Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 4 on Climate Crisis, Resources, Energy, and Transportation

Hey, good morning. Welcome, everybody to this Assembly Budget Subcommitee Forum meeting. I realize that lots of things are moving fast for everybody, so I just want to stop right now and say, appreciate our staff who I think pulled an all nighter to get everything ready for today. So really appreciate both of you guys.

A bit of house keeping being before we start. As many of you have seen, we've canceled the Formal Committee Hearing and we won't be doing any voting today. Instead, we'll just hear the May revision proposals. Before we start, I'd like to thank the Department of Finance and the agency staff who are with us today.

They've put in many hours also into poring over every detail and dollar in this budget to ensure the budget is both balanced and helps us reach our climate goals.

You're not at the dais yet, but I'd like to thank my fellow Subcommitee Members when they finally get here, who have been also working really hard giving us feedback and input as we move along and as we face tough decisions ahead.

It's important that we hear from the public on the impact these cuts and delays will have on the air that we breathe, the food that we eat, the water that we drink, and the climate that we'll all experience, from the fires, the darkened skies for months on end, to the floods that wash away our roads, our farms, and our homes.

We want to thank the members of the public who advocate for these programs and have spent their time fighting to protect our environment and the community's hardest hit. When we fail, today's hearing will be broken down into three discussion items. First, we'll cover Transportation's May Revision proposals. Then we'll discuss natural resources and climate proposals.

And last, the Administration will present the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund spending plan. For each presentation item, I'll ask each of our witnesses to introduce themselves before they begin their testimony.

Given the volume of the items we'll hear today, many of which are interconnected, we will hear the administration's presentation in each subtopic in its entirety before moving to member questions and comments. After all the items are heard, we'll take public comments for members of the public who wish to provide public comment.

You'll have 1 minute to speak to ensure we can accommodate everyone, but encourage the public to submit letters as well. Due to the Senate hearing in the afternoon, I'll ask that individuals with public comments related to transportation go first. So I'll repeat that if you have public comments related to transportation, if you'll go first.

Because of the Senate hearing that's coming this afternoon, and with that, we will move on to transportation may revision proposals, if the panelists would please approach.

So we're not going to do this.

Good morning Chair Sergio Aguilar, Department of Finance so I'm actually going to kick it off. Just provide a bit of a high level overview and context on the current general fund picture, and then I'll kick it off to my colleague James Moore to specifically talk about transportation.

So in January, the budget protected a shortfall by the end of the 24-25 fiscal year at roughly $38 billion, and conditions since then have worsened by a total of $7 billion. And without additional action, the estimated shortfall today would be nearly $45 billion throughout the budget year.

But last month, the Legislature recognized the importance of taking early action and approved a measure of cuts that cut the shortfall by $17.3 billion, which leaves the shortfall in the budget year at $27.6 billion. Now, at the same time, even with these solutions, the Administration is still projecting a multibillion dollar shortfall, including in fiscal year 2025-26.

And the Governor believes it is important to solve the estimated shortfall for two fiscal years, not only one, in order to put the state in a more sustainable path for the future years. So the May Revision proposes additional solutions that would also close the second year shortfall that's estimated to be $28.4 billion

Now goes without saying, but that is not an easy task, and by definition it involves many difficult choices. And as the Governor said during the press conference, there are a number of proposals in the mayor vision that he'd prefer not to put forward.

That being said, many of them involve programs that both the Governor and the Legislature support and have worked closely together over the past several years to enact.

But just given the scope of the projected shortfall, these are the kinds of measures that the Governor believes have to be put forward for consideration in order to put the budget back into balance, not just in the coming year, but also in the next year as well.

So the May Revision proposal represents the beginning of the process of discussions and negotiations on a final budget agreement. And the Administration does stand ready to work with the Legislature in the coming weeks and have discussions and also hear other potential alternatives proposed by the Legislature.

So with that, I'll turn over to my colleague to provide an overview on transportation.

Hi. Chair James Moore with the Department of Finance. I'm here to talk about the transportation portion of the May Revision. You'll see in these solutions that the Administration really attempted to retain as much funding as possible from the $16.1 billion transportation package. We were able to continue funding $14.9 billion, which is 93%.

If you narrow that scope a bit to just the transit pieces, we were able to fund 98% of the transit pieces in the transportation package. That transit pieces include the formula TIRCP, the Transit Inner City Rail Capital program, the competitive TIRCP, and the Zero Emission Transit Capital program.

Unfortunately, due to financial situation we find ourselves in, we did have to make some cuts to priority programs, but we're committed to working with the CTC and project sponsors to investigate alternative funding paths, if they exist, for the projects affected by our reductions. With that said, here are the Transportation General Fund solutions for the 2024 May revision.

First, I'll discuss transit in the competitive TIRCP program. The May revision proposes a $148 million reduction. This number represents funding not used for awarded projects. Next and this is a combination of a couple solutions, but I think it's it helps to look at it this way.

For both the competitive and formula TIRCP programs, we have large Fund shifts from the General Fund to the Greenhouse Gas Production Fund GGRF over the multi year. These shifts allow the program to maintain its funding without any delays or program alterations. These Fund shifts total $555 million across the two TIRC programs across the multi year.

This is in addition to the $791 million in GGRF Fund shifts proposed at the Governor's Budget for a total of $1.3 billion of proposed fund shifts from the General Fund to the GGRF for both competitive and formula TIRCP.

It's important to reiterate that these fund shifts are not expected to have any programmatic impact and there are no delays associated with these programs in the May revision. Next the last part of transit is the zero emission transit capital program. The May Revision proposes $680 million in delays to this program.

We're delaying money from current year, from budget year, and from budget year plus one and the final year of funding now, and our new plan is in budget year plus three. Next is active transportation program. The May revision proposes a $400 million cut to the ATP.

This is in addition to the $200 million cut proposed at the Governor's Budget, which reduces the one-time transportation package ATP funding from its initial $1.05 billion to $450 million. Again, this is just the one-time funding. This is in addition to the $275 million that the program receives annually. Next is highways to boulevards.

The May Revision proposes to cut $75 million of the $150 million pilot program and shift the remaining $75 million from the General Fund to the GGRF. The Administration plans to work with the project partners to ensure that the projects performed as part of the remaining pilot program meet GGRF requirements.

The May revision proposes to cut the $350 million in grade separations currently scheduled for 25-26. The May revision includes a $30 million reduction for dedicated commercial drive test centers. The DMV has not entered into any lease agreements for these centers. Furthermore, DMV has achieved its goal of providing commercial drive test appointments to customers within 30 days.

Therefore, the need for dedicated drive test centers to address these supply chain issues has been reduced. Lastly, there is one BCP in the May revision that I wanted to mention.

The May Revision proposes approximately $70 million per year for three years from the public transportation account to increase the level of funding that Caltrans provides to the Inner City Rail JPAs for inner city rail service throughout the state.

This will increase the amount of funding the state provides these entities from approximately $130 million a year to approximately $200 million a year for three years. Those are the solutions in the May revision. As I said before, the Administration is committed to working with sponsors to investigate alternative funding paths. I am happy to answer any questions.

We have representatives from departments who are happy to answer any as well.

Good morning. Rachel Ehlers from the Legislative Analyst Office. As the Department of Finance did, I'll start with some kind of big picture budget comments and then move into transportation. So, as we all know, state is facing a pretty significant budget problem. Unfortunately, that didn't miraculously resolve itself with our May tax revenues.

So Legislature is facing some tough choices and these are not going to be easy.

As your budget advisors, we view it as our responsibility to help give you options to both try and continue to meet all of your goals and priorities, or as many as you can in the climate space as well as across the budget, but also to meet your constitutional obligation to pass a balanced budget.

So that is the nature of my comments today and the work we will continue to provide for you. So our comments today reflect our preliminary assessment of the May revision, which is obviously very recently released. So as we continue to work over the coming days and weeks, we'll continue to update our assessment and advice to you.

We anticipate our first publication. Our initial comments will come out at the end of the week on the big budget picture and our multi year assessment likely next week. So, reflecting on the recent revenue weaknesses, the Department of Finance's updated revenues are about $10 billion below their January estimates.

They're still slightly higher than our estimates of revenues, kind of in the ballpark of $10 billion higher. But we do think they're a reasonable starting place for you as you build your budget. We do think there's some downside risk.

So part of what you will all have to grapple with is what is your comfort with that downside risk as you are making your revenue assumptions, knowing that if revenues do end up coming in lower, that will necessitate some additional budget solutions in the middle of the year year.

In the context of this significant shortfall in state revenues, we think the general architecture and kind of big budget picture of the May revision has a lot of merits, both kind of overall as well as with the climate and transportation specific proposals. Overall, we find the May Revision puts the state in a better fiscal footing.

There's a reduced reliance on reserves under the May revision as compared to January, which kind of saves that tool in your toolbox for the future, pulls back on more one time spending, which, as we've discussed, is kind of a use it or lose it tool at this point and starts to address the multi year problem, although the deficits do return in the out years under the governor's proposal.

So overall, we think this kind of general framework is more likely to allow the state to preserve most of its kind of ongoing core programs if you adopt some sort, sort of this type of framework. That said, you still have a lot of options.

We would not recommend you adopt the governor's proposal as is, without making some modifications to reflect your priorities. So those modifications could be if some of the proposals don't reflect your priorities and you'd like to do alternatives, or if some give you a lot of concerns.

For example, as we're looking at the overall proposal, there's a proposal to make a 7.95% reduction across the board to state operations across all state departments. That's one that's raising some flags for us as being potentially very challenging to achieve and potentially very disruptive to program delivery.

So that's just an example of there may be some proposals in this overall framework that raise concerns for you, and you may have to find alternatives to those. So now, turning specifically to transportation, as the Department of Finance mentioned, they really use two main approaches to achieve General Fund savings within the transportation budget.

First, shifting General Fund to greenhouse gas reduction Fund, a different Fund source, and then some kind of straight up reductions to programs. So again, in general, these two strategies we think make sense, but the details matter and making sure that the specific choices reflect the programs that are highest priority for you.

A couple of considerations we want to raise for you first, as we talked about in January, the proposal uses a lot of out year greenhouse gas reduction funds to plans to sustain programs.

We would recommend exercising caution in that approach, both because you don't know what your priorities will be kind of in the out years, your highest priorities for greenhouse gas reduction fund, and because there's uncertainty about what those revenues will be, particularly as we approach the potential sunset date of the program.

So while this fund switch strategy can allow you to sustain some of your highest priorities, I think we would again say you might want to exercise caution in banking on that strategy for multiple years.

Secondly, with the reductions, some of the programs for which the Department of Finance and Administration are proposing reductions within transportation are for programs for which the funds have already been awarded to local projects. The funds haven't gone out the door, but kind of the commitments have been made to local projects.

So that could be somewhat disruptive at the local level. It could be necessary based on your choices in balancing your budget.

But that's an area we think you might want to do a little bit more investigating before you adopt that proposal and inquiries with the Administration about, for example, are there projects to which the state has committed funding that have kind of made commitments to draw down federal funds based on that state commitment and may kind of put some of that federal funding in jeopardy?

So taking a look at kind of what is the status of those commitments, are there other options? For example, there are other transportation funds you could look to use to backfill some of these proposed reductions. That, of course, comes with trade offs.

For example, if you wanted to use the state highway account for some of these projects, that would mean less funding for the other projects that fund source usually supports. But under the overall umbrella, you do have options.

So thinking about the trade offs, and then finally one proposal the Department of Finance didn't mention is there are some additional spending, notable spending from the motor vehicles account for the Department of Motor Vehicles for some large IT projects.

As we've discussed in previous hearings, the MVA, the motor vehicles account does have a structural imbalance and is facing shortfalls in future years. Based on the proposals in the May revision, that Fund would have a deficit of roughly $300 million in 25-26.

So as you're thinking about new spending from that account, we would really advise you to again exercise caution and think about what the out year implications will be and how that fund will support ongoing programs as you're continuing to add costs while the revenues can't support them. And with that, happy to answer any questions. Thanks.

Thank you do you have questions at this point in time? I have. I'll try to do these quickly because I know we have a lot to do, but could you talk to me a little bit more about the $70 million going to the JPAs?

Taking it from 130 to 200 million, which JPAs, what's the justification for doing that? How does that fit into our transit subsidies overall? Sure.

Thanks. I think that Mister Chad Edison is probably best equipped to answer that one.

All right, thank you.

Yes, thank you very much. The JPA funding is, has been determined to be a significant need at this point during the last few years.

During the pandemic, we had a combination of ability to receive federal funds for some of the costs of the inner city rail services, as well as having the benefit of being able to take budget year money and carry it forward into multiple years.

So during the pandemic, as we had higher costs and ridership impacts and fare box recovery that was lagging as we were trying to get back to full service, we were able to balance the funding need that way. So we've been spending at a higher rate than the 130 that had been there for almost a decade.

