Assembly Standing Committee on Utilities and Energy

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome. I am pleased to welcome you all to this hearing of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy. We are here for an informational hearing to discuss the deployment of floating offshore wind energy in California.

Today's hearing is intended to serve really as the first of many future conversations that we expect to have on offshore wind. Before we begin, I am pleased to welcome the participation of a number of my colleagues and co chairs.

Today we will be welcoming the participation of our Water Parks and Wildlife Committee chair, Assemblymember Papin, our Select Committee on Offshore Wind Energy in California, chair Assemblymember Attis and I'll just say I think that the overlap in Committee jurisdiction really speaks to both the benefit and the challenges in offshore wind.

Many entities as represented on this panel today are impacted and involved in the development and deployment of offshore wind in California. I really appreciate the collaborative and interdisciplinary approach to today's conversation and welcome my colleagues who'll be joining us.

As everyone knows, it's an incredibly busy time of the year, so we'll be having folks come in and out, but really looking forward to digging into today's conversation. And also as a point of personal privilege, I do want to take a moment to acknowledge Doctor Kathleen Chen.

Doctor Chen has been a science fellow with the Assembly's utility and energy Committee. This year. She took the lead on preparing for today's hearing and has been just a really critical part of our team throughout this session.

We've been so grateful to have you as part of our team and just really excited to see everything that unfolds for you in your future endeavors. Thank you, Kathleen.

So before we jump into our panels, just want to touch on, I guess, set a little bit of context for the conversations that we are going to have today in California. We all recognize that the climate crisis is here now and urgent. Here in California. We are reminded of that more often than we would like.

With racism, raging wildfires, severe drought, hundred year floods. It can sometimes feel like we're watching a disaster movie unfold in real time. And it's because Californians recognize the urgency of the climate crisis that California has been a longtime global leader on confronting this crisis.

We've got incredibly ambitious and incredibly important climate goals that we are all looking to achieve. And as everyone in this room knows, we've got a really monumental task on our hands to, in fact, deliver on those goals.

And I firmly believe that as we work to build our clean energy future, we need to take an all of the above approach. And wind energy and offshore wind energy really are critical pieces of that puzzle.

In 2021, the Legislature passed AB 525, which requires the CEC to establish planning goals for offshore wind and to outline a comprehensive strategic plan for California to reach those goals. In response, the state has adopted ambitious planning targets, requiring the state to deploy between two to five gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045.

That's a massive undertaking and will require really thoughtful cooperation between a vast swath of federal, state, local and tribal agencies, as well as local trades, our private businesses and California communities.

This hearing really is intended to lay out the building blocks, the building blocks for that work, including transmission, permitting, procurement, ports and community that will be essential to the successful deployment of offshore wind in California. And as I said, I really see this as the start of an ongoing conversation.

With that, please to welcome any of my colleagues who'd like to make opening comments. Assemblymember Wood.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think I'm on. Am I on?

I think so.

Is it on? No, it's not. You can. Okay. All right. I'll just talk then. First of all, thank you, Madam Chair, for convening this hearing, and I look forward to the participation of the other chairs here. This is an important topic for me and my district.

Two of the call areas are off the Humboldt coast, and there's potential for additional call areas going forward. It's interesting to note that we are not the pioneers in offshore wind in California.

And as such, we have the opportunity to learn from a lot of what's happened in other parts of the world and certainly on the East Coast. And so I'm anxious to hear and get some updates on where we are.

There have been a lot of pieces of the puzzle that have been working behind the scenes that I've been watching and paying attention to.

And I will say as a Member of the Legislature, even in my final year here, I feel it's part of my responsibility to continue to push and try to encourage as much as possible that we move with expediency, that we move with efficiency. Our climate goals are something I take very, very seriously.

And if we're going to get to where we need to go, we need to, I believe we need to accelerate some of our efforts in a variety of things, and you'll hear some of that probably in my additional comments later today. But I want to thank the chair for putting this together.

I think it's a really important hearing and look forward to the content later.

Thank you Assemblymember Wood. Assemblymember Hart.

Thank you Madam Chair, for convening this important informational hearing today. I'm a big supporter of the potential for offshore wind development in California, and this is a great opportunity to discuss. We can make offshore wind a reality. Morro Bay, while just outside my district, plays a key role in this discussion.

And offshore wind development along the central coast will have significant impacts on local communities and great opportunities we need to protect coastal resources and provide good jobs and clean energy for California. I'm especially looking forward to hearing the testimony of Sam Cohen from the Chumash tribe in San Diego, which is in my district.

His insights will be invaluable in understanding the impacts offshore wind can have on tribal communities. I'm also looking forward to hearing the discussion on the potential impacts to ratepayers. It's one of the top issues for constituents in my district and across California.

I'd love to hear from our panel of experts on ways to ensure offshore wind is both environmentally responsible and cost effective. Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member Hart. All right, we'll go ahead and jump in to our first panel. We are going to begin with a discussion of California's goals for offshore wind deployment. We'll go ahead and welcome up our first three panelists. Doug Boren, who is joining us from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management.

Jana Ganyon, who is joining us. She's the senior advisor for offshore wind in the office of the Governor. And then Luann Tisfai, who is joining us from the California Public Utilities Commission. Thank you so much for being here. And we'll go ahead and provide opening statements and then please stay on the dais.

We'll then be welcoming up some additional panelists, and after their opening statements, we will open it up for questions and discussion with, with Members. We'll go ahead and begin with you, Mister Boren. Thanks for being here.

Great. Thank you, Madam Chair. Hello, everyone. I'm Doug Boren. I'm the regional Director for the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or Boem, Pacific Regional Office. I'd like to thank the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy for holding this informational hearing on offshore wind today to provide an update on federal offshore wind leasing activities in California.

For those who aren't familiar with Boem, we're the federal agency that manages the safe and orderly energy and mineral resource development on the US outer continental shelf, or the OCS.

I'm grateful for our time together today to focus on how Boem has worked with tribal nations, the State of California, and key stakeholders to identify lease areas and how future collaborations can build a robust domestic supply chain that supports the emerging floating offshore wind industry in the United States and most notably here in California.

The Biden Harris Administration has set goals for offshore wind, directing agencies to work toward the deployment of 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 and 15 gigawatts of floating offshore wind by 2035.

In pursuit of these efforts, BOEM has approved nine projects to date on the East Coast and continues to efficiently and effectively move through the permitting process for a number of other projects in the queue. We have several projects under construction. Power is flowing through the grid.

A significant supply chain investments have been made to support this growing industry. We are also actively identifying areas for leasing on the East Coast, the West Coast and the Gulf of Mexico and beyond.

Over the last three years, BoEM has held four offshore wind lease sales, including offshore New York, New Jersey and the Carolinas the first ever offshore lease, the Gulf of Mexico and the first lease specifically for floating offshore wind offshore California.

BoEm plans to hold three ocs wind energy lease sales this year for the central Atlantic, Gulf of Maine and offshore Oregon. And I'll just note the central Atlantic lease sale just happened today and has concluded already.

We've also announced a five year offshore wind leasing schedule outlining additional potential lease sales over the next five years to help continue to facilitate the clean energy transition and inspire confidence among stakeholders and ocean users by improving the predictability and transparency of the federal offshore wind leasing process.

Our close coordination with the State of California on offshore wind planning and engagement activities led us to an exciting milestone, the sale of the five wind lease areas offshore California in December of 2022.

This California offshore wind auction brought in over 757 million in winning bids and was the first offshore wind in lease sale in the Pacific and first specifically for floating wind. The lease sale included a 20% credit for workforce training programs and the development of a Us domestic supply chain for floating offshore wind indUstry.

This credit will result in over $117 million in investments for these critical programs and investments or initiatives. The auction also included 25% credits for bidders who committed to entering a community benefit agreement or CBA.

The first is the lease area use CBA with tribal entities, communities or stakeholder groups whose use of the lease area or use of the resources harvested from the lease areas is expected to be impacted by offshore wind development.

The second is the General CBA, again with tribes, communities, stakeholder groups that are expected to be affected by the potential impacts on the marine, coastal or human environment from leased development.

These credits are just another example of how BOEM and the State of California work together to meet California's renewable energy goals in a manner that ensures the coexistence of all industries and partners. Currently, lessees of the California leases are conducting their site assessment activities.

BOEM will have a better idea of a project design when construction and operation plans are submitted. In the future, we will continue to work with the state on potential areas for future offshore wind leasing and applaud California's work on a strategic plan for offshore wind development in federal waters off the coast of California pursuant to AB 525.

And we are excited about the recent news of the California Public Utility Commission's proposed decision to procure up to 7.6 gigawatts of offshore wind engagement and inclusion in BoEm's permitting process is fundamental to its success.

We engage early and often throughout the process to ensure early communication and to incorporate public and partner feedback as well as important technical information and data. We believe the provisions included in the California leases advances this common goal.

BoEM is committed to continued process improvements in offshore wind leasing, and as a result, we had several innovations in the California lease sale to address concerns from tribal nations, state and federal agencies, local governments, ocean users, and other stakeholders. Boem welcomes continued and direct feedback from our tribal partners.

Boem makes good faith efforts to invite tribes to consult early in the planning and throughout the decision making process, ensuring that we incorporate indigenous knowledge from environmental studies, assessments, and formal government to government consultations. For example, new lease conditions were developed to help improve communication between the lessees and tribal nations, federal and state agencies, fisheries, and stakeholders.

Additionally, the lessees must make reasonable efforts to engage with tribes and stakeholders that may potentially be affected by any proposed project. We want all ocean users and stakeholders to have the information they need and an equitable and accessible seat at the table. Another important ocean user in our work is, of course, fishing communities.

As we consider future offshore wind energy activities in California, our goal is to avoid or reduce potential impacts to fisheries from offshore wind energy development. We must continue to rely on the best available fishing data and science to inform the offshore renewable energy process.

For example, in Oregon, Boem collaborated with the National oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, the National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science ncos, to use an ocean planning model that sought to minimize ocean use conflicts with commercial fishing fisheries.

Data input from the National Marine Fisheries Service for NMFs and Oregon's Department of Fish and Wildlife informed the designation of two draft wind energy areas that avoid 98% of the areas recommended for exclusion. Due to their importance as commercial fishing grounds and based on comments received on the draft.

Wind energy areas boom also adjusted the southern boundary of the Brookings wind energy area. This adjustment avoids the majority of a Nymph's scientific survey corridor identified as critical for tribal, state and federal fisheries managers and allows the Pacific Fishery Management Council to make forecasts enabling timely decisions on important management objectives, including the harvest and Pacific Salmon recovery.

As part of Boem's effort to ensure that offshore renewable energy development occurs in a thoughtful manner that minimizes conflicts with other ocean users, we issued a draft guidance on mitigating potential impacts of offshore wind development on commercial and recreational fishing. We anticipate finalizing this guidance later this year.

Boem will continue to work with tribes, states, local communities, the offshore wind industry, and ocean users to revise the guidance as appropriate to address emerging issues.

In conclusion, I'll say Boem remains committed to the close partnership with the State of California to develop a safe, equitable and environmentally responsible floating offshore wind industry in the Golden State while supporting the state's goals of two to five gigawatts by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045.

In order to meet these goals, BOEM and California need to maintain our close coordination and ensure the voices of tribal nations, ocean users and stakeholders throughout the state are considered at every step of the process.

I'd just like to point out that at the last federal state touchpoint, the Coastal Zone Management act consistency determination from BOEM, the California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to approve with conditions, BoEM's consistency determination. Working closely with the Commission, BOEM incorporated conditions of the concurrence into the leases issued in the California sale.

This outcome would not have been possible without the strong federal state coordination and exceptionally through recommendations with the Coastal Commission staff and supporting agency subject matter experts. We are grateful for this working relationship and the attention to detail and high professional standards demonstrated by our partners at the Coastal Commission.

BoEM is entrusted with the safe and responsible development of offshore energy sources for the nation. We are privileged and honored to fulfill that trust every day and every decision.

We remain committed to active engagement with all partners and stakeholders to ensure the responsible development of these shared renewable energy resources on the ocs, and we will continue to keep the Committee informed of our progress. I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today.

Thank you. State of California is very grateful for your partnership and we appreciate you being here and being part of this hearing. Miss Ganyon.

Great, thank you. I think I have a few slides, so could we go to the first one? Those teed up. Perfect. Thank you so much. So, my name is Jana Gagnon. I am the senior advisor for offshore wind in the Newsom Administration.

This is a new role as of February 2024 and responsive to the large scale of offshore wind and related sectors that has been discussed already today, wind farms, ports, transmission, supply chain, workforce development, ecosystem adaptive management, science, research, technology innovation, and other policies and supports for responsible and equitable development of this new green infrastructure sector.

The role is envisioned to coordinate offshore wind energy strategy across the many agencies, departments, commissions, and missions of California government, with the offshore wind sectors as partners.

