Senate Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Water

But since we don't have a quorum at this point, I will proceed as a Subcommitee and we'll establish a quorum when sufficient Members are present. We'll hear from the first author, which is going to be me, presenting file item number 11, SB 1402. And, I'm sorry, we have Senator Dodd here who can present file item number. Let's see, file item number three, SB 1159.

Just, just for the record, Mister Chair, you're not sorry that Mister Dodd is here?

I'm kind of sorry.

Okay, just checking. Thank you for clarifying.

Thank you. Mister Senator from Napa may proceed. We're very happy you're here, sir.

Okay, Mister Chair and Members, today I'm presenting SB 1159 regarding roadside wildfire risk reduction. I'll start by accepting the Committee amendments and thanking the Chair and the Committee staff for working with us on this. With these amendments, the Bill requires that by January 1, 2026 the Office of Planning and Research, in consultation with the appropriate departments, evaluates a categorical exemption for roadside vegetation management projects that reduce wildfire risk and meet appropriate conditions, which the Secretary of Natural Resources must consider.

SB 1159 does not create a statutory exemption. Rather, it states that the roadside vegetation management is a legislative priority and that projects undertaking roadside vegetation management meeting appropriate safeguards should be considered for inclusion on the list of categorically exempt projects. OPR and the Secretary have already have a history of evaluating and appropriating, excuse me, appropriately tailoring categorical exemptions. Roadside ignitions are a significant source of wildfires when a spark from a passing vehicle or cigarette comes into contact with dry brush and grass.

With thousands of miles of roads and wildfire prone lands, the risk of roadside vegetation, lack of management is constantly a concern for uncontrolled wildfire. Currently, roadside vegetation management projects are often subject to sequel reviews that can add costs and delays, ultimately reducing the amount of work that gets done, increasing the risk of runaway fires that are devastating to climate change, as well as human and environmental health.

An exemption for roadside vegetation management projects would vastly increase the amount of roadside vegetation management work that can be completed in a given amount of time. The Bill is supported by the California Fire Chiefs Association, CBIA, numerous counties and other organizations. And with me today is Fire Chief Dave Winnacker, representing the California Wild - the California Fire Chiefs Association.

Do you just have one witness, Senator?

Yes, sir.

You have up to four minutes if you'd like to use that. Thank you. You may proceed.

Thank you, sir. Dave Winnacker, representing the California Fire Chiefs Association, thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts today. And thank you, Senator Dodd, for bringing this Bill forward. Recognizing that most of California is a fire dependent landscape where fires are a feature, not a bug, and we have no future that does not include recurring and regular fire occurrence, as well as climate change compactions to the weather cycle that will mean exposure to an increased number of days that are capable of supporting rapidly spreading destructive wildfires.

In the face of that reality, combined with the many homes that have been built in the wildland urban interface, and the degree to which our firefighting resources are already stretched very thin on high threat days, we think it is critically important that conditions are set to enable micro projects across the landscape where CEQA, which is a complex and daunting task or bar to overcome for local governments attempting to carry micro projects, creating more certainty around exemptions from CEQA for the purpose of achieving wildfire safety on roadsides.

Where work done to the vegetation that surrounds the roadside not only is able to leverage the non burnable characteristics of the road that is already there, we get dual benefits of compartmentalizing wildfire and securing our evacuation routes so that when times come that we have to evacuate communities, it is less likely that those roads will be directly impacted by fire and direct flame impingement closing the road.

We think the certainty that the Bill would provide would be greatly beneficial as far as enabling communities and small projects to move forward, so that as we enter a resource constrained future where the prevalence of state funding for mega projects is less available, more of these locally resourced, smaller scale projects will be able to proceed with less regulatory oversight. We're greatly appreciative of the opportunity to bring this forward, and we believe that this will enshrine many of the practices that are currently bubbling up in an organic manner, making them more accessible to additional communities.

Thank you for your testimony. Do we have any other witnesses who want to testify in support? If you could limit your testimony to your name, affiliation and position on the measure.

Yes. Good morning, Mister Chair. Chris Micheli on behalf of Humboldt Redwood Company and Mendocino Redwood Company in support of the Bill. Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Good morning. Silvio Ferrari on behalf of the California Building Industry Association in support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Noel Kramers with Wine Institute in support.

Thank you.

Jeff Neil representing Contra Costa County and Yolo County, both in support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Dylan Elliott, on behalf of the counties of Napa and Sonoma, both in support.

Thank you.

Alex Loomer, on behalf of Pacific Forest Trust in support.

Thank you.

Richard Maher with America First Policy, California chapter. In support.

Thank you.

Julie Lecheski, on behalf of East Bay Regional Park District, in support.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mister Chair. Joe Zanze with San Diego Gas & Electric in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mister Chair and Members. James Thuerwachter with the California State Council of Laborers in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses in support. Do we have any opposition witnesses? Any lead opposition witnesses? Any opposition witnesses at all? All right, I'm seeing nobody in the room. I will bring the discussion back to Members. Do our Members have any questions or comments? Senator Laird.

I just have a brief comment. I just wanted to salute you because just through a whole series of iterations, you've worked really hard on fire prevention and different ways to make sure it happens. I appreciate taking the amendments at the appropriate time. I will be happy to move the Bill.

Thank you, Senator.

Thank you, Senator. Senator, would you like to close.

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you so much. So we have a Subcommitee right now. We'll take the vote up at the appropriate time. Thank you for your presentation. I think we have Senator Niello in the room. Senator here to present file item number four, SB 1185. You can proceed whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mister Chair and Members, I'm pleased to introduce SB 1185, which adds flexibility for water agencies to comply with stringent regulations that are currently being drafted by the State Water Resources Control Board. I'd like to state that while I appreciate the Committee's suggested amendments, I really can't accept them because the proposed amendments really don't provide the flexibility that I think is necessary for water agencies. Nor would they in any way significantly reduce the costs of implementing the regulations.

I introduced 1185 after the Leg Analysts Office produced a thorough report on the cost and potential unintended consequences of stringent regulations that are currently being proposed by the Water Board. SB 1185 implements recommendations of the LAO and the Public Policy Institute of California's Water Policy Center that seeks to reduce costs of implementing conservation requirements.

The Public Policy Institute's Water Policy Center found that it is both hard and costly for communities to go beyond the 20% savings and that capping reductions at that level would bring average compliance costs down significantly. SB 1185 implements this very recommendation. It's worthwhile to note that prior to 2020, California created a statewide per capita urban water use reduction of 20% by 2020. California surpassed the 20% reduction and reduced per capita water urban water use by fully 32% by 2020.

While further conservation certainly is a laudable goal, the remaining water that is available to conserve comes at a much higher price because many of the low cost options have already been implemented. The Water Board estimates the proposed regulations are - the proposed regulations are estimated to save 500,000 acre feet of water, which is only about 1% of the state's annual water use. They also estimate importantly, their regulations have a net benefit of $2.2 billion for a benefit cost ratio of 1.24.

However, and very importantly, an analysis by an independent consultant M.Cubed, contracted by an individual water district, Mesa Water District, determined that the benefit cost ratio to be 0.53, meaning the cost will be almost twice the benefit for a mere 1% of water savings.

SB 1185 strikes the balance for maintaining conservation targets while recognizing that when it comes to conserving water, there is a threshold of diminishing returns where the benefit of the regulation does not outweigh the cost being imposed to the goals, a cost that will be borne by ratepayers and a cost that both the LAO and the PPIC say will impact inland and lower income communities disproportionately.

While the regulations were recently revised and makes some modest changes, it is clear that the regulations still go further than the law requires and even beyond that, what the Department of Water Resources recommends. In fact, just this month, the Metropolitan Water District announced rate and property tax increases over the next two years. Their press release cited both lower water sales and funding for conservation programs, among others, as the basis for their increase.

SB 1185 will implement the LAO's recommendation to simplify the process and eliminate the thresholds to allow for unique variances. A variance allows water agencies more flexibility to use water for unique uses, such as evaporative coolers in hot regions of the state and water for livestock. SB 1185 adds additional flexibility in meeting water conservation goals by stating that the water loss standard does not have to be met by a standalone requirement, but as a part of the aggregate of the standards of the water use budget.

The Bill also implements the LAO's recommendation to allow water suppliers to use the the Water Board's water use tool estimates for calculating their water use objective. This option will significantly reduce the amount of work for the supplier, particularly small suppliers. Last, the Bill prohibits the Water Board from adopting outdoor water use standards that are more restrictive than a recommended standard from the Department of Water Resources. The current proposed regulations will mandate outdoor conservation standards much more stringent than DWR recommended.

These outdoor standards will be major cost hurdles, especially for inland and arid regions of the state. I'd like to address a question that was raised in the analysis that this Bill may be premature because the drafting of regulations is currently ongoing at the Water Board. But the Legislature has a critical oversight role for the State Water Board and it will become much harder to make changes once the regulations are adopted and in effect. The sooner the Legislature is cognizant of the costly impositions on water suppliers and our constituents who will pay higher utility bills, the sooner we can course correct. With that, I'd like to invite Sonia Pettick with Leg Analyst's Office to discuss their findings of the report.

