Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection and Energy

Thank you for that. Kyle Jones with Community Water Center. I just want to thank the committee for a few items. First of all for the 125,000,000 flood contingency making that available for drought emergency as well. We have so many communities that are still experiencing dry wells who are needing assistance while they're still also dealing with flood impacts at the same time because the slow rate to get water into the ground where it needs to go. And so we really appreciate that. We also want to thank the committee for having a second round of the water and wastewater rearranges payment program to address some of the COVID related water debt. I think it's a critical program to help deal with some of this debt until we can set up a permanent low income water rate assistance program. And then finally, I want to thank the committee for approving 19 positions at the state water Board to address sustainable groundwater management. It's critical we get those basin better plans in place through the waterboard's process. Thank you.

Thank you very much. With that we will turn to the teleconference line moderator, please tip folks for public comment.

Thank you ladies and gentlemen on the phone lines, if you would like to make public comment, please press one followed by the zero. One followed by the zero. An operator will quickly give you your line number and then place you back in the queue again for public comment. 10 at this time and go ahead and hit 10 please. If you would like to make public comment, we are having one queue up. Anybody else? Go ahead and hit 10 to queue up. Thanks for your patience, Mr. Chair. We have three queuing up, should be with us momentarily.

Great.

And line twelve, you are open.

Thank you. This is ... on behalf of Environmental Defense Fund, Civic Wells, Self Help Enterprises, Audubon and Sequoia Riverlands Trust strongly urging you to restore the $20 million for multi benefit land repurposing at the Department of Conservation and on behalf of Audubon just in strong opposition to the Trailer Bill package process. This is significant policy changes and we would urge this to go through policy committees. Thank you.

Line 13, please go ahead.

Good afternoon. This is Liv O'Keeffe, senior Director of Public Affairs for the California Native Plant Society. I want to thank you for working to restore some of the critical funding for 30 x 30 and climate resilience and for rejecting the Administration's Trailer Bill proposals to reduce environmental protections and community engagement. My organization is also grateful that you're putting forward a solution of securing funding to finish statewide vegetation mapping. This completion of this mapping is within reach and is critical to making informed decisions as California continues its work to address extreme wildfire and other climate impacts. As you move into the next phase of negotiations. We urge restoration of funding for land conservation and restoration, including funding for the WCB, the State Coastal Conservancy and State Conservancies. We also urge restoration of funding for capacity building programs such as Department of Conservation's Climate Smart Lands Program to support partners on the ground. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And next will be Line 20.

Hello, this is Will Barrett with the American Lung Association. I'm the National Senior Director for Clean Air Advocacy and really want to speak to the importance of the budget alignment with clean air and public health in California. We have the worst air pollution in the nation in California. Want to see as close to full restoration of the 10 billion Zero Emission Vehicle package with a strong focus on equitable distribution of zero emission transportation public health benefits. We'd like to see also that we support the reauthorization of the Clean Transportation Program with a strong emphasis on the equitable investment of those funds, at least 50% into community benefits in areas with the highest levels of pollution burden and low socioeconomic status. And we also share the cautions around the engagement needs on critical environmental transportation health policy related to the transportation or the Trailer bill packages that the Governor put forward last week. So again urge you to align as much as possible our California investments with clean air benefits in communities most impacted by the worst air pollution in the United States. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

And next we will go to Line 24. You are open.

Hello, can you hear me? Yes, hello?

Yes, we can hear you.

Oh, sorry about that. Hello, thank you. My name is Regina Chichizola and I am calling in from Save California Salmon. I just wanted to urge the committee to think seriously about the funding for streamlining environmental permitting and also funding for massive new reservoirs and water diversions. I live in a community that's a tribal community that's very impacted by the fishery and what has happened with the fishery in the last ten years. And we see a lot of these proposals coming down from the Governor, including some of the budget proposals as being very threatening to our continued way of life and to clean water in the State of California. In general. As you know, our water right system is pretty broken and farmers in large AG get the majority of our water. So we feel that the committee should look very seriously at public benefits for any proposals that go around. Environmental laws are permitting and also budgeting of large infrastructure projects such as private reservoirs and diversions that will mainly benefit large AG and not the general public. So with that, I thank you for hearing from me today. I look forward to working with you in the future, and have a nice day.

Thank you.

Line 27, please go ahead. You're open 27.

Hello, this is Deirdre Des Jardin for Climate Action California and California Water Research, and we strongly support the staff recommendations to move the trailer bills to the regular policy process and to reject the Flood and Drought Trailer Bill language. These are major proposals which are very broadly targeted, may not be necessary to streamline clean energy projects, and may be very inadvisable given actions, current actions today by the Supreme Court to greatly narrow application of the Clean Water Act. This is moving in the wrong direction for protections for the environment. We can have a future where we rapidly decarbonize and also protect biodiversity. So we urged the Senate to completely reject the Governor's proposed trailer bill language. Frankly, there was no reason to spring it on the legislature or the public so suddenly and at the end of the legislative session.

Okay, thank you very much.

Good afternoon, chair and members. Doug Obegi, on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council, want to support the staff recommendation to reject the Floodwater Trailer Bill. The Floodwater Trailer Bill is opposed by a broad coalition of conservation, fishing and environmental justice groups. In addition, we strongly support the staff recommendation to reject, without prejudice the trailer bills regarding infrastructure and agree that those bills should be reviewed through the policy process.

