that is going to have to try to push this forward. So I have heard everyone and I've heard you guys have heard it from your communities that we need to do more. So with that, I would ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Just double checking. That was Schiavo. Okay. You'll get to close again. Don't worry.

Through the chair. But just to address some of the concerns and why you don't see timelines and you don't see specifics on how soon they have to get it done or streamlining effort on CEQA things or these things. Because anytime in the history of us doing these things, and I've been at it now in my tenure, the environmental community will come out and immediately start picking it apart and start trying to destroy every little thing we do to get projects done.

I've seen it time and time again. If we put in what the projects are going to be, they will go and they will pick one of those projects to try to demonize the whole entire thing. So as we look at trying to do these efforts, these are those things that we have to consider. Mr. Villapudua brought up our past colleague, Mr. Gray. And we were in those fights for a long time on water. And anytime you start putting a list of projects in there, it gets attacked more.

Anytime you put a streamlined effort in or a countdown clock, the environmentalist groups come in and they don't want to see that. That is the problem that we have in this state because there's a ton of projects that need to get done. They need to get done very quickly. My district, and this hurts me because my district has been declared a national disaster zone because of flooding, because again, Prop 1 hasn't happened. These other things haven't happened.

We don't have the systems in place, and these are things that need to happen now. But to kind of answer your question a little bit is this is kind of the history of this. So I thank the chair for giving me an opportunity to kind of give some of the history of what's happened here. Again, I applaud the efforts.

And the chair will also take a point of personal privilege to correct the history. First of all, since environmentals have been invoked, and I am an environmentalist, I think it is the job of the Committee, and many Members of the Committee would agree with me in saying this, although not all, to balance the needs of the environment with the needs of everything else that go with it. We only have one planet, so we got to protect it.

And a lot of what we look at is how do we protect the environment and build these projects. And I know many of you were not on the Committee last year, and I believe the year before I was Chair, and there have been many conversations about Prop. 1, and it is very complicated. A lot of projects have been done, a lot of money has gone out.

But part of what we've seen is a challenge with local communities being able to put up the matching dollars, which is part of what is required under a lot of these funds. And so that is something we should be looking at. And that is a really key piece of this is how do we ensure that communities that need this, that cannot provide the funds, can get access to this money.

And that's really critical because I think in many of the instances you spoke about regarding flooding, we see infrastructure equity issues. These are communities that do not have the ability to raise the funds to then get access to the bond funds that are available.

And that is really critical for us to look hard at in order to have equity to make sure that we are putting up the dollars for those communities to ensure every single community is safe, has access to projects, whether it be flood protection or storage or whatever the case may know. I see my communities in the process of expanding Los Vaqueros, and they put together a joint agency, and we're probably going to be able to do it. But it's a Bay Area community, right?

So that's within our reach, and it's not true all over the state that that is within reach. And so that's really critical.

But I know that I've met with River Partners and others, and I think part of what is incredibly special about what you're doing here is that not only will it protect communities, which should be first and foremost, and when I started looking at this question of floodplain expansion and flood protection, there was so much consensus of what we needed to do, which, by the way, we don't often have in this discussion. And the question was, how do we support it happening?

And so I'm really grateful that you're doing this. And as the witnesses said, this is also an example of where we can protect communities, we can benefit our water tables, and at the same time we're benefiting the environment. A lot of the floodplain expansion is so positive for the environment. And so there's sort of, I think, a win-win-win here and it is our job.

And we will continue to have oversight hearings over current bond money, but obviously, I would urge future chairs to do the same. I will only be here for eight more years. So this bond money, if approved, will be here long after me. But it is our job to continue to make sure these dollars go out and the projects that we want to see and the voters want to see, right, because you're just asking the voters to approve it get done.

But Ms. Schiavo, did you want to add on?

Yeah, I guess just a follow up and appreciate comments. I am a new kid on the block here and learning a lot and appreciate the opportunity to do a lot of learning around this issue, which is so important to my district and certainly not suggesting that we need to micromanage what projects are talking about, really just report back so that we know what's going on and where projects are and what kind of money is being spent and any kind of barriers that you're talking about right around local funding, matching funds, things like that.

And so I wonder if there's an opportunity for us to do kind of a regular informational hearing about this or something that, where these things can be flagged for us and we can figure out if there are follow up actions that need to be taken by the Legislature to make sure that we are moving forward as quickly as possible. Because I know it's painful. We talk about this in a lot of areas about money that's still not being spent that's so needed, right.

As we see the cost of everything related to infrastructure going up so quickly and so wanting to make sure that we're reducing any kind of bottlenecks that we can in the process. And I think everyone, probably folks agree on being able to do that. And if things are flagged for us, then we have an opportunity to engage around those issues much more effectively.

And I will say that the Vice Chair actually has a bill that he amended in this Committee that will provide a lot more sunshine around the permitting processes for these projects that I think will hopefully help. So that moved out of this Committee sometime in the past.

Yes, I do appreciate the streamlining bill, but I think to the point, more specifically, since we're taking liberties in history on bonds and other measures at the moment, what I would appreciate seeing from the Committee is I know several of us have looked at doing ACAs, which would be bringing a ballot proposition to the voters to look at how we can use General Fund dollars ongoing to address water needs, especially in communities that don't have matching funds, looking at ways where we can open up water funding for schools, because currently schools don't have access to that and they have to do bonds to get access.

So, like LA Unified has a multimillion dollar lead pipe problem. Where do you get funding to fix that? Where do you get funding to fix that for rural community schools like mine? I had introduced an ACA in a prior session that didn't get a hearing at all that addressed these things and had looked at these things that I think we as a body, and I appreciate the time, Madam Chair, to make a selfish plug on policy.

But we need to look at how we can better use our General Fund dollars to address these issues, because schools don't have access to any water funding at all, and it's a huge problem for our kids and that increases local bonds and property costs and all these other things, and gets to the exponential cost on housing and water also.