Thank you. Is this your only witness, Senator?

You have up to four minutes. Proceed whenever you're ready.

Yes.

Oh, okay. Thank you very much. I tried to limit my comments to two minutes so I don't have to read.

Efficiency is always great, too.

Okay. I'm Sonja Pettick with the Legislative Analyst's Office. I'd start by noting that our office does not take positions on policy bills, so I'm here neither in support of nor in opposition to SB 1185. Rather, I will present findings from a report we released in January on a similar topic and answer any related technical questions. SB 606 of 2018 required our office to assess implementation of the urban water use efficiency framework.

Regulations were not finalized by the time our report was due, but we were able to review the State Water Resources Control Board's proposed regulations from last August. And of note, since our report came out, the State Water Board has released revised regulations. Since SB 606 directed us to describe factors facilitating or impeding compliance by local water suppliers, we considered the feasibility of the framework. We also looked at cost effectiveness and equity.

We found that the regulations, as proposed in August, were overly complicated or stringent in places, especially when it came to performance measures for commercial customers, the variance application process and the residential outdoor water use standard. We found that requirements would be challenging and costly to implement, particularly in the near term, even if the long term benefits ultimately outweighed the costs, and that these costs would likely be felt disproportionately by lower income customers.

We recommended the Legislature consider requiring the Administration to, one, simplify certain requirements, such as performance measures, the variance application process, and, for example, by allowing local suppliers to use the Water Board's online tool to develop their water use objectives. Number two, ease some of the proposed standards, such as the outdoor water use standard. Number three, provide more robust technical assistance to suppliers. And four, extend some of the supplier deadlines.

We also suggested the Legislature consider how to target state funding when available to assist lower income customers. And finally, to increase drought resilience, we recommended developing a strategy to manage and take advantage of any water saved as a result of the framework. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses in support of the Bill saying none. Do we have any witnesses in opposition, any lead witnesses in opposition to this Bill? Do we have one or two? Two. Okay, you have two minutes each, and you can proceed whenever you're ready. Thank you.

Chairman, Members of the Committee, my name is Cody Phillips with California Coastkeeper Alliance. We're opposed to this Bill because it greatly undermines the effectiveness of the conservation regulations, and it does so without really recognizing the progress that's been made in the subsequent drafts of the regulations since the LAO report was made. It does so in four ways. First, just by removing that water loss component, which it completely removes.

I'm not sure where the intent differs there, but this is a really major component of the budget. On average, this annual loss is about 316,000 acre feet per year. For context, it takes about two to three acre feet of water to serve the needs of. Sorry. It takes one acre foot of water to serve the needs of two to three families per year. So this is a significant loss.

And the whole purpose of this is to really focus on that leakage, which is something water suppliers should definitely be doing. By capping total reductions at no more than 20%, it really limits the nuance and conversations that have kind of happened here. And also the specificity of these reductions. Unlike the reduction of 20% by 2020, these regulations are really water supplier specific. And many water suppliers don't have to conserve any new water for at least a decade under the most recent draft of the regulations.

So those that have significant savings, like Beverly Hills, often haven't invested in conservation. So there also ignores the fact that there is alternative compliance pathways and quite a bit of flexibility built in to help those suppliers who have significant savings achieve those goals within a reasonable timeframe. It also prohibits the State Water Board from using any recommendation outside of DWRs, which this has been the main topic of debate at the State Water Board. There's been a lot of back and forth on it.

For example, the new, latest drafts, which once again, are not finalized move DWR's recommendation back by five years, giving suppliers more time to do it, but also adding a more stringent final compliance deadline by 2040. That's a huge compromise that really, that kind of conversation would go away under this Bill. And finally, it prohibits thresholds for variances and essentially changes the burden of proof. This is a huge deal. Yes, I'll just say that these changes are inappropriate at this time. Thank you.

All right, Dennis O'Connor with Mona Lake Committee. I'm not going to repeat anything that my colleague just mentioned. I just want to point out that the logic of the statute is that if a water customers are using more than their water use objective, it means they are using more water than is necessary to achieve their beneficial uses. Some would call that unreasonable and wasteful of water, which, by the way, the California Constitution, Article 10, section two, bans the waste and unreasonable use of water.

Now, I appreciate that it may be difficult for some agencies to comply with and meet the standards. The solution is not to gut the statute. The solution is for the water agencies to work with DWR, the State Water Board, other interested parties, and the Legislature to develop programs, policies, projects, and perhaps funding to help reduce the water use.

California has to become more frugal with its water and reduce water demand, not only during droughts, but more importantly during periods of plenty where we can then store the water and help us become more flexible in our water use. And for the reasons previously stated, we are opposed to the Bill. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses in opposition? Please limit your statement to your name, affiliation and position on the measure.

Mister Chair. Josh Malone. Heal the Bay. For the reason stated, oppose. Thank you.

Erin Woolley, Sierra Club California in opposition.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses in opposition, I will bring it back to the dias. Senator Laird.

Thank you very much. I appreciate the attempt to do something about this in a couple of references, because you referenced the savings of 32% by 2020 over the 20% goal. I was the original author.

I had a feeling that you were.

Of that Bill. And the interesting thing was we thought it would be so hard and caused such dislocation that in the negotiations that first year, we divided it in half, that we could specify what could be done in the first half of time, but we would have to check in in the second half of time to see how to make the harder reductions to do that. And then Mother Nature intervened. There was a substantial four year drought.

There was not water availability, and it led people to save in a way that they hadn't even contemplated and was considered too hard. And that is one of the major reasons for their 32%. I also did the original Bill on outdoor urban landscape irrigation and tried to craft it in a way that it wasn't a regulation per se, but it gave every city and county the opportunity to adopt their own ordinance with saving.

And if they couldn't do that, then the state would have a model ordinance that would be imposed, but it would give the locals the chance to do it in a way that it preserved local control but preserved the fact that we were actually going to cut water. It was just a matter of how. And I do take seriously the fact that there are three bills on the agenda today, and one of the reasons I'm just going to make a little longer comments here is it applies to all three bills. And I do believe it's premature to be really stringent on the regulations before they're finalized and the bills were introduced after the first iteration of the regulations. And the report that was done by the Legislative Analyst was on the first iteration.

And I think many things were addressed and there would have to be amendments to each Bill to move them along with what the second iteration was, even though it is still going. And so I read these three and believed that I would only vote for a Bill where the author took the amendments because it addressed that. And one clearly took it at the time of the agenda packet, you did not take it.

And a third person I talked to on the floor yesterday and said you'd be very wise to take the amendments because I intend to vote against any of the three bills where the amendments are not taken. And so I would be willing to vote for your Bill with those amendments because it addresses the changes and it addresses the whole issue of just some things that need to be addressed as it changes and before the regulations are finalized. And so if miraculously you decide at some point to take the amendments, I would support your Bill. But in your current stance of not taking the amendments, I will oppose your Bill when it comes up. So I just wanted to be clear about those reasons. And Mister Chair, I appreciate the chance to express myself.

I will say I associate my comments with my colleague, with the exception of running all the previous bills.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Grove.

Thank you, Mister Chair. With the Chair's indulgence, may I ask the LAO a question?

Yes.

Thank you. Thank you. Did the updated regulations change the standards water suppliers have to meet for outdoor water standards?

Did you mean the second, the new ones, or the first set?

The revised.

The revised set.

The revised set. They did not change the standard, but they lengthened the timeline by which suppliers had to attain that standard.

So did they. So on the difference between DWR's recommendations and the outdoor standards, what was the Water Board requiring from water agencies?

The Water Board is requiring that ultimately the residential outdoor water standard be set at a landscape efficiency factor of 0.55. The Department of Water Resources had recommended a landscape efficiency factor of 0.63. And just one additional comment that I would make is that suppliers don't have to meet any of these individual standards, they just have to meet the total water use objective as a whole.

And I guess my last thing that I - because I represent Inland Empire and one of the largest poverty communities in the state, with the highest Medi-Cal recipients in the state. My district has. I understand that the LAO said it may disproportionately impact the inland area and the low income families or communities. Can you explain that to me on why you think that?

Yeah, for one, there's a couple of reasons. For one, families who are lower income may already be taking measures to limit their water use. And if, as a cost savings measure, and if suppliers have to increase rates in order to comply with the new requirements, there may be less room for those customers to further reduce their water use. And we found a study from Stanford that was talking about that very issue.

In addition, lower income customers may be less able to take some of the measures to reduce overall water use because it's hard to take advantage of rebate and incentive programs unless they are what are called sort of direct install, where the water supplier comes in, pays for the entire thing, and does the installation of whatever project or fixture replacement. However, most programs are rebate programs, so the customer has to pay the upfront cost, then apply for a rebate.

And the rebate doesn't typically cover the entire cost. So it can be difficult for lower income families to both pay the upfront cost as well as afford the differential between the rebate amount and the total cost of the project, for example, for turf conversion.