Prior to this role, I worked for a Native American tribal government and, with innovative state tribal public and private partnerships, helped bring forward utilities and energy results in Low carbon infrastructure and resiliency efforts.

I co chaired the US Department of Energy's National Working Group for Tribal Energy and Infrastructure Development, was Vice Chair of the California SB 350 Disadvantaged Communities Advisory Group to the California Energy Commission and the California Public Utilities Commission.

I've served also on the California Air Resources Board, AB 617 Community Air Protection Program advisory Group, and on the PG and e Sustainability Advisory Council.

I mention these because it's been my honor to work with expert teams and public and private partners of all kinds to drive clean energy solutions toward demonstration and scale to reduce costs and make progress on related climate goals at the intersection of state federal tribal government relationships.

And finally, I've been co leading regional work on offshore wind in the northern part of the state since 2016 as a Member of Boem's Renewable Energy Intergovernmental Task Force, and have had the distinct privilege of attending multiple offshore wind study tours in the United States, on the East Coast, and in Europe and other parts of the globe where offshore wind is fully underway.

So next slide, please. Let's see. Yep, there we go. So this is just really quickly, just to echo chair Petri Norris, the climate context slowing climate change is the primary context for offshore wind development. Global air and ocean temperatures are shattering records. This chart. zero, sorry, go back a slide, please. I know it's in PDF.

I can't see it without my glasses. I'm hoping you can see it. It shows the global sea surface temperature average since 1981. And it's important because if you look at the orange line on this chart, that's the 2023 average and the thick black line at the top is 2024.

There is an increasing sense of urgency to our work to decarbonize, and that is the context for offshore wind. Next slide, please. As we've heard, based on potential benefits, California has developed bold planning goals for offshore wind energy implementation up to two to five gigawatts by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045. Next slide.

The first five floating offshore wind leases with sea space that together could generate up to 10 gigawatts of power were fully executed in June of 2023. That's just 14 months ago. There has been a lot of activity.

There are five separate developers, as we've heard, all of which have been actively engaging in the California offshore wind development sectors. Next slide, please. Zooming out as has been discussed, but I'd like to provide a little bit more detail.

It's important to understand the interrelated sectors of offshore wind and its industry cluster the wind farms offshore the electrical transmission offshore and onshore ports of various sizes and operational focus ecosystem adaptive management, including science, data, research and development, technology and design innovation and other supports supply chain, labor and workforce development related infrastructure such as broadband related social infrastructure such as worker housing, healthcare, and childcare in these regions.

And each of these have most activities listed on the left of the slide, and together these industries total several $1.0 billion in activities and economic growth globally. As Assemblymember Wood mentioned, the offshore wind project potential is enormous and it's estimated that 80% of those projects will be floating systems.

California is positioned to be a leader in the floating offshore wind space. A key consideration as we go is that offshore wind does present opportunities to develop green infrastructure more equitably and responsibly to create healthy economic growth in regions and throughout the state.

And a key consideration in that benefit stack is a through line in some of the opposition to offshore wind that the rural tribal coastal communities and regions where offshore wind is currently being developed in California have limited capacity to engage with all of these new, very large megaprojects that are happening potentially simultaneously.

I just really want to thank Members of this Committee already for being responsive to that in many ways, and we can touch on that as we go forward. State agencies are also raising awareness that additional capacity is needed to handle simultaneous projects and to optimize related permitting and processes.

Solutions are underway, as I said, but more thought partnership is needed here. Next slide, please. So offshore wind has a comprehensive potential benefit stack. And again, this is to echo chair Pietri Norris. Your statement this is within a solution set that is comprehensive.

So offshore wind is a puzzle piece in our climate strategy and our energy strategy, but I'm going to run through some of these quickly.

Offshore wind has the potential to really diversify the California and western US clean energy mix for increased reliability it balances solar energy at night and in the winter, and it may help with grid stress events like heat domes in the western us that hit everywhere all at once.

So there's a many sort of energy related resiliency benefits to offshore wind. The greenhouse gas reductions paint a very good picture. So the national Renewable energy lab has calculated that offshore and onshore wind together has roughly 3% of the CO2 carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per unit of electricity generated compared to natural gas, 3%.

So that is actually a full lifecycle analysis and also does not take into account further reductions that might be available through green steel and carbon negative cement and other materials that are important in this space.

It presents the opportunity to build green infrastructure for equitable socioeconomic benefits, skilled and trained, high road jobs, supply chains, and with a particular ability to front load considerations about community safety.

We have an opportunity to improve our ports in many ways, large and small, including lowering the pollution and designing for the ports of the future with full electrification and other Low carbon or zero carbon and zero emission strategies.

So there are other benefits like new and expanded electric transmission designed for energy equity benefits in the regions and across the state. This has a chance to again be really thought about well and improve reliability and solve for local needs like port electrification. And I just want to my last point here is innovation, science and research opportunities.

So new technologies, systems optimization, these areas of innovation are part of permitting, they're part of cost reductions, and they're a key part of regional and state economic growth. Energy and tech innovation is a California strength and floating offshore wind is a space and a new application for this muscle to be applied.

Infrastructure designed for enhanced compatibility of all kinds, as I mentioned, green ports, but also military activities, shipping, tribal and commercial fisheries, and others. This is the opportunity before us. Next slide, please. And with potential benefits come potential risks and concerns.

Some of the common concerns around potential effects and impacts are listed here, but thanks to federal, state, tribal, regional science research partners and other interested parties in this space, including the private sector, the questions and research agendas are being considered and shaped, and there is a focus on data gathering that we need to address these concerns, make data driven decisions, and have the information to adapt over time.

We are also pursuing federal support of certain offshore wind analyses that are informing policy and good decision making in California as well. A through line in the opposition to offshore wind, as I said, in rural and tribal regions has been lack of capacity to engage with processes and multiple large scale projects, all happening at once.

This lack of capacity can be mitigated to some extent by investments in. The. Science, research and innovation sector. And there are, this is not unique to offshore wind. There are a lot of changes in motions that investment in those areas can help address, and certainly it is one of the ways we can help solve for capacity.

Next slide, please. So we've gone over some of this, and I really want to thank whoever drafted the backgrounder. Thank you so much. It was excellent. It was excellent. So this may be redundant, but I'll just say the AB 525 offshore wind energy strategic plan was adopted by the California Energy Commission on July 102024.

And it was the result of really an extraordinary statewide effort that coordinated dozens of California agencies, departments and commissions. Hundreds of input meetings over a two plus year period led by the CEC.

The result is the first strategic plan for floating offshore wind and providing an analytical foundation and recommendations for moving forward in a responsible and timely way that maximizes benefits for California workers, communities, tribes, while protecting coastal and marine ecosystems and tribal cultural resources.

A few other things on this list to point out is the recent CaiSO 2324 transmission plan, which includes transmission projects to connect offshore wind facilities in the north, and the updated 20 year transmission outlook from CAiSo is published as well. This image depicts some of the current grid infrastructure in California. Port development activities are underway.

We'll hear more about that in this session, particularly at Humboldt Bay, Long Beach and others. And with thanks to this Committee and colleagues, the CEC offshore wind waterfront Facility improvement program is moving forward with $45 million in funding as Washington envisioned by AB 209. So there's other activities.

We'll get to those if you have questions, but in the interest of time, let's move to the next slide, please. So what's next? We need to implement the strategic plan. As discussed already, much of the implementation is underway.

A particular focus in this is work on coordinated permitting, and activities already in that space include multi agency engagement on the BoEm programmatic Environmental impact statement, as we've heard, development of coordination structures.

So in the AB 525 strategic plan, there's significant content around a model based on the prior California Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan, which tees up a structure that in the strategic plan is called the REIT, the Renewable Energy Action Team, and it has a renewable energy policy group and includes structures for coordinating among state, federal, tribal governments and agencies, plus regional parties.

That was a successful permitting era in which that coordinated permitting structure was used to to permit a lot of solar projects in an accelerated timeframe, and that is one of the reasons why it is included as a recommendation in the strategic plan.

And the activities now are going to be to explore the next steps to implement coordinated permitting, using that as a starting point. As Doug mentioned, the round two wind energy area auction planning. This image on here, if I'm looking at it correctly, yeah.

Is from the strategic plan and it depicts a sketch of possible future boem draft wind energy areas. The next boem auctioned in California is estimated to be held in 2028, which means I the related planning starts now or for sure in 2025. Workforce development, training, supply chains, things like vessels. These are all conversations that are underway.

We're looking forward to tribal nation partnerships, public private partnerships, philanthropic partnerships, and we are excited by the organization and the coordination regionally on community based partnerships.

And examples of these are the Reach Central coast, the Redwood Region Climate and Community Resilience hub or Core hub, the Santa Ines Oceanographic Institute and the Pacific Offshore Wind Consortium, among many others. We have learned a great deal about offshore wind from tribal governments projects moving forward on the East Coast.

The developers who are investing in California community and environmental experts, this Committee, and others who are serious about offshore wind developed equitably and responsibly and learning from and avoiding boom and bust cycles in rural and tribal resource extraction based economies, avoiding impacts that lead to instability and instead building structures that lead to healthy economic growth.

We have built a lot of momentum and trust so far in a very short amount of time, and we have much more work to do together. Thank you very much. Thank you.

That was a wonderful overview, and I know Members will have questions as we move forward. We're going to hear from all of our panelists, and then we'll dive into some questions and conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Miss Tesfai, the floor is yours.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Petrie Norris and Members of the Committee. My name is Leuwam Tesfai and I serve as the deputy Executive Director for Energy and Climate Policy at the California Public Utilities Commission. Thank you for the opportunity to brief you today on the status of implementation of Assembly Bill 1373.

But more specifically, the part of the Bill focused on the creation of a central procurement entity to support the procurement of complex, long lead time resources, an example of which is offshore wind. Next slide, please.

So the Public Utilities Commission is implementing AB 1373, central procurement entity, in our integrated resources planning proceeding, also known as IRP, which is an existing stakeholder process that's very robust at the Public Utilities Commission that was originally established pursuant to Senate Bill 350 and is where we are implementing the central procurement process required by AB 1373.

We also leverage this proceeding to do our clean energy procurement work required in Senate Bill 100, as well as the requisite electric sector greenhouse gas reductions required from the investor owned utilities, community choice aggregators and electric service providers regulated by the Public Utilities Commission as needed to implement the scoping plan adopted by the California Air Resources Board.

So I thought it would be important to take a step back and talk about integrated resources planning briefly.

Integrated resources planning is how we make sure that all of these many entities, known as load serving entities, or lses, of which there are approximately 40 in California, are all working towards that procurement to meet our greenhouse gas reduction goals and clean energy goals while also maintaining reliability.

The most recently adopted portfolio, or what we call a preferred system plan of resources, was adopted in February of 2024 and would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 58% by 2035 as compared to 2020. Next slide, please. So this slide is illustrating what we call our integrated resources planning cycle.

So as I said, we do that every two years.

And so in the first step, one is really designed to provide analysis and guidance to all of those load serving entities, the investor owned utilities, community choice aggregators, and electric service providers about their plan to meeting the greenhouse gas reliability and Low cost objectives, which include reporting requirements to the Public Utilities Commission.

We then move to step two in the planning cycle process, where all of those load serving entities, they develop their own plans that the CPUC reviews to make sure that we're reaching our goals.

So in response to step one, they submit portfolios of resources, which are existing procurement that they've all done, as well as planned, non executed procurement to the Public Utilities Commission.

And this allows the integrated resources planning process and all of our extensive modeling to consider what are the preferences of these load serving entities for procurement types to meeting their goals. So, for example, some ccas like to try and do procurement that's closer to the communities that they serve, things like that.

And so we really try to take into consideration all of these preferences that they have for procurement.

There's a public review process, and the Public Utilities Commission actually aggregates all of those individual plans to see if that models to actually reaching the greenhouse gas reduction goals that are required in the statutes, as well as maintaining reliability and the cost Low cost goals for rate pairs.

And so what we do is we put all of those portfolios from the load serving entities together and we create a preferred system plan. And then that takes us to step number three, which is that creation of the preferred system plan process.

And we use extensive modeling to validate that all of these load serving entities are putting together plans that are actually going to reach the goals. And through that is where we do our procurement oversight and policy guidance.

And so far, the Public Utilities Commission has put out over 18,800 mw in orders for the load serving entities to go out there and do that procurement. And I'll touch on some of the progress we've made on that too, shortly. So the final step, the fourth step in each cycle is procurement and policy implementation.

So the load serving entities are going out there doing rfos, requests for offers and solicitations in order to come back and sign contracts. And the Public Utilities Commission monitors that progress and takes action as needed.