So I look forward to hopefully having a few Committee hearings to dig into some of these things and look at how we can better do our funding and better streamline our stuff. And for any of the Members that would like to talk to me about some of these other valid issues and different ways we can approach this, I'm obviously open to that. But enough of the selfish plug.

We went aside of Mr. Villapudua's bill. So let's get back to the issue at hand. I think that was that. Do we have a motion? Second? Do we have a second? Yeah. Okay, perfect. Would you like to close?

I would. I want to thank everyone for all their comments, and especially the Chair, the comments that you made about protecting, right? This weekend I spent whole weekend cleaning debris from the floods. We were out there. And at the end of the day, it is about protecting Mother Earth. And so with that, I would respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Let's call the roll.

AB 305, due pass as amended to Appropriations. [Roll call]

[Roll Call].

Thank you, Ms. Rivera. Ms. Pellerin will--oh, it's out. It got nine votes. So we will move to AB 566: Ms. Pellerin. Motion by Mr. Ward; second by Dr. Weber. I know, right? And I would invite our--I have a bill, so we're not desperate, but Ms. Wicks and Ms. Friedman, if they could join us in the Committee room. You guys are up next.

Hi. Thanks for being here.

Thank you for joining us.

Okay. Good morning, and thank you, Madam Chair and Members. I'll start by accepting the Committee amendments, and thank you so much to your Committee staff for working with us. Following the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex Wildfire, which burned across the entirety of Big Basin Redwoods State Park and portions of surrounding parks, the California Department of Parks and Recreation initiated a planning process to reimagine the future of the Big Basin Redwoods.

In this effort, State Parks has partnered with various conservation organizations across the state to identify and evaluate land parcels that are essential to improving forest health, connecting landscapes, and building climate resilience. Conservation nonprofits that partner with State Parks often purchase properties with the intention and shared goal with State Parks to ultimately transfer ownership of the land parcels to the Department for long-term protection.

The current process of state land acquisition, which requires approval by the Public Works Board and the Department of General Services, is often delayed. When conservation organizations end up having to wait many months to transfer property to the Department, it creates uncertainty for conservation partner entities regarding whether the land they purchase will be bought or accepted by the Department in a timely manner.

This uncertainty and untimeliness will often leave organizations in a vulnerable position as they must continue to own and manage high conservation value lands for long periods of time. AB 566 provides certainty of land transfer from acquisition partners to State Parks by allowing State Parks to enter into an agreement with nonprofit organizations and Native American Tribes stating that their intent to permanently protect these lands.

And with the Committee amendments I am accepting today, this bill allows State Parks to determine if land parcels beyond the Santa Cruz Parks District would be a suitable for state park land acquisition. With me to testify in support are Sara Barth of the Sempervirens Fund, and Abigail Mighell on behalf of the Save the Redwoods League.

Two minutes each, when you're ready.

Good morning, Chair and Members. I'm Sara Barth, Executive Director of Sempervirens Fund, California's first land trust and the proud sponsor of AB 566. For over 100 years, Sempervirens has been a close partner to California State Parks, working to protect redwood forests of the Santa Cruz Mountains.

As the Assembly Member mentioned, a large wildfire burned through most of Big Basin and large parts of Butano and Ano Nuevo state parks in 2020. In the wake of this catastrophic fire, much of the park's facilities, at least at Big Basin, were destroyed completely, and State Parks initiated a public planning process to reimagine the future of Big Basin.

The Department's vision for that future involved relocation of visitor facilities outside the current park boundaries to protect ecologically sensitive old growth redwoods and to strengthen land connectivity between Big Basin, Butano and Ano Nuevo, both to support climate resilience and to enhance wildfire management.

State Parks indicated to us and others that new land acquisitions were going to be needed and worked with Sempervirens and others to develop the tool that was referenced to help prioritize what lands were most important for acquisition to achieve the state's vision with regard to Big Basin, as well as to deliver on the state's 30 by 30 goal of a connected climate resilient and accessible state park system.

As was mentioned, organizations like Sempervirens are essential partners, helping to acquire new parklands quickly in a way that the state and the agency cannot. However, we are left with no certainty about whether those lands that we purchase will ever actually be acquired by the state. This legislation, AB 566, will provide a streamlined process for that land transfer and mimics a process already being used successfully by the Wildlife Conservation Board and the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

It also provides a bit more certainty to partners like ours who are trying to do the right thing by parks. AB 566 is crucial to not only reimagining and rebuilding these three parks, but also to achieving the state's 30 by 30 goal. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Thank you, Chair and Members, once again. Abigail Mighell, on behalf of Save the Redwoods League, who has been a close partner of State Parks since the Department's inception nearly 100 years ago, and has transferred land to nearly 40 state parks, oftentimes through donation. We'd like to speak today in support of AB 566 and talk about how it impacts acquisition and land protection, even outside of the Santa Cruz area and with the new amendments statewide.

This streamlining of the Public Works Board process will dramatically cut down the time that it takes for conservation organizations to then transfer land to State Parks, increasing recreation opportunities statewide, which, of course, is of utmost importance right now with a growing population and making sure that conservation organizations can continue to protect new lands, just as the League tries to do as quickly as possible.

It'll ensure that we can continue being effective partners to State Parks and keep protecting the wonderful resources around the entire state. So for all of those reasons, we respectfully request your support. Thank you.

Thank you. I do not think we have any opposition to the bill, but opening it up--seeing none. Anybody who wants to add support at the microphone? Seeing none, we'll go to the phones. Moderator, any support or opposition on the phone lines?

For any support or opposition, please press one zero at this time. We have none in queue. Please continue.

Thank you. Bringing it back to the Committee. Seeing no questions or comments. I really want to thank the author. Oh, yeah--sorry. Miss Davies. Go ahead.