Right. Or to change the landscape in their house. So my last thing is that I know you can't take a position on the Bill, but the language in Mister Niello's Bill, does that help or hurt my constituents? Based on what you just said for low income families, does Mister Niello's Bill address that?

Well, I haven't, our office hasn't done any kind of, you know, formal evaluation of the Bill, but based on some of the specifics of the Bill, yeah, it could lower costs for the suppliers, which then would potentially lead to lower rate reductions if they're primarily dependent on rates for their revenue.

Thank you. I have a water district that we've been working with the state for almost three years to try to supply them, the Del Oro Water District. And the rates have gone up almost 600%, and a lot of people in the farming community can't afford 600% increases in their water. And so I'm looking for solutions for that. I appreciate your comments. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Senator Grove, I had a follow up question for the LAO. Just when do you expect to have a formal analysis of the revised regulations?

Our office isn't intending to do that. We were required by SB 606 to release a report by January. The timing was a little awkward just because the Bills really hadn't been fully implemented. The regulations hadn't been.

As far as those regulations, do you have a view - you've had a chance to review them? Would they also address some of the cost concerns raised by Senator Grove?

Yeah, again, we haven't done that assessment, but the revised regulations do provide, respond to some of the concerns that we raised in our report and have been raised by many others as well, to sort of simplify some of the aspects of the regulations and also give suppliers sort of additional time to get there.

Right. So it would not, under the revised regulations, we should not expect a 600% increase in prices?

I couldn't, I couldn't comment on that.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I'll just. No.

I wasn't saying everybody's Bill was going to go up 600%.

No but I just want to make clear that the second regulate set, the revised set of regulations, as I think Senator Laird described, you know, do address a lot of the concerns. And so when we talk about the LAO report, that's obviously dealing with the first set of proposed regulations, and so would just echo a lot of what the Senator from. Where are you from again? Santa Cruz. My apologies, but go banana slugs. Said earlier.

Fair Oaks.

But this is one of the three bills we're hearing, and while I applaud the effort and the thoughtfulness of this, I do believe it's premature to amend the law at this point in time while regulations are still so much in flux. And we've seen a second draft that has really internalized a lot of the concerns that were raised in the LAO report and others.

And at the same time, this particular Bill seeks to undermine existing water conservation law, makes urban water use difficult to enforce, and restricts the Water Board's authority among other things. And we know that the rains we've seen over the last few years are not indicative of, likely indicative of what we'll see as far as water coming forward. And I do think conservation is going to still be very, very critical as an objective. So for those reasons, particularly without you taking the amendments, I'm going to be a no on this Bill and recommending that. But with that, if you'd like to close.

Thank you. A couple of points about the, excuse me, the opposition statements. First, the water loss standard is not eliminated or ignored. It's just included in the overall allowance of water use. And the cap of 20% is, I believe, reasonable because of the evidence that anything beyond that is potentially unreasonable. And with the point of flexibility being built in and the revised regulations, I would submit not enough. The second witness indicated that my Bill is unreasonable and wasteful.

I would suggest that what is unreasonable is a 0.52 benefit cost ratio for a 1% overall savings in water. I would agree conservation is important, and I've always thought that. I participated in the water form process here in the Sacramento region in the 1990s, and I was strongly in favor of the implementation of meters, which was not a particularly popular thing in our region here, and I would add, not in my household.

So I agree, conservation is absolutely important and this doesn't do away with that notion. And the reason that I am not accepting the amendments is because it defeats the purpose of what I'm trying to accomplish by this Bill. In other words, accepting the amendments will be a functional equivalent of the Bill being defeated, from my standpoint.

And what is important here is the cost return on the initial draft of the regulations, which the LAO. And by the way, I appreciate Miss Pettick being here to provide technical expertise because water is very complicated indeed. And of course, they're not taking a position on the Bill, but they did have a very critical write up of the initial draft of the regulations, as did PPIC.

And I think it's important to take note of that because of the motivation that created that those regulations in the first place. And I do not think that the revisions that are being discussed bring into the regulatory mix either the flexibility or cost reasonableness that's necessary. And I want to stress that this is going to translate into higher rates for the customers of the water districts, particularly inland areas and disadvantaged areas. And when those rates hit their bills, we need, as the oversight of the Water Board, we need to be prepared to say that we fully agree with the regulations and the resultant impact on their pocketbook. So with that I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. We do not have a quorum at this point in time, but we'll take that up at the appropriate - when we do.

I'm assuming that the Bill has been moved.

We don't have a motion yet, but when we'll have a - we don't have a quorum, but when we do, we'll see if someone wants to make a motion.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

I just saw Senator Ashby. Senator Ashby, if you're still out side, you can present. If not, I will. Is she right outside, or does she leave? Okay. We will present Senator Min, SB 1402.

Thank you. We'll now hear Senator Min's Bill, SB 1402. Go ahead, sir, when you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair. SB 1402 would require all state agencies to consider the 30 x 30 goal when adopting, revising, or establishing plans, policies and regulations that directly affect land use, natural resource management, water use and quality, and biodiversity conservation. California is home to one of 25 global biodiversity hotspots, but this biodiversity is under threat from climate change, habitat loss and fragmentation, invasive species, disease, pests and pollution. Conservation is one of the best tools we have to prevent further extinctions and protect our biodiversity and ecosystems.

In 2020, Governor Newsom issued Executive Order N-82-20 to adopt a goal to conserve at least 30% of California's land and coastal waters by the year 2030, a crucial goal in line with what the scientists say we need to prevent mass extinctions. To ensure that this goal remained a commitment for future administrations, last year, I authored SB 337 to codify the 30 x 30 goal into statute.

While California has made critical investments in conservation to further this 30 x 30 goal, it's important that this goal also be rooted in the plans, policies and regulations of our state agencies, something that we have emphasized in numerous hearings during my tenure as chair here. So with that, I don't have any witnesses, but would respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister chair. Do I have any witnesses in support?

Alex Loomer, on behalf of Audubon California, California Native Plant Society, Defenders of Wildlife, and Pacific Forest Trust in support. Thank you.

Thank you, ma'am.

Erin Woolley. Sierra Club California, in support.

Thank you.

Dennis O'Connor, with the Mona Lake Committee in support.

Thank you.

Julie Lecheski, on behalf of East Bay Regional Park District, SemperVirens, Mid Peninsula Regional Open Space District, California State Parks Foundation and Land Trust of Santa Cruz County, all in support.

Thank you.

Thank you. Mark Fenstermaker for the California Council of Land Trusts, the Peninsula Open Space Trust, and The Wildlands Conservancy in support. Thanks to the author.

Thank you.

Michael Jarred, on behalf of the California Institute for Biodiversity in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other witnesses in support? Any witnesses in opposition? Going once. Seeing none. I'll bring it back to the dais. Senator Laird.

This is a good Bill. It implements the, the strategy. I notice in the analysis there's no formal opposition. The one thing I would call attention to is that if we do not have money in a bond or another place to acquire land or do easements, we won't have the ability to implement that. And that is a very important thing.

I know I'm an ex officio member of The Coastal Conservancy, and they were just given notice in the last couple of days that there's, in essence, a freeze on general funds. And they have a limited amount, something like 25 million left in bonds, which is two big projects or three big projects. And so I'm going to strongly support this Bill, but a companion needs to be a bond or something else to help implement it.

I believe in it.

I will make the motion if we have a quorum before the end of our natural life.

Thank you, Senator. Appreciate that.

So I don't, I know this is not the Appropriations Committee, and there will be some assessment, but for the, I sat on the Sierra Nevada Conservancy Board for seven years. And, you know, we, funding is always an issue for most of the conservancies and, you know, doing conservation easements and the like. So what - has anybody put a price tag to, like the 30 x 30, like, what we think it would take to actually preserve 30? I mean, 30% of California is a hell of a lot of land.

Senator Dahle.

Yep. So I know we've done numerous hearings on this. I think we're not starting off at zero. So we're talking, I think, for lands, we're looking at around 23-24% already so that it's already conserved. So we're trying to increase that to 30%. That was precisely the question I asked the Administration in an earlier hearing. I want to say this year, it feels like a very long year. Maybe it was last year, on that point, and we didn't get a price tag.

So we got a lot of anecdotes and they told us they'd get back to us. So that is something we can follow up on. Senator, I appreciate the question. I don't think this particular Bill has a price tag because it's just asking them to consider the 30 x 30 goal. But to actually achieve the goal, to Senator Laird's point, I do think we are going to need some funding.

So the Governor did the Executive order on 30 x 30. Then you followed up with the actual codification.

Codification. And this Bill does.

This requires state agencies to take 30 x 30 into account.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other comments? Would you like to close, sir?

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, sir. We'll take that Bill up. Based on Senator Laird's comments, If in our lifetime we have a quorum.

Okay, we're waiting on authors, and we only have five bills left to hear, so hopefully we can get some before the end of our natural lifetime. But I think at this point, we will take a brief recess until we get our next author. Senator Ashby. So we will resume Committee. Senator Ashby is in the room. We have SB 1110. File item two. Whenever you are ready, Senator, you can proceed.