Thank you.

Line 25, please go ahead.

Hello, thank you. My name is Susan Collins and I'm the president of the Container Recycling Institute. I'm concerned about the chronic misreporting that has occurred for the last 15 years in the Governor's budget with regard to the Beverage Container Recycling Fund. This year, the fund balance was incorrectly understated by $189,000,000. The individual line items in that fund contained more than $1.5 billion worth of errors. I've been in touch with the Department of Finance and they say they are working to correct this, but I remain concerned that the general public and the legislature have no access to the correct budget numbers at this time. I am also concerned about the overspending that was authorized in last year's SB 1013 and AB 179, and we are projecting that the overspending will lead to proportional reduction in the Beverage Container Fund. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I'll be sending these details in letters individually to the members of the committee. Thank you.

Thank you. Please do. Next caller.

Good afternoon, Chair Becker and members. My name is Sebastian Petty, I'm calling on behalf of SPUR. As you know, public transit is in crisis. Unfortunately, the current assembly and senate budget proposals do not do enough to help save transit. Severe cuts to BART and other transit services across the state are imminent, pushing us towards a transit death spiral that will be impossible to climb out of. This is undoubtedly the most urgent issue for transportation equity, air quality and the climate in the state. Even if the governor's cuts to the EV packages are restored, the LAO says there is still money available in auction proceeds. We strongly encourage you to dedicate a portion of the discretionary cap and trade proceeds to fund transit operations. I can think of no better use for the GGRF than solving this crisis. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Certainly an urgent crisis. Next caller.

We'll go to line 14 please go ahead, line 14.

Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Yes. This is Adina Levin with Seamless Bay Area and thank you very much to Senator Becker for identifying and speaking up about the transit fiscal cliff and crisis. However, the funding sources that are on the table are not enough to prevent the fiscal cliff. And we do urge the committee to support funding from the discretionary cap and trade funds to add to the solution in order to prevent reduction of transit service that take us backward for our climate goals and not forward. If the goal here is to protect progress, we need to make sure that transit continues to run and to improve. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, this is Peter Drekmeier, Policy Director for the Tuolumne River Trust, and perhaps more importantly, a proud constituent of chair becker. Thank you Chair Becker, for all your good work. I too encourage you to reject the ten trailer bills without prejudice and to address those proposals through the policy process where those that have merit will move forward. We can count on your vote. Thank you.

Thank you.

Line 32 please go ahead. \

Sorry your connection is not great, might want to try to call back in let's go to the next caller.

Good afternoon, Chair Becker and members. My name is Vincent Wiraatmadja and I'm with Schneider Electric. We urge you to regarding issue 14, reject the governor's transfer of $100 million from the distributed energy backup asset program to summer reliability contracts for 2023. Putting that money towards summer contracts seems a bit unnecessary in light of the fact that we are getting a much better summer reliability outlook due to increased hydro resources as well as 8.6 gigawatts of new clean resources that will be coming online in September. It would make much more sense to spend these dollars and invest them into clean DERs that will support large scale customer electrification, provide resilience, and ease demand on the grid, all of which are benefits that will last for years rather than the four months in 2023. We also urge you to restore the funding that is proposed by the CEC for DSGs as well as Diva, as part of the Syria proposal they put forward in March of earlier this year. Thank you for the time.

Thank you.

Line 19, you are open.

Good afternoon, Senator Becker. Thank you and your committee for taking time to listen to us today. My name is Sandra Lang. I live in San Mateo County, and I'm a proud member of the Paratransit Coordinating Council. I'm calling today to say a couple of things. First of all, that the money that's been proposed now to support to prevent in other words, I'm calling to ask that we prevent these cuts in the transit area. The funding sources that are already there are simply not enough. But I really want to say that I'm going to ask you to please consider, I think, what we probably already know, but that 72% of the transit agencies face shortages from the federal relief money. And there's a face on this. We want to consider that 60% of California's residents who commute by public transit have a household income below $35,000 a year. That's not a lot to sustain one's life, public transit. I'm going to just also add very briefly that half a million of these people could be any one of us. They own no car, which to count on. And they count on public transit for their daily needs. But critically, their daily needs are linked to our daily needs because whether it's going to the grocery store where they work or for those of us that need to get to the grocery store to provide groceries for our families or to a medical center, this is a very critical need that I would really urge you. And also particularly I want to thank Senator, Assemblyman, excuse me, Phil Ting for your work on this and thank you very much.

Thank you. Next caller.

Next we'll go to line 26. You are open.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Alchemy Graham with the California Transit Association. I want to start my comments this afternoon by first acknowledging the significant funding the Senate has included in its budget for public transit and for the authority to flex some of this funding to operations. Thank you. And as I show our thanks, I need to note that this funding will not address the near term operating needs of transit agencies across the state. And so we encourage you to continue to work with us on identifying additional funding for transit operations, including through cap and trade. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hello. This is Jamie Pew with Next Gen California. As final budget negotiations continue to move forward, we urge the Legislature to consider including 14 million in funding to implement SB 907 to create the local equitable access for food or leaf program, as well as find additional solutions for the three to $5 billion operating shortfall being faced by public transit agencies statewide. We also urge you to retain the $60 million for the Farm to School program and reject the Assembly's proposal to eliminate this program. We also request $35 million for the California Nutrition Incentive Program, or CNIP, which is closely aligned with sleep. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Line 33, you are open.