Since about 2014-2015 we've done a full assessment. We've looked for cost savings, and we've also looked at the public transportation account funds on the state operations side. And those funds are at a level that are sufficient to handle the additional $70 million for the next three years.

Without this addition of funding, we would be, in all three jpas would be receiving the funding. To answer your initial question, without this funding, we would see cuts in today's level of service that could be as much as 50%.

So we could see going from 10 surfliner trains down to five, going from six San Joaquin trains down to three, because the costs have gone up over the last few years. And also the recovery of the services requires a higher level of funding. So that's where that is.

It comes from the diesel sales and use tax that accrues to the state operations side of the public transportation account.

And you said these are intrastate trains?

These are all intrastate trains. So this is the San Joaquin, the Surf Liner, and the Capitol Corridor.

And the State of California is part of the JPAs for all of these.

So the State of California is the funding, is the sole funding source for all the joint power authorities budgets. So we also provide all of the rollings, most of the rolling stock that they use, in addition to a little bit that's provided by Amtrak.

And is it a small number or a large number of other agencies that are part of the joint powers.

No other agencies are funding these JPAs. They have a number of agencies on their board which generally are drawn from public bodies up and down their many counties they go through.

Not now, but could you please get us a list of all the agencies that are part of those JPAs, please? Sure. Thank you.

Thank you very much, chair. I think it's really important to add on to what Mister Edison was saying, that when we think about transit, we think of local entities that get a lot of federal money every year, a lot of state money, a lot of local money.

These JPAs, it's the revenue that they get from tickets and this one bucket of funds that goes from the state. And so it's, it's a, it's quite a different situation than the other stuff. I really appreciate that.

Thanks. Second question, why the discrepancy between $7 million was identified and $10 billion was identified, and now it's not for you. This is for the, for the Department of Finance person that was here before. So I think you guys could switch back. Right. So why the discrepancy? I'll start with Lao.

Do you understand why there's a discrepancy there?

No. My guess is it's a timing of kind of which years are we counting? And I don't. I know what our number is.

Yeah. Sir? Yeah, I think we'll have to get back to you. I think definitely the timing of when the LAO produces their last revenue update versus the timing of when we produce our revenue update. But in terms of specific details, we have to get back to you on what that distinction is.

Those are the kind of comparisons we'll have in our publication by the end of the week.

And this question is for LAO. You caution us about allocations in future years because we may have different priorities or there may be different revenues amounts, then is that caution?

I mean, we actually can change our mind in future years and not do that, but is that caution that it's harder to do that if you've allocated than if you haven't allocated? Am I missing anything there besides that?

I think you're exactly right. It's kind of. What's your starting point and what are the expectations you're setting? Great.

All right, final two things. And one, this is sort of an overall comment, particularly for all the people involved in transit out there. Transit, has transit received last year significant funding because of a concern about a fiscal cliff, and so extra funds and funds, sort of unprecedented funds, went into these agencies.

And there was a lot of concern about sort of state moving into that area of operations and maintenance of transit agencies, et cetera. We've asked for some strict accountability. We wanted reports to come in. Those reports did come in. Those reports are still being evaluated by CalSTA as we go forward.

But what I want to emphasize here, particularly as we are looking at our budget situation, is that from the very beginning there was a clear emphasis that this was one time funding to take care of a fiscal cliff. This was not the beginning of the state subsidizing the operation and maintenance of transit.

And so the question is, now that we have a bigger problem, should these unspent funds on transit, particularly since many of them were not spent on operations and maintenance, but were actually spent on expansion of capital, should those funds, funds remain? I just want to offer.

My thinking on that is it's hard to run a transit agency, and transit agencies have made decisions based on thinking those revenues are coming, and so they've made those decisions and it feels like it's potentially disruptive.

On the other hand, those funds were primarily designed to avoid a fiscal cliff that was supposed to be an operation as a maintenance fiscal cliff, not an expansion of capital infrastructure. And so there's a bit of a conundrum there.

I just want to emphasize that as long as these funds remain, that the people involved in transit know this is not an opportunity to come back and say, oh, once we spent those funds, now you got to give us more funds because you're cutting us.

These were our temporary one time funds that were allocated and we're doing well for transit to be able to keep those funds still there in the Governor's Budget.

I think the Governor is in agreement with this in terms of these being one time funds and not a commitment of ongoing funding and an expansion of responsibility for the federal government that way. And I certainly understand that the JPA I referred to there is different from, from these transit organization issues that we had.

The final thing I would just offer is DMV is probably one of the number one things that legislators hear about in terms of service from the DMV. And I think about the DMV having both the challenges of their revenue source coming forward and the challenges of a 7.5% cut.

In General, I am very supportive of the idea of one of the ways that you deal with inefficiencies is with an across the board cut and it forces everybody to rethink what they're doing.

And I just want to get on the radar screen for the Administration concerns about the DMV's ability to still provide the service that we expect them to provide. So with that, thank you very much. Any questions? I want to welcome both two temporary, temporary Members of the Committee just for this particular hearing.

But Assembly Member Carril, Assembly Member Boehner, thank you for being here in your interest. Do you have any questions on the transit before we move on? No, but it's Berner. Berner. I'm sorry. Yeah, great. Thank you very much. All right, we will move on to issue two. Thank you. Climate related may revision proposals.

Department of Finance again. So I will actually kick it off just to talk a little bit about high level some of the changes within the climate budget section, and then I will kick it over to my colleague, Mister Benson, to go over the specific reductions per finance letter and also some of the notable budget change proposals and trailer Bill in addition to the General Fund solutions.

So the 2021 and 2022 budget acts allocated $54 billion over five years across the state's climate programs to support the state's climate agenda. And with this May Revision, the budget does maintain $45 billion, or 83% of these investments over an eight year period.

And approximately $33 billion of this funding has actually already been appropriated to departments, and then the remaining 12 would be set to be appropriated over the next several years. And the budget does continue to prioritize equity and supporting investments in priority populations that face a disproportionate harm from pollution and the climate crisis.

And the Administration has also continued to seek and leverage available federal funding. And as of the end of April, California as a whole is projected to get at least $15.9 billion federal IJA and IRA funding related to climate programs. So it has increased since the Governor's Budget.

And that's just what's been, you know, kind of announced projected at this point in time. But there are still new announcements coming out of federal words from the Federal Government. So that is potentially going to also keep on growing.

So the May Revision proposes our combination of measures that includes an additional $7.2 billion of General Fund solutions across climate related programs, $3.6 billion are reductions and $3.6 billion are shifts to greenhouse gas reduction Fund.

In terms of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, the mayor vision does include a comprehensive cap and trade expenditure plan that allocates the discretionary GGRF revenue over the next four years to primarily support fund shifts from the General Fund.

And this does include a revaluation of the Governor's Budget, proposed Fund shifts, and also looking to reprioritize of those expenditures.

This holistic approach of allocating out your cap and trade expenditures helps address a significant budget deficit, both in the budget year and in the out years, and then also helps preserve many of the commitments that we have made with the Legislature over the past several years as part of the climate budgets.

The merit vision also includes an additional 540 million in non climate natural resources environmental protection related solutions. Solutions 234 are reductions, 300 million are revenue borrowing, and 6 million is associated with Fund shifts not connected to cap and trade.

And in terms of our General framework, when we were looking at climate and other resource General Fund solutions, we had many different considerations.

First, we looked at what available program funding is still available by fiscal year, and we analyze the status of those previously appropriated programs and previously committed programs to see where there hasn't been money that has been encumbered yet or committed that is available as a potential solution.

And we also looked at potential availability to shift to other funds, which includes cap and trade, which over half of the solutions are shift to cap and trade we considered previous reductions that have been made because the 2023 Budget act. There were solutions that were included and also fun shifts that were included.

So we considered what has already happened to some of these programs as part of the last budget agreement, and of course, prioritizing equity and investments in priority populations that face disproportionate harm from pollution.

And then of course, there's many different climate goals that the state has put forward and looking at what programs most align with some of the critical climate goals. And then lastly, I mentioned the federal investments.

We also looked at where some of those federal investments of $15.9 billion have been to see where potentially that could also help offset from the larger picture some of the reductions on the General Fund side. And ultimately the Administration did have to make some tough decisions, as I mentioned earlier.

But they are important considerations in order to meet our constitutional mandate to have a balanced budget.

And even with these reductions, again, protecting $45 billion of the $54 billion that have been a part of the agreements is still a historic level of investment, in addition to the almost 16 billion in federal funds that have been coming in since the passage of the two big federal legislation.

So now I'll turn it over to my colleague, Mister Benson, who will go over the specific, specific details by Department of the Reductions and also proposals.

Good morning, Mister chair and Committee Members. There's quite a bit going on in this space, so bear with me. So starting with the Natural Resources Agency, there's a General Fund solution for the Salton Sea management program, project delivery and operational needs.

The May revision includes a reduction of $185,000 General Fund in 2024-25 and and 2025-26 and a shift in the same amount to the greenhouse gas reduction Fund. This maintains the level of funding included in the Governor's Budget, but shifts the fund source. There's also a General Fund solution for ocean protection.

The May revision includes a reduction of $27.5 million General Fund for ocean protection in 2023 to 24 and a shift of this funding to the greenhouse gas reduction Fund in 2024-25. This maintains $65 million, or 65% of the total original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution for the Marine Mammal Center.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of $2 million General Fund ongoing for this program, which eliminates funding for the program in General. Fund solution for urban greening the mayor vision includes a reduction of $23.75 million GGRF that was proposed for this program as governor's.

Could you start on this item again?

Sorry. Yes.

Yeah, right after the remam, while I was writing something, I missed the start. What's the start? What's this topic again?

Okay, so for urban greening, the May revision includes a reduction of $23.75 million GGRF that was proposed for this program at the Governor's Budget. This. Sorry. This maintains $51.3 million, or 20% of the original allocation for this program.

For the Ocean protection SB 81 implementation, the May revision includes a shift of 36.8 million GGRF from 2024-25 to 2026-27. This maintains $77 million, or 75% of the total original allocation for this program.

For the California climate information system, the May revision includes a reduction of $18.3 million in 2023 to 24, which eliminates funding for this program for natural and working lands implementation related to AB 1757. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $3.2 million in 2023 to 24, which eliminates associated contract funding, but maintains $510,000 in ongoing funding.

There's the General Fund solution for water resilience, data, research and communication. The May Revision includes a reduction of $600,000 in 2023 to 24, which eliminates funding for this purpose.

That ends the General Fund solutions for natural resources, but one new proposal to highlight is that for Ocean Protection Council offshore wind implementation related to Chapter 367, statutes of 2023 AB 1373.

The May Revision includes $3.6 million one time and three positions ongoing for the Ocean Protection Council to support an environmental research and monitoring program as part of the administration's broader proposal related to offshore wind energy. Moving to the exposition park.

There are no General Fund solutions in this particular Department, but one significant investment, or notable investment to highlight is that for the California Science Center, operational support for phase three facilities. The mayor vision includes $2.9 million General Fund in 2024 to 25, increasing to $3.7 million in 2027 to 28, and ongoing.

This will support core facilities and utility costs associated with operating the phase three building to allow the Science Center to meet its legal obligations to maintain the facility for Tahoe Conservancy. There is one General Fund solution. The May Revision includes a reduction of $1 million for the Lake Tahoe ADA site improvements.

Project funding for this project is being reverted because it was determined during the initial design phase that the actual cost of the project would significantly.

The first of those is related to the Los Padres facilities repairs. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $321,000 General Fund for repairs and maintenance needs at Los Padres facility. This maintains $979,000, or 75% of the original allocation for this project. The second is General Fund solution related to vehicle replacements.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of $371,000 General Fund for the replacement of fleet vehicles. This maintains 6.9 million, or 95% of the original allocation for that project or program. Moving to the Department of Conservation there are four General Fund solutions that I'll highlight that are proposed, and then I'll highlight one notable new investment.

The first gentlefund solution is related to oil well plug and abandonment. The mayor vision includes a shift to $50 million GGRF from 2024-25 to 2026-27. This maintains $100 million, which is 100% of the total original allocation for the program related to regional forest and fire capacity program within the wildfire and forest resilience packages.

The mayor vision includes a shift of $20 million GGRF from 2024-25, out to 2027-28, and the Governor's Budget. This was originally a reduction from the General Fund and shift over to GGRF, so this pushes it out a few years.

This will maintain $150 million, or 100% of the total original allocation for this program related to the General Fund solution. Related to the Climate Smart Land Management program. The mayor revision includes a reduction of $7 million. This will maintain $9 million or 45% of this program. A General Fund solution related to multi benefit land repurposing program.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of $5.7 million, which eliminates the remaining funding for this purpose. Notable new investment is related to oil and gas acquisition and bond requirements for AB 1167.

The mayor vision includes $751,000 oil, gas and geothermal administrative fund and four positions in 2024-25 and $697,000 ongoing to support field inspections, bond calculations and to receive and process transfers, including the modifications to Wellstar to accommodate the additional records that must be posted and maintained on the department's website.