I just want to clarify that this is a regional bill?

So with the amendments, we are opening it up so it applies statewide.

Thank you.

Apparently, I think I just pointed, Ms. Davies. So I want to thank you. As you know, in our conversations, this is something that I have been dealing with. You said months, but actually it can be years that these organizations are dealing with this, and since I've been elected, I've been dealing with Save Mount Diablo with this exact problem. And the work that these organizations do is critical not only to expanding our state parks, but to the conservation.

Save Mount Diablo has been able to save so much land on the Diablo range that we are seeing species come back that haven't been there in decades, and so the changes that can be made through these land acquisitions is so, so meaningful, and to be able to expand our state parks is really critical. And I know for many of these organizations, maintaining this land in perpetuity is not an option.

And they really do it understanding that State Parks will become the entity that will maintain the lands, and then that doesn't happen, and that's really challenging, and it inhibits their ability to then protect more land because they have to maintain the lands in their portfolio.

And so this is such critical work, and I'm really grateful that you were willing to expand it out so that every part of the state--because I know you and I are not the only two dealing with this problem--can really have access to the streamlining and to the ability to get more certainty.

And as a kid who grew up in Big Basin Park every summer at camp, this is a special part of the state, and I'm excited to see what it will look like. With that, would you like to close?

Thank you. Again, I wanted to thank the Chair and the Committee staff for working with us on the amendments, and I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

We had a motion. Do we have a motion? We do have a motion and a second. Okay. Let's call the roll.

AB 566: 'do pass as amended to Appropriations.' [Roll Call].

That is eight votes, it is out, and I feel like we are on a roll in this Committee of cutting the green tape. So thank you. Now, we do not have Ms. Wicks or Ms. Friedman, so I will go, but I'm saying it again: Ms. Wicks and Ms. Friedman, please join us in the Committee room.

All right, I believe we're presenting AB 108. Move the Bill. Thank you. And then, Madam Chair, I believe you were going to bring up.

Yes. So we're going to bring up four folks, if you will. Brendan Cummings from Center for Biological Diversity, Kim Delfino, representing several environmental organizations. I think Shannon Eddy, on behalf of Large Scale Solar, if I'm right, and Cassie Gilson, on behalf of the California Building Industry Association, are going to join me up here.

Yes. Brendan Cummings, on behalf of biological.

Yes, Brendan's right here. Perfect.

So this is a little unorthodox. We don't have, actually any opposition. The author is working with some who have concerns. So that way we can better address and better have the dialogue. We're bringing everybody up? Yes. You may proceed.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair and Members. AB 1008 is a Bill that will protect the Western Joshua Tree, an iconic plant species present in the Mojave Desert region in Southern California. As many of you know, the high desert is where we are not only expanding out our housing as is necessary but also building incredible green energy resources. This butts up against the need to protect species that are unique to the desert, and that includes the Joshua Tree.

In an effort to ensure that we meet our goals as a state to continue building housing and clean energy, but also our environmental goals of ensuring that we do not kill off species. The coalition you see before you is working together to ensure that we have a piece of legislation that does something that I think we should do more in this state.

As many of you that were here last year know, I worked on a Bill focused on resource conservation planning, expanding out the ability for local communities to plan for conservation. That planning does something really unique, which is, instead of one off mitigation, it allows for mitigation funding to happen that will not only protect a species in a meaningful way, but track the protection of that species.

And it tends to be more successful than when we just do one off mitigation for species that are being affected by our development efforts. And so that's what this Bill really is working to do, is to say, let's create a mitigation scheme for the western Joshua Tree to ensure that we continue our building efforts while also protecting these species in a meaningful way. You may hear about there was an effort, there continues to be an effort by the Administration to do this through a trailer Bill.

The significant difference between this legislation and the Trailer Bill is the interests that we have here to protect the California Endangered Species Act writ large. So how do we protect the species, allow for the continued development, and ensure that we're holding the Endangered Species Act as a tool that is available to us when a species get to the point where it needs that higher level of protection. And so that's, in short, what this Bill does.

You will hear from the folks who are with me here today that it is not all ironed out. I will by no means make that claim. But we are working together to ensure that we can meet all of these goals in a way that works for everybody. And we will continue those conversations beyond today. But I'm optimistic that moving this piece of legislation through the policy process is an important piece of making sure we get this right and in protect other endangered species in the future. And with that, I don't know what order we want to go in.

But first, I'd like to very much thank the Chair for the Bill we're discussing today. I'm Brendan Cummings with the Center for Biological Diversity. For the past two decades, I've worked and lived in Joshua Tree, California, where I've seen firsthand the impacts climate change, fire, and development are having on our namesake species. In 2019, I submitted the petition seeking protection of western Joshua trees under the California Endangered Species Act, CESA.

If listed, it would be the first time a species would be protected under CESA, primarily due to climate change. If properly deployed, CESA listing would greatly help address the threats facing the species.

That said, as the organization that has submitted the majority of CESA listing petitions over the past decade, I'm also very aware that the Joshua Tree presents unique and unprecedented challenges from a management and permitting perspective, and could benefit from carefully tailored additional legislation, whether this Bill, the proposed budget trailer Bill, or some hybrid thereof.

And as you've heard, while the two bills differ somewhat substantively, and there frankly are elements of each Bill that I might prefer over the other, my primary position is that I'm delighted that both the Administration and the Legislature consider protection of the western Joshua Tree to be important enough to warrant species specific legislation. Now, the issues addressed by the legislation are difficult and delicate, and reasonable people can and do disagree on the details.

And I will also note that several of the entities that my organization is usually at odds with, and who remain on opposite sides as to whether the species should be listed under CESA, have found significant common ground on potential pathways for increased protections of the Joshua Tree. So I'm quite hopeful that in the coming days and weeks, these different proposals will be harmonized and that a Bill that truly protects the species will ultimately become law with protection under both CESA and species-specific legislation.