And so just an example of that action as needed is, you know, through the preferred system plan process, we had identified needs for complex, long lead time resources, and we really saw that load serving entities were struggling to meet those requirements.

And so we had provided two extensions to those load serving entities to give them more time so that they could remain in compliance with the order.

And they continue to have challenges with that procurement, which was why it was so important last year to put forth this legislation to create this tool to try and address this issue of not being able to procure these long lead time resources like offshore wind, long duration energy storage, enhanced geothermal, etcetera, and then this adopted IRP portfolio.

In addition to informing the directed procurement, load serving entities do, it also informs transmission planning.

So we make sure to send this information to the California independent system operator, and it guides them in their transmission planning work that they conduct to ensure that sufficient transmission for the new clean resources that we're expecting are being added to the system at a sufficient pace to be able to bring those resources to the customers.

Next slide, please. So now I'm going to go into the details of the central procurement opportunity in AB 1373, which was adopted last year, and to update you on our progress. You'll observe that offshore wind is included, but AB 1373 does include other resource types, which I've mentioned, like enhanced geothermal, long duration energy storage.

I just want to make that clear that it includes other resource types as well. Next slide.

So AB 1373 became law in 2023 and orders the Public Utilities Commission to assess if there is a need for a central procurement entity on behalf of all of these load serving entities and for what quantity as well as the resource types.

The Bill allowed the Public Utilities Commission to designate the Department of Water Resources as that entity to conduct that central procurement. So the process that we have been leveraging has required us to first make a need determination, and that had to be finalized before September 1 of 2024.

And then once that's adopted, the Public Utilities Commission sends that solicitation request to the Department of Water Resources so that it can initiate the central procurement process, which will include the solicitations or I request for offer processes for the resources that I'll outline in the upcoming slides.

If Department of Water Resources does procure on behalf of these load serving entities, the Public Utilities Commission is responsible for allocating those costs and benefits across all of the load serving entities. Another piece of this legislation also does give publicly owned utilities the opportunity to opt into central procurement.

We don't have regulatory authority over them, but they do have the opportunity through the legislation to opt in and be able to take advantage of the central procurement entity bringing on these complex resources. Next slide, please. So next, I'm going to give an overview of the proposed decision that mailed out for common on July 19.

It is important for me to be clear that this is a proposed decision from the administrative law judge and that it is subject to stakeholder comment. The outcomes are, of course, potentially subject to change based on those comments from the stakeholders.

So looking back at the process, so first, a ruling went out back in April that garnered dozens of stakeholder comments. We also received reply comments and we used all of that stakeholder input in order to create this proposed decision.

So the proposed decision addresses, like I said earlier, the need determination on the type of resources as well as the amounts, and I'll go into the detail on what those are. It also addresses the relationship to load serving entity procurement.

So it really describes how the Commission will take into account this additional procurement being done by an entity that's not a load serving entity and how it feeds into our modeling because it will inform the modeling that we do going forward.

It also talks about the procurement process, so the timeline that we're expecting Department of Water Resources to do the procurement, as well as allocation of both the costs and the benefits to those load serving entities customers. Next slide, please. So first, I wanted to talk about that need determination piece.

So the proposed decision makes a need determination for certain resource types for consideration for central procurement based on what was permitted in Assembly Bill 1373. The proposed decision defines the need determination as the maximum value to be procured by the central procurement entity for a given resource type or attribute.

For those who are participating and watching this process in the Legislature last year, that was a key component, having guardrails on what the Department of Water Resources would potentially go out and procure. As a reminder, Department of Water Resources is not required to procure the full amount of any of these resources.

They could even procure as little as zero. But the goal is that they do this procurement.

But the reason I raise that is, you know, as Assemblymember Hart mentioned, as well as Assembly chair Petrie Norris, there are a lot of ratepayer impacts to this procurement, and so those costs will be taken into consideration before, you know, any kind of contracts are finalized.

And so, and this is really an important thing to note because affordability is a very key part of any kind of procurement that the Public Utilities Commission is overseeing. The proposed decision also focuses on emerging technologies that are not already being procured in large quantities by the load serving entities. Offshore wind is a key example of that.

We have not had any procurement of offshore wind at this point, which is why it's really important that we have this mechanism to support us being able to move forward on this resource. This is an important point because we're not trying to have Department of Water Resources take over the role of utilities.

CCAs, ESPs, and I know many people are sensitive to that fact, so that's not what we're doing here. All of those entities have been diligently procuring resources, but due to some of the complexities and costs of that procurement, they've largely been procuring solar, lithium ion batteries, conventional geothermal, onshore wind, etcetera.

These entities will continue to do the majority of the electricity procurement. We're focusing on key resources that modeling has determined we need to reach our greenhouse gas emission reduction goals and maintain reliability that have not yet been procured.

So going into the numbers of the knee determination, so the first was up to 1 enhanced geothermal resources and enhanced geothermal.

It differs from traditional geothermal because it uses additional technologies to use manmade reservoirs that are able to create geothermal in more areas in California, which is a really added benefit to bringing this baseload type of resources to the grid. Next is long duration energy storage, and there are two types outlined in the proposed decision.

So one is up to 1 duration long duration energy storage. This is really key. We have been seeing a lot of procurement of four hour batteries, lithium ion batteries. Sometimes entities will stack those batteries and call them eight hour batteries. They're still four hour batteries.

And so we were really specific that that 1 gw needs to be of 12 hours or more duration. The next is 1 multi day long duration energy storage. So I think many, many of you know that there are technologies out there that are really able to provide almost a seasonal level of energy storage.

And then last but not least is offshore wind. And so the proposed decision outlines up to 7.6 gigawatts of offshore wind as part of the role of the central procurement entity.

There will be more offshore wind to procure, and we do hope that our load serving entities are able to do that procurement, but this is really kicking things off to kick off the industry. So going to the next slide, so I just want to briefly talk about the relationship to all of that load serving entity procurement.

I have been alluding to it throughout the presentation, but it is an important and sensitive issue. So for this load serving entities, so the CCAs, the utilities and the electric service providers, they will not be able to opt out of this procurement.

This is a key part of the central procurement entity, that we are going to be leveraging these economies of scale to bring on large, complex resources where ratepayers would benefit from the economy of scale, the improved financing costs, as well as the coordinated effort of central procurement.

The central procurement entity will be that procurement will be considered distinctly but complementary to current and future IRP procurement and what we'll be doing so that we did this decision now by September.

But as I said, we have a two year IRP planning cycle process, and so we can do further procurement through the central procurement entity through that modeling process going forward, because there is a duration that's allowed through the Bill. Next slide, please. So this slide details more on the timelines for the procurement process.

So the proposed decision proposes that solicitations be conducted in multiple rounds, with the initial solicitation being for the full need determination quantity and remaining solicitations being for any residual quantity that has not been procured in those initial rounds.

So we start with long duration energy storage and enhanced geothermal with two rounds, and offshore wind will get three rounds after the initial solicitation of the above two categories. And the size and scope of offshore wind does have that added complexity.

And the experiences garnered from long duration energy storage and enhanced geothermal are really going to support a strong offshore wind solicitation process. Next slide so this slide just outlines the next steps.

Like I mentioned earlier, the proposed decision went out for comment on July 19, and our initial round of comments came in on August 9, and we had replies that came in just yesterday. Reply comments the comments have been very robust.

We received 41 comments and 29 reply comments, and so we're really going through all of those to be able to see any feedback that we received on the proposed decision. And the plan is for this to be voted on at the August 22 voting meeting in order to meet the September 1 statutory deadline. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, before we open up for questions, we're going to welcome our additional three panelists. We're hearing from a number of stakeholders who are playing a role in building out California's floating offshore wind ecosystem.

We are welcoming Tyler Studs from Golden State Wind, Sam Cohen from the Santa Inez Band of Chumash Indians, and Rob Holmland from the Humboldt Bay Harbor District. So welcome. Thank you so much for being here, Mister Studs. We'll turn it over to you.

Good afternoon and thank you for this opportunity. Chair Petrie Norris to address you. This is an important opportunity to talk about offshore wind. I'm Tyler studs. I'm the CEO of Golden State wind. We are one of the five projects that was awarded leases in the 2022 auction.

We're a product of ocean Winds, a global offshore wind developer specializing in floating offshore wind with operational projects around the world. As one of the first five lessees, I'm going to talk today about what's essential for accelerating these projects. These first five projects as essential to the success of the industry as a whole.

Globally, offshore wind has become a competitive, scalable, powerful source of renewable energy. It's a proven technology and an established global market. In California, offshore wind is a massive source of locally generated renewable energy, carbon free electricity that can be developed at scale.

The resource has excellent quantity as well as quality quantity in that it is comparable to some of the best sites in Europe. And its quality is it blows when it is needed and it balances out solar resources.

Towards the end of the day and in the evening, offshore wind can be developed and operated responsibly to ensure equity and environmental stewardship. This is a new industry with a generational opportunity to create jobs and generate clean energy at scale, and the value Proposition is clear, but is by no means guaranteed.

There's an urgency for sustained, unwavering commitment to advance this important resource. So to start as a perspective on what is needed, when I want to talk at a high level about the timing and timeline of these projects, a number of speakers have already mentioned the December 2022 auction and that our leases became effective June 1 of 2023.

Under the BOEM regulations, we have five years to complete permitting and submit a construction operation plan.

The permitting review timeframe will take up to two and a half years, and then prior to that, when we are following that, once we are approved, our construction operation plans will go to close financing and begin construction by ideally the end of this decade to bring projects online by the early 2030s.

So a key success factor for offshore wind in the US and around the world has been consistent, strong state leadership. That is certainly the case here as well, and I want to highlight to date or things that are focused for today are procurement, permitting and ports.

And with time I'll keep with the P's and talk about people so offshore wind projects are large, capital intensive and have long development timelines focusing on procurement first and foremost. So bankable ppas to secure financing with credit worthy off takers are a cornerstone of building these large capital intensive projects. As Ms.

Defei just mentioned, AB 1373 establishes that foundation for central procurement, and we thank the Legislature for your leadership to pass 1373. The recent proposed decision recommends establishes the need for procurement at 7.6 gigawatts. So the central procurement is a core tool to drive the market transformation that is needed to deliver offshore wind energy at scale.

That is not only one to provide financing with creditworthy offtakers, which is essential, but also to procure it at scale to justify investments in enabling technologies and enable infrastructure such as ports and transmission.

So similar to California's investment in the past in growing clean energy resources, industries like solar and storage similarly can be done with central procurement now to procure at scale to provide a sufficient quantity again to justify the investment in the resource and investment in the infrastructure, but also to set a trajectory for driving down cost over time.

We recommend that the proposed decision be adopted and that is a critical tool to enabling this resource to go forward. Permitting so offshore wind projects are subject to rigorous multi year environmental review under both NEPA and CEQA.

It is essential to ensure timely development of offshore wind that the state has a coordinated, comprehensive and efficient review and approval process that includes timeframes and milestones.

The AB 525 permitting roadmap establishes a notional permitting process that would commit the state to defining the key roles of agencies, providing critical timeframes and forum for addressing any potential disagreements or issues along the way. We believe, as an industry that is critical to implement these recommendations as a core component of developing that key permitting pathway.

At the moment nothing new is recommended to be needed. Implementing the recommendations of 525 is critical, specifically that federal and state agencies enter into MOUs as soon as possible that establish shared timelines, agency roles and jurisdictions, communication protocols, and dispute resolution processes.

Additionally, it's critical to ensure that there's adequate and sufficient funding to state agencies to be able to perform those roles through time and to be able to conduct those rigorous environmental reviews in a timely manner. Delays in the permitting process will have equal delays to the project timelines and being able to come online.

Ports the importance of port infrastructure at the construction offshore wind is critical. Without ports, offshore wind does not happen. The critical need, first and foremost, is developing staging and integration ports. These are large ports where components will be delivered and laid out. Wherever the foundations will be anchored at the quayside and installed.

The towers and turbines and blades will be installed at the port side. These ports are not currently available in California and there is no substitute for the services that they provide. So the two key focuses here are I'm sure we'll hear about the Port of Humboldt as well as the Port of Long beach.

These are two key sites for the establishment of stage and integration ports. Again, there is no substitute for these ports. In California, in 2022, the Legislature approved included $45 million to Fund port development. That money is critical to be deployed now to enable ports to be developed. I say this specifically for the port of Long Beach.

They have been self funding their efforts to date so far to advance the pure wind project, and it's critical that this money gets out the door as quickly as possible and ideally before the end of this year.

So we welcome the Legislature to provide direction to the Energy Commission to ensure that that funding gets deployed as soon as possible. Recently, Oceanwinds had the pleasure of hosting a delegation of California legislatures to one of its ports in Scotland, developing and supporting development of its Moray east project. Moray west project.

