Assembly Select Committee on Select Committee on Offshore Wind Energy in California

Welcome. I think we'll start getting started. If you haven't had a chance to use the restroom and you need to, I know a lot of people drove really far. They're right through those doors. Yes. And we are going to start Nakia from the Santa Ynez Chumash is going to do the opening blessing for us.

I'll just go ahead and hold this. Haku. Haku yawa. Welcome, everybody. Welcome to our beautiful Chumash home, our beautiful reservation here in Santa Ynez. And I'm sure you've seen our beautiful coastline as well. That has many special places. Nohale Quail, Kyaki Nasha Chaksi, Maktukyu, Achaia Cho. Great creator, we thank you for this day. We ask you to lead us all on a good path. Great creator, we pray for everybody here and their families and to help us all make good decisions for our future, for our environment. Ho.

Well, first and foremost, thank you to our host, the Santa Ynez Chumash, for having us here. And welcome to everyone. We are going to call the Assembly Select Committee on Offshore Wind together. And just want to appreciate how special it is to be here in Santa Ynez on Chumash land.

And talking about this subject in particular. I also want to thank our panelists, all of whom will be sitting over here at the other table as we go through our four panels. Our Committee Members who, one of them drove 6 hours. So thank you Assembly Member Wood, for making the long trek down.

Assembly Member Zbur wanted to be here as well, but called me today and he is under the weather and so couldn't make it up from his area. But thank you, Assembly Member Hart, for being here, and Assembly Member Bennett is in the audience, but also welcome to join us on the panel if you have questions. And I want to thank Members of the public who are either here in the audience or watching on our streaming.

And then a special thank you to Speaker Rivas, who allowed me to create this select committee and appointed me chair and saw the value in this discussion for our state Legislature, but also for the 40 million Californians who are gonna be invested in this conversation. And it's important that we have these conversations.

So I'm Dawn Addis, and I represent Assembly District 30, which reaches from the Santa Cruz Harbor to the southern San Luis Obispo County line. And I have the honor of representing 20% of California's coast. And now two national marine sanctuaries will be off of our shores.

We're very happy and want to say thank you to the Santa Ynez's Chumash for their work in getting the Chumash sanctuary designated. And then we also represent the Monterey Bay Sanctuary. In addition to that, though, we represent three in my district, three of the five offshore wind leases off of California's coast.

And I would say that all of this is critical, not just for the Central Coast, but the entirety of California and probably our nation and our globe, as we balance the need for conservation and restoration with clean energy development that is vital to our climate action.

And representing that district isn't just an honor, but has really shined a light for me on things we've known for a long time. First and foremost, that the climate is changing and that is because of humans, and that extreme weather is having devastating impacts across our coastal as well as agricultural and other communities.

And we have to press forward. We can't wait any longer. So I'm optimistic that offshore wind can be a part of the solution. And while most of the development will happen in federal waters governed by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, there are a number of key priorities and challenges that we have to address and are addressing at the state level.

And this includes a very long list, including port development, electrical transmission, workforce development, labor agreements, ocean science monitoring, cultural and habitat impacts and mitigation, fisheries impacts, capacity building for local communities and tribes, and many more things I'm sure I haven't mentioned yet.

And I will say that as the sole legislator in California who lives in a city that's directly impacted by offshore wind energy development, the City of Morro Bay, that I understand intimately, that local people who host offshore wind energy development in their communities have to be a valued and integral part of the process.

And so it's why our team worked over the past two years to enhance community capacity building, and we continue to work on those efforts. And it's why we were very proud to be able to allocate urgently needed dollars to the Ocean Protection Council for science monitoring for offshore wind development.

And I think as we go through today, it's helpful to frame where we are now within California's existing actions to address the extremely real and alarming effects of climate change. And I'll start in 2018 with SB 100, which required that eligible renewable and zero carbon resources supply 100% of the total retail sales of electricity to California by 2045. In 21, in preparation for offshore wind energy development, California passed AB 525, and we'll hear a lot about that today.

But that required the CEC or the California Energy Commission to develop a strategic plan around offshore wind and then 2022 was a big year for offshore wind. California established an ambitious goal to power more than 25 million homes with renewable offshore wind energy by 2045, and BOEM leased the five areas off of central and Northern California.

And then in 2024, the offshore wind strategic plan, just this last July, was adopted. 16 million went to the Ocean Protection Council, Coastal Commission, and state lands for permitting and environmental work, and 45 million got allocated that had previously been approved to help with Long Beach port development. I also want to call out a number of policy pieces that happened this last year.

AB 3 from Assembly Members of Zbur that focused on in state Assembly and manufacturing for the offshore wind industry. SB 286 from pro tem McGuire that focused on permitting. SB 867, AKA Prop 4, that contains a potential 475 million to support offshore wind energy activities.

And then AB 2235 by Lowenthal for Port of Long Beach development needs in concurrence with offshore wind development. So it's clear that offshore wind energy in California is moving. Planning is happening, monies are going out the door. There's a lot of energy here.

And as we were chatting before the hearing, someone said, gosh, it's only been a year since some of these last conversations, but it almost feels like 10 years because things are definitely starting to accelerate. And as we go through this, though, I do want to emphasize we have a need, a true need, for accurate, fact based and broadly inclusive information upon which to base decisions.

Why we're here today, the purpose really is to provide a general overview of offshore wind energy, where it falls within California's clean energy needs, and how we can solve some of the challenges posed with offshore wind energy development. We have a lot of conversation around the challenges, but what that means is we can have a lot of conversation around the solutions.

And so we have four panels. The first is going to focus on the AB 525 strategic plan and updates. The second will be a status update from the industry, workforce and the ports. The third panel is around mitigation and impacts. And the fourth panel is around tribal and local community engagement.

And I will say we could have flipped this and started with tribal and local community engagement. I personally think that's one of the most important topics of today. So I encourage you to stay and make sure that you get to hear that panel. And I want to turn this over to my Committee Members before we jump into our first panel, if there's any opening comments you are interested in making.

Well, thank you, Assembly Member Addis. I'm Jim Wood. I represent the North Coast district, the Assembly District 2, where we have two projects, Canopy Offshore Wind and Vineyard Offshore as well. I have a very different, very rugged coastline. Of course, coastline here is rugged as well. But as I'm driving and looking at your coastline, it looks much different than what we see up north, and about 300 miles of coastline there. So a pretty big swath of that.

I'll back up, and as you talk about the legislation that's been important along the way, I'll back up to last year, which was AB 1373, which is a critical piece for this, because without a potential procurement of power, I couldn't foresee anybody making the massive investments that was going to take to even consider moving forward on this.