Good morning. I am here to present SB 1110. The Bill as introduced was intended to provide the State Water Resource Control Board the flexibility to consider low cost alternatives to water efficiency projects. If the projects maintain California's high water efficiency and environmental standards and requirements. The Public Policy Institute of California and the Legislative Analyst's Office have raised concerns on the cost effectiveness of the waterboard regulations and in particular, the impact they'll have on low income families.

SB 1110 would have allowed the Water Board's enforcement process to advance water efficiency while guarding against disproportionate impacts and high costs, protecting those low income families and ratepayers. The Bill addressed immediate water needs and promoted equity and environmental justice, ensuring that all individuals, especially those in disadvantaged communities, had equal access to clean and affordable water. Most importantly, SB 1110 did not change the Water Board's current regulatory process, but instead provided flexibility to exercise discretion.

Supporters included California Water Association, the City of Sacramento, specifically Councilwoman Katie Valenzuela, ACWA, California Water Efficiency Partnership, the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, Irvine Ranch Water District, and Northern California's Water Association, amongst others. However, somewhat reluctantly, we are accepting the amendments in the Committee analysis. So now the Bill will simply provide a two year extension on when enforcement can begin. I do have with me a lead witness from Regional Water Authority. Ryan Ojakian. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you, Senator. Is this your only witness?

I'm not sure.

Only lead.

Okay, you have up to four minutes.

I don't think I'll use up to four minutes, but appreciate that. Good morning, Chair and Members. Ryan Ojakian with the Regional Water Authority. RWA is comprised of 22 drinking water suppliers that provide the public service of drinking water to 2.2 million people in the greater Sacramento area. Specifically in terms of Senate districts, those 2.2 million people get water either wholly within or partially from Senator Ashby's district, Senator Niello's district, Senator Dahle's district, Senator Dodd's district, and Senator Alvarado-Gill's district.

We span from the upper watershed in the American River Basin and Utah Feather River systems to the groundwater basins. Sorry for the distraction. In the middle Central Valley, Sacramento counties. Our job is to make sure that when people go to the tap and turn it on, there's water that comes out. It's reliable, that that water is safe for them to drink, i's of quality, and that that service is provided at the lowest possible cost.

We have to do all three of those things at the same time, otherwise we're not doing our job. I want to thank Senator Ashby in particular for being a champion on understanding that that's our mission. Now, efficiency is part of doing that, and we're committed to doing efficiency. Now, I want to say, and the Senator mentioned this in her speaking points, with the amendments, we believe.

Right, the end game here is compliance, and that enforcement is a tool to get to compliance and that it's important as we move forward, when we get to the phase of getting into enforcement actions, that we're making sure that that tool is really about that endgame of getting to compliance. So with that, I will say I am in support, obviously and respectfully ask for aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses who'd like to testify in support of this Bill? Please limit your testimony to your name, affiliation and position on the measure.

Danielle Blacet-Hyden with the California Municipal Utilities Association. We really supported the introduced version and will still support this one.

Thank you.

Thanks, Danielle.

Good morning. Julia Hall with the Association of California Water Agencies in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Linda Vo with the California Water Efficiency Partnership in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jamie Miner on behalf of Eastern Municipal Water District, located in Riverside County, and Santa Margarita Water District, located in Orange County, pleased to support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Kirk Kimmelshue for the Northern California Water Association in support. Want to thank the Senator.

Thank you. Seeing no other witnesses in support, do we have any other, do we have any lead witnesses in opposition? I see two of you, so you each have two minutes. Proceed whenever you're ready.

Dennis O'Connor with the Mona Lake Committee. With the adoption of the Committee amendments, we're going to be moving to neutral.

Thank you.

Cody Phillips with California Coastkeeper Alliance. And with the adoption of the Committee amendments, moving to neutral. Thank you.

So you're not lead witnesses. Any other witnesses in opposition?

No, just neutral. Heal the Bay. Justin Malone with Heal the Bay with those amendments, going neutral. Thank you.

Erin Woolley with Sierra Club California. We appreciate the Committee amendments and we'll be reviewing them closely.

Moving to neutral.

We'll be reviewing them we haven't had a chance to fully review, but we do appreciate them.

Thank you. Anyone else in opposition? Seeing no one in the room, we'll move back to the Committee. Senator Laird.

I would just say to Senator Ashby, unfortunately, you missed the lengthy discussion on Senator Niello's Bill, which.

Is that unfortunate or.

Well, unfortunate for your knowledge, not for your time of day.

Okay. All right. Fair enough.

And the thing about it is, is that at least I did and some others did, that. That discussion applied to all three bills. And so. Cause we had somebody from the LAO that actually talked about their analysis. And I want to thank you for taking the amendments, which I could tell was not done with incredible enthusiasm.

Correct.

But it really allows some of us to vote unequivocally for your Bill, and I thank you for the intent and the work on it, and we'll look forward to moving it when we finally get a quorum.

Thank you, Senator Laird.

Anyone else? Senator Dahle.

I just want to say that I'm obviously going to be supporting your Bill, but I think we've seen a few bills come through here, and we've, you know, Niello didn't take the amendment, so his Bill will die. Your Bill's taking the amendment, so apparently it will go forward. But at the end of the day, what are we saying? I mean, we're hearing from our water agencies that the Hertzberg and Friedman Bills aren't really working that well.

And so I think we need to, I just want to, for the record, say that, you know, we have some issues out there that need to be addressed, and we continue to just, like, kick the can down the road. There's still going to be a problem there. So I'll be supporting your Bill, but we may be needing to look at some, addressing some of these issues long term for the water agencies, and maybe our previous legislation wasn't perfect.

Any other comments from the Committee? All right, I'll just add to that. Yeah, we did have kind of a robust discussion earlier, and again, would just emphasize first, thank you for taking the amendments. This is one of three bills. And the Niello Bill we're recommending a no on. I am recommending an aye on this one. Conservation is important, and as I said earlier, the massive rainfall that we saw the last few years is not something that we're likely to continue seeing.

So there may be problems with the previous framework, but there are problems that I know that the Water Board is trying to address. The first set of proposed regulations came under heavy critique. I know that your Bill was responsive to many of those criticisms, but we've seen a second set of proposed regulations that has moved a lot in the right direction. We're likely to see further amendments to those regulations, new draft regulations coming forward that I think will continue to address some of the concerns raised.

It's likely that we'll see significant progress towards some of the goals you're looking to accomplish. So with that, I just feel like it's premature at this point to put in binding law, particularly laws that would affect conservation and potentially undermine our conservation goals for urban water districts. So appreciate you taking the amendments and would you like to close?

We can only be as brave for our constituents as the system allows us to be. I urge and aye vote.

Thank you. Once we have a quorum, we can potentially take up the Bill.

Thank you.

And with that, appreciate your presentation, Senator. Senator, I saw Senator Caballero somewhere. There you go.

Senator, we have file item number eight, SB 1390. You can present whenever you're ready.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members. Today I'm pleased to present SB 1390, which builds upon the progress made in the past year to enable California to divert to divert flood flows for a groundwater recharge. How can anybody be against groundwater recharge? I greatly appreciate the chair and the committee's input outlined in the analysis, and I'm going to accept the committee's amendments. I appreciate them very much.

In 2023, California experienced a dramatic end to extreme drought conditions through a series of atmospheric rivers that brought record snowpack and rainfall, causing extensive flood damage and excess flows that resulted in record breaking water storage opportunities. Decades of drought, population growth, and overuse of groundwater basins have left them dangerously depleted, resulting in dry drinking water wells, loss of wildlife habitat, land subsidence, farm land, fallowing seawater intrusion, contaminated water wells in rural communities, and a host of other threats to the sustainable water future.

Recognizing the need for additional tools to manage the destructive flood flows and the need to utilize excess water for the long term health of groundwater basins, Governor Newsom issued an executive order in March of 23 which authorized water agencies to divert excess flood flows for groundwater recharge without the need to obtain a costly and time consuming permit that often delayed the opportunity to catch that water.

The process established by this executive order was later codified in Spain, SB 122, with additional requirements in order to better protect groundwater quality and downstream water users. The initial water diversions and subsequent groundwater recharge took place in the wake of SB 22 and helped to replenish severely over-drafted groundwater basins. However, more work must be done to fully realize the potential benefits of these opportunities and some roadblocks were identified in the wake of SB 122.

SB 1390 carries forward the progress of the executive order NSB 122 by allowing additional recharge projects to be completed in a safe and responsible manner and move California towards a more sustainable water future. I'm committed to working with the opposition coalition and all stakeholders to ensure that the bill does what it is intended to do, and that is to capture and store additional excess flood water in California.

With me today to testify is Charles Delgado, policy director for Sustainable Conservation, and Sarah Woolf, president of Water Wise, a water consulting firm.