Moving into the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection there are a number of General Fund solutions in this space and then we'll have one notable proposal to cover. The first General Fund solution is related to the Alma Helitack Base.

The May revision includes a reduction of $4,850,000 General Fund for the acquisition phase of the Alma Helitack Base project. The Department of Forestry and Fire Protection is unable to acquire the property and will instead enter into a long term lease for the project site.

Similarly, there's a General Fund solution for Hollister Air Attack Base, Bear Valley Helitack base. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $12.1 million General Fund for the acquisition phase of the Hollister Air Attack Base Bear Valley Helitack Base project. Again.

Similarly, CAL FIRE was unable to acquire the property and is instead going to enter into a long term lease for the project site. The next General Fund solution related to the wildfire enforced resilience packages is for unit fire prevention projects.

The Governor's Budget had included a reduction of $26 million General Fund and proposed shifting that amount to GGRF in 2024-25. The mayor revision proposes to take that amount and shift it out to 2027-28. This will maintain 90% or $90 million, sorry, 100% of the total original allocation for this program.

Within the wildfire and Force Resilience package, there's a gentlefund solution for the prescribed fire liability pilot. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $20 million in 2024-25 and a shift of the same amount to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund to effectuate a full shift of the funding that's supporting that pilot program.

This will maintain $20 million 100% to the total original allocation for that program. There is a General Fund solution related to a one time shift of Greenhouse Gas Reduction funds to the Timber Regulation and Forest Restoration Fund.

So the mayor vision proposes reducing $200 million of Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, or sorry, reducing from the $200 million greenhouse gas Reduction Fund appropriated to CAL FIRE annually for wildfire prevention activities, to take 120 million of that out for one year in 2024-25 and then to backfill that with $120 million from the Timber Regulation and Forest Restoration Fund.

So the amount that would be provided for those wildfire prevention activities remains the same at $200 million. It just switches the fund source for that $120 million.

The $120 million of GGRF then, in turn is able to be, or is proposed to be, be shifted to other programs to offset General Fund savings within the administration's overall cap and trade expenditure plan, there is a General Fund solution for fire prevention grants.

The Governor's Budget included a reduction of $82 million General Fund in 2023-24 and proposed to shift that to GGRF still within 23-24. The may revision proposes to shift that out. It stays with GGRF, but shifts it out with 40 million being in 2024-25 and 42 million in 2027-28.

So it's still with the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and this will maintain $475 million, or 100% of the total original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution within the wildfire and forest resilience packages for tribal wildfire enforced resilience, or frequently been referred to as tribal engagement, but it's project related.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of $10 million General Fund and a shift of the same amount to Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund in 2025-26 fully shifting that fund source to GGRF as well, and that will maintain $40 million, or 100% of the total original allocation for that program.

The mayor vision includes a General Fund solution for forest health grants, which includes a reduction of 3,168,000. General Fund for forest health grants. This maintains 552 million, or 99% of the total original allocation for that program. There is a General Fund solution for the forest inventory analysis.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of $309,000 General Fund for the Forest Inventory Analysis program. This maintains 17.7 million, or 98% of the total original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution for the interagency Forest Data hub. The mayor vision includes a reduction of 4,153,000 General Fund for the Interagency Forest Data hub.

There was also a reduction for this program in the Governor's Budget of 2,938,000. So in total, that brings the reduction to 7,091,000. This maintains 3 million, or 29% of the total original allocation for this program. There's also a General Fund solution related to deferred maintenance.

The May revision includes a reduction of $11.6 million General Fund for deferred maintenance. The original allocation for this was $50 million. There was also a reduction of $13 million General Fund in 2023-24. So cumulatively, this maintains 25.4 million, or 69% of the remaining allocation for this program.

There is a General Fund solution for the California Vegetation Treatment Program, or Cal VTP, within the board of Forestry. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $257,000 General Fund. This will maintain 1.7 million, or 85% of the total original allocation for this program. Finally, there's a General Fund solution for extreme heat with the school green school yards.

The May revision includes a reduction of $1,656,000 General Fund for this program, and it maintains 48 million, or 97% of the total allocations within the extreme heat package for that program. The one notable new investment we wanted to highlight for you is five firefighter hand crews.

The mayor vision includes 46.8 million, which is 46.4 million, General Fund and 373,000 other funds and 226 positions in 2024-25, 44.5 million, which is 43.8 million General Fund and 731,000 other funds and 234 positions in 2028-29. Ongoing this proposal will be phased in over five years with varying amounts in the intermediate years.

We just sort of provided the bookends there and this will provide vegetation management, hazardous fuel reduction projects and wildland fire suppression. This proposal provides funding to make permanent five existing temporary Cal firefighter hand crews. The five hand crews include a mix of year round and seasonal staff.

Moving on to the State Lands Commission, there's just, sorry, two notable new investments that we'll note here, both related to offshore wind, the first of which is related to the implementation of Chapter 386, statute of 2023, which is SB 286.

The mayor vision includes 1.4 million General Fund and two permanent positions for the State Lands Commission to implement CEQA lead agency activities, including review of offshore wind lease applications and port development projects, and tribal and local stakeholder engagement.

There's also a proposal sort of within the broader offshore wind proposal that's not related specifically to the chapter legislation, so supporting offshore wind energy. The May region includes $4.8 million General Fund and two permanent positions for the State Lands Commission to conduct programmatic, environmental impact and engineering reviews of offshore wind projects and prepare related documentation.

Moving to the Department of Fish and Wildlife. There are three General Fund solutions that we'll mention. As previously mentioned, there's an overall General Fund solution related to the Salton Sea management program, project delivery and operational needs.

Similarly to CNRA, the mayor vision includes a shift of $718,000 General Fund in 2024-25 and $1,715,000 in 2025-26 to GGRF. This maintains the same level of funding as proposed in the Governor's Budget, but shifts it to the GGRF. There is a General Fund solution related to wetlands restoration program.

The mayor vision includes a shift of 17.2 million General Fund in 2024-25 to GGRF, which maintains all the funding for that program. There's a General Fund solution related to stewardship of state owned lands within the wildfire and forest resilience packages.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of 33.4 million GGRF in 2024-25 which was previously proposed to be shifted from General Fund to GGRF in the Governor's Budget.

So this will be a part of the administration's comprehensive reprioritization of the cap and trade investment at Mayor Vision moving into the Wildlife Conservation Board there is a General Fund solution related to the Habitat Conservation Fund.

The mayor revision includes a sunset of the General Fund transfer to the Habitat Conservation Fund, which supports a reversion of $45 million General Fund previously transferred into the Habitat Conservation Fund and approximately $20 million General Fund annual savings on an ongoing basis.

General Fund solution related to streamflow enhancement program the mayor vision includes a shift of $101.1 million General Fund to GGRF. This will maintain all of the funding for this purpose. There's a General Fund solution related to protecting Fish and Wildlife from changing conditions.

The mayor vision includes a shift of $70 million General Fund to the GGRF to maintain $318 million and, well, this will maintain $318 million, which is 90% of the funding for this purpose. There is a General Fund solution related to the nature based solutions program.

The mayor vision includes a shift of $42 million General Fund to GGRF and this maintains all of the funding for that program moving into the California Coastal Commission. There are two notable new investments we'll note here again. Both of these are related to offshore wind, similar to what we had with State Lands Commission.

So also in relation to implementing SB 286, the mayor vision includes $5.3 million General Fund and two permanent positions for the Coastal Commission to support the coastal development permitting process and convene the offshore wind energy fisheries working group over the next three years. Related to the broader supporting of offshore wind energy.

The Mayor Vision includes $1.5 million General Fund to allow the Coastal Commission to continue to support offshore wind energy. Call area planning and management over the next three years. These proposals are part of the administration's broader proposal related to offshore wind energy moving into the Department of Parks and Recreation.

There are several General Fund solutions here and then a couple of notable new proposals that we'll cover. First of all, there's a General Fund solution for the outdoor equity grants program. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $50 million General Fund in 2023-24, which maintains $60 million or 44% of the funding for this program.

There's a General Fund solution for the recreational Trails and Greenways Program. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $10 million for this program, which eliminates the remaining funding for the program. There's a General Fund solution for adapting to sea level rise in state parks.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of $6.7 million for the adaptation for sea level rise in state parks, which maintains 5.3 million or 44% of the funding for this purpose. There's a General Fund solution for deferred maintenance.

The mayor vision proposes a shift of the remaining balance of deferred maintenance funding to Proposition 40 funds, which results in a General Fund solution of $5.9 million. There is a General Fund solution for stewardship of state owned lands. The mayor vision eliminates $1 million of GGRF proposed at the Governor's Budget for stewardship activities at park units.

This maintains approximately 159 million or 99% of the funding for this purpose. Moving into sort of notable new investments the mayor vision includes for next generation recreation sales and reservation management solutions project.

The mayor vision includes 17 positions phased in over three years to support this next gen system, which will improve the current reservation and recreation system and increase revenue generation collection. There's also a new proposal for 2023-24 storm damage statewide repairs and adaptation project.

The mayor vision includes $5 million Natural Resources and Parks Preservation Fund and $51 million in reimbursement authority phased over the next two years, 5 million of which would be in 2024-25 to address damages and rebuilding efforts related to 2023 and 2024 winter storms moving into the Department of Water Resources similar to prior with a couple other departments, there's a General Fund solution for the Salton Sea Management Plan.

The mayor vision shifts $64 million of General Fund in 2024-25 and 1.4 million in 25-26 to GGRF fully maintains the Governor's Budget level of funding just shifts the fund source. There's a General Fund solution related to Oroville pump storage project.

The mayor vision shifts includes a shift of $10 million General Fund in 2024-25, $20 million in 2025-26, $100 million in 2026-27 and $100 million in 2027-28 to GGRF. This maintains full allocation of funding for this program. Just a fund shift related to the Salton Sea.

The mayor vision includes a shift of $6.8 million General Fund to GGRF maintaining $101 million or 46% of the total original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution related to habitat restoration. The mayor vision includes a shift of $102.5 million General Fund to GGRF.

This shifts an unencumbered prior budget appropriation to GGRF and maintains the full allocation for the program. There's a gentlefont solution for urban flood risk reduction, statewide flood risk reduction. The mayor vision includes a shift of $126 million General Fund to GGRF maintaining the full allocation for this program.

There's also a General Fund solution related to drought proofing, conveyance and SGMA implementation. Mayor Vision includes reversion of $1.4 million General Fund in 2023-24, maintaining 295 million, or 83% of the total original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution related to the California Emergency Relief Fund water Tank program.

Mayor Vision includes a reduction of $11 million General Fund in 2023-24. This will maintain $10 million, or 48% of the original allocation for that program. There's a General Fund solution for the California Emergency Relief Fund, Save our water. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $21.6 million General Fund in 2023-24.

This maintains 53.4 million, or 71% of original allocation for that program. There's a General Fund solution for water storage. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $500 million General Fund in 2025-26. This reduction eliminates the remaining funding for this program. The General Fund solution for the invest for investments in strategic reliability assets.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of $55 million General Fund in 2025. This maintains $2.3 billion, or 98% of the original allocation for this program. Moving into the California Energy Commission, there's a General Fund solution from within the energy package for equitable building decarbonization.

The mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of 53 million in 2024-25 and 92 million in 2025-26. This change, along with $6 million in additional GGRF, maintains $500 million, or 54% of the total original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution for distributed electricity backup assets.

The mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of 343 million in 2022-23 in 2024-25 50 million in 2025-26 and 25 million in 2026-27.

This change, along with $200 million in additional GGRF in 2025-26 and 100 million GGRF in 2026-27 maintains 532 million, or 89% of the total original allocation for this program. There's also a General Fund solution for clean hydrogen program.

The mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of $65 million in 2022-23 and an increase of $40 million GGRF in 2025-26. This allocation maintains $40 million, or 40% of the total original allocation for this program. There's also a General Fund solution related to offshore wind energy.

The mayor revision includes a net General Fund reduction of $20 million in 2022-23. This action maintains $25 million, or 56% of the original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution related to demand side grid support.

The mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of $166.5 million in 2022-23 and $95 million in 2023-24. This change, along with $75 million in additional GGRF in 2024-25 and $75 million in GGRF in 25-26 maintains $183.5 million, or 62% of the total original allocation for this program.

There's also a solution related to energy data infrastructure and analysis. The mayor revision includes a General Fund reduction of $4.1 million in 2022-23. This change maintains $0.9 million, or 18% of the total allocation original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution related to incentives for long duration storage.

The mayor vision includes a GGRF reduction of $56.9 million in 2024-25. This change maintains $273.1 million, or 83% of the total original allocation for this program. There's a General Fund solution for carbon removal innovation programs. The mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of 30 $35 million in 2022-23.

This change, along with an additional $20 million in GGRF in 2025-26 maintains $20 million, or 27% of the total original allocation for this program. There's also a General Fund solution related to carbon removal innovation program. The mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of $35 million in 2022-23.