And so I didn't. We got to get in our own little worlds in the Legislature about the work we do, and then there's people out around at sea. But I went to COP28 last year in Dubai, and I said I was from California at a gathering, at a dinner gathering, and someone said, well, thank you for AB 1373. And I was like, whoa, that was a long ways from home. But that shows you how important that piece of the puzzle was.

And there are obviously a lot of others. We have a port that's a deep water port that has tremendous potential for the assembly piece of this, of the windmills and some manufacturing as well. So we also have an amazing Cal Poly Humboldt and the Schatz Energy Center, which are integral pieces in these projects for everyone.

So thank you for putting this together, Assembly Member Addis. I'm looking forward to the day, and also we'll say that we in my district represent a lot of tribal nations who have very significant concerns around this issue. And so that is a common element for everyone who represents the coast. So thank you.

Well, good afternoon and welcome to the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley. My name is Gregg Hart. I'm the Assembly Member from this district. I am nestled between Assembly Member Bennett and Assembly Member Addis, and we represent the Central Coast, and this is a spectacular place to live.

And we're really grateful to the Chumash people for inviting us today to the reservation to have this hearing to begin this conversation about such an important topic. I want to thank both the colleagues that are here for coming all the way to Santa Barbara to be invested in this conversation about expanding California's renewable energy portfolio.

I'm proud to welcome all of you to my district for this important discussion about how we can harness offshore wind to meet our state's growing energy needs and build a more sustainable future. Over a century ago, just beyond the Santa Ynez Mountains behind us, offshore oil drilling began in Summerland, California.

Flash forward today and we are still dealing with the consequences of not having the foresight to adequately protect our coastal resources. It is a significant challenge to fix the problems that were created in the beginning when people were not as thoughtful and foresightful as hopefully we're going to be today.

And this meeting signifies our commitment to learning from the past and ensuring that we do not make those same mistakes. Together, we're focused on thoughtfully expanding our offshore wind energy sector while making environmental protection a top priority. The Pacific Ocean is the lifeblood of California's economy, supporting everything from recreation and trade to scientific research and commercial fishing.

By intentionally and thoughtfully expanding offshore wind development along our coast, we can further strengthen our blue economy and ensure its viability for generations to come. I'm grateful to stand alongside so many dedicated individuals who are committed to expanding our renewable energy sector while also safeguarding our natural resources. This crucial balance must guide us on our journey toward building a more sustainable planet. Thank you.

So we're going to move into our first panel. It's called AB 525, the Final Report. But it's just, it's about the strategic plan. So as I mentioned, this July, this past July, the CEC adopted the Assembly Bill 525, Offshore Wind Strategic Plan that provides a critical roadmap for responsible development of offshore wind energy while also understanding the impacts to California's biodiversity, workforce, fishing, industry, and local communities.

And the plan was developed with input from numerous agencies, including those that focus on science, ocean energy, lands and more. And our first panelist is Jana Ganion, the Senior Advisor on Offshore Wind Energy to Governor Newsom. And I'm going to share her bio with you because she's new to the position. And we were also very excited because we kept hearing there's an offshore wind czar coming. And so we were all wondering, not to this hearing, but in general, like they're going to have a position, there's going to be somebody that's going to join the team. And so we were wondering, wondering, wondering who is it going to be?

So it is Miss Ganion, who has been Director of Sustainability and Government affairs at the Blue Lake Rancherias since 2004. She's Co Chair of the US Department of Energy, Indian Country Energy and Infrastructure Working Group, and Alternate Director of the Redwood Coast Energy Authority Board of Directors. She is a Member of the PG&E Sustainability Advisory Council, the SB 350 disadvantaged Communities Advisory Group.

The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management California Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Task Force, and the California Integrated Climate Adaptation and Resiliency Program Technical Advisory Council. So welcome Miss Gainon, you have about 10 minutes to talk about the Final Report and give us kind of a status update, and then we'll open up to questions from the panel, from the Committee.

There we go. Better. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me and to the Santa Ynez sovereign nation. Thank you so much for hosting. So let's see here. So my role with the Governor's office and the Newsom Administration is a new one. It was put in place in February of this year, but it's responsive to the scale of offshore wind in the related sectors. As Assemblymember Addis said, it's wind farms, ports, transmission, supply chain, workforce, science, research, technology, innovation, other policies and supports that we need for responsible and equitable development of this new green infrastructure sector.

And in addition, the role is envisioned to support interagency coordination across the many different mandates and missions of those agencies, including, including permitting. I always start with the climate context because I think it grounds us in a particular way. Offshore wind is being developed in service of reaching our decarbonization goals.

Global air and ocean temperatures are shattering records, which is amplifying the volatility in disasters such as floods, hurricanes, drought, wildfires, heat waves, and others. And so this graph shows the atmospheric carbon dioxide, or CO2, a primary greenhouse gas in parts per million for the last 800,000 years. This is NOAA research based on ice core data.

And the top level takeaway here is that the increase in CO2 concentrations over the last 60 years is 100 times faster than any previous natural increase. So we need to accelerate solutions to zero out our greenhouse gas emissions and cool and calm the climate. And that really is a primary context for clean energy development. So AB 525 was adopted July 10 by the California Energy Commission, and it's based on several legislative findings that are listed here. Economic and environmental benefits, climate goals, energy diversity, grid reliability, improvements in air quality and workforce development strategies. From those, I just want to focus in on a couple more in detail.

So offshore wind actually can balance the California grid in key ways. It is almost a completely complementary resource for the solar fleet in California. So offshore wind will produce at night and in the winter. So on a 24/7,365 basis, at any point in time, the generation actually complements the solar fleet and and can help with our grid stress events and can help potentially reduce the need for ultimate amounts of storage and other pieces of the system, which may ultimately help us reduce costs.

The GHG reductions are looking good for offshore wind. So offshore and onshore wind has been studied by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory to have 3% of the greenhouse gas emissions compared to natural gas based electricity generation. So that is a significant comparison. And that doesn't yet take into account the additional greenhouse gas reductions we might achieve through better materials like green steel and zero carbon cement. There is significant equitable socioeconomic benefits that are possible.

Skilled and high, excuse me, skilled and trained, high road jobs, supply chains with guardrails for community safety, improved ports with zero or low emissions, including lower air and water pollution and port electrification, new and expanded electric transmission designed for energy equity benefits and multiple uses like reliability and port electrification.