Good afternoon. My name is Erin Woolley calling on behalf of Sierra Club California. Thank you for the staff recommendation to reject the Administration's trailer bill proposals that would reduce environmental protections and community engagement, including the eleven infrastructure trailer bills that were introduced last week, as well as the flood streamlining trailer bill. I urge you to instead move those through the policy bill process where they can be more thoroughly analyzed and subject to public involvement and engagement. I also wanted to thank you for putting forward a framework to restore critical funding for 30 x 30 and climate resilience, including finding a solution to secure funding to finish statewide vegetative mapping. As you move forward into the three party negotiations, I urge you to also consider restoring funding for land conservation and restoration, including the funding that was originally proposed for the WCB State, coastal Conservancy, and other state conservancies, as well as important funding for capacity building programs, including to the climate smart land strategy. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Senators. My name is Chris Chavez with the Coalition for Clean Air as well as the investment Clean Air and Charge Ahead California campaigns. We want to thank the Senate's work and we continue to support the Senate Majority Plan, as well as provisions of the Assembly's plan released yesterday. We appreciate the Senate's approach to zero emission vehicles, particularly with medium and heavy duty vehicles. Meanwhile, on the assembly side, we appreciate their approach to equity programs and transit, while recognizing that more support is needed for transit. Their proposals started the way forward on that issue. We also support both Houses approach to the Governor streamlining proposals and rejecting it and making it go through the policy process. As the legislature moves forward, we want to emphasize to need to deliver benefits to our most vulnerable, most looted communities and really making sure we're delivering those transformative benefits to those folks. Lastly, as part specifically Coalition for Clean Air, we also support the Assembly's allocation of money to the 80 617 program. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Hello. Just want to start off by thanking the Senators for proposing additional funding to address the transit fiscal cliff. But I do want to emphasize that this is not enough. Sorry. I forgot to self ID. My name is Connor. I'm with the advocacy organization Common Ground California. Just calling today just to really emphasize how important it is that we fund transit and give it the operational funds that it needs to prevent cuts. I do not own a car. I am 100% dependent on transit. And if we face these cuts, I don't really know what I'm going to do. It's actually very concerning, whether that's getting to work or getting to a grocery store or whatever it is. This is very important to me and my community. So I just want to urge you to find whatever funding sources are necessary to fill the gap and prevent cuts. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Line 34, you are open. Hi, good afternoon, committee members. My name is Wes Rudiment. I'm with an organization called Active San Gabriel Valley, and we are based in East Los Angeles County, which unfortunately suffers from some of the worst air quality in the nation. Actually, the most recent American Lung Association report ranked our air basin worst in the country. And a huge driver of that is literally how most of us get around. So calling today, our organization strongly urges you to dedicate more funding to public transportation. As you know, it's directly linked with our clean air goals, our public health goals, our climate goals, and just our equity and accessibility goals, insofar as making it possible for folks to get around our growing region. So appreciate your time and consideration and hope you can move some things around to make sure that we don't gut our transit service across the state. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Line 38, you are open.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Senators Rosanna Carvacho Elliott, on behalf of the California Hydrogen Coalition and the California Hydrogen Business Council. Unfortunately, we must respectfully oppose, unless submitted, issue eleven, the Clean Transportation Program or reauthorization. We look forward to working with the Senate to update the ambition of the Clean Transportation Program to reflect the goal of 100% vehicle sales being zero emission by 2035, which we know will necessitate upwards of 1000 hydrogen refueling stations to have a self sufficient statewide network to serve all of those passenger vehicles. Additionally, on issue 33, on behalf of Equinor Wind, an offshore wind leaseholder, want to strongly support the centralized procurement proposal and look forward to working with the Senate to ensure that centralized procurement is adopted this year. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

You are open. Line 39.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Zach Lipton. I'm a constituent in San Francisco calling on behalf of myself. I'm calling because public transit here is in imminent peril and I'm asking the Senate to use Cap and Trade and highway funding to provide the temporary funding we need to prevent these disastrous transit cuts. I don't own a car and frankly, I've tried to do what our state leaders have asked of me to reduce my transportation emissions and feel really let down as a result of that. So the idea of being outright stranded by a lack of transit, a burden that will fall disproportionately on low income Californians people of color and people with disabilities is really frightening to me. Our climate goals specifically require doubling public transit ridership and that will be impossible if we slash the service we already have. I appreciate the proposals that have been made, but unfortunately they're insufficient. Flexing capital funds for operations will cost the state 6 billion in federal matching funds. Hope we can see a concrete public proposal with sufficient funding to maintain this essential public service. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi there. Afternoon. Chair Becker and members. My name is Cyrus Hall. I'm a resident of San Francisco and a member of the San Francisco Transit Riders. I just want to thank you for proposing to restore the 2 billion in TIRCP funding and allowing the flexible use of these funds. However, even if this funding was used, it will be insufficient to fill the budget shortfalls facing agencies, particularly here in the bay area. This means service cuts are still in our future. I'd like to ask you to put more funding sources on the table. These include the discretionary GGRF funds, the cap and trade funds, and also looking to shift highway funds wherever applicable. The current plan puts billions in federal grants at risk and that would force agencies to use these capital funds for operations and we lose the federal funds. Don't leave riders at the curb. Don't abandon California's historical recognition through CARB that we must drive less, EVs or no. And please help us meet our environmental goals. Thank you.