I firmly believe that our collective efforts can not only shepherd the western Joshua Tree through the very difficult decades ahead, but also serve as a model for climate informed conservation. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning. My name.

Just a reminder, two minutes apiece.

Yes, I will be brief. My name is Kim Delfino, and I'm representing Defenders of Wildlife, the California Native Plant Society, the Mojave Desert Land Trust, Planning and Conservation League, and NRDC. As we've submitted a supportive, amended position, we really appreciate the Chairwoman's effort to put forward legislation that we believe is the proper framework for trying to address the critical issues facing the Joshua Tree, while trying to also develop clean energy and address our housing needs.

We think that we can come up with a solution here that will not undermine the very important mitigation and protection standards of the California Endangered Species Act. That's one of the key issues, is we do not want to see an exception being made that would erode those very important protections. We think that the proposed legislation provides the right framework for that, as opposed to the proposed trailer Bill from the Administration.

We also really appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation in a policy setting versus a trailer Bill, quite honestly. But we stand ready to work with the other stakeholders as part of this process to come up with a solution. I've worked in the California desert for more than 20 years. I've worked on endangered species issues for almost 30 years. I really think this is a problem that will have a solution that can be supported by all stakeholders.

I see a win win pathway forward and appreciate the opportunity to work together. Hi, my name is Shannon Eddie. I'm the Executive Director of the large scale solar Association. Mr. Chairman, Madam Chair, happy to be here. And what I want to say is that you're going to be seeing a lot of these kinds of bills. This Bill is sort of resting at this nexus between climate action and conservation.

And as we're working to green up our grid, we're going to see a lot of these conversations happening. So I want to provide a little bit of context here and also offer some comments on the Bill. California has to add 86,000 energy to essentially a 50 gigawatt grid in 12 years. This is unprecedented. And then we got to add 70 gigawatts on top of that in the next 10 years.

So we're really looking at an unprecedented infrastructure buildout, both from the renewable energy perspective and the transmission perspective. And so what you're going to hear from us, what you're going to hear from me, certainly when it comes to utility scale solar development, is that what the industry need is certainty and clarity. 39,000 solar needs to come online in the next 12 years. Right now we have about 16,000. Certainly in my conversations with developers, they tell me all the easy sites are taken.

So from now on, all these conversations are going to get harder. And so I really appreciate the author bringing this up. I appreciate the administration's trailer Bill. We do support the administration's Trailer Bill. We have a lot of concerns about what's here, because it does disrupt a lot of the balance that the trailer Bill sets forth. In trying to harmonize these different elements quickly, our three main concerns revolve around, first, the fees.

The fees are quite a bit higher, 40% higher than what's outlined in the trailer Bill, 60% higher than what was outlined for solar projects in the 2084 process. That was in 2020. This is all around when the species was listed as a candidate species. The second concern is that when or if the Joshua Tree is listed by the Commission, the framework provided here would go away and the Department would then be on the hook for developing entirely new take authorization. Got it.

And so that would create incredible uncertainty, a backlog for the Department. And there are also some very prescriptive relocation elements here that we believe would be better left to the Department so they can be flexible, they can be nimble, et cetera. Thanks for your time.

Good morning. Cassie Gilson with Axiom Advisors, on behalf of the California Building Industry Association, also would love to thank the author and the Chair and the Administration.

And in 20 plus years of doing this, I don't often sit basically at the same side of the table as my colleagues. So I would just emphasize the need to resolve this in a timely manner. I feel like this is absolutely a plane that we can land and look forward to working with the author and the Administration and my colleagues in doing so.

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

Aaron Wooley, on behalf of Sierra Club California, we have a support, if amended, position and are in alignment with the comments made on behalf of defenders and the other conservation organizations, and look forward to working with the author on this Bill moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Melissa Cortez, on behalf of the California Wind Energy Association, also in that sort of tweener category, want to align our comments with that of the large scale solar Association and thank the author for working with the renewable community.

All right. With that, do we have any opposition.

I apologize for the lateness of the opposition. Nicole Wordelman, on behalf of San Bernardino County in an opposed position.

All right. Seeing no others, we'll go--Operator, we'll go to the lines. Support or opposition?

Thank you. Once again, please press one zero at this time. We'll go to the line of 40. Your line is open.

Hi. Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. Adam Keigwin, on behalf of the California Sand and Gravel located in Los Angeles County. Want to associate our comments with CBIA and appreciate the author and the Committee hearing our concerns. Thank you.

Thank you. Operator--

We'll go to the line of 23. Line 23, your line is open.

Hello. On behalf of the Mojave Desert Land Trust, this is Susy Boyd, Public Policy Coordinator. Also on behalf of our thousands of supporters, we'd like to express strong support for AB 1008. We are a nonprofit desert conservation organization headquartered in Joshua Tree, California. As an accredited land trust, we manage thousands of acres of Western Joshua Tree habitat. As potential mitigation stakeholders, we'd like the Committee to be fully aware--hello?

Yeah. We're just name, in support, or opposed. Thank you.

I apologize. Thank you. Susy Boyd, Public Policy Coordinator, Mojave Desert Land Trust. We support AB 1008.

Thank you.

We have no further comments in queue. Please continue.

All right. Thank you, Operator. We'll take it back to the Committee now. Mr. Hart?

Yeah. I just want to thank the author and congratulate the work that everybody's doing here collectively. I'm new and I hear a lot of authors talk about working together with people, but I have never seen folks here speaking to that and the transparency of that, and it's really impressive. And I know it's not easy and it may be difficult too, going forward, but it's something special and really worth noting.

Member Rubio.

Thank you. No, I absolutely appreciate the conversations and obviously the opportunity to work. I know there's been a lot of discussion that needs some work, so I am confident that the author will work with everyone. We all have the same goals on housing and solar and we don't want to disrupt that. And I'm confident that the author can work with everybody to figure a good solution to avoid any of those issues. Thank you.