Thank you. And before we proceed with your witnesses, I think we have enough members to establish quorums. So I will ask the assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The assistant notes that quorum has been established. We have three file items on bills on proposed consent, and we'll take up the consent calendar after this bill. So with that, we'll go ahead and you can present your witnesses. We have two witnesses here. You each have two minutes to present. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Good morning. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Charles Delgado. I'm policy director for Sustainable Conservation. We're an environmental nonprofit organization dedicated to collaborative solutions to California's natural resource challenges. So we're here today as the sponsor of SB 1390 as a common sense follow up measure to SB 122, last year's resources trailer bill, codification of Executive Order N 423, which established that authority for diversion of flood flows for groundwater recharge without a water right permit.

So we really view these flows as an opportunity to bolster depleted groundwater supplies throughout the state. As the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act continues to be implemented, communities, ecosystems, and farmers must all rely on overtaxed groundwater basins. The responsible utilization of flood flows for recharge is an opportunity to benefit vulnerable basins, especially in the white areas, those basins without access to surface water supplies and thus with fewer opportunities to pursue recharge projects.

By utilizing the authority first established in last year's executive order and then codified in the Natural Resources Trailer Bill, water managers throughout the state can help to safeguard California communities while simultaneously alleviating the pressures on groundwater basins as they come into compliance with state regulations. Since last year's codification, however, our partners have encountered hurdles to using this authority as it was intended, a flexible tool for local agencies to pursue recharge projects in a manner protective of public safety. The environment and downstream water users.

Ambiguities around planning requirements for utilization of this authority and what constitutes flood conditions have prevented agencies from capturing flood flows where they otherwise should have been able to do so. To solve this, SB 1390 will add more options for local agencies to satisfy planning requirements and clarify when agencies may use their sophisticated flow modeling tools to begin diverting flows that pose a threat to flood our communities.

These changes are fully in keeping with the original intent of the executive order in SB 122 to pursue recharge in a transparent manner that minimizes unintended consequences for all water users and affected communities. This bill is very much a work in progress. We have met with the staff of this committee as well as with stakeholders. Okay. We appreciate the opportunity to work with the committee on this and our various stakeholders. I respectfully ask for your I vote.

Thank you.

Good morning. Sarah Woolf with Water Wise I work with many landowners in the San Joaquin Valley on SGMA compliance and forming projects that will help bolster the aquifer levels and improve water quality supply for both drinking water and agriculture. And for the first time under the Executive order, we were able to divert water from flood flows and put them to use in recharge and direct irrigation.

And without that executive order, many of these same landowners have been working on appropriative water rights since 2017 and were unable to utilize those permits under flood flow conditions. And so the executive order did provide an avenue for us to divert water, help with flood protection, and recharge our aquifers.

And this bill 1390 is critical in just ensuring that we can continue to work with our local agencies on determining when those floods are about to occur and prevent the harm that occurred in many areas like Planada and throughout the San Joaquin Valley. And so we want to continue to expand this program. Farmers really jumped into it for the first time in 2023 because there were such abundant supplies.

But there is much work to be done to expand the project and to be able to be more readily available to take these flood flows. So thank you to the senator for the bill, and we look forward to continuing to identify ways to amend it and make it better for all parties. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. Do we have any other support witnesses in the room? Please limit your testimony to your name, affiliation and position on the measure.

Good morning chair and members, Ashley Walker with Nossaman on behalf of the Monterey County Board of Supervisors, in support thank you.

Good morning Mr. Chair. Mark Fenstermaker, I was asked to voice the support for the California State Association of Counties all 58 counties of California.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and members. Erin Norwood, representing the Allman Alliance, in strong support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Alex Biering, California Farm Bureau, in support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members. Glenn Farrel, with GF Advocacy on behalf of the State Water Contractors. We're a bit of a tweener here on this bill, and I just say that we really appreciate opportunity to work with the author and the sponsors wholeheartedly embrace the policy objectives in the bill. But there are some guardrails and protections for the state water project that we like to continue to work with.

Actually, the committee amendments the author took this morning, you know, we're concerned with those amendments, the removal of those delta specific protections. In fact, we actually share the objectives of the opposition in making sure that Delta is protected and those flows come into the delta and not diverted upstream unless the conditions are precedent to allow for those diversions of flood flows. So look forward to working with the author.

Thank you.

Jay Jefferson with the Metropolitan Water District. We're supportive if amended and align our comments with the State Water Contractors. Thank you.

Thank you.

Raquel Ayala with Reeb Government Relations on behalf of Valley Ag Water Coalition, in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other support witnesses, do we have any opposition witnesses? Any lead opposition witnesses in the room? Looks like we don't have any. Any other opposition witnesses? Okay, seeing no one in opposition, we'll bring it back to. I'm sorry, are you lead or would you just like you could have two withdrawing opposition if you like. What's that?

Withdrawing opposition.

Withdrawing opposition.

Alex Leumer, on behalf of Defenders of Wildlife and Golden State Stama Association and other organizations that wrote and opposed the less amended a letter. We appreciate the committee's amendments, and we appreciate the author for taking those amendments, and we will remove our opposition. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other opposition in the room? Seeing no one in opposition, we'll bring it back to the committee. Senator Dahle.

First, I'd like to just say thanks for bringing the bill forward. I think that those of us who've been here a long time and been through some droughts and been through some floods, and that's not new to California, obviously, we all know that California is very cyclical when it comes to moisture and droughts. But, you know, before we channelized everything and built reservoirs, the valley flooded.

And we saw that last year where we saw huge amounts of water coming down the Kern into the valley and we created a lake again that we dewatered. So it just makes common sense to be able to grab some of that water when we have situations like we had last year, and this year we have.

I just saw that Shasta Lake is completely full, the biggest reservoir in the State of California in my district, which is great, but we need to be able to recharge our groundwaters. We have desperately too much actually overdrafted in the valley in places, and we need to be able to recharge it. So for me, this is a common sense approach. It did it before we messed with it, and we have these opportunities, we should take it full advantage of being able to recharge our groundwater.

For the cool thing about groundwater is when you recharge it, it doesn't evaporate. It's there, and it stays for a long time. And if we can just get that water back in the ground. So I will move the bill with the time, and thank you for bringing it forward.

You can move it now if you'd like. Okay. This is the appropriate time. Thank you. Anyone else on committee? Senator Eggman.

Thank you. And I'm sorry I missed the beginning, but you took the amendments, right? As someone who represents a Delta, the Delta provision is very important to us, so we appreciate it. And it sounds like people may want to change your mind on that. And just to say it's. I think that's an important provision. We're all in favor of all the rest of it as long as we're not jeopardizing one area.

For another of note, we just opened a next state park yesterday, our new state park, which is down in the Delta Area, and it looks like the land used to look before. We've done to California what we've done and are so incredibly productive, but just goes to show that we need to be able to hold that water when we can. I've worked for a long time on making groundwater as a beneficial use, and I think this is right along those lines.

I'll be in strong support of this bill as long as it stays in its current form. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else on committee seeing? No one? Okay. Thank you. And I'm an aye on this bill. I want to thank you for accepting the committee amendments. And, of course, we saw the floods come in, and it was a priority of the legislature and the governor to streamline and accelerate the ability to divert excess flood flows for groundwater recharge. And our budget trailer bill, SB 122, codified much of the content of previous efforts, executive orders, to authorize those diversions.

Appreciate your hard work on this. You've worked with stakeholders I know you're going to continue to work with the stakeholders here and glad to support this bill today. Would you like to close?

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate all the comments and all the testimony here today. Water is not easy to do, and when you end up with nobody in opposition, that's probably a really good thing.

A couple of things that are relevant, but not relevant to this bill is that we have the ability to use good science to determine where the water is going to hit, how much is likely to hit, when it's going to hit, and to use that information to do releases from dams, if necessary, for flood control. And we've asked farmers, these are farmers that are repurposing their land, and they're flooding the land during these excess flows. We asked them to do drip irrigation, and they did.

And so they pulled out all the, all the weirs and put in flood irrigation. Now they got to put them back in again so that they have the ability to flood, and then they take the risk, because if they have a permanent crop, which is a tree or a vine, they need to be careful of mildew and that kind of thing. So this is a partnership.

This is a cooperative working relationship to try to bring our, our surface water when we have too much into our groundwater for sustainability. And so there may be need to make minor changes in the future. But right now, what I'm trying to do is to balance all the interests and to make sure that we're protecting our current flows as well as the potential for flood flows to avoid flooding. So I appreciate your support and respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you, as always, for your thoughtful and collaborative approach. We have a motion on this bill from Senator Dahle. Do pass this amended appropriations. Assistant, if you could please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

First bill of the day. Good timing. That vote is 7:0. We'll leave it on call. Thank you, Senator Caballero. We'll move next to the consent calendar motion by Senator Laird. We have three items on the consent calendar. File item number one, SB 1088 by Alvarado-Gil. File item number five, SB 1218 by Senator Newman. And file item number nine, SB 1009 by Senator Dahle. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Okay, that vote count is 7:0. We'll leave it on call. With that, we'll move to Senator file item number two, SB 1110, by Senator Ashby. I think we had a motion from Senator Dahle. The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That vote count is 7:0. We'll leave it on call.

Yes, Mr. Chair. I would move item number three, SB 1159.