Thank you. Due to large volume of callers, we're going to have to limit comments to a minute. So going forward, but we're going to try to get everyone in. Thank you. Next caller.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We will go to line 46.

Hello? Can everybody hear me? Yes. Hello. Yes. My name is Eugene Bradley. I live in Monterey County. I am the founder of the Silicon Valley Transit Users. I echo the comments of the prior two speakers regarding what's proposed by the senate. Well, I want to thank you for this. This is not enough to help the bay area and especially other transit agencies in California need the money. If New York state can get their public transit policies funded in their budget, what's stopping California from doing the same? I ask because even the meager funding that is being proposed won't help in the long term. People like me, even though we have a car, we may be forced to keep one because there is no more transit. Let's make sure we help out, especially those seniors, disabled and those who can't afford the car, to say that there is decent public transit in California. Otherwise you're going to end up with a lot more accidents on the roads from people forced into their car because there's no transit available. So let's do what we can to make the better happen. Fund public transit fully in California. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next caller, we will go to line 47. You are open.

Mr. Chair and Senators. Thank you. I'm Sean Lee a voter of Senate District Nine, represented by Senator Skinner. I urge you to support using Cap and Trade auction and other revenues to provide stopgap funding for transit systems, particularly large metropolitan systems like BART and Caltrains which have historically had the highest levels of earned revenue cost share. Crippling our billions in paid in capital over decades will inflict generational damage throughout this state. I cannot drive and like many other young people in the bay area, have relied on public transportation exclusively to get to work, to school for my whole life. Public transportation is essential to allow families to have a life in this state and for children with working parents to get to and from schools and jobs amidst this cost of living crisis. Thank you so much for your time. I yield the time.

Hi, my name is Jessica Berthold, I live in the Bay area and I'm calling just as a regular citizen. I urge you to work on identifying additional funding for public transit, including cap and trade for all of us out here, rely on it for work and life. My own 13 year old son is disabled. He's a huge fan of public transit. He spends his allowance riding buses and trains he isn't likely to ever drive. And as an adult he'll be reliant on public transit to live a meaningful life of work, friendship and community involvement. I urge you to fund public transit for our most vulnerable citizens. Thanks.

Thank you.

Chair. Honorable members, this is Craig Segall. I was previously Deputy Executive Officer for Transportation at CARB. I'm now a private citizen. Like many of the folks you've heard today, I'm urging you to avoid the public transit fiscal cliff. I oversaw the state's transportation policies and zero emission vehicle rules and incentive programs. I'm here to tell you that we will not meet our climate and air quality goals if transit collapses and that both redirecting highway funds and cap and trade funds is a wholly appropriate remedy here. The state deserves good public transit is a critical climate and cleaner strategy. It's especially important to disadvantage communities and communities of color. I urge you to do the right thing. Thank you.

Thank you.

Line 51, you are open.

Hi there. My name is Leanne Chang. I live in San Francisco. I'm on the west side I'm an Assemblymember Ting's district, and I'm calling because I want to see the bay area getting supported by transit funding. When we talk about public transit being accessed, that sounds kind of sterile. But I want to remind the committee that this is people's lives. The ability for the most vulnerable among us to go places and to be independent. That was me at one point in my life. I think that's all of us at some point in our lives, and I'm able to have a full and wonderful life right now because for a long time in my life, I was able to access transit and get away from situations and get into situations that I wanted to by taking the bus. I'd like to thank senator becker and the committee for considering the fiscal cliff for public transit. But we need operational funding to avoid service cuts. We need more money, including cap and trade funding. Also, forcing agencies to repurpose TIRCP transit capital funds as operational funding would cause california to leave $6 billion in federal matching funds on the table. That sounds like a lot of money to me, and I'm wondering why we'd do that in a deficit year. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We're going to pause there. We'll go back to the room. If you have other folks here in the room, and then we'll go back to the phone lines. Go ahead. I'm ready.

Thank you. Senator Emily Pappas on behalf of CalCCA, regarding the governor's energy trailer bill proposal, again, just wanted to thank you for continued discussions with staff and you all regarding three fixes we're hoping to seek regarding central procurement, the increased authority and some of the provisions statutorily around CCAs, and then finally the penalty payments around RA. Look forward to working with you. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Chair, members, Brian White, on behalf of actually a couple of issues. On behalf of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, we appreciate the senate's acknowledgment of the COVID relief water rearranges program. We look forward to working with you and getting that into the budget. And then on behalf of Offshore Wind California, we look forward to working with you on the central procurement language as well. We appreciate the fact that there's a lot of different ideas out there. Of course, we like to see it get into statute and if it gets narrowed down, offshore wind geothermal, we're fine with that. But we appreciate the fact that you guys are going to look at this issue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Maddie Munson, on behalf of the Agricultural Energy Consumers Association on the GGRF spending plan, specifically the farmer allocation and the agricultural methane reduction programs, just thank you and the entire committee for your support of these programs throughout this year.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Chair and Members, Jason Ikerd, on behalf of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the California Municipal Utilities Association on issue 71, the water and wastewater arrearages relief. Tens of thousands of Californians have not been able to crawl out from underneath the debt that they've been struggling with since the pandemic. There's $400 million at the waterboard. We appreciate that the Senate and Senate staff have worked so hard to make sure that there's going to be another appropriation and that that money can be put to good use. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Katherine Brandenburg, on behalf of Sonoma Clean Power. We echo the statements that were made by Ms. Pappas for CalCCA. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Go ahead.