We have a chance to really focus in on the innovation, science and research. We need to bring new technologies, systems optimization, better permitting, cost reductions to the fore. And innovation, science and research is actually a key part of the regional and state and tribal economic growth in these spaces. Energy and tech innovation is a California and tribal strength, and floating offshore wind space is a new application for these muscles. And then ultimately, the entire suite of infrastructure can be designed for enhanced compatibility. So what were the purposes of the AB 525 strategic plan?

It was to identify suitable sea space, to look at port infrastructure and workforce development needs, to assess and plan for transmission infrastructure, to make recommendations and establish a pathway to a coordinated and efficient permitting process, to identify potential impacts and strategies to address the impacts and effects that offshore wind will have in the environment.

And from the AB 525 strategic plan effort came several working reports, including a permitting roadmap, economic assessments, and an initial port readiness report. And there are a series of recommendations for the state to work from that were crafted from significant input. And it's also a comprehensive overview and a point in time snapshot, a basis for iteration on our strategies going forward. So, because of the potential benefits of offshore wind, California has a planning goal of up to five gigawatts by 2030 and 25 gigawatts by 2045.

As Assemblymember Addis said, this will allow us to power more, probably more than 25 million homes. And a question was asked, what is the updated timeline? As Assemblymember Addis said, the timeline is moving fast and it's resolving as we go forward and develop each of these components. So I just want to talk about this for a minute. The general timeline for development of offshore wind includes, of course, several large scale initiatives, the ports, transmission substation, wind farms, related supply chain manufacturing, and so a couple of details here. For the ports.

The Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District has estimated that its heavy lift staging and integration port for offshore wind will be in operation potentially by 2030. The Port of Long Beach and its pier wind project has estimated that it will be completed by 2030 or 2031. At the same time, the new electric transmission projects in Northern California have been approved by Cal ISO in the 2324 TPP, which is another key achievement in California and are beginning with an in service date of 2034 or before.

And the timeline will also be informed by decisions on decommissioning Diablo Canyon Nuclear Generation in the Central coast, and that will inform how transmission and or substation upgrades are analyzed there, and any that may be needed to bring offshore wind online in that region can be identified. Permitting is part of the timeline, which is a federal and state ecosystem. As was mentioned, the state is actively engaged in coordinated permitting enhancements, and all of this estimates that the first six to 10 gigawatts of offshore wind generation will happen between 2030 and 2035 or so. The or so has an asterisk.

Timelines will also be influenced by federal policy, of course. So federal permitting supports federal partnerships on research and analysis, tax credits related programs in the Inflation Reduction Act and other laws will influence the timelines in California. So very quickly, I'll speed it up here. Many of you already know this. The first five floating offshore wind leases are underway. Together, these can generate up to 10 gigawatts of power. And the leases were fully executed really just over a year ago in June of 2023. Five separate developers, all of which have been actively engaging in the California offshore wind space.

This is a really important slide just to get the Venn diagram, but also the sheer scale of what we are building here, and that many of these things must move forward in concert to develop the market and be cost effective. So the wind farms, offshore transmission, onshore and offshore ports of various sizes and operational focus, the science, research and data, the technology and design innovation, manufacturing and supply chains, and of course, the workforce. Together, these industries and innovations and activities total tens of billions of dollars in economic growth and opportunities.

And I just want to say that globally there's over 450 gigawatts of offshore wind and development, and it's estimated that 50% to 80% of that will be floating systems. So this is California. It seems like sort of we're out here on the West Coast alone, but this is a part of a very well developed global market that is on the move. But California is positioned to be a key leader in the floating offshore wind space.

And other states like New York, are also looking at their second sort of iteration of offshore wind, considering floating systems as well. So California being in the lead on the technology, the capacity, the engagement, and all of the pieces of this is important. And as we work on this, we also need the essential supports, power procurement strategies.

As Assemblymember Wood mentioned, people, power, labor and workforce, related hard infrastructure such as broadband, and related social infrastructure such as worker housing, healthcare and childcare are all a part of this development. Just a couple more slides. I won't read everything here, but just to know that obviously we're the very well aware that with potential benefits come potential risks and concerns.

Some common concerns around potential effects and impacts are listed here, and thanks to federal, state and tribal regional science and research partners, the questions and research agenda are being considered and shaped, and there is a focus on the data gathering we need to address these concerns, make data driven decisions, and have the information to adapt over time.

As Assemblymember Hart mentioned, we need to really get out in front of these concerns and questions this time around so that we don't make the mistakes of the past and repeat them. California is making progress. This is a photo or an image of the California Electrical Grid and with the five least offshore wind lease areas depicted on it. As I mentioned, Cal ISO approved its 23/24 transmission plan, which includes two large projects, transmission projects to connect offshore wind farms in the north.

The updated 20 year transmission outlook is published as well, and this is a really important long lead time planning document. Port development activities are underway in Humboldt and Long Beach, as I mentioned, and a couple of pieces on that one the California Energy Commission's Offshore Wind Waterfront Facility Improvement Program.

This is a $42 million grant program that was designed in AB 209. The application is published and the application window is open. The deadline is November 22 and the notice of of proposed awards are estimated to be published in December. Ecosystem adaptive management activities and permitting activities are moving forward and the California Public Utilities Commission is working on the central procurement implementation, the processes they need to operationalize AB 1373. And then looking forward a bit the workforce and supply chain development.

The supply chain report called for in AB 3, which analyzes bringing on board 50% to 65% of the offshore wind assembly and manufacturing supply chain for offshore wind in California. That study kicks off right after the first of the year. Although the work plan is being developed now and it's due by 2027, we're going to try to bring that in earlier than that. And then, as was mentioned, Proposition 4, if voters decide, we'll include $475 million for certain port upgrades. And then, last but not least, looking out, we need to implement the strategic plan.

The work on coordinated permitting is one of the policy recommendations from the strategic plan, and the activities on that include a multi agency engagement on the BOEM Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. We're convening an interagency coordinated permitting working group to take the recommendations from AB 525 and develop coordination structures.

This will, I know this is an important point to many in the room, so I just want to go into some detail here really quickly. We are going to deeply review and analyze the structure and approaches outlined in AB 525. These are structures that worked well, but they were used five to 10 years ago, so we need to brush those off, make sure that they will work in this application. We will incorporate SB 286 and the CEQA lead agency role of the State Lands Commission. We'll incorporate the applications of the CEC's opt in licensing process.