I'll join in that as well. So thank you all for working together, and I'm sure that you'll be working to make sure that we're making--you know-- ensuring that we can continue with projects on solar and housing. Thank you.

Anybody else? Any alibis? You may close.

Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair. No, thank you, and I really do want to spend my close thanking these folks. I think this is--the willingness of everybody to be at the table and compromise is necessary to do what we're doing here today, and I think that is really incredible, and we don't see that every day. And so I'm really grateful to everyone here, and like I said--and you heard--we don't believe we have it right yet.

You have to put something out there and work towards a solution that works for everybody, and that's the work that is ongoing, but I'm confident that we can get there. We can protect the Endangered Species Act, we can protect the species, and we can ensure that we continue to grow the resources, whether it be housing or large scale solar that are necessary to get California to where it needs to be. These are all very important goals. It's not going to be easy, but I have incredible partners at the table. And with that, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

All right. Thank you. Do we have a motion and a second?

Yes.

All right. We have a motion from Ward and a second from Weber. Secretary, please call the roll.

AB 1008: motion is 'do pass to Appropriations.' [Roll Call].

Thank you, guys.

That Bill has eight. It's out, but we'll hold it open for missing members. Yes, we'll move forward to AB 1322 by Ms. Friedman.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members. Madam Chair, I want to thank you and your committee staff for all of your hard work on this Bill, and I'm accepting the suggested Committee amendments outlined in the analysis. In 2020, the Legislature passed AB 1788 to minimize unintended poisonings from one subset of particularly dangerous rodenticides, second generation anticoagulant rodenticides, or escars, by placing a moratorium on certain uses until more comprehensive restrictions were developed. Now, for those of you who live in areas where you're adjacent to wildlife, or who have gone somewhere with wildlife that are near any urban areas, it's pretty frequent that you'll see mountain lions and bobcats. Well, you don't see the mountain lions very much, but we see their photos. But you certainly see bobcats with what looks like mange. This is usually not something that's naturally caused, but rather the result of poisoning from these rodenticides. Basically, the people feed rat poison to animals. Sometimes they'll poison just all kinds of animals, but they'll stumble around neighborhoods dying horribly by bleeding from within, and they'll be eaten by our predators, by our owls, our hawks, our mountain lions and our bobcats. And then they're in turn unintended targets of the same poison. We all know P 22 the most famous resident, or the most beloved resident who lived in my district in Griffith Park, LA mourned not just when he died, but a few years earlier, when there was a photo of him taken suffering horribly from rodenticide poisoning, poison which he had in his blood even when he died in a car accident or being hit by a car. Despite the implementation of AB 1788 in 2021, recent evidence from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife suggests that there's still widespread exposure and deaths to wildlife from sjars and other rodenticides. Another subset of rodenticides, first generation anticoagulant rodenticides, fgars, includes diacephine, which is most frequently detected, which is the most frequently detected jar in nontarget wildlife. Exposure to this chemical can result in both lethal and sublethal effects on nontarget wildlife, including the severe skin disease that I mentioned before and decreased immune system responses. Members, we have got to stop poisoning our wildlife. They're struggling enough as it is with climate, with development, with everything else that's happening in the state, and this is just something that could be untenable. AB 1322 adds, how do you say it? Diphastenone. Thank you. To the existing rodenticide moratorium to better protect wildlife from unintentional rodenticide poisoning while maintaining exceptions for its use to protect public health, water supplies, and agriculture. It also requires that the Department of Pesticide Regulation enact stronger, permanent restrictions on second generation anticoagulant rodenticides and diaphasenone, can I just call it D, to limit unintended wildlife poisonings. These poisonings continue to result in an unreasonable number of public health incidents, by the way, with over 3000 human poisonings in 2021 and at least 2300 of those involving children under the age of six, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. AB 1322 will place greater restrictions on some of the most dangerous rodenticides while maintaining short and long term exceptions to protect public health, agriculture, and the environment. Members, there is a wide range of safer, more sustainable, and cost effective alternatives to these dangerous rodenticides available for use today that don't threaten our wildlife. I saw a report from, I believe the City of Ventura, where they tested in an agricultural area, rodenticides on one side of a field and putting up owl and hawk nests on the other side. Guess which side won? The owl and the hawk nests actually resulted in less rodents and less of the pests than the poison side because the poison side animals figured out how not to eat the poisoned bait and also became immune to some of those pesticides. Whereas on the other side, the hawks and the owls were not being poisoned by the same chemicals, they thrived. And they are an amazing way of controlling this population. Our office and the Bill sponsors have been in communications with the Department of Pesticide Regulation and some of the opposition from the pest control industry to meet our mutually shared goals of implementing safer alternatives and finding additional funding about cost effective and sustainable solutions is moving forward. We look forward to continuing the conversations as we move this Bill. Testifying in support this afternoon is Jonathan Evans with the Center for Biological Diversity and Rebecca Gooly, Smith fellow and postdoc at UC Davis. Thank you.