They saw firsthand the size of the components, blades, towers and nacelles, and the scale of ports needed to deploy them. We had the benefit also of having a roundtable with local government to understand what had worked for them and their experiences developing ports. And one message was clear, that they wish they had started earlier.

So key tools to move forward, ensure that $45 million gets out the door, and also that we as voters can pass the climate bond. And thank you for your leadership also in getting that to the point where it's going to vote so last people, so projects are built by people.

I say this often, and I say this to my team, that in addition to being really good at what we do in our specific accountabilities. It's critical to the success of our project industry, of how we work together through conducting direct, open, honest conversations that we achieve just, equitable and sustainable offshore wind put into practice.

We have now dedicated staff Members for tribal engagement, fisheries engagement, and local community engagement. Often say that we have two ears and one mouth, and that shows that we are prioritizing, really is a reference to how we prioritize listening, understanding what are the challenges we need to meet and how we address them.

I really appreciate this opportunity to speak to you and I think look forward to continuing to work together to help advance offshore wind as a critical source of meeting California's goals and driving jobs and economic development. Thank you.

Thank you. Moving to our next speaker, Mister Cohen.

Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Sam Cohen. I'm the government affairs and legal officer for the San Diego Band of Chumash Indians. We've had sort of an ambivalent relationship with the ocean for the last 10 years. We started with the Marine Life Protection act, which we thought wasn't going anywhere until then.

Governor Schwarzenegger decided to make that his legacy, and he started in Lompoc, of all places, and he cut off fishing rights and then headed north and cut off fishing rights for tribe after tribe, till he finally got to Humboldt, actually. And the Humboldt tribes are fierce, and they disrupted the meeting.

They threw a chair through the window and they said, you have to make exceptions for tribes to have subsistence fishing. So then the Fish and Game Commission went south, back to Southern California, where they cut off our fishing rights again.

But at that time, we had a Director of the California Natural Resources Agency, John Laird, who is good enough to give us four Chumash marine protected areas, actually, state marine conservation areas in the Channel Islands, which is the traditional home of the Chumash people. Around the same time, they started on the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

We only hear great things about it today. But at the beginning, the actual County of San Luis Obispo opposed it. Remember, they had a Republican majority and they were crushing it. All right, so at the five year review, our new congressman salute Carbajal, asked the San Diego Chumash to intervene and get this back on track.

And I am pleased to say that hopefully before November 5, we will have a Chumash heritage National Marine Sanctuary. But as if we weren't busy enough, along came offshore wind. And of course, they had to start in Morro Bay.

All right, now, Moro Rock in Morro Bay is like one of the top two most sacred sites for all the Chumash people and some of the salinian people as well. So we were instantly alarmed. So our top priority now is responsible development of offshore winds and the protection of tribal cultural resources.

They push the offshore wind turbine 16 miles off from the coast, but it may not be enough, and we're going to have to work on that. Our current model for protection of cultural resources is tribal monitors. It's land based tribal monitors. Look at every shovel you pick up and see if there's tribal cultural resources.

Well, we need a new model because now we're doing underwater surveys, right. And so we need new tribal experts that we have to hire. Right, who can look at the data in real time. So Sani Inez Chumash has set up the San Ynez Chumash Oceanographic Institute and has hired its first marine ecologist and its first undersea archaeologist.

But the viability of the Institute will rely on contributions from the offshore wind leaseholders, just as the developers pay for tribal monitors when they're working on land. All right, the alternative to not having tribal underwater monitors is for the tribes to reject the data. All right, so what?

There is no point of doing five years of underwater surveys when the tribes reject the data, because they were not, they did not participate in collection of the data and real time reviews. So we ask your assistance. They call these community benefit agreements. They call them tribal benefit agreements. We used to call them monitoring contracts on land.

And we have reached out to all three of the Morro Bay lisis, and we'll continue to try to get some sort of structure established.

Thank you. Thank you. Our final speaker, Mister Holmlund. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. In the past two and a half years of managing Humboldt's project to develop a heavy lift marine terminal in Humboldt Bayou, I've had the honor of standing before seven different tribal governments, multiple community groups.

That led to one of the tribes asking me to support them in a resolution that the state was entertaining about missing, murdered indigenous people. So I came and marched on the capital with multiple tribes.

And that ultimately somehow led to me going to Norway twice, to present at conferences there, and to see the first offshore wind turbines to ever be deployed in the world that had been in the water for over 10 years.

Go back to Norway again and see the first time ever that a wind terminal was towed from the ocean back into a port to be repaired. So it's been an incredible journey, and it's an honor to be here before you. I want to open by talking about land based wind turbines versus ocean wind turbines.

So right now, the largest wind turbine in the world, in the ocean, that currently exists, not talking about future wind turbines, the one that's currently the largest in the world in the ocean, is more than twice the size of wind turbines that are currently on land. And that will always be the case.

Land based wind turbines will always be smaller and probably more than twice as small as ocean based turbines. And the reason comes down to transportation.

So, really large land based wind turbines, you have to move the blades one at a time by truck, and there's just an upper limit of how long they can be before you can't move them anymore.

But if you manufacture that equipment in a port, then you can move everything by ship, and you can get really much larger equipment onto ships and move it around. The price you have to pay is that all of your manufacturing facilities have to be in ports.

And right now, in the US, we're not manufacturing wind turbines in ports. And so we're talking about completely reconfiguring not only our energy system, but our port infrastructure to support energy. And that requires custom terminals. So we can't just moderately modify existing port terminals. We're talking about completely creating new port terminals. So this requires public infrastructure.

In the case of Humboldt Bay is a good example. Our site has 160 plus acres. Terminal area. The wharves or the docks. The large concrete docks take up less than 8% of that total, but they constitute over two thirds of the total cost.

Those wharves are entirely in state waters, managed by the Humboldt Bay Harbor District in trust on behalf of the state since the 1970s. So what we're talking about is $1.0 billion of investment in this port infrastructure, the vast majority of which is on state lands, in state waters.

And so that's public infrastructure that is required to enable the development of offshore wind to meet that timeline. We have to initiate this public investment early in the timeline so that the private sector can come in behind and do a lot of investment that they require.

But that foundational public infrastructure investment on state lands, in waters of the state, is really the critical first step. And that story of Humboldt Bay is common to all of the ports of California.

All of the wharves, which is the majority of these costs that we're talking about in ports, are going to be in the waters of the state, managed on behalf of the state by these port authorities.

So the Humboldt Bay Heavy Lift Marine Terminal Project.

So far, we've received $426 million in federal grants for the construction of this site, another $8 million from Marad for permitting and design, and $10.5 million from the California Energy Commission, which puts Humboldt far ahead of the other ports as far as funding goes, which has given us a head-start in permitting and design.

So we're well into that process. We could be as close to a year away from finalizing all of our permits, CEQA and NEPA, and of that total, $450 million. We have dedicated $70 million of that to community benefits directly in Humboldt Bay.

So environmental restoration trail projects for residents of the neighborhoods near the project site, a community benefit program explicitly targeting residents within 3 miles of the site, tribes and fishermen, and a lot more.

So to zoom out a little bit, in order for offshore wind to happen, as my colleague indicated, port projects are critical, but there's really going to be three types of port terminals that are needed. One, we have to make the parts.

So those are manufacturing facilities in ports of making the blades, the nacelles, the towers, the floating foundations, wherever those are manufactured, say the blades are manufactured in San Francisco, towers are manufactured in San Diego.

Wherever those are manufactured, all of those parts have to end up on ships, and all of the ships have to end up in a single location so that it can all be assembled. That is the staging integration facility.

So you need a lot of area where the parts can be picked up off the ship and laid down in a large yard.

And then you need the strongest wharves to ever be constructed in North America to lift all of this stuff up and build the wind turbines in the water of a protected bay, and then from there can be towed out to sea.

Then the third type of port terminal that's required are those that host the ships that do operation and maintenance of the effectively power plants in the ocean. All three of those are important, but without staging integration, that second port terminal type, you really just can't have offshore wind.

So of course we want the parts manufactured in California, but theoretically, they could be manufactured in other ports throughout the Pacific and shipped to the staging integration sites.

As I analyze this and see it more, we really need to invest early with public money into the staging integration sites to enable private funding in the manufacturing and operation and maintenance facilities. Each of those three types of port facilities require different timelines. They have different needs and different levels of criticality.

And just to conclude here on timeline, the permitting and design process for a port terminal project of this magnitude is in the three to six year range, then you have an additional three to six years of construction. So we're talking about hundreds of new piles being driven.

And whatever bay you're working in California, there's going to be limited windows where you can do pile driving to avoid impacts to endangered species. In Humboldt Bay, there's only a three and a half month window where we can do pile driving.

So even under the best case scenario, we're talking about three years of construction, minimum for just the phase one of the project. Right now, we're on track to be operational in Humboldt Bay as early as 2030. And we're very supportive of all of the other port projects being proposed in all of the other ports of California.

We do not see the other ports of California as competition. We operate under philosophy that there's enough wind to go around. What there's not enough to go around right now is money. So all of the ports need public investment. Thank you.

Thank you. And thank you to all of our panelists, I think, for setting a really robust foundation for our discussion and questions. I'll go ahead and open it up for member questions. Assembly. Pardon Assemblymember Bennett. And we're welcoming. Assemblymember Bennett is the chair of the Assembly's budget Subcommitee Number Four on the climate crisis, resources, energy and transportation. Thank you for joining us.

Thank you. Three quick questions. One, just two of them are just, you know, very basic. As we saw the temperature charts indicating temperatures going up. Is that likely to increase wind, decrease wind, make the wind more erratic? What can you tell us about, what should we be expecting 50 years down the road in terms of wind?

And I'll take both experts here. Right.

I'll just jump in. Go ahead. I guess the short answer is we don't know.

That's what I thought.

Yeah, there are. But there is. But there is research and science underway to address that question.

Okay.

And then the second thing for the CPUC, you talked about reply comments. What's a reply comment versus a comment?

Oh, sure. And good to see you again. We spent a lot of time on this topic last session. So all the parties submit their initial comments, and then they get to see what everyone else has said and reply to them. So let's say, you know, one party or stakeholder made a comment about what they thought.

Something in the decision was if someone disagreed with that, they have one more bite at the apple to make another comment.

Thank you. And then just, I think probably for Humboldt, but I know we're all focused right now on getting these things constructed and getting the port infrastructure that we need. How about the issue of operation and maintenance of all of these?

Is that part of your planning and development also, or is that going to be a later stage or later phase in this process? And if you could address that also, we'd appreciate that. Thank you.

Short answer is yes. It's part of our current plans. Operation maintenance really falls into two categories. One is the day to day operation maintenance, which requires specialized vessels to come and go from ports with specialists that go out to sea. And I think my colleague could probably speak to that better.

The second and more complicated type of operation maintenance is when a turbine needs to be towed back into port to have a major component replaced. And both Long Beach and Humboldt's projects are perfectly suited to do that. In addition, could also support the first type.

In terms of timing for when O and M bases will be cited. They're typically later in the product development cycle. So I think, as was mentioned multiple times, the staging integration ports are mission critical right now. O and M ports have smaller footprints, are less complex to develop, and can be typically cited later in the development cycle.

Great. Thank you.

Please be joined by the chair of our Select Committee on Offshore Wind Energy in California. Thank you, Assemblymember Addis, for being here.

Thank you. And thank you so much, chair, for hosting this hearing. And to all of the panelists and my colleagues, this is truly a kitchen table issue in my community, because I live in Morro Bay. I went to HSU. We have family who are intimately connected with Tulua island as well.

And so a lot of conversation around should offshore wind happen, is offshore wind the right way to go? What's going to happen to the environment?

And so a lot of where my efforts have, have been around talking about the why of offshore wind and how we have faced extreme heat, atmospheric rivers, the dangers, the true dangers of oil and gas that we can't get away from if we don't invest into new technologies, offshore wind being critically important as one of those technologies.

And so I'm very optimistic for the future of offshore wind in California and also want to appreciate that we have to keep science at the heart of this, that we have to keep tribal nations at the heart of this, that we have to keep local communities and their needs at the heart of what we're doing.

And so we were very proud to bring $3.6 million to the OPC to set up the science monitoring entity proud and want to thank our partners in the wind industry for supporting AB 2537 to build a community capacity building Fund. And I think we're close to getting that over the hump.

I want to thank my colleagues who have been champions on the port side and glad that the $45 million came also signed on to support that $45 million. But was wondering, and I know it's not the specific focus of this hearing for Mister Cohen, but also for Mister Studs, if you can.

You mentioned Mister studs around equity and environment and Mister Cohen around what responsible development looks like. And if both of you could expand a little bit, maybe Mister Cohen first. If there's anything else you can share with us around your thinking on responsible development. And I know you mentioned the ocean monitoring is an absolute must.

And then maybe Mister Studs around equity and environment and your thinking on that.