So next up, we're going to file item number three, SB 1159. And we have a very proactive motion from Senator Laird. Do pass, as amended to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That vote count is 7:0. We'll leave that on call. Next up, we have file item number four, SB 1185. We have a motion from Senator Dahle. The motion is do pass to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

No, that vote count is three to four. We'll leave that open on call.

And, yes, I'd move item number 11, SB 1402 by Senator Min.

So we'll move. Thank you. The next file item we'll vote on is file item number 11, SB 1402 by Senator Min. We have a motion by Senator Laird, do pass to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Yeah, and that vote count is 5:2. We'll leave it open on call. And with that, we can go back to our next bill. And so we. I think, Senator Hurtado, are you prepared to present. Fantastic. We'll hear. Item. File item number 10, SB 1448 by Senator Hurtado. She can proceed whenever she is ready.

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I have the easiest bill on today's agenda, just for the record. But I'm here to present SB 1448, a bill that will increase access to land and markets for small and underserved farmers. Access to land is a significant hurdle for small, underserved and limited resources. Farmers land access is multifaceted and complex with a combination of historical discrimination and theft.

Paired with today's increasing pressure of hedge funds and private investment companies rapidly purchasing agricultural land across California, local and regional food supply chains have been drastically underfunded and under resourced leaving small family farmers to develop new supply chains with little to no financial support to invest in the infrastructure necessary for sustainable transformation.

In the past several years to address these significant challenges, two programs have been created, the farm to community food hubs program at the California Department of Food and AG, and this program was aimed to support small and underserved farmers with the infrastructural investments needed to form new aggregation centers or food hubs to sell to institutional markets an investment no other current CDFA program performs. In 2022, the Agricultural Land Equity Task Force, facilitated by the Strategic Growth Council, was established through SB 179.

The task force is mandated to develop a full report of recommendations at the end of the three years with a set of policy recommendations to the governor and legislature on solutions to address the land equity crisis. However, there are several administrative challenges for both programs. While charged with addressing land equity issues, the task force has equity issues of its own.

The Strategic Growth Council believes it is not authorized to compensate members of the task force for their time on the committee, including the historically underserved farmers of color. The task force also does not have transparency requirements, and this bill would ensure that the set of recommendations at the end of three years are posted on the SGC website. So the solution here is that SB 1448 addresses essential equity issues for two important existing programs and would implement the fallen reforms.

It will clarify that task force members may receive a reasonable per diem using existing or private funds, similar to other task force and committees that committees use.

It will ensure the agricultural Land Equity Task Force report is made public and it streams on the Farm to Community Food Hub Program Advisory Committee by reducing the number of committee members being less prescriptive and allowing for members of existing CDFA committees to serve and extend the sunset for the farm to community food hub program to ensure it has sufficient time to comply with reporting requirements and I believe we have here today in support Jamie Fanous with the Community alliance of Family Farmers to testify. Thank you.

Thank you. You have up to four minutes to testify.

Thank you. Hi, good morning chair and members. Jamie Fanous, the policy director at the Community Alliance with Family Farmers. We represent 8000 small and underserved farmers across the State of California and have worked for 46 years to ensure that family scale agriculture remains sustainable and viable in California. We are losing around 1500 small farms a year due to market pressures and consolidation and climate change. That number is getting higher and higher every single year.

Two of the core core priorities that I hear from farmers when I am traveling up and down the state is land access and access to infrastructure, in particular, things like food hubs. These are investments that have just been fundamentally gutted and not supported across the State of California. In order to solve these things, the food hubs program was created, as well as the Land Equity Task Force.

These administrative challenges are simply quick fixes so we can actually get these programs up and running and actually get resources to our small scale farmers. With that, I respectfully ask for your support. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses in support of the bill? Please limit your testimony to your name, affiliation and position on the measure.

Rebecca Marcus, representing the California Certified Organic Farmers and the Union of Concerned Scientists. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Any other support witnesses seeing none. Do we have any opposition in the room? Seeing no opposition. All right, we'll bring it back to committee. Senator Laird.

I would move the Bill.

Thank you. Any other, Senator Dahle.

I just want to comment because I'm a farmer and I'm a small farmer in California, and I just want to say that, you know, I can vote for the bill or not vote for the bill, because I don't really think it's going to make any difference at the end of the day. The regulatory environment in California, I'll just give you an example. My grandfather came to California and got a homestead, 80 acres. He purchased 3500 acres more 75 miles away.

He had seven kids and he had more people to help run his farm. Today, Megan and I bought the farm from my mom. We operate the 3500 acres plus some more that we bought. And we are a small farmer in California. And my son and I and one employee farm all that land. And we need to get bigger because you have to. You're forced by the regulatory environment in California to buy new harvesters that meet the California Air Resources Board regulations.

You have to buy new trucks and you can't make it on a small farm in California when your equipment costs alone are hundreds of thousands of dollars, up to half a million for a harvester. Now to harvest our seed. And we are certified organic and we've done everything we can to do the right thing in California, but I must grow. And so what we see happening is the original 80 acre homestead that my grandfather got.

There were literally hundreds of farmers who, veterans who got those homesteads. And there are 16 large farmers in that valley. Now, in our valley where we live, there are four or five farmers that keep continuing to buy out the farms as they go out of business because they can't compete in the valley where the senator that's supporting this bill, we have hedge funds coming in and buying up farms.

The farmer may sell their land and still operate it for the hedge fund, but at the end of the day, the family farm or the small farmer who's trying to start, there is no way you can start a farm in California if you have to buy the land and the equipment and try to compete, there is no way. And it's happening across America, too. That's why you see rural communities evaporating because there's no people left, because we mechanize everything and we have to compete.

So I'll support your bill, but it's not going to change the facts. And when you talk about disadvantaged people getting into the workforce, I mean, there are a few that I know that were immigrants that came who were able to get a lease and start farming, and they were successful. But in today's world, my own children, I'm encouraging them to find another trade so that they can support the family farm because the family farm cannot support itself because is too competitive in California.

So that is the reality of what we see. And the crazy thing is that there was a report out yesterday or the day before about the pesticides on our food that are illegal to have in California. And the reason we're getting those pesticides in California is because they're coming from Chile, Mexico and other countries that don't have the same laws that we have, but they're importing it in here and we're seeing those pesticides on our food.

And so we have a lot of work to do on parity when it comes to what we do in California versus we're pushing all of our ag outside of California because labor is cheap there, water is available, and they don't have all the laws that we have, air quality. So I just want to take this opportunity to tell you what's happening in the agriculture community.

And as long as we continue to go down this path, you will, there will be, the family farm will be no more. And I will tell you this. The family farmers really do take care of their land. They're the best operators. They care about their land. They care about the generations of people. That's the knowledge that's there. But at the end of the day, it's a competitive market.

And if your product is, if you're regulated out of business, your product, and we don't set the markets, the markets are set on the world stage. And that's, that's the reality. So I'll support your bill, but I will tell you, it's not going to do anything to change the scenario. I am concerned about paying people to be on the board, but it doesn't matter to me. I'll go ahead and support your bill and actually happily move the bill, but it's not going to change one bit.

We will not see maybe a micro farmer, somebody that actually produces food and sells on the edge of the street, but we'll have to subsidize them too, to compete as well.

Thank you for your statement, senator. Any other comments or questions from the dais? Okay, seeing none. Would you like to close?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And just to address a member of the committee's comments, I just want to say that I. I don't disagree with what he stated. I obviously agree. And I at times feel hopeless as well. But I have a lot of hope in the farmers, our family farmers. And that's why we're pushing and working hard to make sure that whatever it takes to make sure that they thrive and that they're successful and that we build upon that. That's why I'm here.

That's why I have this bill. And I appreciate your support in your comments. And with that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Thank you. Senator Hurtado, we have a motion from Senator Dahle on the bill. The motion is do pass. I'm sorry. Did you have a comment as well?

No, I made the motion first.

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I missed that. Okay. He was more loquacious. Mr. Senator, we have a motion. Sorry about that. We have a motion from Senator Laird. You guys can arm wrestle later. The motion is due pass to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The vote count on that is 6:0. We'll leave it open on call. We have our last two authors in the room. Senator Archuleta is here to present file item number six, SB 1330. Senator Archuleta, you can proceed whenever you are ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your time today. And Committee Members, thank you once again. Senate Bill 1330 would enact changes to the 2018 quote unquote, Making Water Conservation a Way of Life. These laws based on recommendations from the Legislative Analyst's Office report from earlier this year. So it's pretty fresh. Let me begin by accepting all... Let me say again, by accepting all the Committee suggested amendments and thanking the Committee and their staff for their work and the Chair as well.

It was a lot of time and effort, but again, all the amendments have been accepted, and I certainly appreciate all the efforts. The 2018 law established a framework for long term improvements in urban water usage efficiency and drought planning as California adapts to climate change and its impacts. The legislation requires long term urban water use efficiency standards that require urban retail water suppliers to extend the state's statewide 2020 water conservation targets required by 2007 legislation.