We will incorporate the policy and frameworks from build.ca.gov, the Infrastructure Strike Team, and we will review other project by project based support such as joint review panels and state advisory teams for technical assistance and dispute resolution. And we are going to continue to explore partnerships with federal structures such as the FAST-41 permitting dashboard. Efficient and robust permitting is always the goal, and we're hard at work on it. And then lastly, the round two wind energy auction from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management is estimated to happen in 2028.

That means the planning starts now. It's already underway with certain pre meetings, but it will kick off in earnest in 2025. That will be led by BOEM, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. But California will have obviously a critical role, and the tribal nations will have a critical role in that as well. So I think I'm over time. So I'm going to skip here. Is that my last. No, this is my last slide. Okay.

So just very quickly, I think it's really probably appropriate to just talk in brief about the federal nexus for offshore wind related policies and programs, and how crucial these are really to developing the offshore wind responsibly and with the required research, science, data and capacity, with federal funding and other supports.

So these are a few illustrative examples of federal policy and programs. There's the US Department of Energy's Floating Offshore Wind Shot. This is key because it seeks to reduce the cost of offshore wind by 70% by 2035. And they're doing that through a series of investments in research and technologies. A lot more to come on that. The Offshore Wind Commercial Liftoff looks at. Workforce and supply chain. DOE has already done significant analysis and needs to do more, and we look forward to partnering with them as we do the AB 3 supply chain study. But this is developing strategies for onshoring the supply chain for offshore wind.

There's also an inclusive transmission planning project. So this is from the DOE. It's being managed by Pacific Northwest National Labs and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. And it seeks to incorporate much more of the downscaled grid needs of tribal nations, regions and communities in the transmission planning process in ways that really, I don't think have ever been done before.

There's the Department of Energy's West Coast Offshore Wind Transmission Study that looks at the entire western grid and how offshore wind is going to be integrated, potentially benefit that grid. And then just this week, the National Transmission Planning Study was published. This addresses how strategic transmission corridors can reduce the cost of our energy systems.

And there's some really promising findings in there about investments now saving system costs over time. So I'll wrap by saying it's not lost on anyone that we have just completed one of the largest dam removals ever on the Klamath River, even as we are contemplating building these next round of big systems. There are key differences here, but we know we need to stay humble and we need to really work together to have the data we need for fact based decision making in this space.

Offshore wind energy related climate and infrastructure transition sectors do provide opportunities to front load these considerations, study the impacts so we can avoid the boom and bust cycles and craft the economy and energy and ecological systems that we want. So thank you so much for, for letting me join this panel, and I will wrap it there. Thank you.

Thank you, Miss Ganion, and appreciate the comprehensive explanation of where things are at now. It's super, super helpful. I do have a couple questions, and I'm sure the other Committee Members do as well. You made a brief comment right at the beginning, but I hear about this all the time, so I wanted to ask, you mentioned that wind plus solar plus storage has potential to reduce cost. Can you talk a little bit more about how that might work on the ratepayer side?

I think we need analysis here. What I meant, what that comment is referring to is that if you have complementary sources of electrical generation 24/7, and you're going to potentially need less balance of system infrastructure if the generation is performing in a much more balanced way. That is not. So there's system costs which impact ratepayer costs, of course. And the National Transmission Plan that was just published is kind of an example of the analysis that we need to keep doing for our entire energy sector.

Offshore wind is sort of a catalyst for these things, but really, it's the entire energy system that we're looking at, where we look at what are the investments that we need to make now that will be much more cost effective 10, 20, 30 years from now. And so we're getting at some of that analysis, and some of it's already being done as a matter of just standard planning by Cal ISO and the California Energy Commission and the Public Utilities Commission. But some of it, I think, can be, some analysis can be added to get us more accurate details around costs over the long term.

Thank you. And then could you expand briefly on your comment around Diablo decommissioning, playing into transmission and sort of needs? It's quite the topic on the central coast, as you know.

Yep. So maybe I'll just. Can I go back? Oh, anyway, if you look at the electrical grid, there are very large transmission lines going out to Morro Bay and Diablo Canyon. And so just very simply, the, if Diablo Canyon is decommissioned, then the capacity on those lines frees up and the capacity at the points of interconnection at Diablo Canyon might be able to be utilized for offshore wind interconnection.

Thank you, and I'll turn it to my Committee Members. If you have any questions, you're welcome to ask them.

Yeah, just briefly. So when I think of transmission and distribution, certainly in our district in the north coast, we've been particularly challenged there. And as we move to electrification of pretty much everything, transmission is a huge, huge challenge. So I suspect that some of the companies may get a chance to comment on this later. But I am curious, East Coast versus West Coast, how long does it take to permit, site and build transmission on the East Coast versus what happens here?

And while we look at the 525 plan and now Cal ISO has a plan, typically my understanding is it can take anywhere up to 12 plus years to permit, build, or permit site and build transmission. So that makes it 2036. That's outside the 2030 window by a bit. So is there something we're looking at to accelerate that? You talked about coordination, but that's going to require significant coordination to do that.

So knowing that that's what happens on the land based side typically throughout the process, and there is some, I know PUC, CEC and Cal ISO are working together, but no one's ever answered to me and I'm not going to put you on the spot there, but no one's ever answered me. The collaborative efforts of that. What is the hope, what is the target as far as how much time that efficiency will hopefully, hopefully lead to? So I'm curious, from the offshore wind perspective on the transmission side, because certainly in the humble call area, there isn't transmission to capacity even close at this point. So anyway, that's a long question, but you know where I'm going.

I do know where you're going, and I really do wish I had an answer. I don't. What I can say is that, you know, the timeline for permitting transmission in particular is, is an issue that the federal, you know, the Federal Government is wrestling with it. It's definitely something that everybody has top of mind. And I think the MOU between the independent system operator, the Public Utilities Commission and the Energy and the Cal ISO, CEC and CPUC is the basis for working on these issues. And I think that, that everyone understands that as a priority.

I also think that it dovetails with the new regulations coming out of FERC, the FERC Order 1920, and then there's also a federal permitting Bill. I mean, we'll see where it goes. But there's a federal permitting Bill that is moving right now that actually looks at transmission permitting and does things like put FERC in a sort of a lead agency role. So kind of tightens up the federal side of permitting, which will help. And.

But I think it's on a backdrop too, of the value proposition of transmission is often just so multifaceted. Certainly on the north coast, this is absolutely the case. The existing transmission there is about sized for about half the base load. So they are. I live in Arcata, so this is my home. I can speak from the heart on this. So, you know, we are faced with a single point of failure for that entire region. That is a natural gas coastal gas plant that is under significant vulnerability for seismic tsunami, sea level rise and groundwater inundation, among other issues.