Well, at the outset, national marine sanctuaries don't go well with offshore wind. Actually, no underwater structures are legal in a national marine sanctuary. Isolated cables can get an Army Corps permit in a national marine sanctuary. But three leases pulling maybe 70 cables, that's a lot of violence to a national marine sanctuary.

So we were forced to lower the northern boundary of the national marine sanctuary to below Diablo Canyon to take advantage of that infrastructure. So that was our contribution to making it work.

We would like to participate in these underwater surveys because if the boat goes up for three months and comes back with three months of data and we've found an underwater village, well, that's just way too late. We need to be able to have real time monitoring of the underwater submersible.

And there's also going to be when the cables hit land, they're actually going to need actual monitors. So the tribe is trying to gear up with the necessary marine ecologists and underwater archaeologists so that we can be part of that process. And we.

I don't know if it's cute or not, but it's the Sannie and Chumash Oceanographic Institute. Yeah. So we set it up.

So what is responsible?

Offshore wind development requires a number of components, including a commitment to doing best available science in the permitting process, implementing and following a rigorous permitting environmental review process, and an unwavering, sustained commitment to doing broad outreach and education to ensure that there's a clear understanding of impacts, that we are understanding how best to avoid and minimize and mitigate those impacts.

I'll give two or one example of how we've gone about that. We've listened loud and clear to tribal Members and might grateful for my conversations with Mister Cohen that have helped us understand how best we address some of these capacity issues. So we're doing that in three ways.

Number one, as an individual developer, we've appropriated some money to compensate for meeting time. That is kind of first and foremost for our outreach engagement. Number two, we are looking collectively as the offshore wear industry and developers at how we can build broader capacity to support tribal participation in the permitting process.

It is a long and detailed process, if done right, and want to make sure they have a formal role to play. We want to make sure that they have the capacity and ability to meaningfully and productively participate in that.

And number three, as Mister Cohen mentioned, we want to create opportunities for tribes to participate in the permitting and review of projects as well. That includes providing training to tribal monitors for both review of offshore data.

We also on the east coast Ocean winds have developed a training program to train tribal Members to be protected species observers, which are required to be located on our survey vessels. Our survey vessel is currently doing surveys in our federal lease area right now with protected species observers.

Those trainings would allow tribal Members to gain those qualifications to participate in conducting those surveys. Those are a core component. Number two, we conducted a tour of our geophysical survey vessel in the port of Winemi in early July.

This was a day long event attended by tribal Members, the State Lands Commission, Coastal Commission, Energy Commission, Boehm and Bessie and labor. It was an opportunity to provide information about the technology itself, which is somewhat complex and there's a lot of misinformation out there.

We're able to provide a tour, help folks understand what is the technology, how is it used, how is it being environmentally and responsibly permitted and operated, and ultimately, what is its important role to the permitting and design of sustainable and responsible offshore wind.

So it was an incredible investment of resources of our time, and it was well worth it in terms of having that broad level of engagement to demystifying technology and helping to bring everybody along on the same page to ensure that it's understood and it is able to go forward expeditiously.

Briefly, for our port. Thank you. Thank you, Mister Cohen. Thank you, Mister Seth. For our port Commissioner is there, I mean, you're very much on the front end of this, but any tips for communities that are just starting the conversation?

I know Humboldt and Long Beach need to go first for obvious reasons that we've talked about, but there will be other ports, as you mentioned, develop across the State of California. Any tips as they're beginning to think about how they might engage and build capacity to engage in these conversations?

Yeah, thank you. I concur with both of their testimonies on the topic developing in ports isn't new. So there's lots of port terminals have been developed throughout California for the past 30 years.

And so it's like any process of developing a big port terminal, you have to engage with the community early and often start with the tribes, and that's a lot of conversations in my experience so far. Each tribe wants to be communicated with independently. So lumping tribes together is typically not a good approach.

And each one of those groups has different interests. And so it takes real commitment from the beginning to want to engage with people and understand what people's concerns are and how those can be alleviated. There's also the difficult reality that when you're talking about a big industrial port facility, there's not a lot of room for creativity.

So a lot of people want to do meetings with maps on the wall and sticky dots and get really deeply involved. But it's like a 6000 psf wharf has got to be in a specific spot and there's not a lot of room to move it around.

So I think being honest with people right up front is an important part of that as well.

Assemblymember Papin is the chair of the Assembly's water Parks and Wildlife Committee. Thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me, Madam Chair, and thank you for your work on this. And I do come to you fresh off the heels of the release of the port Select Committee report, which has been many months in the making. And I feel quite optimistic that the ports will step up to embrace this new challenge.

And it's quite exciting stuff, but I can appreciate the restricted footprint. And I very much thank you for your testimony because it was very vivid and how tight this is going to be and what's really going to be expected of our ports. And I agree with you, the ports do work together in their endeavors.

So even though there's competition among the ports, they certainly work together. I have just one quick question. I won't take up too much time. We've talked a little bit about coordinating permitting and perhaps maybe even some consolidation along the way. We'll see what happens.

But my question is, and I don't know who's probably more adept, I'm looking more at these regulatory folks, is there, how much of the permitting process do you think could happen concurrently? Because ultimately, as you so eloquently stated, got a shortage of money.

And so my feeling is if we can kind of do some of this work either in a consolidated fashion or concurrently, will that ultimately save us some money? You don't have to answer the money part. I'm thinking about the money part, and we have a lovely chart I saw in this wonderful report that was issued.

But I'm just wondering, can you elaborate a little bit on the ability to do things concurrently?

Well, I think, and I'm Jana Ganyon, senior advisor, Prof. Sherwind in the Newsom Administration. I think that permitting will be happening concurrently, and so there will be overlaps between the wind farms, the ports, the transmission, the supply chain pieces. And that permitting, it doesn't line up in a linear fashion. It will be overlapping.

So the AB 525 strategic plan for offshore wind energy and where that chart comes from outlines the beginnings of the structure that's been utilized in California in the past to coordinate those permitting cycles and address where they're happening simultaneously.

And so the work in front of us is to implement, take the next step on that plan and to really look deeply at that structure and make sure we understand all the lessons learned from how the desert REIT was implemented in the past and benefits realized in that space.

Make sure that the permitting experts on the state side have a real opportunity to design the next iteration of a coordinated structure that will work.

And I can speak to the transmission permitting component. So the California Public Utilities Commission does the permitting for the on land transmission, so not the turbines themselves. And there are two important things. So, one, we are closely tracking the California independent system operators transmission planning process.

I think, you know, that there were two lines that were identified there, and so now there will be a solicitation process to identify who will be developing those.

And so we are closely monitoring that and in coordination with the system operator and then in tandem to all of that, the Public Utilities Commission right now is going through what I've been calling like a once in a generation update to our transmission permitting process.

And I say that because the last time we updated it was around 1995. And so we're expecting the final updates to that to happen early next year. So well in advance of this whole, all of this work. And so that will support offshore wind. It'll also support all the other resource types as well that need new transmission.

So we're, you know, thanks to some legislation, we're able to kick off that work in advance and get some big strides done soon.

I'll just build on this to say that the concurrent reviews are essential for a particularly state and federal review of offshore wind projects. What's critical is that the state process resolves and completes at the same time our federal review is complete to ensure that our projects are able to move ahead expeditiously.

So the recommendations of 525 in terms of implementing those MOUs between agencies that have timelines, roles, responsibilities, it's critical those get matched up to the federal permitting timeframe that is administered by BoEm.

And I'll just Echo, thank you so much for the education, as it were, and I'll just echo that. That assumes we get all the input from all the stakeholders and whatnot. And I appreciate those efforts. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

And I think Mister Holmland wanted to also respond to that, I believe.

Yeah, thank you. I'll just let you know that very productive meetings are occurring between the port of Humboldt, the port of Long Beach and Boem to identify where our various projects begin and end, because they will have different CEQA documents, different NEPA documents, and there is some overlap between how a turbine is manufactured, transported, and then connected.

And those are really different projects at different ends. And one of the important conclusions that we've all come to is the Port of Humboldt's project can produce wind turbines that can be towed to Morro Bay or Humboldt, or future Oregon lease areas, or future California lease areas, as well as long beaches.

And so the relationship between the ports and the offshore wind farms isn't a direct one to one relationship. It's a complex web. And so we have to define the boundaries of these various projects even though they have some overlap. And that kind of coordination is really important.

Trying to lump them all into some mega CEQA document, I think, would be a mistake, because they're really independent projects that have so many independent parts that they can't be merged into a single thing. But I can justify that. So far, the permitting process is going really well.

Thank you, Assemblymember Wood.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just, first of all, before I ask questions, and I have a few, so you can give me the hook whenever you need to. Okay. I just want to commend you and your staff for putting this together.

The comprehensive nature and the way this is laid out in a very logical manner, a lot of information for people to digest. I've been studying this for three years now, and today learned a lot just from the way this was put together. So thank you.

I think this is a real service to the Committee, to the committees, and to the industry and our state government for this process here today. So thank you. Well, thank you.

I appreciate that. And once again, as we said, but some of our colleagues were not here. Kathleen Chen is our science fellow, and she's been a tremendous part of our team over the course of this session. And has taken the lead on this hearing as well as a number of others. So thank you. Kathleen.

As someone who loves science, I can't thank you enough. So I'm going to kind of go backwards a little bit, because we talked a little, we were talking a little bit about transmission. And so, and then there is a sequence, there is a method to my madness here.

But just about three weeks ago, a report was released by the Boston consulting group called Unlocking California's climate ambition. And in that report, one of the things that was notable to me was that, and I will quote from the report, so it's not paraphrasing on the electric side.

Average development timelines for major electric transmission, $50 million and more, have nearly doubled over the last decade from approximately six years to now. 11 years. We're going in the wrong direction.

Now, I know there are efforts to try to, to rein this in a bit, but when you start looking at timelines here and all the timelines that are being discussed, 11 years is 2035. And we've heard from the beginning we were going to have 2.5 gigawatts by 2030. And then at a previous hearing, it was 2032.

The PUC's procurement decision, that hasn't been finalized, calls for 7.6 gigawatt to come online at 2035 to 2030 to beyond that. And so there are things that don't line up here. And we've got, we've got an incredible development that has to happen at ports. We have to have build out of the infrastructure.

We have to have a lot of environmental. What are we going to do around the transmission piece of this? Because I've traveled to Portugal, I went to Dubai last year. I was shocked when somebody heard I was from California and came up to me and said, thank you for 1373. I'm like, who the heck are you?

And we got into a discussion because the overwhelming theme throughout Europe and other parts of the world in this is that there is no transition to completely green energy without transmission. And even in Scotland, they're putting all these windmills together and the transmission piece isn't complete.

And so my fear is that as I hear these timelines for the build outs, that we're going to have the ability to generate power and a robust port operation, and we're still going to be figuring out the transmission piece. Can you say something to comfort me here? Because I don't, I haven't been feeling it, quite frankly.

I do personally. But, you know, just in General, I think, you know, by my concerns. This isn't new.

Yeah.

So two pieces, one I already referred to, and I'll give more detail about the updates to the General order, but I wanted to actually first start on, there has been an updated memorandum of understanding between the California independent system operator, the Public Utilities Commission, and the California Energy Commission in order to better dovetail the process of procurement and transmission planning.

And so through the coordination of integrated resources planning process and the CaisO transmission tpp transmission planning process, we'll be able to better inform the CaiSO about the actual projects that the load serving entities are buying so that the transmission is specifically ready for those projects.

And that will actually include not just input from the agencies, but it's information that is being generated from the load serving entities doing the procurement themselves. And that's a key update.

Another part of that that I wanted to mention, not my news or, you know, to share or to tout as my own accomplishment, but the public or the California independent system operator recently adopted their interconnection process enhancements package.

And so they filed that at FERC on August 1, which really does play a key part in how our transmission planning process is getting generation connected to transmission. And so FERC will be considering that and hopefully approving that package of enhancements that ties generation like offshore wind or other resources to the transmission.

And then the final piece that I wanted to highlight is this update to the General order 131. We're expecting that to be approved in January of next year. And this is a key part on updating what these transmission timelines look like for the permitting processes.

For those not familiar, not only do we issue the permit which allows for the cost recovery from ratepayers, but also includes that CEQA process.

And so there are a lot of enhancements there that we're really proud of and getting stakeholder comment on right now that'll be adopted early next year, well in advance of the need for the OR, well in advance of these lines coming through the permitting process, just further information about the next steps.

So I had mentioned there are the two lines that the CaIso has approved. Those will now go through a solicitation process that the Caiso manages so that you can actually identify who that transmission owner is going to be.

That's where we talk about cost guardrails, some cost guardrails that will be part of that process, but then also information about how to keep that transmission project on track. And there are a lot of variables.