The State Water Board, in coordination with the Department of Water Resources, was required to adapt long term standards, variances, guidelines, and methodologies for calculating urban water usage and meet those objectives by June 30 of 2022. Due to COVID and other factors, we are still waiting on those regulations. Members, I may be clear. Local and state actions have led to water use efficiency gains to the extent that our urban areas use regularly the same total amount of water today as they did back in 1990 despite significant population growths.

Achieving greater water usage efficiency will be costly. Some estimated that the cost for water suppliers to comply with the 2018 laws will exceed $10 billion statewide. Increasing urban water use efficiency will not be able to be a simple task and will rely heavily on our constituents making changes inside and outside of their homes. The Legislative Analyst's Office, also known as LAO, earlier this year found that the proposed State Water Board regulations will be difficult to achieve, add significant costs, and could disproportionately affect lower income customers.

The purpose of the bill is to extend the deadline in the 2018 laws to match the State Water Board's current schedule to adapt final regulations, to require the Department of Water Resources to update landscape data in the future, and to give water suppliers the option of reporting their data on either a calendar or fiscal year basis. Quite simply, Senate Bill 1330 will provide flexibility and cost savings for water suppliers to comply with the 2018 laws and the pending State Board regulations.

The changes will be fundamental and foundational to the success of the regulation and provide water suppliers ability to collaborate with their customers to achieve meaningful water savings while considering costs, affordability, suppliers in good faith and good faith efforts to meet their water usage and the objectives. With me today to support... Well, with me today in support and to answer any questions is Tom Coleman, General Manager of the Rowland Water District, and Danielle Hyden, Deputy Executive Director with the California Municipal Utilities Association. And they are here. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much. You each have two minutes to proceed, and you can go ahead whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My name is Tom Coleman, representing Rowland Water District, Bellflower-Somerset Mutual Water Company, and Walnut Valley Water District. Our agencies are the sponsor of this bill. Bellflower, Rowland, and Walnut Valley Water District acknowledge the importance of conserving water resources and remain committed to the mission of making conservation a California way of life. It is important to emphasize that our three agencies have long been at the forefront of water conservation efforts.

Despite the challenges posed by urban growth, innovative strategies to reduce water consumption and promote sustainable water management practices have been consistently implemented. While we appreciate the efforts of the State Water Board to incorporate feedback from varying California water agencies and adjust conservation mandates, further clarity and flexibility are essential for effective implementation.

SB 1330 will help reduce the cost impacts of the current timeline as required by the 218 laws and allow more time for regulators, retail water suppliers, and consultants to develop these programs, hopefully resulting in a better program that costs less for all ratepayers and particularly disadvantaged communities. The recent adjustments made by the State Water Board do not signify an easing of mandates but rather reflect a thoughtful response to feedback from various stakeholders, including water agencies and community members. SB 1330 adjustments aim to strike a balance between conservation goals and the practical realities faced by water agencies and the ratepayers. For this reason, we request an aye vote for SB 1330. Thank you.

Danielle Blacet-Hyden with the California Municipal Utilities Association, representing, for the purposes of this bill, over 60 water and wastewater agencies throughout the state. Climate change is impacting Californias water resources in a profound way. It is critical to pursue an all of the above approach to secure our water future, which includes making or improving water use efficiency in all sectors.

Our members are committed to making conservation a California way of life and, in fact, at the end of the process in 2018, CMUA supported the legislation that has led to the current regulatory process taking place at the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Board. We have appreciated the work of those agencies to develop the regulations and the collaboration with the water community.

While meaningful progress has been made since the LAO report was released, SB 1330 is intended to make meaningful technical changes that will help water suppliers to comply with the regulation. And for those reasons, we urge an aye vote.

Thank you. Do we have any other witnesses in the room in support of the bill? If you could limit your testimony to your name, affiliation, and position on the measure.

Thank you. Kristi Foy here on behalf of the Three Valleys Municipal Water District in strong support.

Thank you.

Good morning. Julia Hall with the Association of California Water Agencies in support.

Thank you.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and Members. Stephanie Morwell on behalf of the California Association of Mutual Water Companies in support.

Thank you.

Raquel Ayala with Reeb Government Relations on behalf of El Dorado Irrigation District and Desert Water Agency in strong support.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair. Betsy Montiel with the League of California Cities in strong support of the bill.

Thank you.

Good morning. Jaime Minor on behalf of Eastern Municipal Water District and Santa Margarita Water District, pleased to support. Thanks.

Appreciate that. Seeing no other support witnesses. Do we have any lead opposition witnesses in the room? Seeing none. Do we have any opposition witnesses? Oh, lead witness or? Oh, seeing any... No lead witnesses. Any other opposition witnesses? If you want to limit your testimony, your name, affiliation, position on the measure.

Yeah. Dennis O'Connor with the Mono Lake Committee. With the adoption of the Committee amendments, we are now going to move to neutral.

Thank you.

Cody Phillips with California Coastkeeper Alliance. With the Committee amendments moving to neutral.

Thank you. Any other opposition or move neutral witnesses? Seeing none. Let's bring it back to the Committee. Senator Laird.

I would just let the Senator know that you're the third bill on exactly the same subject. And at the first bill, we had an animated discussion and the Legislative Analyst was here, or a representative of the office to comment on the report. And I think we would all stipulate our prior comments. And you taking the amendments is what makes the difference. And so I would move the bill as amended.

Thank you. We have a motion from Senator Laird. Any other questions or comments from the dais? All right, as the Senator noted, this is the third of three bills. Appreciate you taking the amendments. And would you like to close?

Yes, I would like to close by saying I began by saying we've taken all the amendments, and this is the way to get up on top of the three. And I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. We have a motion from Senator Laird. The motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The vote count right now is 6-0. I'll leave that bill open on call. And I just want to announce to any Members of the Committee not here, we're about to start on our last bill. A big theme of today has been efficiency. Let's try to be efficient and come down here to vote so we can get out of here soon.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Senator Archuleta. And with that, we'll proceed to our last bill, file item number seven, SB 1373 by Senator Cortese. Senator, you can proceed whenever you are ready.

All right. Thank you, Mr. Chair and colleagues. I appreciate you allowing me to present SB 1373 to you today. The bill would require the Department of Water Resources to create a dashboard that provides visualizations, essentially, of water movement data. The dashboard would be specific to the state water project and the Central Valley Water project, in other words, merging the two together. In 2016, the Open and Transparent Water Data Act set the stage for water data accessibility.

It has resulted in the creation of a searchable portal where anyone can find data about water, such as reservoir levels, groundwater levels, water quality, stream flows, et cetera. Though it's now easier to find the data, it isn't always easier for a non-expert to find it or understand it. Projects like the State Water Project and Central Valley Project move significant amounts of water, as we know, through the state, and impact most Californians.

These projects have tremendous value to the state, yet information about the movement of water through them can still be opaque to most of the people impacted by them, meaning the general public. SB 1373 aims to make this information easier for the public to access and understand. DWR already integrates data sets about the state water project and Central Valley project. This bill takes that work a step further by requiring them to display that data in a user-friendly, public facing, visual way.

SB 1373 also requires the data to be merged, not just integrated, and I just wanted to draw the distinction between those terms that I'm using. The State Water Project is run by the California Department of Water Resources, while the Central Valley Project is, of course, run by the Federal Bureau of Reclamation, existing visual representations of data about these systems tend to be separate. The bill would require DWR to merge them and create a single, unified visual representation of water movement through these systems.

The Committee analysis raises some questions, such as how specific the bill should be regarding what data is included and how much discretion DWR should have over how the displays are created. I appreciate the close read by Committee staff and the work that this Committee has done. I plan to continue the conversations with the appropriate stakeholders and work to further clarify what the dashboard should include or exclude, should that be the case.

But again, the basic idea is to take the integrated data and move it into a public facing dashboard, the current integrated data. My goal with this legislation is to ensure that anyone, even non-experts, can understand where water is going and coming from in California. SB 1373 is supported by the Los Angeles Climate Reality Project. I respectfully ask for your support.

Thank you. Senator Cortese, do you have any witnesses?

None.

None? Okay, I guess we'll see if there's any witnesses in the room who would like to speak in support of this bill. Seeing none. Do we have any opposition witnesses in the room? Seeing none. We'll bring it back to Committee. Senator Laird? Move the bill, okay. Motion from Senator Laird. We have Senator Eggman and Senator Dahle.

Thank you. And thank you for bringing this bill forward today. I'll be brief, we're all getting ready to get out of here, but I just think we need to keep finding more and more ways to make sure the public knows what we're doing. As I was driving in today and thinking about something like, people don't know that we're doing this. And I think, well, how do they know? And I think, oh, we put it on a dashboard, and I think, how many people look at a dashboard?

And I don't know, but I'm glad we're trying to do this, but I just think during your time, hopefully in the Legislature, you'll be able to work on these things, like, how do we get more good information out to the public to really involve them with information and insight into what we're doing? Thank you.

I appreciate the encouragement.

Thank you. Senator Dahle.