Thank you. Two minutes each, when you're ready.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Dr. Rebecca Goley. In 2022, I was awarded the nation's leading conservation research fellowship, the David Smith Fellowship, to investigate the sublethal impacts of anticoagulant redenticide in nontarget species. I've also been investigating alternatives to rat poison. I have over 10 years of experience working in conservation biology, and during that time, I have been the population scientific advisor for many species worldwide. Outside of the second generation anticoagulants already covered in the California Ecosystem Protection Act of 2020, diphacinone is the most commonly found rodenticide in California wildlife. It's been found in mountain lions, bobcats, greathorned owls, bears, just to name a few of the species. When this poison doesn't directly kill the individual, it can make them sick and weak. These sublethal impacts can dysregulate their immune function, can lead to chronic anemia, can dysregulate the weight of nestlings, which is crucial for their survival, it can increase their parasite and pathogen load, and it can even lead to birth defects. In a 2018 study led by Dr. Devon Fraser at UCLA, it was found that a California population of bobcats had a dysregulated immune function due to rodenticides, one of them being diphacinone. This led to an outbreak of mange, a parasitic skin condition that nearly wiped out that entire population. Both the lethal and sub lethal impacts of redenticides pose a serious threat to the long term population sustainability of California wildlife. Beyond the already established integrated pest management like sanitation and better exclusion practices. I've been researching the impact of rodent fertility control. In a year long trial in Washington, DC, we actually saw a decrease in rat population by 90% in monitored areas. And in one site, we saw 100% decrease in rat offsprings. So there were just no rat offsprings seen when we were using this fertility control. The rat poison doesn't really get at that core biological effectiveness of the rat, and that's their ability to reproduce. I think we need to opt for poison free management systems that really incorporate the core rodent ecology into management systems. And I really believe that diphacinone will continue to pose a risk to California wildlife if we don't support this Bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Principal witnesses in opposition. That's okay. I know you got excited to support. We'll get.

Good morning, Members of the Committee. Madam Chair, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Jonathan Evans. I'm the environmental health legal director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The rat poisons covered by the California Ecosystem Protection act of 2023 are some of the most scientifically studied and widespread wildlife poisons in California. The most recent and comprehensive study in 2022 by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife found that approximately 70% of wildlife tested had anticoagulant rodenticides in the system. 70% of animals tested. The rodenticides covered by this Bill threaten some of California's most imperiled wildlife. Rodenticides contribute to an extinction vortex for Southern California mountain lions. They've also killed the endangered sand hiking kit fox, pacific fisher, and northern spotted owl. AB 1322 relies upon the precautionary principle that once a product is shown to be hazardous in the environment, as rodenticides clearly have, the burden is on the industry and the regulators to demonstrate they are safe. The burden shouldn't be on the public to continually document deaths and poisonings of wildlife and even children. The burden belongs on the pesticide manufacturers making these poisons. Importantly, we don't need these dangerous adenocides as we've already alluded to. Safer, cost effective alternatives are readily available. As the President of the Humane Wildlife Control Association, Rebecca Dimitrik, a long standing member of the pest control industry, summarized in her letter to this committee, there are many other safer, alternative tools in the toolbox that don't devastate natural predators that are helping to control rodent populations free of cost. Importantly, sealing buildings and eliminating food and water and sanitation are a necessary first step. Lethal rodent control strategies that involve snap traps, electric traps, and sterilization techniques can then be implemented, and there are a wide range of other rodenticides available that don't pose as great a threat to California's ecosystem. Currently, there are over 135 different rodenticides that aren't touched by this Bill that are already approved in terms of registrations in California. We don't need these dangerous poisons. We can do better. Thank you.

Good morning, madam chair and the committee. My name is Jim Steed, and I'm an owner of a small pest control business here in the Sacramento area. And today I'm representing the pest control operators of California. And I want to commend the author and these groups for bringing attention to this for some time. I'm happy to tell you that we have not used the second generation products now for about a year and a half. And so the effects that it's having on wildlife is not coming from the use for structural pest control companies, but from the areas where they're still permitted. We were very excited by the analysis provided by your Committee and the amendments that were proposed there, and we're hoping that those amendments might be considered to the Bill. And if they were, we would probably have little to no opposition.

Then I'll stop you there. I think that the author has accepted those amendments.

Then there are two reasons I'm going to have a big smile on my face. One, since junior high, I haven't been a tweener, but today I learned about that term for the first time. And I just want to say that very happy about those amendments because one of them in particular emphasizes integrated pest management, which our industry has been a big part of developing and implementing wherever we can. Probably the only reason why we remain tween is the third amendment probably will cause some indigestion for DPR. Not quite certain how they're going to comply with this in their processes. And so it makes us reluctant to be able to say, hey, we think that's a good idea, too. But we certainly think the first and second amendments are and would like to have the official tween position.

Thank you. Well, I think that's kudos to staff then, that we got your opposition to move off right here and now. So if anyone would like to join us at the mic, support or opposition? Support? Start with support, because they look excited.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee, Sosa Madden at W Strategies on behalf of Animal Legal Defense Fund in strong support.

Hello, Nicholas Sackett, Social Compassion in Legislation in support.

Janet Carbosa, speaking on behalf of Raptors are the Solution. And the former Menlo Park mayor and current San Mateo Mosquito Infection Control District board Member Catherine Carlton in strong support.

Mark E. on behalf of the County of Los Angeles, in support.

Hi, Wilson Wong. In support of this Bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Anyone here in the room in opposition to the Bill or Tween, as we now have learned. Here we go.

Blair Smith, can you hear me? Blair Smith with Clark Pest Control mirroring Jim's tween position.

Thank you. And moderator will go to the phone lines. Any support or opposition on the phone lines to AB 1322.

Once again, for any comments, please press 1-0 at this time, we'll go to the line of 48, your line is open.

Hi, Samantha Samuelson for Audubon California, in support.

Thank you. Line 51, your line is open.

Joel Schulman, Poison Free Malibu, in support.

Line 53, your line is open. Once again, line 53, your line is open.

Yes, - and strongly in support.

Thank you. Line 21, your line is open.

Hardy Kern, Director of government relations, American Bird Conservancy, strongly in support.

Thank you. Line 44, your line is open.

This is Julie Lechevsky. On behalf of the MidPeninsula Regional Open Space District, in support.

Thank you. Line 46, your line is open. Once again, line 46, your line is.

Hello, can you hear me? Hello. We can hear you. This is Biana Federico, on behalf of all life in Humboldt County, I'm in support. And there's someone else here, too.

Nathan Smith, in support.