There's permitting, there's also financing, construction, all of those elements that get built into those proposals, and we are working very closely to track that with the Caisos so that we are ready to receive those applications and move on them expeditiously.

So while you have an MOU, and this isn't just offshore wind, this is everything here. While you have an MOU and the three agencies are working together, who's the captain of the ship?

And that's kind of the point of the study here, is that that who is in charge to make sure that all of these things are actually working, or are you all relying on one another? Because where is the command and control, so to speak?

Yeah. So each of our agencies has a key skill set that we bring to the table, and all of the principals are coordinating on a weekly basis. So our President, our President, the CEO of the Caiso, chair of the Energy Commission, meet on a weekly basis to talk about how are we moving this work forward. So.

And then, of course, in coordination with the governor's office and in particular with Janna on offshore wind.

Okay. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate that. Yeah, of course. Going. And first of all, and I also want to say I very much appreciate seeing the proposed decision for 7.6.

That sends a really strong message to industry, I believe, who are looking to potentially invest billions of dollars here and without the potential procurement, that makes it really difficult to attract investors. And so that is a critical, critical decision.

And so I hope that is formally adopted coming up here, but that's a huge signal, I think, to industry. Very, very grateful for them. Thank you. Thank you for that. The $45 million for ports that is approved now. Actually, it was approved and now it's staying in at some point.

We struggle in California sometimes to get money out the door, and the ports are going to need this money, like, right away. How are we going to get the money out the door in a timely manner? And I say this in all serious.

For instance, I can give you example after example of how money's been allocated and takes one year, two years or longer for the money to get out the door.

So can you give us some idea of when the money is actually going to get out the door so they can go to use for the port development that's so desperately needed now?

So I'll respond by saying that that program lives at the California Energy Commission, that it was underway last year, so it is fully underway. My most recent understanding of their timeline is that the funding opportunity will be announced in September timeframe, and then the process rolls from there, according to their grant making processes. That are more typical.

I can tell you that it is a focus to take a look at that, to see if there are ways to improve the timeframe there. But it is definitely a topic of discussion.

I guess the point is that each of these things that take longer further delays the ability to actually see the success that we all want to see happen. So I just put that out there and thank you. Thank you for that. And then my final couple of questions here is with Mister Boren.

And thank you for being here. And I want to, and I also, in preface to that, I want to compliment the leaseholders, certainly. And I know I don't have direct relationships with all the leaseholders, but I certainly do with the ones in our area.

And I know that they have been working, they have tribal liaison people on the ground in the communities, working with individual tribes. And I think that's a really important critical step. And I think there is some progress there. And as Mister Holland said, every tribe is different.

They are individual governments, and so everything and their needs are different. And so I commend the leaseholders for that.

I want to know what Boem is doing in that regard, because I have heard, and some of it's anecdotal, is that there has been some concerned that the Federal Government hasn't taken that level of interest and attention that some of the leaseholders have done. So can you tell me what Boem is doing in this regard?

Thank you for that, Assemblymember Wood. And I'll say from a Boem perspective, the lessees are doing it because we had it as a condition on the lease. You know, those tribal liaisons that are required.

You know, one of the things that we, we really did push the boundary here in California and, you know, we have a Native American tribe communication plan, which is a requirement of the lease, which, you know, it does not alleviate Boem's responsibility for our trust, responsibility for that government to government consultation.

But what it does, it opens the lines of communication between the tribes and the lessees so that they can have that dialogue. Because what we learned in the past from the East Coast is, you know, once a lease will happen and before construction operation plan came in, you know, there was no dialogue.

And our intent is that by having the lessees making sure they're communicating with the tribes, that they're, that the tribes are going to have an input into that, into the development of the plan. So when a construction operation plan comes in, it's not going to be something that hasn't been seen before.

So it really is an opportunity that we think that the tribes are going to be able to kind of shape the development of that project as it moves forward. So I think that, again, in partnership with the State of California, we were implementing that requirement into the lease. And I think it's working out well.

But I just want to reiterate, we still have our federal trust responsibilities with the tribes. You know, this communication that we hope improves the process, improves the product of a construction operation plan. You know, we're still maintaining and continuing to consult with the tribes throughout the process.

And, you know, we're looking to build and there's, we can always improve as we move forward.

And I think as we look towards, you know, round two potential leasing for California, you know, we're looking at a, you know, improving the process even more and, you know, making sure that we hopefully bring the tribes in early, even earlier into the process so that we can start looking at, you know, what a round two for California would look like.

And so we're, you know, I think that, you know, like I said, we're not perfect in that we are trying to improve and hopefully, you know, in partnership with the, with the tribes, we can develop a process that works well for everyone moving forward.

Thank you. I would say that California's first people live in small communities. I think they have been in many ways overwhelmed by the complexity of the scale of these projects. And their previous dealings with extractive technologies industries have made them cautious, to say the least, and deservatively so.

And so I just don't think I can emphasize enough that we're talking about federal waters here and attention, true attention to not just federally recognized tribes, but there are a lot of other tribes that have ties to ties to these waters.

And so anything you can do to help work with in collaboration and not just consulting, but in collaboration, that is a really critical thing, and I can't encourage that enough. So thank you.

And thank you, Madam Chair, Assemblymembers of our.

First of all, I want to thank you, Assemblymember Petrie Norris, for bringing this group together.

I think it's impressive as I think the first time we've actually had since I've been here, obviously, which is a short amount of time, this kind of focus on offshore wind, which, as you know, I think is such an important part of us meeting our clean energy future.

I've been, as you know, very focused on a number of issues related to offshore wind and making it a reality. And I think dovetailing on some of what assemblymember Wood has said.

One of those areas is related to the entitlement timeframes that are necessary to do all of the things we need to do to make offshore wind a reality. The entitlement with respect to the ports, the entitlement at the federal level with respect to the facilities themselves, the entitlement related to.

Related to the getting that power from the projects to the transmission, online transmission, the online transmission, all of that.

And so that's something that I am concerned about in part because we've got such tight timeframes in terms of our goals, and we're seeing those time frames just in the time I've been here moved back pretty significantly already. I guess one question I had is, how are you projecting out entitlement?

You know, one of the things, I used to be a land lease lawyer, and one of the things I used to do when I start a project is I'd basically take on a single project.

I'd start with an entitlement plan and look at everything I had to do from beginning to end and projecting out what those timeframes were and how the various entitlements that you needed by various state and federal and local agencies, how those dovetailed with each other and how, and whether those could be done together or they had to be done seriatim because you needed some before you could move on the others.

I know 525 has required some strategic planning at the CEC, but sort of where do we stand in sort of really understanding whether some of these timeframes can be met?

We look at the projection that on, I'm sorry, that onshore wind, that we'd have the first proposed decision on procurement to be online, projected online by 2035 to 2037. But obviously, when you look at that, it's sort of, there needs to be by this 2030 for the offshore wind online for 2035.

There's a lot of variables that actually need to be answered in order to have that procurement decision run effectively. So I guess the first question to Miss Tisfai, did I pronounce that right?

Yes. Thank you.

Is sort of have you done sort of, where is that planning occurring in terms of that kind of entitlement planning, or is that not happened yet, or is it happening at some point in the future?

A lot of the study for that work has occurred in the AB 525 plan. And what we're doing through the procurement process, though, and the solicitations that the Department of Water Resources, you know, if the decision is approved, will go through, will include requirements, though, in the solicitations.

And so that'll be something that the leaseholders will have to be able to provide as part of their bids, to be able to show ability to meet timelines, cost containment measures.

Those are all things that end up going into the solicitation process, and that can be reviewed in addition to that, AB 1373 included the opportunity to create a procurement group so that there are also stakeholders that are able to, you know, have some insight into the solicitation processes as well.

And so those entities will be able to provide some feedback, too, as we are trying to, you know, evaluate the bids, see which bids are best. And all of those elements will be included as well, because we are learning from the challenges that the East Coast has had in the development processes and all of these timeline variables.

And so it's really important to include that in the solicitation process. So you can clearly see how each of the different leaseholders, because they're not doing the exact same thing at the exact same time, but how each of them plans to be able to maintain control of the different entitlements that they need to get.

And then in addition to that, and I'll let Ms. Ganion speak to all the different environmental permitting that's also occurring, that has been planned for and studied as part of the AB 525 process.

Nice to see you.

Nice to see you. So it's a terrific question. I think there's several sort of altitudes of answer to it. There are consolidated timelines that are in the AB 525 strategic plan that tend, that tend to sort of just plot out where we think these things are headed.

I think California, and with your help, has done an extraordinary job of setting up the pillars that are necessary for these timelines to become a little bit more real and a little bit more in sync with one another.

And we heard it from Mr. Studs and we heard it from others like the ports, the procurement, the people, and the permitting. Those are all things that are going to help these timelines tighten up.

I think there is opportunity to lean into some of the broader infrastructure timeline work that's happening at the federal level and at the state level. So at the federal level, there's the Fast 41 dashboard, the federal permitting improvement steering council, and then on the state level, there's the infrastructure strike team.

And both of those frameworks are exciting for their ability to increase transparency into the timelines, to sync up the timelines, and to further create partnerships in the federal and state and tribal spaces that are needed to make these things real.

One of the questions I had, for example, on the procurement is how are you going to deal with some of the cost uncertainties in terms of how the ports are going to be financed? So we've got a projection from the CEC that the range of ports could cost more than $12 billion.

We've only, you know, there's some amount of funding that's been provided to Humboldt. Hopefully there'll be some funding that comes through the climate bond if it's approved by the voters, and then there's some federal funding that is actually being leveraged through the climate bond and other funding sources.

But it's a big question mark, sort of who's going to pay that $12 billion and to what extent leaseholders are going to be absorbing part of that. What is the current thinking in terms of providing certainty? It seems to me that leaseholders need to know those things in order to engage in the procurement process.

I think that you named the activities that are particularly underway in that space.

I think I would just add that what we've seen on the East Coast and what we've seen more broadly in Europe is that the public financing piece of port projects, particularly for offshore wind, is 50% to 70% of a project and the private sector investment is 30% to 50% of the project.

And that sort of held true across the board.

And so where projects are able to access the federal funding in particular, and really credit to the Biden Administration and Biden Harris Administration for prioritizing these kinds of projects at this time, that I think a combination of federal funding, a combination of, of state funding, what that looks like to be determined based on these things that are in motion, and then the private sector will need to engage and Mr. Holman will know more about this than I.

But where we've seen this around the world is it can be a combination of tenants and developers that, that together combine to bring that private sector piece.

I have some other questions, but I'll ask. Yeah, I'd actually like, was going to ask you with the Chair's permission. So when I look at sort of the three solicitations, one is going to begin in 2027.

It just sort of seems like a lot of those pieces, a lot of information needs to be made more certain before the solicitations go out. So I was wondering if you could sort of speak to the sort of the things that you need in order to participate in the procurement process.

Absolutely. And I will acknowledge that the parameters of the procurement process in terms of the solicitation criteria have not been defined yet. But I think from the project standpoint here, certainly the certainty and existence of a port to deploy the project, staging the degradation port is critical.

Not only is that that is an enabling and foundational requirement for us to proceed, but it also helps us to understand what are the cost of using that and where will we be getting our technologies, how we'd be deploying them and assembling them.

I'll just add one clarification on how those costs get or don't get included in our price. The example I'll use is from Massachusetts. The New Bedford Marine commerce terminal was paid for with $100 million in state bonds. That $100 million is not included into the cost of electricity.

This price, or the cost of a developer leasing that port is. I think the business model of the ports in California is yet to be determined. But I think that principle will hold true, is that we will not be putting on the rate base the multiple billions of dollars needed to build the ports.

But our cost to use the ports will further answer your question, though. What do we need? We ideally need to have fully advanced on the design and permitting of our projects. That is an essential project viability criteria. Having had a sufficient design, project design envelope, that's the basis of what we're permitting.

We need to have the ability to connect to the grid, another key element of enabling projects to go forward. So for what makes a project viable, having permits, having a site, having permits, having access to the grid, and having a PPA.

Thank you.

I have just one more, just sort of quick set of questions, and that relates to the procurement target of 7.6 gigawatts. So I was happy to see that that number landed where it was.

I still, though, have concerns from having spoken to a lot of folks in the space about whether or not more certainty is necessary in order to achieve some of the other goals that we want to, that at least I'd like to see happen.

And that is bringing more of the jobs related and the promise of offshore wind into the State of California, the things that AB three was focused on.

And so, you know, what I've heard is we're going to have the folks that manufacture the turbines and the component parts will be making decisions about whether or not those manufacturing facilities are located here in California.

Some of that is based upon their certainty of sort of not only the near-term procurement certainty, but also the other 20 or 18 gigawatts that is projected in our goals.

And so I guess the question is, are you thinking about that set of issues as you're setting the procurement targets and sort of what comes after the 7.6, or is this sort of where it is at the current state? And what are you hearing from?