So I think the value proposition around transmission factors in here to the discussion that we're all having. And it helps when we can layer certain benefits onto those projects, including energy equity for regions and communities and tribal nations, because then it really is a no or low regrets investment. And that helps get everybody moving a little bit faster on it.

And just to follow up, if you don't mind, thank you for that answer, and especially the last part, there are tribal nations in our district who don't have electricity today. And that is shocking. And the inequity that goes with that and the challenges people face because of that. So just kind of in the transmission. And the reason I keep going back, I'll go back to the transmission. I won't probably later, but I had a chance to visit the UK earlier this year in Inverness, and they are there. They were building and installing these massive wind turbines, and yet they were still struggling with the transmission piece.

Yeah.

And so it's not just a US problem. It's not an East Coast, West Coast. It's a worldwide problem. And so I am not, nor would I ever advocate that we bypass any CEQA or anything like that. What I'm looking for is more potential efficiency within the things that we need to do to protect the environment, protect the quality of the environment. So one of the things - now I'm leaving the Legislature in about 40 days. So it's like not my issue anymore, but I care. And that's why I drove here to be here today.

So I would have hope that between the Administration and the developers that some things could come forward. What needs to happen to help in the process here? Because the legislators don't know. And so what needs to happen to really make this thing tick? And so we've seen things over the years like 1373 was a big deal. There's other things, but there are other things. And so my hope is that, that the Administration will. They can do. They have levers we don't have in the Legislature, obviously, but the plea is to the developers and other community stakeholders as well. What do they need to make this comfortable and make it work for everyone?

And I also think that in my experience, very short experience so far, that how we do transmission is in the West. Let's just kind of put that lens over it. We still need to get our federal, state and tribal government entities more, you know, set a few tables for discussions about how transmission is really going to be solved. And I think that the, this is why I point to the DOE's good work, is that I think both from the National Transmission Plan, there's national transmission corridors and the national interest, there's an effort there, but this inclusive transmission planning project. So those, those three things are really indicative of how seriously the Federal Government's taking it. And I know that we're taking it seriously at the state as well.

And seeing that was encouraging. I was not as aware of some of these studies going on with the DOA. And a final thing, and just. I'm done. I just want to say to the audience how fortunate we are to have Jana in this role. I've got to meet her 11, maybe years ago, so when I was running for this office, this is a big deal, having her there and engaged in this process. So thank you.

Well, it's wonderful to have you here. I appreciate you coming such a long way. One of the elements of the report that we had in front of us for the Committee that got my attention is the reference to the fact that most of the offshore wind energy projects in the world are in shallower waters. And so we're doing a different technology here in California. We're going to have those platforms tethered to the ocean floor and they're gonna be floating. And the reference to the need for technological advances in that system in order to meet the state goals gave me pause.

There's a lot of elements of we're building the plane as we're flying it, to the permitting, to the transmission issues that Assemblymember Wood mentioned. But that caught my attention. How extensive is that? Is that a big issue? How can we be confident that the technology will exist?

I think we can be confident. The developers are really doing an extraordinary job. And this is not, this is a new sort of combination of technologies, but it's not new engineering. So a lot of the engineering comes from the offshore floating oil and gas, you know, giant oil and gas rigs and that sector. So I think we're already seeing a lot of technology innovation. I think what, because this is a scale up of several, like almost - Molly will know, but there are several pilot scale floating projects around the world. Knock on Wood. Most of those have gone very well, and in terms of energy production, have exceeded sort of the estimates.

But, you know, the engineering has, has held up the. So in terms of the core technological concepts, there is great comfort there. The need for ongoing technological support and advancement is more around, in my understanding so far is more around standardization of designs, making sure that we have the proper equipment to understand how these systems are functioning in the environment. So technologies to monitor the mooring cables for secondary entanglement risk, for example.

So when derelict fishing gear gets wrapped around a cable, how do we detect that and how do we, how do we address it? So it's those kinds of things. It's sort of the ecological ecosystem, adaptive management technologies, plus how the industry sort of works with the governments to standardize and make sure that everything is safe and well understood. And then also that standardization obviously helps inform the supply chain, manufacturing, workforce development side of things, too. So it's new in the scale up, but it builds on several very mature sectors.

Well, that's very encouraging. And it also kind of highlights the challenge that we have locally in balancing resource protection with advancing technology to make sure that we get it right and that there are not unanticipated environmental impacts to marine life and coastal resources. So it's an important topic and it would be great to have information from the pilot programs around the world and what they're learning as fast as they can to disseminate that into our communities, too, so that local stakeholders are informed and knowledgeable about the issues, the opportunities and the challenges as well.

Thank you so much, Miss Ganion. Incredibly informative. I'm sure. We could talk with you all day, but we've promised to get people out of here about at 4:30 - 4:45. And so we're going to move on to our next panel, panel two. And as you're coming up, and I'm talking about this, we'll invite Molly Croll, Suzy Watkins, and our third speaker, who's going to walk on up while I'm looking for your name amongst all my papers, Mark Simonin, who is one of my close friends from San Luis Obispo County.

These three experts represent diverse fields, including offshore wind, energy development, port infrastructure, and workforce training. They're going to share their experiences with the status of the offshore wind industry. And again, even though so much of this is happening in federal waters, there's a lot happening on the state side. Each panelist has 10 minutes, and we'll ask you if you can do a hard stop at 10 minutes so that we do have time for questions and make sure that we get through our entire informational hearing today. But speaker one. And we'll hold our questions till the end. But speaker one is Molly Kroll from American Clean Power.

She is the American Clean Power Pacific Offshore Wind Director and leads ACP California's offshore focused policy and regulatory advocacy, and collaborates with ACP's partners to advance offshore wind opportunities in the Pacific Northwest. And it's also her 10th anniversary today that she's sharing with us. So thank you, and I'll just tell you who the other two speakers are, and then I'll let you sort of move through your presentations. The second speaker is Susy Watkins, harbor Director for the Port of San Luis. And Miss Watkins previously served in local government as a Deputy Director for the County of Ventura for nearly 20 years, which you don't look old enough to have two careers like that.

But the ports and waterfront facilities, as we all know, are essential for developing the offshore wind industry. And so we're excited for your presentation. And our speaker three is Mark Simonin from IBEW Local 639. And we know that creating an offshore wind energy industry requires diversely skilled folks, including technicians, trades, construction, assembly, maritime, and port workers, engineers, management, administrative, and clerical.