This change, along with an additional $20 million of GGRF in 2025-26 will maintain $20 million, or 27% of the original allocation for this program. There are several General Fund solutions related to the ZEV package. I'll go through each of those now. First is drayage truck and infrastructure.

The May revision includes a General Fund reduction of $80.8 million in 2022-23. This change maintains $419.2 million, or 84% of the the total original allocation for this program for clean trucks, buses and off road equipment. The mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of $137.8 million in 2022-23.

This change maintains 532.2 million, or 79% of the total original allocation for this program. For fueling infrastructure grants. The May revision includes a General Fund reduction of $143.9 million in 2022-23 this change maintains 726.1 million, or 83% of the original allocation for this program.

For equitable at home charging, the mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of $20 million in 2022-23. This maintains $80 million sorry, $280 million, 93% of the original allocation for this program.

For zero emission Vehicle School bus program, the mayor vision includes a General Fund increase of $35 million in 2024-25, along with a General Fund decrease of $98.7 million in 2025-26 and an increase of reimbursements of $63.7 million in 2025-26.

This change maintains $410 million, which is 100% of the original allocation for this program. There are some additional General Fund solutions for energy and broadband at the California Public Utilities Commission along with these proposed additional proposals. So I'll cover those next, there's a General Fund solution for residential solar and storage.

The mayor vision includes a General Fund reduction of $50 million in 2024-25 in each year from 2025-26 through 2027-28 for a total reduction of $350 million.

Excuse me, before you go on, how many more pages do you have?

Are you sure you want to know? No. There are 123, about three and a half.

So why don't you give us the program and the net, the cut and the net that's left, but skip the years? You know, you said in 2024 we're doing this. 2025 we're doing that. I just. I think we have that data. People can look it up.

It is good to know whether it's now or delayed, but I think in the interest of trying to get our other questions asked to be better so that might be able to speed you up, hopefully considerably, we can do that.

Additionally, the mayor vision proposes $33 million reduction for community solar program.

Within PUC proposes additional $25 million of GDRF which can be used for both residential storage and residential solar and storage and community solar programs to increase equity and broaden the application of rooftop solar General Fund solution related to capacity building grants, there's a reduction of $10 million. That eliminates funding for this program.

For a Loan Loss Reserve program, there's a reduction of $175 million. Well, in. So it's across three years, 175 million. $150 million. 175 million. I'm not good enough to do that math that quickly in my head. But over three years, those are the three reductions. The change eliminates funding for the program.

For the California lifeline program, the mayor vision includes an augmentation of $30 million for the Universal Lifeline Fund to account for an unexpected increase of customers that were previously enrolled in the expiring federal affordable connectivity program, along with administering the CPUC's foster youth line program, moving into the California Environmental Protection Agency.

Do please give us the amount remaining if you can give us that, if that's not too hard.

Yeah. So in the last couple I did, the solutions, eliminated the funding so there wasn't anything. Okay. For climate accountability chapter legislation, the mayor revision includes $8.4 million. And this is a new proposal related to chapter legislation.

So mayor revision includes $8.4 million GGRF in 28 positions in 24-25, 12.3 million in 12 additional positions in 25-26 and then 13.9 million from two newly established funds and two additional positions in 26-27.

This will be ongoing implementation of the Climate Corporate Data Accountability act, which was from SB 253, and the Climate Related Financial Risk Disclosure act, which was SB 261. The requested funding from GGRF will be phased out, fully repaid and replaced by two statutorily authorized new funds that will generate revenue in the out years.

There is a General Fund loan from the Air Pollution Control Fund. The mayor vision proposes a three $300 million loan from the air pollution Control Fund to the General Fund to assist in closing the projected shortfall and ensuring their submission of a balanced budget plan.

The fund balance is primarily comprised of fines and settlements moving into the Department of Toxic Substances Control. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $268.5 million General Fund the mayor revision includes a fund shift of $108 million to GGRF. This was originally proposed for a delay. $175 million was originally proposed for a delay on the Governor's Budget.

This will maintain 231.5 million, or 46% of the original allocation for this program. There is a proposal for the hazardous waste control account which generation and handling fee shortfall solution.

The mayor revision includes a net increase of $750,000 in 24-25 and $500,000 ongoing, which includes a decrease of $4.6 million to the hazardous waste control account and an increase of $5.3 million of other funds to address the generation and handling of sorry to address the generation and handling fees, revenue shortfall.

These dollars will provide improved oversight of waste generation, increased fee payer compliance for generated waste and more consistent adherence to statutory exemption from the fee Trailer Bill Language will accompany this proposal to clarify the statute to more closely align with the originating intent found in SB 158.

Support oversight and compliance efforts, clarify the fee calculation and clarify how exemptions are to be used in the future. Additionally, the Administration proposes to forgive $15 million loan from the toxic substance control account made in the 2023 Budget Act.

For the Department of Resources Recycling Recovery, there's just one issue to highlight, withdrawal of a proposed loan from the California Beverage Container Recycling Fund to the General Fund. The mayor vision removes a loan that was proposed in the Governor's Budget of $125 million.

Moving into the State Water Resources Control Board, there's General Fund solution related to drinking water and wastewater. The mayor vision includes a reduction over two years, one of $152.5 million and then $200 million in the subsequent year for drinking water and wastewater projects.

The total of these two amounts are fully shifted to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund and spread over two years with 322.5 million available in 2024 and 30 million in 2025-26. This will maintain 1.7 billion, or 100% of the total amount originally allocated for the program.

For water recycling margin includes a reduction of $100 million for water recycling projects, which is proposed for delay in the Governor's Budget.

This will maintain $228 million, or 31% of the total authorization for the water recycling for PFAS, the mayor vision includes a reduction of $29.1 million General Fund and maintains which will maintain $24 million or 12% of the original allocation for that program.

A notable new BCP for Leviathan mine pond water treatment system improvements and leviathan mine transfer of title the mayor vision includes a request of $3.7 million one time General Fund in 2024-25. $3.5 million will fund critical performance, efficiency and safety improvements to the aging pond water treatment system at the Leviathan Mine Superfund site.

$200,000 will allow the Department of General Services to effectuate a possible transfer of title of the site from the state to Atlantic Richfield Company and the mayor vision includes Trailer Bill Language to authorize DGS to transfer ownership if necessary.

Atlantic Richfield Company has expressed interest in obtaining the title to the site and diligent efforts are being made by the State Water Board, Lahontan Regional Water Board, the Atlantic Richfield Company to finalize an agreement that is the best interest of the state.

The mayor vision includes a reversion of approximately $5.2 million for the Leith and Creek Diversion channel relining project from 2023-24. If the transfer of ownership to the site is realized, the Water Board will no longer need to lead that project. Moving into the Department of Food and Agriculture. There are several General Fund solutions here.

First was for fares and exposition resilience grant program. The mayor vision includes a reduction of approximately $2 million and it maintains approximately 148 million or 99% of the total original allocation for relief for small farmers program.

The mayor vision includes a reduction of $5 million related to drought and flood elimination flood eliminated related to drought and flood eliminating the program. This maintains $12 million or 48% of the total original allocation that was specific to drought. For farm to school incubator grant program, the mayor vision includes a reduction of $10 million.

This would maintain $80 million or 89% of the original allocation for technical assistance program for underserved farmers, mayor vision includes a reduction of $200,000. This maintains $9.8 million, or 98% of the original program. For state water efficiency and enhancement program. The mayor vision includes a reduction of $2.8 million for the program.

Additionally, $20.6 million that was proposed to be shifted to GGRF in 2024-25 is being delayed to 2026-27. In total, this maintains 117 million, or 73% of the total allocations for that program. For pollinator habitat program, the mayor vision includes a reduction of $445,000 and maintains 15.1 million, or 50% for that program.

For livestock methane reduction program, mayor vision delays $7 million GDRF in 24-25 to 25-27 that maintains $80 million or 100% of the original allocation. Notable new BCP for emergency response to invasive fruit flies.

The mayor vision includes a request for approximately $25,000,000 one time General Fund and $28.8 million one time Federal Trust Fund in 24-25 to continue effectively responding to the unprecedented presence of invasive fruit flies.

This additional funding is essential to swiftly eradicate these invasive pests to prevent them from establishing in California and irrevocably altering or dominating the agriculture industry. So that completes our overview. Sorry to go through it so quickly.

So, as previously mentioned, we have a lot of staff and folks from other departments here to handle any questions that you have given the nature of things that we just covered. You know, apologize in advance for the musical chairs that we'll likely have to do to answer questions.

But we appreciate it. We appreciate the fact that you're officially getting things on the record for the public by doing this, which is why we go through this.

If somebody's interested in one of those programs, they have a right to hear what's happening to that program, in spite of the fact that it's challenging for you to read that long and for anybody to listen that long. But now we're ready to hear the LAO give us their analysis of each one of those programs. Right? So, LAO

Like the list.

Thank you again. Rachel Ehlers from the LAO. I will instead, at the pledge of the Chair, offer high level comments. So as you heard, some of the proposals from the Administration are converting what in January had been delays to instead being reductions, as well as making some reductions to planned out year funding.

And you'll recall in January, those were both kind of thematic recommendations we made to you to kind of put the state on more solid footing in the out years that making reductions to funding that has not yet been spent is a lot less disruptive than making reductions to funding that has already been appropriated or to ongoing based programs.

So certainly if revenues perform better than anticipated in out years, you could revisit that. But starting from a place that's more sustainable, we think makes a lot of sense. Similarly, there are additional reductions made to current year and prior year funding that has not been spent.

We think there's more money there probably from current year and prior year that has not yet been spent. As you'll recall, in January we estimated there was about $1.0 billion that we thought as of April would have not kind of been encumbered or committed by the Administration.

The Administration is working on an updated estimate of data for us, hopefully within the next few days so that you can make other choices. You have other options if some of the programs that are proposed for reduction are really high priority for you.

And we do identify that there are quite a bit of programs that were added by the Legislature in recent negotiations that are the ones proposed for reductions. As mentioned, you have a big budget problem to solve.

You're going to have to make some of these tough choices, but you do have room and options for kind of preserving your highest priorities and making some different choices. So we're working with the Administration to find that data to try and give you some of those alternatives to consider.

As you know, the Administration did direct departments to put a spending freeze in place at the end of last month. So that could also offer some opportunities for making some different choices, difficult choices, but those that kind of sustain your highest priorities with that. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. I know that we have a significant number of questions up here and appreciate the interest of new Assembly Members being here and Assembly Member joining us again who is a regular on the Committee. And welcome to your new colleagues.

For the benefit of I'm going to ask the questions that have been proposed in advance on water recycling and groundwater and the California underserved. I'll ask those right now, then I'll turn it to you guys and then I'll come back to these questions.

If you have not asked any of these questions, and of course, all of your questions. Okay. And I'm very interested in the water recycling and groundwater cleaning cleanup funding. We're going to reduce that by an additional $100 million on top of the 174 million reduction. And I probably should let you folks find your seat.

So this is water recycling, groundwater folks. Right. So to go back for your benefit, the impact of reducing water recycling and groundwater cleanup funding by an additional $100 million on top of the $174 million reduction that was proposed in January. What do you folks see as the impact?

How much of that reduction is split between water recycling and groundwater cleanup? I'll start with those two.

Hi, good morning. Joe Karkoski, I'm with the State Water Resources Control Board, Deputy Director of our division of financial assistance. So the $100 million, the intent was primarily to use that for water recycling. On the groundwater cleanup side, we have our site cleanup sub account program, which receives about $37 million annually.

So we'll use that as our source of funding for groundwater cleanup. Movement forward for water recycling, we have the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. It's our low interest loan program. So many of the projects that would have received some grant funding, they were going to also receive state revolving fund loan in addition to the grant funding.

So what we'd look to do is to, you know, in lieu of the grant, provide some additional loan, and there are big benefits to that low interest loan. So, for example, a $50 million loan, there's about an interest rate interest payment savings of around $11 million over the life of the loan.

So it's equivalent to a pretty substantial grant. So what we've already done in anticipation of the reductions is we did reduce our grant caps from $15 million to of $5 million. So we've moved forward with that change in the grant amount. So most of the projects are getting some grant, just not as much as we originally anticipated.

Do you have a rough idea how many water districts and municipalities are applying for grants right now for water recycling? What's the scale here?

Yeah, so the ones that we had that were in the queue, most ready to go, were about 10 or 11 or so construction projects. And we had a number of planning projects as well.

So with the planning projects, we're going to continue to move forward with providing some grant for those so they can be ready to apply for, you know, whatever grant might be available or for loan as well.

How oversubscribed is the program? That's what I've really trying to get.

Well, overall, our clean water state revolving fund program, so that includes water recycling, but also like septic to sewer projects or other wastewater treatment plant, wastewater treatment upgrades, that sort of thing. It's, the demand is around. Current demand is around three or $4 billion, and we can do about $600 million in loan per year.