Jamie Minor on behalf of MCE. Also echo the comments on behalf of CalCCA and appreciate you taking a look at this item and working with us. Thank you.

Absolutely. Thank you, Mary. We'll go back to the phone lines.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And we'll start with line 52.

Hi. My name is Aidan Jones. Thank you, Senators, for addressing the fiscal cliff for transit so far. I live in San Francisco. I'm a constituent of Matt Haney. However, as others have said today, what has been proposed so far is not enough. And action needs to be taken to wholly address the dire situation that transit bases in California and specifically the Bay Area. We know the data about how this will impact our environmental goals as well as the disadvantaged people in California. I wanted to give my own voice and say that, like others here, I don't own a car. I live in an already disadvantaged region of San Francisco, south east San Francisco that doesn't have a lot of transit options already. So any cuts to transit would be detrimental not only to our household, but to my community as well. So I urge senators to thank you, take further action to ensure that. Great.

Thank you very much. Next caller. We have about 15 more minutes we can do. We'll try to get as many people as we can. Next 15 minutes. Go ahead, next caller.

Okay, and line eleven, you are open.

Hello. My name is Marcus Navarro. I'm calling on behalf of myself and nobody else to advocate on behalf of allocating funds from the cap and trade funds and also highway funding to avert the fiscal cliff that transit systems in California are facing. I think it would be a critical error to allow the service cuts. And when looking at our climate goals, it seems abundantly clear that people in California are willing to make sacrifices or build their lives around transit in order to work towards a future where we have cleaner air and we're not producing carbon emissions when transporting ourselves around. But it just seems like the political will isn't there to fund these systems that so many people are willing to use and want to use because they care about the environment. So I strongly encourage the senators to vote to allocate more funding to public transit for operations and for capital project.

Thank you very much.

Next caller, line 53, you are open.

Hello, Chair Becker and Members, Nicholas Mazati on behalf of the California Ecological Restoration Business Association and we're in strong support of the climate permitting support BCP for CDFW. Cal ERBA represents the state's growing ecological restoration industry specializing in land stewardship, protection and restoration project. Allocating these additional climate permitting resources to CDFW will severely help our members priority water and energy projects move forward throughout the state, which provide vital support to achieve California's climate and conservation goals, including the 30 x 30 initiative and important statewide flood resilience and biodiversity benefits. Thank you.

Thank you.

56, please go ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon, Senator. My name is Alfred Tu from Berkeley with East Bay for everyone. I don't own a car. I rely on transit to get to work. And our economy relies on transit California businesses, from the local bar to concerts and sports games, they need transit for their customers to get there. There's simply not enough parking otherwise. And funding transit is an investment that pays off right away in sales tax revenues without more funding. Agencies are considering things as severe as no weekend service or cutting entire lines. So please look at the Cap and Trade diesel tax shifting highway construction funds to save transit in California. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Line 59, you are open.

This is Amy Thompson with Transform in support of transit operations money so transit can survive and thrive while we put together a long term financial plan and do not return to the legislature for more emergency funding. I want to thank you for your attention to this crisis and the work that has been done. However, the current proposal does not do enough to save transit and it will cost the state $6 billion in federal matching funds. Transform analysis found that in the Bay Area alone with no new funding, transit service reductions will result in 735,000,000 less trips and at least one third of those trips will revert to car trips. This is something we can't afford because the car is the most polluting and the most expensive option. And across the state, 72% of transit agencies will find themselves in similar shortfalls and similar situations in the coming years. The larger needs and the proposal offers and we hope that you will consider Cap and Trade and State.

Got it? Thank you. Thank you very much. Let's try to keep between 30 seconds. In a minute would be great, thanks. Next caller.

Line 60, you are open.

Hi, can you hear? Can you hear me? Okay, great. My name is Jeanette Abbott Ricker. I am with Climate Action California. I support the staff proposals to reject the trailer bill language. The language is egregious in excluding EJ communities. Neither EJ communities nor environmental or fishing groups are consulted on the proposed language. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next caller.

And we'll go to line 61.

Hello, good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great. Hello, my name is Allie Detrio calling on behalf of the Microgrid Resources Coalition. Thank you, Chair Becker and Subcommittee, for all of your work and understanding. This is a very challenging budget year. Specifically on part A, issue 14, the Summer imported energy reimbursement plan. We respectfully request that you maintain the full funding in the Distributed Electricity Backup Assets program and not transfer $100 million to DWR for reimbursing electrical corporations for above market cost of imported energy. I think, at this time, given our interconnection and reliability challenges, the more local power we can deploy in a distributed fashion across the state is a much more worthy investment than above market imports of fossil fuel energy. So, we strongly encourage the committee to not transfer any funds from the DVA program to please maintain the full funding of the DVA program and let us meet our energy needs locally. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Line 62, please go ahead. You are breaking up. We'll move along, please call back. Line 63, please go ahead. Thank.

63, you are open. No response. We'll go to line 66.

Hello. This is Katherine Dumont, Menlo Park residence, and I want to thank Chair Becker. I appreciate some supportive words about public transit. We need budget commitments to match, and electric vehicles are not the answer. We're still exploiting resources, generating greenhouse gases to manufacture them and clogging our roads. And especially here in the Bay Area, we need to build better public transportation. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Line 67, please go ahead.