And Mark really has his finger on the pulse of what this means for the central coast. And so he is the business manager, as I mentioned, for IBEW Local 639 in San Luis Obispo. And, Molly, we'll start with you, and then when you're done with your presentation, we'll go on to Suzy and then on to Mark, and then open for questions. And so you have about 10 minutes each.

Okay, well, thank you. First, want to thank the Santa Ynez tribe for having us in this beautiful location, and thank you to the chair for inviting me to speak. So, I come from American Clean Power Association. We are a nationwide Clean Energy Trade Association. In California, we have 20 developers across diverse technologies, but we're also proudly home to a council of the first five offshore wind leaseholders. Oh, I gotta remember to do this. So, first off, as we talked about, you know, the technology, offshore wind is wind energy. So we have 151 gigawatts of wind energy in the US.

Right now, and from the ground up or the sea level up, the technology is the same. We're just making turbines larger. Floating technology is relatively new. It's sort of the latest evolution as we're moving from land into the sea. Fixed bottom is the first we have. I'll talk about the developments on the East Coast. But offshore, floating offshore also has some unique components. So a floating foundation, which you'll see this sort of yellow there that the turbine sits upon, connected via cables and anchors. Sorry, mooring lines and anchors to affix it to a spot on the seafloor.

There'll be cables that connect the energy produced by a turbine to a offshore substation, which could be floating like that, or it could be semi submersible, or even subsea. And then an export cable that'll take the energy to shore. The why of offshore wind? Miss Ganion, and also the Chair, spoke about climate change. It's the fundamental why we have our SB 100 goal of achieving clean energy, 100% clean energy, in the next two decades. And offshore wind has a very unique production profile. So this top left graphic here is how offshore wind performs across the day. You'll see it looks a lot like the duck curve, which is load minus solar.

So that performance is very helpful to our ability to decarbonize. It also means having decarbonization, also means ability to mitigate emergencies and have reliability. Today, we rely on gas infrastructure for a lot of that reliability in the system. But gas has consequences, not just climate change, but local air pollution. So offshore wind is an opportunity to help phase out those resources. With the clean energy transition, we also want want to bring economic development and job creation to the State of California.

So studies from AB 525 have found that 25 gigawatts of offshore wind could create 8000 jobs in a peak year, with roles in things like installation, operations, manufacturing and maintenance. These will involve multiple different trades across building projects and then associated infrastructure. There'll be jobs in port construction, jobs in transmission development. It'll also stimulate local economic development and provide an opportunity to revitalize local communities. One stat, a recent study from ACP, nationally estimates that the offshore wind industry will yield 65 billion in investment in the US by 2030.

Okay, I'm going to keep talking. The other why of offshore wind is. Oh, thank you. Okay. Still not. Oh, there we go. Oh. Okay. Sorry. Finicky apologies. Is about conservation. So California will need about 150 gigawatts of new clean energy capacity by 2045. A big majority of that will be solar and batteries. But that gets harder. Land use siting permitting gets harder and harder as the easiest sites are used up.

The chart over here with the bars is a study by energy innovation showing that nationwide, if the US invests in sort of a maximum quantity of offshore wind, the total direct footprint on land and water of clean energy infrastructure is lower. So in that way, offshore wind is a conservation strategy. California, of course, has its 30 x 30 conservation goals. And building offshore wind, which is outside the coastal zone, can support that goal. And finally, offshore wind can yield even beneficial effects.

So this picture here is what we call the reef effect, where if you put something in an empty sea space where there usually isn't any infrastructure, marine life can thrive there. This is a picture from the coastal Virginia offshore wind project on the East Coast. Floating offshore wind industry is where the US can lead. So we talked about the East Coast leading on fixed bottom. It's true there are 63 gigawatts in active development on the East Coast, including 15 gigawatts that are under contract and about 174 megawatts. So starting to be coming online in operation. But floating is where the US can lead.

We are really not far behind the US or the EU and Asia. And the floating offshore wind market will be bigger than the fixed bottom. There's more deep sea areas where floating offshore wind can be built than there are areas for fixed bottom. The industry as a whole is projected to grow up to 300 gigawatts by 2050. And California could lead supplying components if it builds up its manufacturing sufficiently to other areas internationally. Let's skip this on the leases, because we covered that. Tentative timeline, these projects are at the beginning. Yes, things have been speeding up lately, but they're at the beginning of a long timeline, about 12 years.

These bubbles are a bit vague, and as Doctor Wood and Miss Ganion spoke about, dependent on infrastructure that offshore wind developers are not directly responsible for transmission and ports. So subject to change. But with the idea of moving along this path toward energization around 2035, in this early stage of project development, leaseholders have been doing a lot of community and tribal engagement. This is an activity that takes time, is about building relationships and having many conversations. Companies have hired community representatives and tribal liaisons to facilitate that.

Some of this engagement is per lease requirements, things like having a fishing communications plan and an agency communications plan and a tribal communications plan. But a lot of it is about spending time, software investment in local institutions, and events that give the opportunity for companies to get to know people in communities and hear what they think about offshore wind, what they want, what they're worried about.

So these include things like early labor partnerships, participation in the Pacific Offshore Wind Consortium, sponsorship of commerce programs at the San Luis Obispo Chamber, scholarship of captain's courses in Humboldt Bay, sponsoring indigenous science camps with Cal Poly Humboldt, volunteering at Project Surf camp in Morro Bay, attending powwows and hosting vessel tours for state government and tribes to learn about surveys.

The other big activity for 2024 is the start of site investigations by three of the leaseholders. That's Golden State Wind, RWE's Canopy Offshore Wind, and Equinor's Atlas Wind Project. There are two primary survey types of, broadly speaking, happening right now, geological, which is about assessing what's happening on the sea floor, where you might put a cable or you might put anchors.

So, you know, that's, it may be something people don't know, developers didn't know what was going on in the seafloor or really what that ocean space looked like when they bid for it at auction. So that's just a get to know what you bought activity. And then biological surveys are learning about the presence of species, habitats, fish. The technology in this activity can include autonomous vessels, remote operated vessels. Here's a picture, thank you, Equinor, that shows some of these activities and bed thick survey equipment impacts are mitigated through the use of protected species observers, vessel speed restrictions, clearance zones, among other things.

There have been some questions along the way about the impacts from surveys themselves, which do generate some sound, but these sounds are not expected to adversely affect marine mammals, fish, or turtles, as concluded by the Coastal Commission. I'm going to skip this because I'm talking about all the other things quickly. Okay, so on to ports.