So what our board did last year, and I anticipate we'll do this year as well, is they'll cap the amount of loans, so to about $50 million. So we can at least help support more projects with some low interest rate financing.

There's also available financing directly from the US EPA as well for low interest loans through what they call their withia program, which a number of our communities are taking advantage of.

Are you able to share with us the list of the programs that will suffer reductions because of the Water Board's clean water state recycling fund?

We'd appreciate that.

Yeah. Yeah. We can provide a list of those projects and the changes in the financing that result.

While we have them up here, any water recycling and groundwater questions? Right. All right. California underserved small producers program.

Like to get the administration's take on the cut of $5 million from the small and underserved producers program, because one of the focuses of the Assembly is on disadvantaged, trying to decrease the impact on disadvantaged individuals. And this program is specifically focused on small and socially disadvantaged farmers that are affected by the drought and the flood.

So can you tell us why you feel like this is an appropriate cut for that program?

Good morning. Julianne Rolf with the Department of Finance. Generally, overall, the goal was to try to reach a neutral, positive budget without a deficit by cutting funds that haven't been spent yet. And so this is one of them that hasn't been spent. And so, yes, it unfortunately targets smaller scale, middle, middle scale producers and socially disadvantaged farmers.

But we've felt that the GO-Biz program that's also available for these stakeholders can also help supplement some of the effects of that $5 million. But overall, there's been funding, about 48% that's been maintained within CDFA that they have access to.

So when we had a previous hearing, the reference was made that we can go ahead and cut this because it was focused on drought and we don't have droughts, but it's also focused on floods, and we've had significant flood impacts the last two years in terms of this, in small farmers.

So if the justification before was we don't have droughts, now we have this impact, are we besides the GO-Biz program, we're just simply saying we don't have anything else for these small farmers in terms of flood.

The GO-Biz program, I believe, has about $25 million, but he has more context to the overall.

And different criteria for the GO-Biz program.

Yeah, appreciate the question. Chair Bennett, Christian Beltran with the Department of Finance. So I just wanted to tack onto my colleague's comments about how this was one of the difficult decisions that we had to make in order to kind of balance the budget.

But further context here is, generally speaking, that although there is the still need for the flood money, the bottom line is that this is one of the programs that is not really considered a core program that the state was trying to preserve as part of the overall state budget.

And therefore, we had a make the difficult decision to take a look at the $5 million that was allocated for flood for this purpose and have to reduce it at this point.

Did the applications for this funding go out? And if yes, what was the demand?

The intention for this $5 million was to reallocate those, the $5 million amongst the block grantees that had received funding as part of the previous solicitation. So we did not put out the request for proposals at this time.

There had been some initial conversations with those grantees about what the program might look like if we were to re up those funds with flood dollars. Pardon. I'm Arma Cozina with the Department of Food and Agriculture. Thanks for having me.

Thank you. So we're going after dollars that didn't go out, but the applications never went out for this, which is why these dollars are still here. Is there a reason why the applications didn't go out?

So we were making sure, we were trying to make sure that we were timing the program in conjunction with the GO-Biz program. The request for applications had already gone out with the GO-Biz program, and our program and the GO-Biz program share a lot of the same technical assistance providers.

And so out of consideration for their bandwidth, we were staging each of the programs. And so that's why we had just begun those initial conversations with those block grantees about what this program would look like.

Okay, I would just offer, you know, when this is designed for flood assistance, to sort of hear we had money for flood assistance, we didn't get the applications out. When you have a flood, you don't need the assistance two years from now.

So it seems surprising to me in terms of that, in terms of the application not going out, but with that, I've asked the two basic questions off of here. Assemblymember.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister Chair. So I just want to start with the LAO. You said you think there's more money out there, and I understand that you are working with the Administration to further evaluate potential additional unspent or unallocated funds. I think you had kind of a ballpark estimate. What did you say?

Sorry. Based on the information we got from the Administration in February on the timing of when the different departments were planning on allocating grants, we identified that after April, as of April, there would be roughly $1.0 billion across funds that had been allocated in recent budgets. Now, some of that will have gone out already since April.

Some of it is incorporated within the administration's proposal, so it will be a smaller number, but we think there are still many. Now, it will be to the Chair's questions, examples like this where funding hasn't gone out yet. The Administration, for a number of reasons, kind of hasn't let the grants.

That doesn't mean it will be an easy choice, necessarily.

And you said that you're in conversation with the Administration. When do you all expect to have a revised estimate?

I will leave that to the Department of Finance.

Christian Beltran with the Department of Finance. Again, I think that's still a detail that's ongoing in terms of the timing of when that number would come out. But we're definitely going to follow up since that's going to be a core decision point for both the Administration and the Legislature.

Okay. All right. Understood. Yes. I think we're keenly interested in understanding how that's proceeding. Okay. And then the other thing that caught my attention is related to the proposal for the additional budget of the division of petroleum market oversight. I'm not sure who the right person is to ask that question of. Okay.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hi, good morning. Okay, so the May revise is, would authorize $494,000 from ERPA for additional funding to the petroleum market oversight division. Is that? So, what is the total budget for the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight?

David Evans, Department of Finance. Last year, the budget, the 2023 Budget Act, included 10 permanent positions. And then also it was $5.861 million ongoing for the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight to cover the. To cover the positions.

And that's annual. On an annual basis.

Yes.

Okay. So. And is that currently getting in. Is that getting funded out of ERPA right now?

Yes, it is.

Yeah. Okay. And I guess the reason this caught my eye and raises some concern is, if I'm not mistaken, a few hearings ago, we were discussing the structural deficit related to ERPA.

There's a request now to increase the statutory cap of the surcharge, and it feels like trying to pile new things onto a fund with a structural deficit is not perhaps the wisest strategy.

This would be consistent with meeting the statutory requirements of SBX 1-2. So the initial appropriation, the $5.8 million, were to cover those 10 positions, but an assessment evaluation of the positions that were needed. Higher classifications are being requested in order to meet the requirements of statute.

Okay. Yeah. And I guess, again, in this budget environment, we got to ask ourselves, how do we do more with the resources we have? Which is a general theme. And those are my only initial questions. I may look back on a couple other things. Thank you.

Assemblymember.

Thank you, chair. Good morning, everyone. I wanted to talk about some of the energy reductions initially.

I'm sorry, you may end up switching people out because your questions might call other people. So I just want to respond to the Assemblymember talking about ERPA, and as soon as she finishes. As soon as they finish, I'll respond. Right. But it'll. We've. Because as you ask questions.

Yeah, I'm going to cover energy, transportation and then a couple of environments.

Great. So it is more appropriate for me to make this comment now.

Okay, good.

And that is that we did have these companies. I do. We had these comments before and I know it is a concern.

I want to share one thing, and that is my perception that as we're switching from a carbon economy to a carbon-less economy, it's a major transformation for economies to engage in. We're going to have to rely on the CEC to handle more and more aspects of this transformation that we're going through.

And because I specifically, at the end of that last thing I said, I want to look into what is it that the CEC couldn't do if we don't do this, what is it that the CEC is being required to do.

And so I've become more confident that this is a very small, we're talking cents, 30 or $0.40 increase in the utility rate, but it covers an agency that really has significant impact on all of us in terms of being able to try to get, get this right in terms of that.

So just want to share just to get it out there in terms of.

Yes, completely understand, Mister Chair. I think to me it begs the wider question of whether ERPA is the appropriate mechanism by which we should be funding the Division of Petroleum Market Oversight. So I think that's the wider question in my mind.

Great. Thank you.

All right now, Assemblymember. Sorry.

Yeah, great. Now well taken. So I wanted to talk about building decarbonization with the reductions for equitable building decarbonization in the May revise. Can the panelists elaborate on what is currently being done with this program and if some level of building decarb will be able to continue in the future despite the cuts?

Yeah, I'll take that one. Damien Mimna, California Energy Commission, Chief Financial Officer there. The mayor division proposes to retain $500 million equitable building DCARP program that has spread out over several years under statute required to enter into propose two separate portions of it, a direct install program and a statewide incentive program.

On top of the $500 million, there's also approximately $600 million in federal funding available for building DCARB.

So the federal funding is a key part of the strategy, that assumption.

That's correct, yes.

Turning to ZEV, zero emission vehicles, it appears that programs like the ZEV infrastructure grants at home, charging clean trucks, buses, actually aren't getting any funding in this budget, but received funding last cycle. Can the panelists describe the current state of these programs?

Do they have a backfill of funding for projects, or will they be depleted after this process budget cycle?

David Evans, Department of Finance. So your question was regarding the ZEV fueling infrastructure grants program.

Correct.

And so that program has currently, right now the May revision includes $726.1 million for that program.

And then how about at home charging, clean trucks, buses?

So at home charging program, that one includes 280 million. And then for clean trucks, buses and off road equipment, that includes 532.2 million for the program.

Okay, great. Thanks. Can the panelists explain the reasoning behind reducing the residential solar and storage program by $50 million? And then it looks like the amount should be increased, like in future budget cycles. So the strategy around that.

The strategy behind the reduction to the Residential Solar and Storage Program, the 2023 Budget Act included provisional language, which allows the CPUC to use the resources for that program with other CPUC programs. And so the May revision also includes an additional $50 million for the community solar program.

And within the community solar program, the CPUC could use that, those resources for the residential and solar storage program. So those programs are going to be linked within the May revision proposal.

Sorry to interrupt you, Mister Assemblymember Connolly. You mentioned a minute ago you wanted to ask questions about three or 4 different topics. One of them you said was transportation.

Correct.

Is it ZEV, or is it the transportation that we covered?

It's going to be active transportation.

All right. Because the reason I'm interrupting you is because they have left, but we're going to call them back.

Okay.

I just want to make sure you had a question. I don't want them to come back if you didn't have.

Yeah, no.

So, yes, okay.

Absolutely. Okay, great. They're on their way back now?

We're asking them right now.

Okay, great. Any further kind of reflections on the fact that it looks like it's then reinstated to some extent in future proposed years, if I'm understanding that correctly, or?

Steve Wells from Department of Finance. Just to note that the transportation people right now are at the Senate hearing of the same thing.

You may have missed your opportunity, Assemblymember.

Yeah, I'll just tee it up for those listening, namely cuts to the active transportation program. It sounds like they're still not going to be filled from the State Highway Fund. So I would be interested in additional information on the reasoning of not using this fund when it has been traditionally tapped for active transportation programs.

Then finally, a couple of environmental reductions. I wanted to highlight one, frankly, I don't get at all. And that is concerning the Marine Mammal Center, which is in my district, Highly utilized center,

While we're making the transition, staff will get the answer to your question.

Excellent. Good. Thank you.

Benjamin Pollack, Department of Finance. I work on transportation, and so I just wanted to discuss the question.

Excellent. And then we'll move on to the other one.

Yeah. So the state highway account has been utilized in the past to address and backfill the active transportation program.

And that is also the reason why we didn't propose to do that again. Basically, the state highway account has been repeatedly tapped, as we've done General Fund solutions over the last few years. And continuing to divert state highway account funds could negatively impact the key work that Caltrans does to maintain the state highway system.

How would you describe, then, what is the strategy around active transportation? I get that. Yeah. That was probably an imperfect solution before. Nevertheless, it was a source of important finding.

Yes, definitely. I mean, it's a key aspect of Caltrans goals and responsibilities. And due to the budget situation, it was something that had to be evaluated. But as you know, we discussed earlier through transportation, we are definitely open to conversations and how to.

Yeah, let's dig further down on that one. We ready for Marine Mammal Center? So obviously concerning to me that the Marine Mammal Center relies on an annual allocation of two, $2 million from the state, which is now looking like it's getting completely eliminated.

So if the panelists can explain why in the scope of a large budget and large budget issues we have, something this small would be targeted, something this small and important would be targeted.

Erin Carson, Department of Finance, the Marine Mammal Center reduction in budget year and ongoing. It was just one proposal of many proposals and difficult decisions that were considered by the Administration. We're happy to work with the Legislature if there are other options that it would like to consider.

Yeah, let's look at that one. I'd be happy to work with you on that. So I just wanted to kind of stick a pin in that one.

I'd like to add in on that particular topic. Are there other sources of funding for the Marine Mammal Program that you're aware of?

Not. Not at this moment. Just General Fund.

So it's not like we're pulling out 2 million and they still have other sources of funding to keep them going. We're zeroing out the program if we pull the 2 million out?

From the state.

Correct.

Thank you very much.

That's big.

So it is a concern for me also, and that was going to be a question I had. What was the funding that could. What were the other funding sources they could potentially come up with.

Lizzie Urie, Department of Finance thank you for the feedback. We can't speak to other funding sources the Marine Mammal Center may have, but yes, this would reduce the state funding for the Marine Mammal Center.

Sure. But you don't know what they. Okay, so there is potentially other funding that may be out there for marine mammals. LAO aware?