And have you even engaged with the folks that manufacture the components about whether or not this is giving them enough certainty?

Yeah, so a couple of different things there with the 7.6 gigawatts or with AB 1373. You know, we do have this authority, I think until about 2035. And so there are other opportunities for us to use the central procurement mechanism for more procurement, other types of procurement as well.

And so we did we did this first decision, was due by September 1, but this whole process is going to be integrated into the two-year IRP cycle. And so we will be able to, through that existing work cycle, include additional. But in addition to that, as I mentioned earlier, we have over 40 load-serving entities doing procurement for the state.

And so they will also, you know, as we learn from this initial procurement through the Department of Water Resources, there will be a lot of learnings for all those load-serving entities so that they can also do our continued additional procurement.

So, you know, BOEM has talked about additional lease sales occurring in the state and off of our coast. And so there's really a growth opportunity here to kickstart this industry through central procurement.

But then also there will be a lot of, a lot more growth happening through our other load serving entities for procurement, procurement too. And I know that they are eagerly exploring that work.

For example, a number of CCAs have banded together, created a type of MOU with the Cadmo project off of the state waters in order to be able to learn more about offshore wind and build more of their capacity to do procurement themselves for offshore wind. And so I think those are just some of the key parts.

I think another thing that I wanted to reference though is, you know, creating guardrails for ratepayers.

And so I mentioned there will be the procurement group that create, you know, has stakeholders being able to participate and kind of get an idea of, you know, what these solicitations are looking like, how they're being formed, as well as the bids coming in.

But there's also a key part of the process where, you know, once Department of Water Resources does the procurement, the actual contracts come back to the Public Utilities Commission for oversight for final approval, which is, this is a process we already go through with the investor-owned utilities as they come together with bundled procurement plans with all of their resources.

So that's just another oversight opportunity from the Public Utilities Commission, which was really key as AB 1373 was coming together and making sure that we have that oversight over the contracts and the pricing.

I just wanted to ask, Mr. Studds, if in your conversation, obviously, you're starting to think about potentially, especially as you're going through your environmental review of some of where you'd be procuring some of these, some of the parts, obviously.

Is it your sense that the procurement target that was approved is giving these manufacturers enough comfort that they're thinking about locating the manufacturing facilities in California? Do we have to be doing more?

I would say that establishing amount to be needs a termination of 7.6 gigawatts is important to establishing the market. It is not the mechanism itself that incentivizes suppliers to locate. It makes them pay attention for sure. I would say that it is signed PPAs themselves, which are really the gold standard that drive the supply chain.

That being said, floating foundations are the best opportunity we have for doing anything locally. They are significant amount of steel, large, cumbersome, and not ideally suited to transport over long distances for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is there's very few vessels that are capable of doing that.

So it presents a great opportunity for, at the very least, assembly of Local parts within ports that has the ability to drive jobs within the ports themselves, which in turn creates an innovation ecosystem around that.

So right now, for projects enabling to be going forward that provides, I think, us to think about how can we be doing as much locally as we can, and floating foundations provide the best opportunity for doing that.

I'm looking forward to the Energy Commission's completion of the AB three report, so I know we'll be learning a lot more about that, but thank you. I think that was very helpful.

I think the last thing I'm going to say is I'm hoping, and I see this already sort of weaving its way into documents I'm seeing about offshore wind, but I'm hoping that all of the agencies can start thinking in addition to the traditional things they think about, which is making sure that we're doing the best for the ratepayers, making sure that we're achieving our environmental goals, all of that.

But we can also start thinking about the workforce more. I think that to me, this is a, a key component and one of the key benefits.

I think, you know, some of what has been discussed with respect to the tribal nations about making sure that they are participating in these projects, because that is part of the promise of this and giving the tribal nations the certainty that they need to be at gates with these things, but also bringing these jobs into the State of California.

I mean, it is one of the, one of the promises and one of the big potentials that we have here in the State of California.

And one of the things I think we don't do very well often is really, as we're starting, as we try to achieve other objectives, is making sure that we're actually working out, watching out for our workforce, bringing high skilled, high wage jobs into the state.

And so I'm hoping that you'll be thinking about that and always have a bullet point in addition to the others that you traditionally have on these as you do this.

And then the last thing I'll sort of say is, I just want to thank Assemblymember Petrie-Norris for her leadership on the climate bond and the $475 billion that worked its way in there for the port infrastructure. That would not have happened had it not been for her advocacy.

I know that because I had been working so hard about that, and I think I, the Assemblywoman, understood how important this is to make sure that one of the P's that you identified is actually that we're providing more certainty and we're moving ahead.

And so I just wanted to thank you and then publicly recognize that important role that you played.

Well, thank you, Assemblymember Zbur, and certainly appreciate your leadership and your partnership on this as well. All right, I, too, have a bunch of questions. So I want to start, I want to start with a couple questions about the port. So, as we said, we've got some ambitious goals. Two to five gigawatts by 2030.

I think that's still the goal. 25 gigawatts by 2045. 2030 is literally around the corner. I was really pleased to hear you say in your opening comments that you do believe Humboldt is on track to be operational by 2030. Can you help us understand what are the key milestones from now to 2030 to make that a reality?

What are the key risks and what can we do, if anything, to help de-risk that plan and help you ensure success?

Yeah, that's a great question. A lot of things come to mind, especially just hearing this conversation so far. The CEC is at some point in the next six months going to be releasing $45 million for ports for offshore wind. The same agency has identified that there's $12 billion needed in port infrastructure investments.

My estimate is two-thirds of that cost is going to be in the waters of the State of California, which is about 8 billion. 45 million is less than half a percent of 8 billion. So we're a long way from funding the critical public infrastructure components of this on state lands and state waters.

So funding, I think, is the primary constraint at the moment. Then, you know, the complexity of supply chain, you know, and that's, you know, I think Mr. Studds has explained that really well, that there's got to be confidence from the private sector of where to plant their manufacturing facilities, and a lot has to come before that.

So I think it starts with money and then, at least from the ports perspective, supply chain and how that's all going to come together. Having done 20 years of permitting big development projects, permitting is just a slog. It just takes, you know, constant effort. There's always talk of streamlining.

I've done a lot of big housing projects, and there's always been talk of streamlining, that the permitting process for housing. In the meantime, while you're waiting for that streamlining to occur, you just got to keep pushing through the permitting.

And so I don't know what can be done to change the permitting, but I hesitate to say this, but I don't know that anything needs to do. If nothing's done, permitting will go like it always goes. It'll take longer than anybody wants it to, but it'll work out. And the outcomes are usually good. Impacts are minimized.

Impacts that do occur are mitigated for. So I think our permitting process is bureaucratic and cumbersome, but it results in good outcomes. I don't know if I'm answering your question so much as to say the state's done a great job of identifying goals and enabling a lot to happen concurrently. Now funding is really the next critical step.

Yes. As I sometimes say, we have been preceded by generations of lawmakers who got to come up and say, you know, in 30 years time, we're going to do something really amazing and really hard. And now, like, that's now. And so it's on us.

Those chips are coming due, and it's on us, you know, all of us, to actually deliver on that and make that a reality. Okay, I want to pick up on the point that you made about that funding right now is the primary constraint, so.

And Ms. Ganion, you said as well that based on what we've seen on the East Coast, you would anticipate that 50% to 70% of these port projects are going to be financed through public dollars. So 12 billion. That's six to, what is that, 8 billion, 6 to, yeah, eight-ish.

Is that your assessment of what, collectively, the State of California, in partnership with the Federal Government, needs to be able to invest in port infrastructure in order for us to actually make this all happen?

Yeah, I think it's useful to have those aggregate numbers, and it's also true that each project is going to be financed in a particular way. I think the value proposition of more public funding for ports is more public control over the asset.

So, so, depending on how the state is wanting to move forward with port development and make sure that these regions that are where offshore wind is moving forward in California, the Northern California area and the Central coast, making sure that these projects go forward a pace that does suggest that more public funding than less will be warranted.

We'll see how Proposition Four goes forward, but I think there's certainly federal avenues, too. There's different colors of money, different colors of public money that we might pursue, and I'm cautiously optimistic about some of those as well.

Okay. And that's good to hear. And I do, I just, I think for all of us, I think that we really need to be very clear-eyed about what it's going to take and what role the state is going to need to play.

I think that's really important to ensure that our private partners understand what they're effectively obligated for and what they're not.

And I also think it's really important then, for not just the three of us, but the entire Legislature to understand now this is objectively the amount of money the State of California is going to need to invest in this. So that that is something then that gets taken into account.

And so I would say that's just a really, I think, important piece for all of us to get on the same page on and to be really transparent about.

And I want to just credit AB three that the second phase port readiness study is underway and it's due at the end of 2026. And some of those topics are obviously germane to that study.

And then, so, picking up on permitting, you mentioned that in your response, and I know, Mr. Studds, you touched on that, and I want to make sure that I understood correctly what you said.

So when you were talking about permitting, you said that it's critical to implement the recommendations that have come out of the AB 525 strategic plan, and you highlighted the need to ensure that the positions to actually execute that are funded.

Did I understand you correctly when you said from your perspective, there are no urgent needs in the permitting space beyond delivering on those recommendations?

I would say if we had one ask right now, it would be to implement those 525 recommendations. There's an importance at present right now, we know with a lot of relative certainty what are the defined guidelines and permitting timeframes and what we need to do in the federal permitting process.

I don't think we can say with the same confidence in the state permitting process. So that leads to uncertainty, both for us now, when we're planning surveys for years down the line, to what standards and to what review.

So defining that now provides us, if we know, even if it's more rigorous or long, we know we have to do it, but it's helpful to know now. So again, defining what those agency roles, responsibilities are, the interfaces, the timing, and ensuring that you're able to hold to that timing is critical.

Okay, understood. Anything else you'd add on the permitting front or touched on it already?

I concur with all that. One thing I would like to point out is I would urge some caution in over comparing ports of West Coast to the ports of East Coast in the finance model. The East Coast is doing fixed bottom, so their vertical integration is occurring in the ocean, not requiring port facilities.

With floating offshore wind, there's a whole nother layer of port facilities required here. And so it's good to have the East Coast to compare against. But the countries of Northern Europe with floating offshore winds are another place to look. And comparing apples to apples is an important part of that analysis.

Okay, so if I understand what you're saying, it's that you would likely expect a larger share to need to come from public funding relative to the east coast comparison.

Yes. Because the floating foundations need to be assembled in port vertically, where they can be done in the ocean without a port facility on the East Coast.

Got it. Okay. All right. Thank you. I think that's, yes, valuable point of clarification. I want to talk a little bit about costs to. We talked about the cost of building this stuff, about cost to ratepayers, because I think that one of our colleagues talked about affordability in his opening remarks.

I think it's certainly been front and center for all of us. As electricity rates continue to rise, we're kind of reaching really a breaking point for many Californians, and it's unsustainable. So it's certainly been a focus for our Committee and will continue to be.

And oftentimes when we start to talk about offshore wind, people do express concerns about, gosh, this is an expensive resource. How are we going to pay for this?

So I would love first to hear from CPUC, also from Golden State, help us put the cost of, or the anticipated cost of floating offshore wind in context with other potential resources, as well help us understand how you would expect those costs presumably to start to decline over time.

I can start. There still is a lot of uncertainty about the overall cost of offshore wind, and we have seen that demonstrated in the lack of procurement that we've seen from the load-serving entities. Right. Solar, for example, as well as four-hour lithium-ion batteries continue to be cheaper.

And so because of the need for looking for the lowest cost resources, as we bring on such large volumes, those continue to be what the load-serving entities bring on because they're very cognizant of affordability and trying to make sure that they can keep rate pair bills as low as possible.

That being said, we have identified in our long-term planning that we need to have other resources, or more diverse resources added to our grid to be able to complement the large amount of solar and other types of resources like onshore wind, for example, that we have on our system, as well as being able to do that as we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, because, as you know, we still have gas resources on our system to be able to ensure that reliability and offshore wind, as long as, as well as some of the other resources I mentioned in the central procurement proposed decision like geothermal, which enhanced geothermal, which provides that baseload, which is more akin to a resource like nuclear.

And then we also have in their long-duration energy storage, will be able to help harness these additional resources and leverage them better, which means that the financial benefits are better able to be used as well, right?

So during the middle of the day, when we have a lot of solar, some of that solar, if there aren't enough batteries or long-duration energy storage resources available, don't end up getting optimized to be used during a time of day when there are other resources that we end up needing, like gas.

But at the same time, we are very cognizant of those rate pair impacts. Part of the goal of central procurement is being able to leverage economies of scale to bring down the per unit cost of those resources.

So rather than having leaseholders trying to contract separately with 40 different load-serving entities, there are added costs when you're splitting up all of the different solicitations and contracts and risks that you're putting together.