Hi. This is Katie Behroozi from Menlo Park. Can you hear me?

Yes, Yes, we can hear you.

Thank you so much for recognizing great. Thank you so much for recognizing the severity of the impending fiscal cliff for transit. I want to talk quickly about behavior change and about my 16 year old and his friends. Right now, they ride their bikes places. They take the train to the city on the weekends. Most of them aren't even learning how to drive yet. And I think those are the kids that are the future of California. And when we want to look at our climate crisis and how to produce a future of residents who don't think the single occupancy vehicle should be the default mode of transportation. I want to look to them and I want to make sure that we can do everything we can so that they don't lose their opportunity to get places. This is how we change the world, right? It's to keep these kids going on the right trajectory and not kill the services that they depend on. And the active transit funding, the active transportation funding that helps them ride places safely. So thank you so much for doing all you can. Look for all the funding sources you can. Don't lose out on federal opportunities, et cetera, and we really appreciate your work. Thank you.

Thank you. Shout out to last two Menlo Park callers. Next caller, please.

Line 68, you are open.

Hello, my name is Brian, and I am dependent on transit. My regular commute is in a crowded BART with hundreds of thousands of my fellow transit riders. Transit is very popular, but it needs state investment to thrive. 80 can't handle us alldriving. California cannot afford more neighborhoods to expand. Highways handle more car emissions. If we can budget 20 billion for highway repairs, then we can afford one 10th of that. To save transit from a fiscal cliff, please fully fund transit like we do highways so we have a chance to survive climate crisis. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Line 69, please go ahead.

Good afternoon. This is Steven Dunbar, Livermore, California. I work in public transit manufacturing, and I do not speak for my employer here. I ride the bus and I do not own a car because it is environmentally friendly. I do what I do because my mother has Ms. And the bus didn't just allow her to get around, but also gave her children mobility as well. Electric buses are well and good, and I'm proud to work on them, but if there's no bus service at all, having those vehicles serves no purpose. I support agency oversight and seamless principles, but often the agencies are handcuffed by cities that will not make any concessions to improve transit service speed or reduce the previous three years. Were survivorship mode for these agencies? I strongly urge you to provide them with the funding needed during this period of change. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Line 70, you are open.

Hi, good afternoon. This is Bob Allen. I'm a resident of the bay area, and I work with the organization Urban Habitat; calling to say that while we appreciate the difficult budget choices you're all facing, we need to make more efforts in terms of addressing the public transit operations crisis that's facing operators throughout the state. It is something that we've been working on for 15 years at the federal, state, and local levels. Agencies have been going to the ballot to raise operations funding at the local and county level successfully. And again, we know the difficult choices that you face, but we will not be able to reverse the course we're on unless we take action and look at a more expansive set of funding, programs and opportunities in addition to what you've taken a look at so far. So thank you, and we hope you can do more. Thank you.

Line 71, please go ahead.

Hi, Chair Becker and committee members. My name is Brittani Baxter, also from Menlo Park. I'm calling in support of transit funding encouraging you to please prioritize transit and help find the remainder of the $5 billion in transit funds that are needed to avoid those cuts. The funds seem like they're a really small fraction compared to what's being allocated for car infrastructure, and that's surprising to me, given the climate environment that we're in. Transit cuts would affect us all. Just as a local example, here in Menlo Park, 96% of our workforce can be sent from outside of the City. So even those of us who live here who may not ride transit all the time or exclusively would be affected by more crowded roads or by cuts in local workforce. But people who don't have access to a car have to quit their jobs in our area, making the labor shortage even worse. So just wanted to encourage that funding. I personally have an easy, but I don't think it does a lot of good to drive that EV on crowded roads. So anything we can do for transit is much appreciated. Thanks so much.

Mr. Chair, just give you a heads up. We're at eight people left. Next caller. 72, please go ahead. Hello, 72, go ahead.

Hello. My name is Al Doyle, the Deep Dive Weather Reporters committing unequivocally to the adequate funding to address the public transit fiscal cliff is a must have. It's disappointing that the money being proposed by you now is way too low. It is criminally low, causes ecoside, compounding deep service cuts, and deplete agency's ability to regrow essential mass transit ridership. More funding sources need to be on the table. Transportation emissions are the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions, about 40%. But today, about 65 million trips per month are taken on transit in California, reducing vehicle miles driven by hundreds of millions each year. Remember, greenwashing is not climate action.

Thank you. Next caller 74, you are open.

This is Barry. Thank you. Chair Becker, Barry Nelson with the Golden State Salmon Association. I'm here to testify about the water-related trailer bills, agenda items 67 and 69. There's a long list of those trailer bills. These are policy bills. They have a broad range of potentially very significant impacts, including for the salmon fishing industry that is shut down this year because of disastrously low salmon populations. We urge you to support your staff recommendation and send those trailer bills to policy committees where the issues they raise can be addressed properly. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll take the next three callers. Go ahead. .

Line 75 please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Alex Maldonado. I'm a resident of San Francisco. I'm calling to thank the Senators for their work so far to avert the public transit fiscal cliff. However, as many callers so far have pointed out, funding proposal so far is not enough to avoid severe operational cuts and to prepare for a higher transit and lower emission future. I don't have a car. I don't want to have a car. And I think people who do have cars and want less traffic probably also don't want me to have a car. A lot more Californians are going to need to choose to live without a car for us to hit our emissions goals. And reliable frequent transit is an important part of making that a good choice. I ask the committee appropriate funding from additional sources to allow transit to survive and thrive, including sources such as the cap and trade funding and the reallocation of higher funding where possible. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Line 77, you are open.