Yeah, we can look into this. My understanding is that the General Fund contribution for this program only started a few years ago, so they had other funding before the state stepped in to provide ongoing funding. So we'll do some research and get back to.

We'd appreciate that information. Thank you.

Yeah. And then finally another quick question came to my attention around the Habitat Conservation Fund. It sounds like a little bit before my time. There was some sort of agreement for funding or support through 2030. We're now basically in a situation, again understanding the tough budget times where it's being zeroed out.

So if someone could briefly speak to the Habitat Conservation Fund as well.

Daniel Ross Jones, Department of Finance the Habitat Conservation Fund is a funding mechanism that, as you mentioned, has a sunset date and statute for 2030. The other funding source that comes in from it includes Proposition 99 funding and transfer. In order to meet a statutory requirement of a minimum funding level that's transferred every year into that fund.

As Proposition 99 funding shifts, that corresponding General Fund transfer also shifts to meet that required minimum contribution level. This proposal would sunset the General Fund transfer portion of it. So the Habitat Conservation Fund would continue to exist through its natural sunset date.

This would only sunset the General Fund contribution.

So the Prop 99 piece is still?

That would continue.

Okay, thank you.

So, surprise, surprise, I want to talk about broadband. So when we look at the budget, I think in the initial summary where we were skimming through, I'm not sure all of the changes to the broadband programs, last mile broadband programs were accurately represented.

The budget proposes a $200 million delay in last mile funds until fiscal year 27-28 but there's a total of 550 million in General Fund Dollars available to different for until 27-28.

Did the Administration consider delaying all of the General Fund Dollars until 27-28 considering that we haven't even started using the FFA dollars and there's 1.86 coming in BEED?

David Evans, Department of Finance. The Administration considered several different approaches and factors in developing the May revision. Currently, right now, the proposal gives us an opportunity to evaluate the sequence of program needs, and this is consistent with what the Governor recommended for us to develop a balanced budget for budget year and budget year plus one.

So it allows us to take that overview and that comprehensive evaluation of it. And so currently, right now, the delay, the 200 million delay gives us that opportunity.

So you did consider it, but you're only looking at this year, next year. That's the answer?

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

Okay. Because there is more opportunity there. And I think a good strategy, and I think that's representing the delay of the 200 million is let's use our federal dollars first and then state dollars later to be very surgical to go in and see where FFA and BEED do not cover broadband for all.

And so I think that's something we should. I would support and consider as we go forward. And between now and 27-28 California is expected to receive additional $1.86 billion from the federal BEED program. And so I think, you know, we have non supplant rules, but there is extra money that we could be deferring till 27-28.

So that's something to consider. And can you clarify the timeline for the CPUC to begin awarding funds from the federal funding account? At the last budget hearing, the CPUC committed to begin making first awards in June. But we're not hearing a date for those funding yet.

So I'm very concerned that we're two years delayed in getting anything out the door with broadband. And then why would we put any state dollars that don't have non supplant rules around it into doing this? Because they're not doing their job.

I will have to defer to my colleagues at the CPUC regarding the award.

In the future, could you ask somebody that's sitting closer to the aisle?

I think they didn't expect me to be here today. Thank you. Good morning. Chair and Members Rachel Peterson, Executive Director of the California Public Utilities Commission. Our first staff proposals are ready to go out the door. They are subject to the spending freeze that the Department of Finance and the Administration have set out for all agencies, but they are ready.

So the timeline would be?

As soon as we're able to work with the Administration on identifying how to make the proposals, given the current budget proposals in front of you, as well as addressing the spending freeze that's in place.

Okay. And do you think the budget negotiations will impact your CPUC ability to follow through on this commitment? You're saying the freeze. Are you in negotiations with the Administration? What could the public and all the people who are waiting on the FFA money expect?

I wouldn't characterize it as negotiations. It is. We're working with the Administration to make sure the FFA program begins to roll out consistent with what the Administration is dealing with in terms of the budget situation.

And are you worried about being able to expend the federal dollars in the FFA by the deadline?

No.

Given that there's a two year delay already and they have to be expended and out the door by 26, end of 26?

The years that we have spent in developing this program have been spent in making grants, the local agency technical assistance grants.

We put 105 of those out into California, and a large number of those grantees requested additional time so that they could work on the engineering of their networks in order to be able to set themselves up to apply for FFA.

And so that first part of the strategy necessarily took time, and the grantees themselves ask for more time. And they are actually a really great story because they are the new entrants that we're looking for to enter the broadband market and deliver broadband where the incumbents had not delivered it in the past.

And so those are the, if you look at the applicant list on our website, there's a good number of those LATA grant recipients who are now proposing projects for FFA awards. So the time has been well spent. I appreciate your point, assemblymember, but the time has been well spent.

The proof will be in the pudding if the time has been well spent, I think. But this budget is proposing to, I think, eliminate 500 million in the Loan Loss Reserve Program. And can you can either DOF or anybody comment on what entities projects were expected to use that Loan Loss Reserve Program? And if they're entities that would have been tied to any of the FFA or ongoing funding that we're expecting through budget.

David Evans, Department of Finance the broadband Loan loss Reserve Program was an opportunity for cities and municipalities to utilize those resources so they can develop broadband last mile infrastructure projects and then in turn repay back the borrowed funds from the program. And so the entities would have been like local cities and counties and also school boards could apply for the funding as well.

So what do we think the impact will be on municipal broadband with the elimination of the 500 million in loan loss reserves?

There's an impact. There's no question.

Do we know the scope and scale of that impact?

What I can, I can give you a couple of numbers we had during the application window that just was held between April and beginning of April and beginning of maybe we received 38 applications for 438 million in Loan Loss Reserve Funding.

So what's going to happen with. You said 38 applications?

Yes.

What's going to happen with those 38 applications? Will they be redirected to FFA or bead or any other program?

That's the subject of ongoing discussion. I don't know the answer yet.

Okay. It would be great to get a list of those projects. If we could get a list of that. Yeah, I think that covers my broadband questions. Thank you. Thank you.

I have one follow up question on broadband after the Assembly Member's questions, and that is 200 million has been slowed down. The Administration is aware of the Assembly Member's logic for the value of slowing it all down. And am I correct in your answer saying you just want to maintain the flexibility, you might slow it down, you may not. Is that what I'm hearing in terms of the answer?

Yes.

Great. Thank you. That's helpful. I think for us to know that at least there's a common understanding of that in terms of the value. All right, so I have number of other questions to try to rip through here and trying to think while we have you guys up here so we don't have to make everybody move regularly.

But I think I better just go in the order that I have them listed or I'll get confused. Right. Offshore wind. Right. All right, great. You get to stay. Ooh, a cast of thousands. Yeah. There you go. I don't want you to leave. Right.

I know we submitted this question to you in advance, so hopefully we can get right after this, but can you walk us through the programmatic changes proposed for the offshore wind funding? Is the funding still focused on port infrastructure? Pretty important question for many of us in the Assembly.

Hi, good morning. Lizzie Urie, Department of Finance. I'll take a first stab and then hand it over to my colleague. So the May revision proposes $16 million for various offshore wind activities at the Coastal Commission, State Lands Commission, and Ocean Protection Council, all of which are here represented.

Given the state's fiscal constraints, the Administration looked at all of our offshore wind energy needs holistically. So this proposal presents a strategic package to address the requirements driven by recently chaptered legislation, as well as the environmental permitting and related resource needs that we believe that we need to undertake over the next three years.

So funding for this proposal is offset by the reversion of a portion of the remaining funding for the CEC, 42.7 million for port infrastructure remains. $36 million is proposed to be reverted in the May revision, of which 6.7 million is retained by the CEC.

So of the $36 million proposed to be reverted, $16 million is proposed to offset the funding requested in this proposal, and I'll let my CEC colleague handle the rest of the details.

So of the 32 million, basically we're offsetting that with 16 million. So we have a $16 million cut?

Yes. So there's $36 million proposed to be reverted, $16 million in new funding proposed. So a net $20 million reduction.

Got it 36. Okay, great. Next guy the barbarian.

David Evans, Department of Finance. Just like my colleague said. So $60 million out of the initial 42.7 is going to go towards the various entities that are before you, and then 9 million will be preserved and maintained for poor infrastructure development at the CEC.

Okay, so any programmatic change, do you see a slowdown in any way on the offshore wind development as a result of this?

Well, in many ways, the reallocation of this funding from port infrastructure to these entities will actually help the Administration make really important progress in implementing offshore wind workload. Jen, if you wanted to add.

Yeah, thank you so much. I'm Jenn Eckerle. I'm the Executive Director of the Ocean Protection Council. I also serve as the Deputy Secretary for Oceans and Coastal Policy for the Resources Agency.

So the $16 million package really identifies the highest priority needs to make sure that we're moving forward on the critical permitting components with the Coastal Commission and the State Lands Commission, and also making sure that we have funding to support environmental monitoring and research, which is really critical to understand kind of baseline conditions and how we're going to track changes over time. So these are the components that are really essential to make sure that we're moving forward as quickly as we can. For this clean industry.

The baseline conditions at the ports or the baseline conditions both at the ports and out in the ocean?

I'm speaking to the baseline conditions of the ocean ecosystem. We do have a colleague here from the Energy Commission that can speak to the ports component also. My colleague at the State Lands Commission can also speak to that.

So go ahead.

I would just add, you got to.

Get a lot closer.

Thank you.

Pull it to you right there.

Jennifer Lucchesi, Executive Officer of the State Land Commission. The allocation, the proposed allocation to the State Lands Commission and the Coastal Commission for permitting and Environmental Review will also help support the permitting review at ports for their infrastructure upgrades as well.

Okay, thank you. Are you at liberty to tell us what's evolving in terms of the game plan? Do we know what point ports are going to be doing? What activities? Are we certain that Long Beach and LA are going to be building them? Are we certain that somebody else is going to be doing maintenance, et cetera? Yeah.

So the first priority for port upgrades to support offshore wind is the staging and integration sites. And both the ports of Long Beach and the Humboldt harbor district have stepped up as the two primary locations for those upgrades to support staging integration.

Ports of LA and also San Francisco are looking at also contributing to that staging and integration sites as well. So that would be our first priority. And then we would move on to some of the other infrastructure upgrades necessary to support port. Port the port roles in offshore wind.

Down the line in terms of support, etcetera. But those steps haven't been determined yet.

We have determined those through the various ports reports that have been developed and as part of the AB 525 strategic plan. That draft strategic plan is out right now with the goal of finalizing that in the summer, and that will lay out the entire port infrastructure needs to support the full lifecycle of offshore wind.

So you're saying the draft plan is out now, be finalized in the summer?

Correct.

What's the easiest way for me to get the draft plan?

We can send it directly to you.

I was hoping that was the answer. Thank you. All right. Anything else on offshore wind? All righty. Good. All righty. Good. I think we're set on offshore wind. Thank you, ZEVs. Back to the ZEV, folks. All right, this is probably the appropriate time for me to point out that with these huge changes of General Fund funding over to GGRF funding, we have a separate question on that here, but it poses, I think, some significant challenges, and one of those relates to ZEV, but we're no longer at the commitment of $10 billion ZEV commitment.

We had $10 billion over five year commitment. Now we've extended it to seven years, and we're still not at $10 billion. In terms of the commitment, why were the cuts only targeted at the charging infrastructure program?

Brandon Merritt, the Department of Finance in response to that question about the charging infrastructure programs, within the scope of our prioritizations for General Fund solutions, we did not have any further General Fund vehicle appropriations to cut. So this was next within the overarching priority schedule. In terms of approaching General Fund solutions.

Do you have a breakdown in terms of percentage of these infrastructure over the seven years, the percentage that will be going to light duty vehicles and the percentage that will be going to mid and heavy duty vehicles?

Particularly, there's enormous interest on the Assembly side in terms of making sure that the highway infrastructure, the freight corridors, really have sufficient zev infrastructure charging, both electrical and hydrogen infrastructure charging. Do you have a breakdown there in terms of where that game plan is?

Christian Beltran with the Department of Finance just to add some additional context to what my colleague had mentioned in terms of the points that he made, I would also add that as a reminder, the Legislature worked with the Administration in the previous budget cycle to shift a lot of the individual vehicle amounts, the actual vehicle incentive programs to be shifted to GGRF.

So when we were looking for General Fund solutions, there was no General Fund to actually switch. So infrastructure was the only programs that still had some residual General Fund to sweep as part of General Fund solutions. Secondarily, to your question about the percentages associated with heavy duty and light duty vehicles, we do have those numbers that we can get to you. We don't have them in front of us at this moment, but we're happy to provide you and your staff that information.

All right, great. So you know, the cuts, $80 million cut from the drage trucks ZEV package and infrastructure, 137 million. And maybe these are CEC questions for the clean trucks, buses and off road equipment, trying to get an idea. Are we cutting equally from light duty and heavy duty? Are we cutting more from heavy duty than light duty? Can CEC or Department of Finance or anybody help us with that piece of information?