In terms of ports, offshore wind developers are primarily focused on seeking state support and helping to support the port of Humboldt and the port of Long Beach, who have proposed to develop multipurpose terminals for offshore wind that include staging and integration as well as manufacturing. Those are really the two locations we could do staging integration.

There's opportunities for manufacturing ports, ports that could fabricate and then transport components that are too big to go by road or rail elsewhere. That's the blue dots in this image here. And then the last type of port, which I'm sure Suzy's gonna talk about, is manufacturing. That's a smaller footprint, kind of more like on a two to 10 acre scale, as compared to the 100 plus, which is required for staging integration, and manufacturing. Why we're so focused on staging and iteration ports is because you cannot build offshore wind without these facilities. So here's some good pictures of what has to happen here.

These ports, also known as assembly ports, have to assemble components right at port side and then be able to tow out each turbine to its ultimate location within a wind farm. So that requires a facility that has proper lay down space, proper water depth clearance. You can't go under bridges as well as wharf strength. And Miss Ganion mentioned the exciting programs that are cut off in this version. But the exciting program at the CEC offering 36 million specifically for staging integration facilities and the port and waterfront program. And then, of course, the much larger opportunity that Prop 4 could bring. On permitting.

I could talk a lot about this, but I'll try to be very quick. This is to show offshore wind is going to be a very heavily regulated industry. It certainly is on the East Coast, in California, probably even more so. We'll have dozens of permits per project as projects are in federal waters, but have infrastructure that goes into state waters and into the coastal zone will be regulated through both state and federal and tribal authorities. The Federal Government has primary authority over the wind farm itself.

It'll do NEPA, the State Lands Commission will do CEQA, that sort of triggers triggered by their state tide lands lease. But in looking at that area, they'll also look outward into the sea to examine the impacts of the whole of the project. The other big player will be the Coastal Commission, which has the responsibility to consider a coastal development permit for cable and other infrastructure and construction activities within the coastal zone. And then we'll also look at federal consistency with the Coastal Zone Management Act. Though these are some of the major permitting activities.

California tribes and other state and federal agencies will also have a very important role. And given all this, the offshore wind industry is seeking a coordinated process for permitting where application and data requirements are clear ahead of time. There's an opportunity for concurrent reviews. There's shared commitment across agencies to timelines and a process for conflict resolution or workshopping issues across agencies and directly with the developer. This is an approach that was put forward in the AB 525 plan, but will, of course, require sufficient budget and staffing and also an ongoing investment, as the Chair mentioned to science.

While you're on that slide, what is BSEE?

BSEE. That's the Bureau of Safety and Environmental - Safety Standards and Enforcement. There you go. Thank you. You just say BSEE all the time.

So it's a federal - I've never heard of that.

Yeah, it's a federal agency under DOI, and there is a whole rulemaking called the modernization rule where basically going on a going forward basis, BOEM will be responsible for permitting project instruction, and then they'll pass on the compliance, like making sure projects keep their safety and keep up to their commitments over to BSEE once projects are operational.

Central procurement, I think I will skip this because I'm probably running out of time. And Doctor Wood spoke about how important that legislation was. We were also very happy to see the decision by the PUC this August authorizing central procurement of up to 7.6 gigawatts of offshore wind transmission. A couple of highlights. This May, the Cal ISO approved its the first upgrades for 1.6 gigawatts of offshore wind from the Humboldt area. This is a very important first step, but it is the first step.

We need transmission capacity for the full 10 gigawatts of capacity from all five lease areas, which means additional transmission development from the north coast and in the central coast, studying and really approving upgrades that could facilitate offshore wind and looking at what's needed with and without Diablo Canyon. And finally, people. Beyond the near term community engagement I shared, there's a lot to do longer term, to make sure that offshore wind benefits and responds or addresses the concerns of local people.

Tribal engagement is, of course, very important, not just government to government consultations, but also direct partnerships with offshore wind developers to promote their interests and needs. The 7C process is a statewide offshore wind industry fishing working group to develop template agreements for mitigation of potential impacts to the fishing industry from offshore wind.

All five developers are actively participating in this multi year process. Capacity building means funding communities and tribes to engage in offshore wind planning and evaluation, and that's something that needs to be happening now and something we think is very important and offshore wind developers are working on.

Community benefits agreements are, of course, part of the conversation that's inclusive but not limited to the 52 million committed for investment in both general and lease area use. Community benefits agreements and will be a very important element of projects themselves. And then more generally, long term partnerships with local business labor tribes are high priority and essential to project success. And I'll stop there. Thank you.

Great. It's your turn, Suzy.

All right. Thank you. I appreciate the Select Committee convening on the central coast on this topic that is important to all of us here. I also want to acknowledge and appreciate the San Diego Chumash for welcoming us to your home. As mentioned, I am Suzy Watkins. I am the Port San Luis Harbor Director. I am also the immediate past Chair of the California Marine Affairs and Navigation Consortium. That is a statewide network of waterfront facilities from the largest commercial harbors and ports down to these smaller recreational and subsistence facilities.

And we are going to need, most of us to accomplish the ambitious goals that we've set forth. As discussed in the AB 525 strategic plan, that support network will provide a variety of functions, and those also will serve as the landside economic hubs for the regional economic benefits that we're going to recognize statewide under optimal conditions.

Starting with, as mentioned previously, the staging integration, these large commercial facilities that build and deploy the turbines, as well as operations and maintenance ports that service the units once they're installed, and manufacturing and fabrication locations distributed throughout the state to help supply all of those other locations.

Multiple ports up and down the state are standing ready to join into this process at various points. We are still fairly early on, but the train is moving and we are picking up speed. Staging and integration are literally the heaviest lift to bring online. They have significant engineering and investment requirements and so they are a key pivot point to move the entire process forward, as Molly referenced. However, the minute you start staging integration, you put something in the water.

You need operations and maintenance coming right behind it, and you need to be ramping up those manufacturing and supply chain to reach our 2045 goal full capacity. The ports and harbors are not needed all at once. There are a number of initial candidates identified and a number of my colleagues are evaluating how and where they fit in this and looking at when is the appropriate time for them to get engaged. An important criteria I think we've heard before, and probably we'll hear again today, is funding.

This is a big, big initiative for all of us. Really appreciate the work and advocacy from the state. AB 209 and all the other legislation that's been passed and is still under discussion. They're all important to help move this forward on the AB 209 funding, a significant portion of that funding is being utilized to help move Long Beach and Humboldt forward, and there is significant interest from other agencies in that remaining smaller pool of funding, particularly for the O&M manufacturing facilities.