Hi, this is Natalie on behalf of Leadership Council, the proposed drought is a trailer bill and its current form lacks adequate protection for drinking water quality. We look forward to working with the Committee on amendment that are protected with drifting one supplies. We support funding going to DWR for ongoing SGMA implementation. However, we do not support investments to develop groundwater trading implementation plan. None of the 35 million to lifelong methane reduction should not go to Dairy Digesters. Dairy Digester research and loan programs, method facilities for production of factory farm gas hurt communities near Dairies in the San Jose Valley. We support the Senate's choice to restore $100 million for EVD. And last, we have serious concerns about the use of carbon capture, utilization and storage in the California's climate goals and as we prioritize direct emissions reductions. First, any funding of SB 905 implementation must ensure that there is robust and mean full community engagement and no additional pollution or reduction of copolutants from any CC US project. Thank you.

Good afternoon. This is Ross Buckley. On behalf of South Coast Air Quality Management District, we appreciate the AB 617 funding we provide in the Science Budget plan for air district implementation incentives, especially given the budget shortfall request. The continued prioritization of funding for state programs such as AB 617 that the LAO has previously acknowledged as highly cost-effective in addressing air quality, public health and climate challenges. Currently, the Ab 617 program is severely underfunded. The number of communities in the program has grown statewide, but there are not enough resources to support those existing communities. The South Coast region contains almost two thirds of the EJ communities in the state, and we cannot support additional communities due to the lack of resources. To address this, we respectfully ask that the AB 617 funding be restored to last year's levels. And should GGRF funds surpass current estimates that you consider additional investments in this worthy program, this will help us cover actual program cost and cost effectively reduce mission.

Thank you. Thank you very much. We'll take one more caller and then we're going to force you have to cut it off. One more caller.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, Chair and staff Daniel Gluesenkamp from the California Institute for Biodiversity, thanking you for including funding to the Ocean Protection Council for the Wind Science Entity, and for the DNA Barcode Library for California's Imperiled intratidal biodiversity. We definitely appreciate your recent approach to the administration's permitting trailer bill package and for your deciding to move forward in a balanced manner. Yes, more funding to Fish and Wildlife for permitting staff, but also funding OPC to get the data that we need to do smart permitting. And finally, we just hope that you're able to sustain the Senate priorities in the three party negotiations and that you're able to protect and further restore funding for land conservation and equity focused, nature based solutions. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay, we'll take the last call. Let's try to make it quick.

Perfect. My name is Corey Buse and I live in the Bay Area. I'm calling in strong support of increased funding for public transport. As it currently stands, current cuts would lead to rising fares, reduced service, or both, leading to a death spiral across the state. The people that used to take transit will either make less trips, which will further hurt our economy, or they will switch to cars, which will increase gridlock for existing drivers, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions. On a personal note, I don't own a car and rely on public transportation to get around. If public transportation routes are cut, this will severely impact my ability to move around the Bay Area in California. Please support extra putting for public transit. Thank you.

Thank you very much. With that, before we move to the votes, I would like to make a few comments and then I'll invite my colleagues up here to make any comments that they would like and then we will proceed to the vote. Items today we're going to be closing out all the items from this budget subcommittee from this year. And I appreciate all the debate and discussion that we've had over the last few months. And it's been honor privilege to chair this committee for the first time. But I want to make a quick statement on some of the high profile proposals, amendments, and decisions that we will be making today. As before, we're maintaining funding for environmental, justice, health and flood management programs. And we are also implementing a windfall tax on a big oil that was approved by the legislature just a couple of months ago. The Senate's Cap and Trade program still restore funding for our top priorities, including building decarbonization, coastal resilience, and sustainable agriculture. We've shifted $100 million for ZEV transit buses and infrastructure to help support some of the funding gaps that we heard about today that transit agencies will be facing with the fiscal cliff. Our proposal includes additional positions to speed up permitting of offshore wind, which is critical to maintaining a clean, reliable grid. And I thank you, Senator McGuire, for championing this issue. Our proposal for the CERF funding will help draw down federal money to prioritize impactful programs such as community solar and storage and demand response that will help California get to a 24-7 100% renewable grid. I've been a longtime supporter of building clean faster, which not only means landsliding and other permitting reform, but also supporting supply chains and costs for climate projects. I agree with some of the proposals that have been outlined in the Governor's infrastructure package. I've had many conversations this year and since I've been in office on how we can meet our clean energy and climate goals, as well as maximize funding from the Inflation maximize funding from the Inflation Reduction Act. The overwhelming agreement is that we need to build clean faster and cut green tape, as we've heard here from our own natural resources agency. That's been a legislative priority for me as well and continued to be a priority. Although today we are rejecting the Governor's trailer bill, proposals based on process as seven days is insufficient for our staff to vet the hundreds of pages of policy nuance in these proposals. We look forward to working with the administration on all of these critical issues. We must continue to protect California's vast spans of open space for the public's use and protection of wildlife. And we also do need to make sure we do build clean faster. Ocean temperatures keep rising. Our state keeps hitting record average temperatures. Farmers are struggling with climate variability and we may have disastrous wildfires again this summer. My district has 47 years until some of the most vulnerable communities, including East Palo Alto and Bell Haven, are flooded from sea level rise. And I'm sure Senator McGuire, Senator Dahle and other members are bracing themselves for other similar impacts in their Districts as well. It's time to protect our progress against climate change today. The votes that we take will help us do that. Thank you very much, my colleagues. Have any other any comments before.