And so the goal, by leveraging an entity like the Department of Water Resources to do this initial procurement work, is to be able to learn, but then also to have the economies of scale and optimized financing as much as possible. I think I mentioned earlier that there's going to be a couple of different steps of the process.

So we have this decision. Department of Water Resources will go out, put together the solicitation work with the procurement group, which is going to have stakeholders looking at the cost issues and how the details of the solicitation are put together.

So I think an example of that is we saw on the East Coast that there were some contracts that failed and renegotiation processes, and there were issues there related to global supply chain pressures, as well as inflationary pressures that were hitting all different industries, but did impact offshore wind quite acutely.

And I think that as the solicitation processes are put together, as well as the eventual power procurement or PPAs, you can put appropriate indexes in place to be able to have some fluctuation for those costs and be able to make sure that the leaseholders are able to put the projects, get them off the ground, but also protect ratepayers so that you don't have skyrocketing costs that are being eaten by ratepayers.

And so the last step of the process that I want to make sure to emphasize is that these contracts will eventually come back to the Public Utilities Commission. There will be, we have existing processes in place to review power purchase agreements.

We've been doing this for decades and be able to make sure that in the end, these are the fair costs for ratepayers to incur. But as I said, offshore wind also helps to optimize other resources on the grid, like solar and storage.

And so it's that compliment that really helps us get the most out of all of the resources on the grid. I would like to allow Golden State Wind to be able to share their experience in expectations, too.

Thank you. I think it is essential that we as an industry, and I mean this, renewables writ large as well as offshore wind, are able to effectuate a transition to zero carbon energy system in an equitable, cost-effective way. That's critical.

What the PUC has done with this proposed decision, I think establishes the core framework that allow for visibility and sufficient volume in an industry that sets up a trajectory for cost reductions.

They are under no obligation to enter a contract which puts on us the pressure and obligation to create a cost-effective and valuable resource that ultimately has value to California.

When I say value, I distinguish that from cost, because obviously we as an industry are not only delivering clean electrons, we're also helping to build jobs and drive economic development.

That value is critical, I would say one other feature as well is that a mature supply chain is a feature of an industry that has developed and has lower costs on the East Coast, they have used the offshore wind solicitation process to drive investments in the supply chain, to drive investments in tier one manufacturers and community benefits.

That is not something we need to do that in California, but we need to figure out a way to do that without adding that into the cost of energy. That means, again, investment in ports as a locus of where those jobs and economic development supply chain grows.

But the state needs to think creatively about how it is going to deliver and incentivize those important economic benefits without increasing the cost of electricity.

Can I add one? It's a very small piece, but as you probably know, the federal floating offshore wind shot from the Department of Energy has a specific goal of driving down the cost by 70% over an accelerated timeline for floating offshore wind.

And they are putting resources into technology and other innovations that will help in that acceleration. So I think making sure that we are partnering really well with that effort is going to be important.

Yeah. And I so appreciate you highlighting that. I think we're at a moment where we're facing some incredibly, some oftentimes daunting challenges, but it's also really and truly a historic opportunity.

And I think we've seen under this administration's leadership just this unprecedented investment in helping not just California, but America and hopefully the world build a clean energy future. So I do think it's an exciting, really exciting moment.

I have a few more questions, but in the interest of time, I'm going to follow up on those offline and just close with, we'll call it the lightning round. So I'd love to hear just, you know, the number one thing. So what's the number one thing that you need from California policymakers in the next 12 months?

A financing plan. Long-term financing plan.

We need to successfully partner with the lessees so we can expedite their I programs.

An unwavering commitment to driving forward the industry on a clear timeframe that helps us achieve our project timelines in California's climate goals.

You know, from the federal boem perspective, I think, you know, what is to continue the partnership that we had with California all along. I mean, this started in 2016. It's been great, a great partnership.

And I just think that, you know, for us to achieve the goals that California has, you know, that partnership needs to continue all the way through, you know, finding additional areas to working together to figure out the permitting and everything forward. And it's, you know, that's really what, from a federal perspective, what we need from California.

So thank you again for holding this convening.

There's not only one, but one that comes up that I think I said it in my opening comments, and I think this is a really interesting piece of all this that doesn't get maybe enough air time is when we talk about ecosystem adaptive management and we talk about building out this big infrastructure in the ocean.

California has a, has amazing expertise in the ability to do this really well and compatibly with the environment and with tribal priorities and cultural resources and leaning into that not only as a part of doing things well, but also as a part of the economic development story in these regions in California, where this is going forward and across the state and with our federal and tribal partners is really important.

So I know that's not, it's an amorphous sort of ask, but I do think that we tend to think about ecosystem adaptive management as it relates to the regulatory piece, when we have really good examples, too, of sort of steady economic growth around research and innovation clusters.

You know, what happens when you put a national lab somewhere or a Scripps or a woods hole. So that's something that I think deserves more thought, partnership and focus.

I would say from the Public Utilities Commission perspective, any non rate payer sources of funding that are able to enhance affordability of new resources like these. So that's just on my frontal lobe every day.

And I've been trying to move these resources forward, and we'll continue to do that, but always looking for non ratepayer sources of funding to help enhance affordability.

Well, thank you. And just thank you once again to all of our panelists. We really, really appreciate you being here, your expertise, your insights, and your engagement, and look forward to continuing to partner with you as we meet these challenges and make California's offshore wind goals a reality. So thank you so much.

And I think with that, we'll go ahead and open it up for public comment. Thank you. Welcome. If you'd like to. Yes, great. If you'd like to participate in public comment, you can go ahead and approach the microphone and we just ask everyone if you can keep your comments to about a minute so everyone has a chance.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair. Molly Kroll with a the American Clean Power Association. We represent diverse clean energy developers in this state, including the five California placeholders. Want to thank you especially for putting together such an excellent panel. The quality of this discussion was great.

Also really appreciate what you said about being clear eyed about what this industry is going to take, but also embracing this as our moment to do the hard, big, innovative thing in the form of offshore wind. So thank you for that and thank you to the other Members on the dais here for your questions and comments.

Very much appreciate that. I think as it was very clear today, the support of the state is going to be so essential to this industry that we heard private industry can't do it alone. But we are building momentum, really big things this year with the proposed decision in central procurement.

Tremendously important, as is the TPP approval and the potential for port funding through Proposition for. We're excited to continue to build on that momentum. I think, as you heard from Tyler, the industry is here, you know, investing in communities, building out their teams, embedding there, engaging with tribes, making investments.

So we're serious and look forward to a hearing like this next year where we'll be able to show even greater progress from both the state. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Chair. I'm Adam Stern, Executive Director of Offshore Wind California, where a trade group represents the offshore wind industry in our state. I want to thank you, too, for holding this hearing. It's terrific to bring together the witnesses that you had and to get the great questions from the Assembly Members.

I want to just put out a notion here that 2024 is really shaping up as the year that offshore wind took off in California.

If you look at the range of decisions and policy advances that have been made that have been discussed in this hearing around ports, transmission, procurement, permitting, all the things that are necessary, the essential next steps for offshore wind to become real, they're happening.

And while we have a long journey ahead, lots of reviews, lots of permitting approvals that are going to be necessary, we are changing the conversation to whether offshore wind is coming to California. But how it's going to happen and the dialogue that you've created here is a very important part of that process.

The oversight role that the Legislature plays in looking after the programs that you're helping to Fund is wonderful to see and I look forward to continued discussion with you and your colleagues.

Good afternoon Madam Chair Members. Tatum Ackler with Samson Advisors on behalf of Vineyard Offshore, one of the leaseholders developing a project up on the north coast. Just wanted to echo the comments of Molly Kroll with American clean power. Really thank you for your leadership. Appreciate the conversation today.

Thank you for your leadership to Assemblymember Wood and just look forward to the continued collaboration on this important endeavor.

Good afternoon. Thank you Chair and Member Woods. My name is Jade Clemens. I'm the Director at Altasea, which is a blue economy innovation hub based in the port of Los Angeles.

Altasea is a steadfast advocate for marine renewable energy and particularly proponent of the co location of offshore wind and offshore wave devices in the same places and the synergies that can develop there.

Last year, Alto C sponsored SB 605, which is now law, directing the CEC to compile report analyzing the feasibility of wave and tidal energy adoption at scale in the state. As the CEC is presently conducting this work, the benefits of colocation, namely co locating offshore wind and offshore wave devices together, is a key topic of interest.

Wave energy devices are typically significantly smaller than offshore wind turbines and make colocation physically quite feasible. Colocation can reduce costs, time to deployment, amplify community benefits, and also reduce environmental impacts. We just urge the Legislature in the state and all stakeholders to keep top in mind these colocation opportunities as offshore wind is deployed in the state.

Offshore wind is one piece of the puzzle. We think offshore wave is another, and strategic deployment of these marine renewable energy devices alongside one another will help enable California to efficiently and sustainably get to net zero. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon Members of the Committee. My name is Alexis Sutterman speaking on behalf of Brightline defense first and foremost want to thank you for putting on this really important hearing. Definitely learned a lot and wanted to share that.

Brightline is an environmental justice organization with deep roots in the San Francisco community and we know that San Francisco, along with a lot of regions in California, is experiencing a major air quality crisis due to climate change and the fossil fuel energy system, and we see a lot of hope and offshore wind as an important tool to support a cleaner, healthier and more reliable grid and to deliver meaningful benefits such as improved air quality and good paying jobs.

For the process in California to be successful, we note that communities must be able to lead the way. As many panelists today share, community engagement will be instrumental to the success of offshore wind. But simply naming this will not be enough.

In our work, we've heard directly from local community and tribal leaders that they're interested in engaging in offshore wind development, but that they severely lack the resources and technical expertise. And without these resources, engagement will not be possible, which would lead, very likely lead to major issues, delays or otherwise irresponsible development.

We strongly urge California to choose the path where communities can shape and benefit from offshore wind. And this, this will require various actions, including passing AB 2537 by Assemblymember Addis to ensure there is dedicated funding for community capacity building for offshore wind.

Brightline looks forward to making California to partnering with you all to make California a leader in inclusive and equitable offshore wind development. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Madam Chair, my name is Dan Jacobson with Environment California. We're the sponsors of AB 25 AB and 3. And so really proud and I excited to see this hearing happening. I'm really glad that you started off talking about climate change and the impacts.

And as one of the presenters talked about all the different P's that he had, I wanted to follow up on that mantra. First, power plants.

If we really want to have the impact on climate change that we're talking about, we should talk about closing down the existing fossil fuel power plants as we ramp up the existing clean energy ones. Two is participation. AB 2537 which the brightline speaker just talked about, is a critical Bill.

We've got to see that pass so that local communities have the funds to be able to participate. Three, public education. The latest workforce development report that just came out from the State Lands Commission really focuses that we do not have the workforce to be able to do this.

So I agree we need staging and integration, but if we don't have anybody to build the staging and integration ports, then we're stuck. So we need that three pots of money. Thank you. First of all, I know it's stretching a little bit there, pots of money.

But we need the, you know, thank you for the investment in the climate bond. Now we need to pass that. But also the $45 million has to get out the ground price. Let me just say this. We're talking a lot about price protecting ratepayers. I totally agree. But let's also not forget what the price of inaction is.

The State of California spends billions of dollars every single year because we're stuck in a climate crisis. Goodness gracious. Thank goodness. We have a Bill like AB 2368 which will help protect ratepayers. But there's still more of that, that we need to look at what it happens if we don't do this.

And we've got to think about that as we think about price. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Good afternoon. It's never good to follow Dan Jacobson, Nancy Kirschner Rodriguez with the Ocean Tick Network. And we are a national nonprofit focused on the supply chain and the build out of the supply chain. Our membership is sort of all the people that you had at the table today.

But across the country, we have spent now a decade focusing in on the challenges of building a domestic supply chain. I just want to say today that it is exciting. Thank you so much for having this hearing, for all you and the other Members have done as leaders to move this industry forward.

Knowing how much work that we have ahead, we as an organization are committed to continuing to support that with our policy work and our collaborative efforts.

And I want to really encourage you to celebrate the award that was given to Humboldt and focus in on what else we can, what other creative ways we can put a money together to build out the ports system and the workforce that we're going to need to do this. So thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair. Laura Lane, on behalf of the California Association of Port Authorities. So one of your p's and on behalf of the 11 public ports in California, just thank you for having this hearing today. Thank you for your continued support.

You know, this is going to be an operation that's going to require all of our ports, from staging integration from Humboldt down to San Diego. The ports are ready to step up and be a part of this. So thank you for your leadership and thank you for allowing us to be here today.

Thank you. Well, with that, that concludes the business of today's hearing. I just want to thank everyone again who participated. Thank all of our panelists and very much look forward to continuing this conversation and continuing this work in the months and years ahead. With that, we're adjourned.