Well, I just want to ask, because this bill is-- I think that Committee analysis did bring up some points that, are we redundant here? So we had 1755 by Dodd, which was a 39-0 vote for transparency a couple years ago. And I listened to your testimony about how more people get involved, but at the end of the day, I mean-- There's a lot of information out there, and I just don't want to be redundant.

And the second thing, I don't want it to have to be at some point, the statewide resource control board or whoever's supposed to do this, comes and says, hey, we need you to now put more data in. Because we passed a SGMA, we did all kinds of diversion requirements for water right holders to, in real time, try to quantify when they were diverting, when they're doing. And it was a real hassle.

So I'm actually thinking about laying off the bill because I want to know more detail about who's going to pay for it and who's required to put the data up there. I think we have 1755, which in my mind was to do the exact same thing. So could you answer who's going to pay?

Or is this just the State Water Resource Control Board or the Central Valley Project saying, hey, the flows at Shasta-- I mean, you can go online and find the flows at Shasta right now and the inflows and outflows of, and which is a huge watershed.

Or you can do it on Oroville and Folsom so--

Thank you.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Senator. Through the chair, I'll respond. My understanding of how things are working currently is in the eight years that's passed since that 2016 legislation, DWR has done a lot of work to integrate the federal project, the state project information prior-- My understanding is prior to then, you literally had to use a paper and a pencil and a calculator or something if you wanted to see the total, the sum total of that information, that data, do the math on it.

Some water districts are still operating that way, at least by their own sort of testimony to me, if you will, and my tours, interactions with grasslands and wetlands, for example, in the Central Valley, and asking them that question, are you able to see quickly? Or can you point me to just the total sort of that third column, if you think of it on a spreadsheet where everything's totaled up as to what's moving right now real time? And they said, we still do that manually.

We have to do that manually because the two platforms to us are still separate, the federal and the state. So the bill is just not trying to take any deeper dive than to just say, let's take that integrated data and make it so that the same person in the public who might want to, you know, take a quick look at ISIS to see what's going on, can take a quick look at this, at this dashboard and see what's going on.

It's really just meant to make a whole bunch of data that's now been integrated together to take that next step and make it publicly available in terms of ordinary neighbors out there, average people who don't know right where to look, like you and I might, and I've done the same thing.

And the water agencies are the ones that going to have to put that up. So we force them to put the data in real time if they're diverting or using a water rights. So that's everybody, because you have to, you can't do any of those things unless you have a water, right. So anyway, I appreciate it.

I'm gonna lay off and dig in a little more and try to figure out, you know, how it's gonna impact some of those districts that are just over-redundant here. So appreciate you.

I appreciate the comments. Any other comments from the dais? I'll just will point out that I appreciate, as Senator Eggman said, the need and the desire to have more accessible data. Ordinarily, I'd say that a bill like this may not be necessary because DWR has the authority, but I understand that DWR has been a little resistant to some of the efforts that are contained in this bill. So with that, I will vote aye on this bill and the recommendation's an aye.

And would you like to close Senator Cortese?

Again, thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate your comments just now. Certainly appreciate Senator Eggman's comments to, you know, keep working in this area. I think we have more work to do just on the bill itself right now to define it a little bit more. It was, you know, like walking a little bit into an abyss at first to try to just figure out what exactly is out there. And now I think we have a good handle on that.

I will represent to the Committee and to the individual members that we will make sure there's no redundancy and tighten up the areas that we're looking at here in terms of data, as the Committee has basically recommended. And with that, I would respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Senator Cortese, we have a motion on the bill, I'm trying to remember, from Senator Laird. Okay. Motion is due pass to Appropriations assistant. Please call the roll, Senator.

[Roll call]

That vote is 8-0. We'll leave it on call. And with that, we'll now go back to the bills that we've heard before. We'll start with the consent calendar. And so again, we have three items on consent: file item number one SB 1088 by Alvarado-Gil, file item number five SB 1218 by Senator Newman, and file item number nine SB 1009 by Senator Dahle. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Okay, that vote count is 10-0. We'll leave it on call. We'll move to file item number two, SB 1110. Sent by Senator Ashby. Assistant, please call the roll.

Did you say the motion.

The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations.

File item number two. [Roll Call]

Okay, that vote count is 10:0. We'll leave it open on call. We'll move on to file item number three by Senator Dodd. SB 1159, the motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That vote count is 10:0. We'll leave it open on call. Next item is SB 1185, file item number four by Senator Niello. The motion is due pass to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That vote count is 3:7. We'll leave it open on call. Next item is file item number six by Senator Archuleta. SB 1330. The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That vote count is 9:0. We'll leave it open on call. I think we just did, Senator Cortese. So we'll move on to file item eight, SB 1390, by Senator Caballero. The motion is do pass as amended to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

That vote count is 10:0. We'll leave it open on call. We'll move on to file item number 10, SB 1448, by Senator Hurtado. Assistant. The motion is do pass to appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Vote}

Okay, that vote count is 90. We'll leave it open on call and then we'll move on to file item number 11, SB 1402, by Senator Min. The motion is do pass to appropriations assistant. Please call the roll.

Chair voting aye on this bill. [Roll Call]

That vote count is 8-2. We'll leave it open on call. I'm sorry: 8-3, we'll leave - 7-3. I'm sorry, that vote count is 7-3. We'll leave it open on call. We'll move back to the items. I think Senator Limon's in the room, so we'll - no, I think there's a couple others. Okay, so we'll move on to file item number six, SB 1330, by Senator Archuleta. The motion is do-pass as amended to Appropriations. Assistant, please call.

We'll move back to the items. I think Senator Limon's in the room so, we'll. No, I think there's a couple others. Okay. So, we'll move on to file item number six, SB1330 by Senator Archuleta. The motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations. Assistant, please call the roll.

Chair is voting aye and Vice Chair voting aye. [Roll call]

That vote count is 10-0. Leave it open on call, and then we'll move on to SB 1373. File item number seven by Senator Cortese. Assistant please call the roll. The motion is do pass to Appropriations.

With both Chair and Vice Chair voting aye: [Roll call]

That vote count is 9-0. Okay, we're waiting on Senator Padilla. We'll give him a few minutes, and so we'll take a recess till he gets here. Thank you. All right, we will resume the Senate Natural Resources Committee, the Natural Resources and Water Committee is back in session, or whatever the right terminology is here. And so we'll go back over our votes here. Assistant, we'll start with the consent calendar. That is file item number one, SB 1088 by Alvarado-Gil.

File item number five, SB 1218, by Senator Newman, and file item number nine, SB 1009, by Senator Dahle. Assistant, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

11-0. The consent calendar is out. We'll move to file item number two, SB 1110, by Senator Ashby. The motion is do-pass as amended to Appropriations. Chair voting, aye. Assistant, please call the roll.

And the current vote is 10-0. [Vote]. And this is for SB 111.

1110, File item number two.

Question for the chair.

Sure.

What's the disposition on amendments with this Bill?

She took the amendments, and the chair and Vice Chair both voted aye. Aye.

Okay, Senator Padilla. Aye. That's 11-0.

That Bill is 110. The Bill is out. We'll move to file item number three, SB 1159 by Senator Dodd. The motion is do pass. Is amended to appropriations. Assistant please call the roll.

Current vote is 10-0, with both Chair and Vice Chair voting aye. [Roll Call]

That vote is 11-0. The bill is out. We'll move to file item number four, SB 1185, by Senator Niello. The motion is do-pass to Appropriations. Chair has voted no. Assistant, please call the roll.

Current vote is three to seven with Chair voting no, Vice Chair voting aye. [Roll Call]

That final vote count is four to seven. The bill fails. I'm sorry. Three to seven.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Three to seven. Three to eight. I'm sorry. That vote is three to eight. The bill fails.

Thank you.

Next item is file item number six by Senator Archuleta, SB 1330. The motion is do-pass as amended to Appropriations. Chair voting aye. Assistant, please call the roll.

Current vote is 10-0. [Roll Call].

That vote is 11-0. The bill is out. We'll move to file item number seven, SB 1373, by Senator Cortese. The motion is do-passed to Appropriations. Chair voting aye. Assistant, please call the roll.

Current vote is 9-0. [Roll Call].

That vote is 10-0. The bill is out. We'll move to file item number eight, SB 1390 by Senator Caballero. The motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations with Chair voting aye. Assistant, please call the roll.

Current vote is 10-0. [Roll Call]

That vote count is 11-0. The bill is out. We'll move to file item number 10, SB 1448 by Senator Hurtado. The motion is do pass to Appropriations with Chair voting aye. Assistant, please call the roll.

Current vote is 9-0. [Roll Call]

That vote count is 11-0. The bill is out. I'm sorry, the vote is 10-0. The bill is out. Finally, we'll move to SB 1402, file item number 11, by Senator Min. The motion is do pass to Appropriations with Chair voting aye. Assistant, please call the roll.

Current vote is seven to three with Chair voting aye and Vice Chair voting no. [Roll Call]

That final vote is eight to three. The bill is out. And with that, I want to thank everyone for your patience and cooperation. For those watching, you are encouraged to submit any comments or questions to the Committee. But with that, we've concluded the agenda, and Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee is adjourned.