Thank you. Line 54, your line is open.

Judy Neuhauser, on behalf of the Moroccoast Audubon Society in San Luis Obispo County, in strong support.

Thank you. Line 45, your line is open.

Tony Tucci, on behalf of Citizens for Los Angeles Wildlife, also known as CLAW, in support.

Thank you. Line 52, your line is open.

Joe Cradoza, former mayor, City of Davis, speaking as a private citizen, very strong support.

Thank you. Line 50, your line is open.

Cassandra Chowdhery from citizens of Los Angeles wildlife, in strong support.

Thank you. Line 42, your line is open.

Steve Tyler, in full support.

Thank you. Line 36, your line is open.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members. Cody Boyles is on behalf of Western Plant Health Association. We had an opposed position on the Bill, but we'll review it following these amendments.

Thank you. And we have no further lines in queue. Please continue.

Thank you. Bring it back to the Committee. Is there a motion? Okay, Mr. Ward moves. Mr. Kalra seconds, seeing no comments. Would you like to close, Ms. Friedman?

I'm just really happy to be able to offer this on behalf of our wildlife in California. Thank you.

Thank you. Let's call the roll.

All right. AB 1322. Motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. Bauer-Kahan, aye. Bauer-Kahan, aye. Mathis. Alanise. Alanise, not voting. Bennett. Joe Patterson. Joe Patterson, no. Davies. Davies, no. Friedman. Friedman, aye. Hart, aye. Kalra. Kalra, aye. Pellerin. Pellerin, aye. Rubio. Rubio, aye. Schiavo. Schiavo, aye. Villapudua. Villapudua, aye. Ward. Ward, aye. Weber. Weber, aye. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. That has 10 votes. It is out, but we will leave the roll open. Grab some Members. I think we still have one. There he is. Mis Wicks is up with AB 1072, our last Bill.

Here we are, team. It will be less lengthy than last water conversation I had with you all.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair and Members. First, I want to accept the Committee's proposed amendments and thank the staff and their chair for their hard work on this bill. As I'm sure you already know, water affordability is an urgent and growing problem in California. With water rates going up 5% in real dollars each year, our state has invested millions in rebate programs to make homes more water efficient. But these programs only reach households with cash on hand.

Lower income households are likelier to have out-of-date plumbing fixtures, leaks, and inefficient landscaping, and pay more on their water bills to achieve the same ends as wealthier neighbors. But multiple studies have shown that higher income customers disproportionately use water conservation programs in the state. To prepare for a future of more severe drought, California has adopted regulations to make urban water suppliers more efficient, and there are significant funds from the state and federal government for that goal.

These funds often fail to reach low income households and disadvantaged communities most vulnerable to climate change. One example, customers served by water agencies that are part of the metropolitan Water District, for example, who operate most of Southern California, can apply for efficient landscaping and indoor devices. All of these programs are rebates, and customers must wait six to eight weeks for rebate checks to arrive in the mail. And they're usually only offered in English along with other hindrances.

To me, this is like low hanging fruit in terms of our outreach to ensure we get more diverse communities to take advantage of these programs. And this is, again, typical of most of the conservation programs.

AB 1072, as amended, will require urban water suppliers to make more conservation programs accessible to low income households in disadvantaged communities, direct the State Water Board and the Department of Water Resources to use their financial assistance programs to increase the uptake of water conservation devices and climate resilient landscapes in disadvantaged communities served by small water systems, and direct water utilities to spend 40% of residential conservation on efficiency program funds in low income households and disadvantaged communities.

I know the question of legality around Proposition 218 has come up. We have submitted an opinion request to Ledge Council around Proposition 218 concerns within our measure, and we look forward to bringing clarity around that potential legality once we receive that legislative opinion back. I want to thank our sponsors, the San Francisco SPUR, the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, who will be here, Laura Feinstein from them to testify.

And then we also have a witness by phone, Michael Rincon, Research and Policy Analyst, Physicians for Social Responsibility. And respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Perfect. Ms. Feinstein, would you like to start?

Good morning, Chair and Members, I'm Laura Feinstein, Sustainability and Resilience Policy Director for SPUR. California is in a climate crisis facing a future of unpredictable water supplies and severe droughts. The state has acted by setting water conservation objectives for urban water suppliers. To meet those objectives will require Californians to become more efficient in how they use water. Most water agencies offer conservation programs to help their customers save water so they can achieve those objectives.

Yet the needs of disadvantaged communities are not currently well addressed by those programs. Nearly all offer rebates that arrive months after purchase, meaning only customers with cash on hand can participate. Many have complicated applications that are available in English only. Many utilities offer rebates to make yards more efficient, but they ignore the needs of low income households who are more likely to have inefficient indoor plumbing. Association of California Water Agencies has argued that under Prop. 218, water rebate programs aren't allowed to target Low income and disadvantaged communities.

But many existing rebate programs are only available to customers with lawns or only to property owners. Why is it permissible for customers without lawns to subsidize rebates for those who have them or for renters that pay a water bill to subsidize rebates to property owners only?

The answer, we believe, is that Proposition 218 does not strictly prevent water agencies from running conservation programs that are targeted at certain groups, and if it did, the current rebate programs would not pass muster. Studies have shown that rebate programs for water conservation and efficiency are disproportionately used by upper income customers. AB 1072 will correct that inequity enabling all Californians to become more climate resilient. We respectfully request an aye vote.

Thank you. And Mr. Rincon, are you on the phone?

Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Awesome. So, yes. Hi, good morning, Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Michael Rincon. I am the Research and Policy Manager at Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles. We are a public health organization that works in collaboration with community based organizations to address environmental health burdens. Our Clean Water Program, which is dedicated to protecting and supporting the efforts around the human right to water in Los Angeles communities such as southeast Los Angeles.