Hello again. Damien Mimnaugh, Energy Commission. That's a great question. I don't know if we've had the opportunity with this just coming up recently to really evaluate how it distributes the reductions between light duty and heavy duty. If it's okay with you, that's something we'll plan to look at and get back to you.

I appreciate it being identified as a great question, but it's a really important question that we would like to, I'd like to have the answer to sooner rather than later as we're trying to move. So if something you could do promptly, I really appreciate that. Understood? Yes. Great. Thank you. Okay. And I think that how do we pay for the clean cars for all future in the future if we've already committed all the GGRF funds for the future?

Brandon Merritt, Department of Finance so I would just note that we do maintain 100% of the clean cars for all our original authority, albeit with some small delays, such as the $45 million that was delayed to 2728. But again, we are keeping the 100 million, excuse me, 100% of the original authority for this program.

All right. So not under jeopardy as we switch it. As we switch over. Right. It'll be under jeopardy when you hear our questions about the GGR Fund shift. So we at least are concerned about that as we go forward. Get that on the record and then Zev school buses, what changes are you making for about ZEV schools?

So to be clear, this is not a General Fund solution. It is spending within the computed Proposition 98 guarantee. Our goal with this change was to pay down long term commitments with available Proposition 98 resources. In other words, there are no changes to the programming of this Fund given that it is a net zero shift with an increase in reimbursement authority.

Okay, thank you very much. Air Pollution Control Fund. The loan to the General Fund. Great. What does the air producing control Fund typically pay for and what's the impact of $300 million loan Fund?

So the impact of the $300 million loan is anticipated to be absorbable given the high amount of settlements that were received in the current fiscal year. Regarding the question about what APCF typically pays for, the Fund acts as a depository for penalties and fees collected on vehicle and non vehicular air pollution control sources.

For example, penalties paid by manufacturers or distributors of motor vehicles for violations of regulations or penalties for violation of abatement orders and regulations.

Some examples of proposals to be paid out of the current proposals to be paid out of the Fund are the in use off road diesel fueled fleets, regulation chrome plating, airborne toxic control, and a portion of the southern headquarters building management, operations and maintenance.

None of these or other existing projects are anticipated to be adversely impacted by the loan. The 300 million lastly, it's important to note the 300 million identified here has not been programmed yet as part of any expenditure plan and therefore is not negatively impacted by this loan.

And statutorily, it will have to be repaid like other loans.

Yes, according Christian Beltran, again, it's not statutorily required, but it would be required pursuant to the budget Bill Language in the budget Bill itself.

So once that language passes, it's. Yes, correct. All right, great. Thank you very much. I think those are done. We're close to. We're fine on fruit fly infestation and the Department of Toxic Substances. So before we go to that, I just have one more list of questions, and that is GGRF funding.

Can you provide us the list of GGRF items that were cut? Like you mentioned, you cut urban greening from GGRF, and we're shifting a lot of things to GGRF, but we're also cutting things from GGRF. Do you have a list of what's been cut from GGRF?

Yes, we do. So there was 100. I'm sorry, we do have that list. I think my colleague has that list available with him. Thank you.

Yeah. Sergio Aguilar, Department of Finance. So there is a total of 190 million that was proposed at Governor's Budget as a shift to GGRF. That is now in the mayor vision, being proposed as a just true reduction, not a shift.

So there's four programs, urban greening, extreme heat and community resilience, the stewardship of state owned lands and long duration storage. So they just become true reductions in the, instead of fun shifts.

And the Assembly certainly has some concerns about some of those shifts, just to get that on the record going out there. Certainly extreme heat is one of those, but all four of those programs are ones that the Assembly has, I think, some significant interest in, with them being moved out of GGRF.

Ready to ask questions about the solar and storage and community storage issues. Thank you, gentlemen. Obviously a big issue for Californians, this whole issue of solar, residential solar issues, etcetera, and the issue of community storage of solar energy.

So could you walk us through the changes to the residential solar program that will be out there and the storage program for community solar be the result of this budget? Thank you.

Absolutely. I'm David Evans, Department of Finance. And so the May revision includes 350 million General Fund reduction to the program, and then it leaves 280 million giraffe for the program. So 280 million.

Now, when you say the program, that's the solar, or is that combination of residential solar and the storage and community solar, so.

And the community solar would be currently, right now, the 2023 budget act included 33 million for the community solar program. And then the May revision includes 50 million GGF for the community solar program for a total of 83 million.

83 million. And that's a percentage of the original, is what percentage of the original is that?

There was no, that's 100%. So, yeah.

Okay. Now, residential solar, what's the percentage that remains in the residential solar?

44%.

Okay, what's the justification for the. For the cuts? I just want to get that on the record in terms of residential solar, anything special about residential solar?

There's not. Steve Wells, Department of Finance. There's nothing special about residential solar. It's just that most of the appropriations for residential solar were out in the future. So as part of our hierarchy of what we looked at, we tried to look at programs where we hadn't already committed the funds. And in this case, the $350 million were in budget year. Plus one. Plus two. So that's where the cut came.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All right. The urban greening program cut down to 20% remaining, and I'd like to hear what your analysis is. Why is that program worth cutting 80% from versus other programs? Urban greeting has significant interest by Assembly Members, et cetera. So urban greeting is left at 20% of the original funding.

Why that program versus others?

Hi. Erin Carson, Department of Finance. The reduction of 23.8 million GGRF, including the May revision. It was another tough decision as part of our broader may revision solution strategy. However, this still maintains 51.3 million over the course of four years for this program or 20.5% for this program. So that was our decision.

As far as the budget, I appreciate. These are all tough cuts. You know, we have to do it. I'm really not. I'm not trying to. I'm really just trying to understand.

Do you know something about the urban greening program that makes you feel like it's not as efficient, it's not giving us as much bang for a buck as some of the other programs that weren't cut didn't suffer the same percentage cuts. That's what I'd like to know. What do you know?

What can you tell us about the program? How effective do you feel it is? How much do you believe in it? I'm perfectly fine to hear. The program's just not working out as well as we thought. That's good information, if that's in fact the case. So I'm just trying to find that out. Right.

Yeah. Lizzie Urie, Department of Finance. The reduction of GGRF for the urban greeting program is not a value statement on the benefits of the program. We know that there are many to which Mister cash can speak to. However, as part of our reprioritization of funding, the urban greeting program did not make that cut.

Thank you.

I was just going to speak to the demand on the program. There is a lot of demand. In the last round, we had 132 million in asks and had 23.7 million to award.

So it's not a question of demand, it's just a question of, and I think you'll see a consistent theme coming from the Assembly and we're trying to deliver it here. And that is programs that affect disadvantaged communities are probably the one area where we're most concerned about that.

And so from a value judgment standpoint, if you're identifying it as a highly oversubscribed program, particularly in disadvantaged communities, which the program has requirements to try to focus on, disadvantaged communities would heard it's just not working out as well. The money's not being spent like you like, that's one thing, because that would.

But if that's not the case and it's just along with everything else that's being cut, well, it's a disadvantaged community and probably an area that the Assembly will be looking harder at as we go forward in terms of that program. So appreciate that. Thank you very much. All right, I have just a couple of others. The climate information program, who's our specialist.

In terms of that, you are stuck with us.

All right, great. What can you tell us about the climate information program? I mean, when you just kind of look at it, you go, I need somebody to explain that more. It's been zeroed out. And what did it do?

Is this the climate information program or climate information system?

Thank you. Come on. Yeah.

Brian Cash with the Natural Resources Agency, the system. We were in discussions with JPL and to put together a system to have deposits placed to deposit climate and data information. But those discussions were not successful. And given the budget situation, we felt like this would be something that could be cut in the grand scheme of things.

Ultimately, we want CAL FIRE to have great data on fires as they break out so that we can get on top of them. I mean, the environmental damage, the economic damage from these million acre fires is just enormous for us. Do we have a game plan?

I assume data and new technology and data are going to be essential for developing a much more rapid response. So it would fall under the category of both fire prevention and active fire suppression. Do we have a game plan? And this didn't work out with JPA? Do we have some other, and if we don't have a budget for it, I'm just concerned. Are we short circuiting ourselves in terms of developing that game plan?

Yeah. This was an overall deposit place to deposit that data across many different departments. CAL FIRE does have data for wildfires, and they are here. And they could provide you additional information on that, too.

Sounds like a good time to hear from them. Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Bennett, standing outside watching. Joe Tyler, director at CAL FIRE. So, related to data that we have available, we continue to invest in technology. We continue to invest that in places like wildfire analysts. We continue to invest that in programs that we have, such as CalMAPPER.

CalMAPPER is a program in which CAL FIRE specifically has been inputting data, specifically around fire prevention fuels reduction work that has been transferring into the interagency treatment tracker, which is also part of that forest data hub discussion.

Now, we are going to continue collecting data both on our fire prevention work as well as our fire protection work, using the technology that we're continuing to advance today based on base budget funds that we already have available.

So what will this, what won't happen because of this cut of about $5 million?

So it is possible that is part of the Wildfire Enforce Resilience task force that is charged with the interagency treatment tracker in datahub, that it could be a slower process or a more difficult process for the public to find and access readily available information. However, that information is still deep within the CAL FIRE website, it's publicly available. We have to bring it to the surface, and that is a discussion I've had with many of the members.

Bringing it to the surface for the public is one thing. Bringing it to the surface, does it affect the department's ability to quickly respond to fire, to quickly analyze and try to contain these things before they get away?

So based on our base budget that's already been approved and not affected, we have sufficient funding to maintain the technology to respond to new emergencies.

And how about the development of the new technology? Does that require more funding than we have right now, or is that built into your budget also?

Well, certainly, any development of new and future technology is one of the many reasons that we asked the committee, the administration, for funds that are available. But in this budget timeframe, there have been no new significant apps on technology.

Great. Thank you very much. Prescribed fire funds are funded fully, they're just switching over to GGRF, correct? Okay. Excellent. And then I only have one. I don't think I need anybody even to come up for this one. I just would like to say this, and that is at this time of budget cuts, there are many stakeholders that feel passionately. There is almost never a stakeholder that comes forward and defends or argues against cuts and deferred maintenance.

And deferred maintenance is the easiest thing to cut, easiest thing to delay, and one of the things that can be, you know, pennywise and pound foolish. So I would just say from the standpoint of all the agencies that we're dealing with here, I note that there is a deferred maintenance cut of down to 69% remains.

Right, but that 31%. I just want to say that there's at least one advocate to, to not cut deferred maintenance because it's, again, pennywise and pound foolish. So thank you very much, Assemblymember. You have anything else? We're just getting ready to move on to greenhouse gas. Thank you. And we are nearly done with this and we're going to try to get you out close to 12. So the May revision of greenhouse gas, the GGRF spending plan. All right, go ahead.

Yes, Sergio Aguilar, Department of Finance. So I'll keep this short, given that we've already covered a lot of the GGRF shifts as part of the prior presentation. But again, May revision has a comprehensive cap and trade expansion plan that allocates a discretionary cap and trade funding over the next four years. And about $3.6 billion in May revision is new general fund shifts to cap and trade.

And our plan prioritizes programs that most aligned with state's climate goals, support equity and disadvantaged communities, also supports programs that support emissions targets and then also maintain some of the commitments that we've made with the Legislature over the past few years on an overall climate budget.

Question. What's the total GGRF revenues required for the next four years to achieve the spending proposals in the May revision?

Brandon Merritt, Department of Finance the total amount required is $4.8 billion annually, which includes kind of two main sources of revenue, which would be the Smith interest revenues and baseline cap and trade auction revenues in 24-25 and ongoing.

$4.8 billion? Annually each year for those four years. And LAO feels like that is realistic?

I think that is one of the concerns, as I mentioned earlier, that we have for you is just making, this is kind of an, not kind of, this is an unprecedented amount of commitment of discretionary GGRF revenues for future years.

And there's a lot of uncertainty around these revenues, particularly as the program starts to near its statutory sunset date and 2030 and what will happen there. So as you noted earlier in the hearing you can always revisit this and come back in the future.

But I think as you are learning, going through this process this year, it's easier to revisit starting from a lower assumption of spending than starting with a higher assumption and then having to come back down.

One question. You mentioned the auction. Is the auction going on right now or has it been delayed or suspended?

Okay. I believe. I don't think there was any suspension or delay. I think the auction is actually taking place today, if I'm not mistaken.

Okay. If anybody has any other. Well, look at, look at this. If anybody has any other information, we'd sure appreciate it.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair Bennett. I'm Natalie Lee. I'm the assistant division chief of the industrial strategies division at the Air Resources Board. Excuse me, I just was sneaking a snack. The auction is being postponed. It encountered technical difficulties, but it will be rescheduled.

Great. Thank you very much. Do you have a rough idea when it will be rescheduled? We are very interested in what the auction results are.

Absolutely. There is not a date established right now, but it will be publicly noticed and we will let you know.

You don't have a professional subjective days versus weeks analysis, right?

All I can say is this was technical difficulties. So those technical difficulties have to be removed and resolved before we can schedule another date.