I'll be brief? Mr. Chair and Mr. Chair, I want to take a moment to say thank you. Look, Chair Becker's vision and values and grit and hard work is getting us to where we're at today. And I know that we're going to be in good hands with your leadership, know that the work is still to come in front of us and that you're going to help lead landing this budget. And that is the absolute priority I know, for you for Pro Tem Atkins and Budget Chair Skinner. And I just want to take a moment, Mr. Chair, to say how grateful we are for your focus to the entire budget, sub to staff team for all the work that they do day in and day out, as well as to the Vice Chair as well. Grateful to be working with Vice Chair Dahle. But again, Mr. Chair, just want to say thank you for your fantastic focus and for the values that you put forward each and every day. Thank you.

Thank you for that. Senator Dahle.

Again, thank you to the Chair for doing it's a lot different style than we had last year. And obviously nothing against Chair Waikowski, but just a little different and obviously with the three of us on here where we had four last year. So I appreciate your work. I appreciate Assembly Staff but more importantly, I want to thank Emily and Heather on our side and your staff as well because they have to work together to bring literally this morning I was late for session trying to go through these bills with them. And so I want to say thank you for your time. Also, just to the public out there that this committee, I think I don't miss it. I don't think I've missed any of the meetings. I set through most of them to try to get here. And I know that our side of the aisle doesn't get a lot of say, but this is the one place where we can actually let the public watch what's happening in a more deliberate way and have the agencies here in front of us. So I appreciate the fact that they're here. We can debate things for my goals are to save the environment, but do it in a way that keeps people in California and businesses such as my own as a farmer. And so those are my goals, and I try to point out those facts. We don't always agree, but we least have a good conversation, and I appreciate that. So I look forward to hopefully sitting through it again next year. And I've enjoyed every bit of it, along with the Governor's staff and the LAO and all the folks that represent the agencies. I appreciate your time.

Thank you, Senator Dahle. The discussion and debate has been really wonderful, and I really am very appreciative of all the Governor's team who's come forward in front of us so far this year. I want to join, thank your staff and join and thank my staff as well, Joanne Eunice, who have done an incredible job. It's an incredible amount of work, especially recently, and very appreciative to them for that work. With that, let's proceed to the vote. Before that, we'll find a quorum and we'll ask the consultant to call the role.

Becker here. Becker here. Dahle here. Dolly here. McGuire here. McGuire here.

All right. Well, I will first take up Part, A Energy, and I will be looking for a motion on issues 3, 7,13, 14. 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 29, 31 and 32. Do I have a motion? Moved by Senator Dahle. Please call the roll.

Becker aye. Becker. aye Dahle. Aye. Dahle, aye. McGuire aye.

The votes are three to zero. Those issues are out. Next, we will move to, like, a motion on issues 1, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 17, 18, 19, 23, 28, 30, 33, 35, and 36. Can I have a motion on those? Moved by Senator Maguire? Please call the roll.

Becker aye. Becker, aye. Dahle no. Dahle no. McGuire McGuire aye.

The vote is two to zero. Those items are out. Two to one. I apologize. Two to one, those items are out. Next, we'll have issues 2, 6, 15, 16, 27, and 34. May I have a motion on those? Moved by Senator McGuire. Please call the role.

Becker aye. Becker, aye. Dahle McGuire aye. McGuire aye.

The vote on those items is 2-0, and those items are out. Now we move to Part B Resources, and I'd like a motion on issues 2, 4, 8, 9, 11, 16, 22,23, 27, 30, 31, 33, 36, 39, 44, 47, 63, 65, 66, 67, 69, 71 and 73. Feel like back where I was from, we had school closings for snow. We'd have to read out all the schools that were closed. I feel like this was like, can I have a motion on those? Items moved by Senator Dahle. Please call the roll.

Becker, aye. Becker aye Dahle. Dahle, aye, McGuire. McGuire, aye.

The vote is three to zero. Those items are out. Now we'd like a vote motion on 15, 19, 29, 48, 54, 56, 57, 61, 72, 77 moved by Senator McGuire. Please call the roll.

Becker, aye. Becker, aye. Dahle no. Dahle no. McGuire. McGuire aye.

The vote is two to one. Those items are out. And now we will go to a long list of items. 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 21, 24, 25, 26, 28, 32, 34, 35, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 49, 51, 52, 53, 55, 58, 59, 62, 64, 68, 70, 75, 76 can I have a motion on those issues? Moved by Senator McGuire, please call the roll.

Becker, aye. Becker, aye. Dahle? McGuire? McGuire, aye.

The vote is 2-0. Those items are out. With that. Like to wrap up the session today. I want to thank everyone who has participated. If you did not get your comments in, or if you want to make a longer comment, you can certainly do so in writing on our website. We do appreciate very much those those comments. Again, I appreciate everyone who's come to participate, testify, make comments in our hearing very, very much. It's been a wonderful discussion and dialogue. Look forward to wrapping up this budget. Thank you very much. This hearing is adjourned.