And to be transparent, Though I work in collaboration with LA County communities, I personally am from and live in Ventura County. So to provide context, the residents of southeast LA are primarily black and Latino low income communities and are often renters and are served by 30 plus small to medium sized water systems in the area. Generally, the smaller a water provider is, the more difficult it is to meet water quality and service requirements in an affordable manner. Water supply plays a large role in the price of Southeast LA's water.

Imported water supplies are much more expensive than local resources, and roughly 60% of the community's water supply comes from imported water sources. LA County, one of the largest metropolitan regions in the country, has some of the highest residential water bills in the state, not to mention some of the zip codes with the highest water bills in the county and in the state are, in fact, in southeast LA.

I'd like to add that some of the community water systems serving these same zip codes do not offer low income rate assistance programs or other forms of financial incentives for conservation investments that help customers see a much more affordable water bill. We believe that policies such as AB 1072 provide critical groundwork needed to guarantee the human right to water for all California communities.

I also invite you to consider taking further action on this bill to ensure that the funding programs created by the water providers prioritize residences over businesses and with a focus on ensuring funding that these programs be accessible to renters and tenants. In our work, we've come across issues of inaccessible water incentive programs offered by community water systems that leave out renters, tenants, and even undocumented households.

In the case of undocumented households, some water providers require Social Security numbers, pay stubs, or an ID to apply for funding incentives which automatically disqualified these individuals. In the case of tenants, you often do not have the right to access your water provider's funding program for household conservation efforts, even though you are the one living in the service area and are paying the water bill.

Instead, your landlord is the one who has to apply for the funding incentive if you can even get them to do it in the first place. An example, if you go to Cal Water Services website, you can see they offer free conservation kits for residential customers. However, you have to put in your zip code and account number.

If you are a renter or a tenant, you likely do not have access to the account number.

If you could wrap it up, sir. Thanks.

Yeah. Therefore, you do not have access to the free resource. Did I mention that it's free? I ask you to support this bill and we invite you to really start to think in the development of financial incentive programs that are accessible to renters and tenants and do not require landlord intervention where possible, and find other mechanisms to support accessibility for undocumented households.

Thank you.

Lastly, that UCLA had done a study showing that low income customers actually conserve more water than higher income households. Thank you.

Thank you. Anybody here in opposition to the Bill? No? Okay, anyone want to join us with the mic in support.

Cody Phillips on behalf of California Coastkeeper Alliance, in support.

Jerry Desmond with Plumbing Manufacturers International and just adding that if disadvantaged communities were given the opportunity 3.5 gallon per flush toilets to replace them with 1.28 gallon per flush toilets, three to 5 billion gallons of water could be saved.

Do we have any 'tweeners or opposition?

Julia Hall with the Association of California Water Agencies, currently at an Opposed Unless Amended position, had an initial conversation with the author's office and the sponsors late last week, hoping to find some other creative solutions to address the challenges that were identified in this bill.

Thank you. Moderator, anyone on the phone in support or opposition?

And once again from the phone lines, please press 1 0 at this time. Have no comments in queue. Please continue.

Thank you. Bring you back to the Committee. Yeah, Mr. Ward?

Thank you. I appreciate the intent of the Bill, and I know that the Legislature has worked really hard, particularly over the last two years as well through General Fund allocations, to be able to support programs that are going to help more lower income individuals be able to come up to speed with a lot of our sort of shared goals when it comes to water conservation measures. As we talked about Prop 218 earlier this morning, too, I'm just nervous about this being actually workable, so I'll reserve my right.

I look forward. Thank you for already submitting a ledge council opinion on that to be able to get more information and look forward to that report at this time.

Thank you. Mr. Bennett?

Just another good water bill.

Thank you, Mr. Bennett.

Thank you. Mr. Patterson?

Wow, I was on the whole time. Hopefully, I didn't say anything. If it drops below 10%, then at least the bill language says it, then they can adjust them out to 10% of the money going to low income residents. And I was just wondering, had you considered if it's 20%, then 20% has to go.

If it's 60% low income, then 60% has to go, because I feel like the gap from 20% to 40% or 11% to 40%, but you still have to spend 40 no matter what might be hard. I appreciate that they have to reach out to their low income communities, but just wondering if you had considered that.

We're happy to. So we can talk further about it if we make it out of Committee today.

Well, perfect.

Happy to consider it, that is.

Oh, yes. Okay. Yeah. Good modification there. Thank you very much.

Seeing no further comments, I'll just add, I appreciate your work on the Prop 218 issues. I think what you're trying to do here is really laudable, and Prop 218 is there. And so we have to do what we can do, given the state of the law. And I don't want to put our water agencies in a position where they are stuck between complying with the law and trying to do what's right by our low income communities. So appreciate your continued effort on that. With that, would you like to close?

Just would respectfully ask for an aye vote so we can keep working on it.

Thank you. And do we have a motion? Pellerin moves. And a second? Mr. Bennett seconds. We'll call the roll.

AB 1072. Motion is due passed as amended to Appropriations. [Roll call]

Okay. Okay, so on the consent calendar, AB 64 and AB 923. [Roll Call]. So that's 15 to zero.

No, wait. I think you also missed the first half of the first panel.

Okay. AB 305: 'do pass as amended to Appropriations.' [Roll Call]. 13 to one; that one's out. AB 566: 'do pass as amended to Appropriations.' [Roll Call]. 11 to two; that one's out. AB 754: 'do pass as amended to Approps.' [Roll Call]. So that one's ten to three; that one's out. AB 755: 'do pass to Appropriations.'

[Roll Call]. One is eleven to four; that one's out. That one's on consent. Okay. AB 1008: motion is 'do pass to Appropriations.' [Roll Call]. That one's 11 to zero; that's out. And I think we're good, so that one was out, and then AB 1322: 'do pass as amended to Approps.' [Roll Call]. Okay. That's at 11 to two. That's everything. And this hearing is adjourned.