You'll make a great witness someday. Great. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much. So this, the comment, I have two comments about the GGRF. Number one, we are putting an unprecedented amount of reliance on GGRF as we go forward and converting these programs over.

And think about it this way, we're putting, it would be like, I want to go back to the example of the First 5, First 5 funded wonderful programs for children under five years old. But it relied on the revenue that came from the tobacco taxes on cigarettes.

And literally, when you served on the First 5 Commission, you kind of wanted people to keep smoking because you fell in love with these programs. Well, here we are, the state of California. We actually, we set up the cap and trade because we want to decrease the amount of admissions.

We don't want people to say, oh, we're going to keep admitting. It's when people have to keep admitting. But we want to try to send the right market signals. We want to decrease that. So if we're trying to decrease emissions and we're building more and more reliance now of base programs on greenhouse gas, that's a concern.

And also we should have a healthy debate in the state of California as to what should the spending on cap and trade, I mean, the revenue that comes in from the cap and trade fund, what should that really be spent on?

It seems like the logic is you get to admit more here because you're going to pay money to us to give us abilities to decrease admissions in the future. It's not always clear that all the spending on the GGRF funding, that the expenditures that we make are actually directly going to have a benefit on decreasing those emissions.

But that ought to be a healthy conversation that we have and that we have less ability to have over the next four years if we have this allocation going out like this. So those are two significant concerns. And then the other one is if the revenues aren't there.

We've now put a lot of core programs into this, so just wanted to get that out there for future conversations. And I see some head nodding and I appreciate that people recognize it's at least a legitimate issue for us to talk about, Assemblymember and this is the end of the program here, right?

And I would just say, Mr. Chair, that I very profoundly share the concerns that you have just articulated. The fund shifts that the Administration has proposed include funding a whole raft of programs that I really think are important and I really support, but I don't think should be funded through GGRF.

California has incredibly ambitious and incredibly important climate goals, and for us to achieve those over the course of the next 20 years, we need to triple generation capacity in the state of California. We need a 350% increase in transmission capacity in order for California to green the grid. We need to make tremendous investments.

And that's not just going to come from the private sector. And that should not just be borne by additional costs and charges on ratepayers. Some of that needs to be, in my opinion, funded by these dollars. And I am really, really worried that the proposed shifts make it nearly impossible for us to do that.

And so I think we really need to remind ourselves that it's called the greenhouse gas reduction fund and in my view, we should be utilizing those funds to reduce greenhouse gases.

So I think it's a really, really important conversation, and Mr. Chair, as you said, I think it's a broader conversation, but I think it's a very worthwhile one because I do think that between the Legislature and the Administration, we need to have some strategic alignment on priorities as we move forward and as we advance, not just over the next year, but over the next decade. So thank you for your leadership on that. I appreciate that.

You're welcome, this will be a continuing conversation. I doubt we'll get this solved by tomorrow. But I do want to point out to the public as you're coming up, that we first want to hear about transportation speakers.

So I'm going to ask you to come to the microphone if you're a transportation speaker and stay back a distance so that there's a fair line behind you for that. And you guys are going to have to sort out fairness back there, whatever that works on. So we're now going to move to public comment.

All right. Well, Mister chair and Members, Michael Pimentel, Executive Director of the California Transit Association, here today to call for the maintenance of the $5.1 billion for transit capital and operations and the release of the $2 billion appropriated for the fiscal year 23-24 that is currently frozen.

Now, as I call for this action, I do want to acknowledge that the $4 billion or $4 billion of this total funding has its origins in the Budget Act of 2022, which committed historic levels of state funding for transit capital projects as part of a larger agreement with the Administration to advance investments in the high speed rail project.

Last year, as we advocated before this Committee for additional funding, we called on the Legislature to protect its end of the high speed rail bargain from the administration's proposal to cut that funding and to provide transit agencies with flexibility to flex this capital funding for operations.

Now, we appreciate that that flexibility was provided under AB 102 and SB 125. There were accountability metrics applied to the release of those dollars and some considerations that had to be advanced locally to consider how it is that they would invest in capital versus operations.

We have been following the letter of the law that's advanced under SB 102 and AB 102, and today we're just simply raising our concerns also about that spending freeze, given that those monies were set to go out the door on April 30.

Now, as I close, I again just want to urge the approval of the full $5.1 billion on the timeline prescribed under the early action budget. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Jeanie Ward-Waller with Fearless Advocacy, representing Calbike, Transform and Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. I want to express serious concerns. So the deeper cuts to the active transportation program, the $400 million on top of the 200 that was proposed in January, there's a solution in the transportation budget.

You talked about it today, backfilling from the state highway account. We think that is really important given the climate, equity and safety benefits of this program. Urge you to keep that program whole. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and Members. Thank you. Nicole Hutchinson on behalf of CALSTART, I recognize that the Legislature is faced with some really difficult decisions this year.

However, we at CALSTART believe that addressing air quality and climate change via the electrification of the transportation sector remains one of the most meaningful ways to preserve public health in the long term and requires prioritization this year.

Furthermore, ZEVs have become a top export for the state and resulted in the creation of jobs from manufacturing to the infrastructure build out side of things and so much more within that broader ZEV ecosystem. If we're going to get ourselves out of this deficit, strategic investments have to be a part of that.

In addition to cuts, the transportation sector remains a significant contributor to harmful criteria, pollutants and GHG emissions in the state, and clean transportation investments in the medium and heavy duty space, as well as complementary infrastructure investment, should be prioritized to ensure that we don't lose that momentum.

While there is federal funding available for some of this, these funds are largely competitive and the funding requires mandatory cost sharing. If California is going to be able to leverage this funding, complementary state funding will play an important role in maximizing the use of federal funds. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and Members. Ross Buckley, on behalf of Ventura County Transportation Commission, Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and omnitrans, we want to thank the Subcommitee for your efforts last year to provide $5.1 billion to transit.

We understand the budget situation we are facing as a state and urge you approve the fund shift from the General Fund to the GGRF for TRCP and approve an investment in zero emission transit capital program to maintain the $5.1 billion for transit agencies. These dollars are key for agencies and the communities they serve. Thank you.

Good afternoon.

Excuse me. Before you start, we need the people that are here for transit, not ZEVs, to speak first, just because those people have to get on. So if you're speaking about ZEVs, et cetera, if you could hold off.

But if you're speaking about the transit transportation items that we heard in the first panel, that's what we'd like to hear from. Great. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Alchemy Graham with comments on issue number one, and hopefully the active transportation program is lumped into that. Great. On behalf of the California City Transportation Initiative, representing the departments of Transportation and Public Works departments of California's eight largest cities.

While we fully understand the gravity of the current budget outlook, we're disheartened to see the total proposed $600 million cut in the ATP. This program is essential in supporting cities active transportation projects and pushing the state one large step closer to delivering on climate, mobility, public health and equity objectives.

For that reason, we respectfully urge the Committee to support restoring the proposed $600 million in the reduced funding for the ATP in the fiscal year 24-25.

Budget switching hats. Also on issue number one on behalf of the San Francisco Bay Area Water Emergency Transportation Authority, echoing comments made by Michael Pimentel with the California Transit Association on preserving the TARCP and Zero Emission Transit Capital program funding. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and Members. Good morning. I'm Gregg Fishman with the Sacramento Regional Transit District. We provide light rail, bus and ADA paratransit services throughout Sacramento County. We greatly appreciate that the current proposal restores most of the $5.1 billion in funding that supports transit district like ours.

As the Chair mentioned in his comments earlier today, we have definitely been counting on those funds as we prepare our own budget this year. They are absolutely essential to the continued safe, efficient and environmentally responsible and reliable operations of our system. The message regarding the one time nature of those funds has definitely been received.

We urge you to maintain those funding in the budget and release them from the spending freeze as soon as possible. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Silvia Solis Shaw here on behalf of the City of Santa Monica and its big blue bus, the city understands the state's fiscal constraints and we asked the Committee to approve the proposed Fund shift from General Fund to GGRF dollars for the TIRCP and approve the investment in the ZETCP.

However, any pause or delay in TIRCP funding is a concern for the city as we prepare to advance our electric bus charging infrastructure project for our Zepp bus fleet. We are currently on track to be fully electric by 2030 and so we'd like to continue those efforts without delay and we need this funding. Thank you.

Bill Magavern with the Coalition for Clean Air. We urge you to restore the cuts in active transportation and to do that with money from the state highway account. There is ample funding for highways, it's supplemented by federal funding, and we really need the walking and biking infrastructure to move folks into more sustainable modes of transportation.

I'll just add that the air pollution control fund should be used to control air pollution and the greenhouse gas reduction fund should be used to reduce greenhouse gases.

Thank you, and for the benefit of everybody that was patient and waiting, appreciated. The agencies wanted to be sure to hear these comments before they had to hustle over to the Committee, so appreciate your patience. And now we're ready to go on for non transit issues.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Beth Olhasso on behalf of Water Reuse California, really appreciate your comments and questions on the water recycling funding program. The elimination of the latest $100 million marks about 70% of our funds taken away, which is really hard when we're trying to get water resilience in the state.

So we really hope that there can be a robust climate bond with significant investment in water recycling. There's tens of billions of dollars of projects ready to go. So we really hope that the Assembly will commit significant funds for water recycling. I know you're a big supporter.

Thank you. And I failed to mention since you're bringing up the water recycling, how important, how strategic of an investment I think this is in water. I mean, this is a great source of water, it's a new source of water, and yet it doesn't strain sort of any of the existing resources of water.

So it is an investment California ought to take very seriously as we move forward. So thank you very much.

You're doing my job for me. There we go.

Thanks.

Thank you, Senate Member Bennett, members of the Committee, Michael Boccadoro, West Coast Advisors on GGRF today I just want to underscore the point. We're six and a half years away from 2030. We've got some very ambitious methane reduction and greenhouse gas goals.

And if we don't spend money on emission reductions from the GGRF, we will never get there. Two really important programs at CDFA will not be funded by the governor's proposed budget, the AMMP program and the dairy digester program. The funding is the bare minimum needed to fund the dairy plus program so we don't lose the federal dollars.

Equally important to have funding for the other two programs. And then we are just weeks away of finally having an enteric solution. The front end of the cow, the belches the cows have available. After waiting eight years for FDA to approve a product, we're going to have it in the next few weeks. Critically important that the program they're standing up for enteric incentives also be fully funded. Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, chair.

You can pull that up so you don't have to. There you go.

Good call. Michael Jarred on behalf of the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, and I'm also speaking on behalf of the California Organic, certified Organic farmers. We urge your rejection of the $5 million cut to the CUSP program.

And just as a little bit of background, two years ago, the Administration proposed giving $75 million for drought relief to the GO-Biz small business agriculture program. The Legislature required 20% of that funding to be spent on small farmers. Small farmers had a lot of trouble, and especially farmers, of using that program.

So last year in the May revise, when the governor's office proposed $25 million more for that Gobiz program for flooding, the agreement with the Legislature was that 20 million would go to that program and 5 million would go to the CUSP program, which small farmers and particularly farmers of color have a lot more success using.

We urge that that agreement be honored and that the $5 million be spent for CUSP. We were on the verge of, the Department was on the verge of spending that money when the freeze happened. Thank you. .

Asha Sharma on behalf of leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, we urge the Legislature to restore and protect funding for programs that support environmental justice communities. The May revise included an additional cut to CEC's equitable building decarbonization program. We think the funding should be restored to $639 million from the January budget proposal.

There are a few programs that you didn't even hear about because they were essentially zeroed out that support disadvantaged communities. We think these should be restored $200 million for the Transformative Climate Communities program, $9.8 million for regional climate collaboratives and $160 million for community resilience centers. These are all SGC programs.

We appreciate the May revise's continued commitment to drinking water and wastewater needs and Salton Sea, and continue to ask for the Salton Sea benefits to go towards multi benefit infrastructure. And we urge the Legislature not to Fund false climate change solutions like CDFA's dairy Digester and research Development program. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Good afternoon Chair Bennett and Members. Rico Mastrodonato with the Trust for Public Land. We share your grave concern about urban greening, urban forestry, green schoolyards, these extreme heat programs that are being cut.

While we know that extreme heat should be front and center in all of our minds about the impact to human health, including death, it doesn't make any sense to. It is pennywise and pound foolish to not adapt now because it's going to be more expensive.

That also leads me to the $400 million cut to the coastal conservancies, climate ready and climate adaptation programs. We're very concerned about that. One other thing about the WCB. We want to see next week's agenda move forward and those projects be funded as soon as possible.

There's $120 million of leveraged funds that could be lost if that does not happen, and we want to see full funding for the Habitat Conservation Fund. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris. Louis Brown, on behalf of a variety of agricultural clients today, we wholeheartedly agree with your comments and concerns about the use of GGR funds for programs that don't reduce GG greenhouse gases. Which is why we're significantly disappointed that the Administration has not funded the farmer program at $150 million.