But we will need additional funding and supplemental funding to move the network forward. For Port San Luis, in particular, our Harbor Commission has been very deliberate and fact based in their evaluation of this. We are in the process of conceptual and feasibility studies. We're fortunate as a smaller agency to have public private partnership as well as some state support to coordinate those initial studies.

The County of San Luis Obispo received a state allocation to fund a regional planning and feasibility study. That is a top down, general drilling down into specifics to support, and we have additional funding to support public outreach and community engagement in that effort. We also are fortunate to be cooperating with clean energy terminal who are interested specifically in operations and maintenance facility in the San Luis Obispo Bay. They are conducting a bottom up technical study concurrently with the county's feasibility study.

So between those two assessments, we are looking to have some good information both to communicate for the public discussion and engagement, as well as for our board to make decisions going forward. But we are an example of how critical capacity building is to permit smaller agencies and tribal governments to participate and engage in creating that robust statewide network that we're looking for in this effort. So what are needed and helpful to move forward, first of all, is to continue along the path.

As I mentioned, a number of important and useful steps have been taken, but we need to keep moving forward. The ports and offshore wind developers are engaging in multibillion and multimillion dollar projects, and to start with, there is no clear pathway to long term revenue to support that level of investment. Actions that reduce the speculative element help reduce system costs, as well as accelerate the timeline and help us reach that 2030 and 2045 goal. That includes financial support for early stage port development on the large projects as well as capacity building for small agencies.

There are also federal project funding streams such as port infrastructure development and RISI, that help support projects across the country, including California, and that all rolls into the private level of funding. Increasing the regulatory predictability, planning, permitting, entitlement are also very speculative and involve significant investment to move the project to shovel ready. We do appreciate the steps taken to date to clarify the roles of the state agencies and give us a path to work through in this process. Procurement is a significant item for developers. I think you've heard about that. And if the developers can't go, neither can the ports because we are a system that work together.

Predictability also includes BOEM's announcement earlier this year to continue identifying additional lease areas along with the global deployment of offshore wind. Those help increase market demand, which again help support that reliable and efficient supply chain to move all of us forward together, increasing the reliability and predictability for those development decisions.

Reducing risk stabilizes the market, increases investor interest and reduces costs, which ultimately helps reduce costs for the taxpayers and ratepayers. Clear timelines and early investment in critical projects encourages the private investment. And in summary, this is not simply a state, federal, or local government issue, and it's not public or private. It's cooperative and collaborative exercise. And ideally, we all win. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Mark Simonin. I'm the business manager for IBEW Local 639 in San Luis Obispo. We'd like to thank the Assemblymembers, Addis, Wood and Hart, for hosting us here, as well as the Chumash. We appreciate the opportunity in the seat at the table, some of the comments that we've heard. Fact based. We want to be fact based. I'm always. I'm always curious how we end up on some of these panels, but my factually base for me is I'm an electrician. I represent electrical workers. We do have a broad view of maybe what the construction work picture is in our area and the availability of a workforce.

And I do think maybe that's why I'm here. We're very fortunate in San Luis Obispo County and in our area to be energy leaders, and we have done that over decades. I'm a third generation energy person myself, with Diablo Canyon in my background, as well as my father and I have nieces and nephews that participate as well. San Luis Obispo, we did the largest utility scale solar in the world at one point. We were able to pool our resources and get some of those projects to a successful deadline. Diablo Canyon was the same. We built all that right in our area.

And now we're staring down at this offshore wind, which is another substantial construction engagement. We feel we're up to the task, and I can speak for the electrical workers, the IBEW. We're heavily invested in the wind economy. We reference our folks over on the East Coast. We have deliberate meetings with our partners. We understand what it's going to take to get these things built. Our concerns, there are no problems. We have. We see a lot of friends in the, in the audience. We know just about everybody. We, you know, we've all had conversations.

We look forward to coming to agreements that we are going to use the local workforce, community benefits agreements. We go one step further. Community workforce agreements. We're awful anxious to get some parameters laid down. We have been in negotiations with some of the developers, but we do think that's a critical component to move forward.

We need to have assurances when we talk about workforce development, that that's where it has to start. And these aren't, this isn't the first large scale project we've been involved in - that we will be involved in. We know things take time. It does surprise us locally how long it does take. Personally, I think a community workforce agreement would be the first thing I would do as a developer to make sure that we're moving forward and we have the support from the local community. We can project out - I was talking to the Assemblywoman Addis, prior to this engagement about work opportunities and developing a workforce.

We need to start that now. I mean, we talked about different numbers delivering power by 2035, when the construction would start, the port construction. But we're going to need qualified workers for all that. And we do have structures with a lot of the labor unions, the IBEW included. We do have in place a mechanism to migrate people.

The jobs do get built, but that does take away from your local community. So if we're not prepared, if we don't have assurances that if we're not starting X amount of new folks, new apprentices to continue on with their careers, we could fall short. We will - and then we're going to have, we would have to import personnel, which, it happens, it happens on large scale projects. But with these projects that we have such of a lead time, I would think that would be unnecessary.

We do have, we've been very fortunate to have the support of the State Administration as well as our Federal Administration to move forward with project labor agreements, community workforce agreements. They seem to be a good fit. I mean, our contractor base seems to adhere very well to the, to the standards. And we look, we do look forward to it. That's, I try to distain with our conversation with the electrical workers, but I know a broader discussion with multi craft. The building trades in general are very supportive. The building trades will step up. All the crafts will be there. They're all, they will all be engaged with these agreements.

And it's important that we consider our next generation of construction workers. We do have conversations locally. I was discussing it with a lady earlier today, construction workers in particular. These aren't 20 year jobs for us, and that's not our expectation. We have had some pushback on some local officials telling us there's not much work there for the construction worker. There is a lot of work here for the construction worker up and down the coast.

There will be a lot of opportunities for the next generation to get started, the next craftspeople to get on these career paths, these high road jobs. Our apprentices have healthcare, they have pensions. They are on the pathway to a living wage. There will be opportunities. I don't think they should be overlooked. Whether it's building the O&M ports, any of the infrastructure that's going to be onshore, any of the support structures that will help, that is what our members will be doing.

But in whole, I'd like to. I'm trying to get us back on time too. I think we ran a little bit long. So we're here to support. We're here, we have the apprenticeships, we have the infrastructure. We've installed a lot of onshore wind. We've installed a lot of offshore wind on the East Coast and we are poised to be very successful moving forward with this industry.

Thank you. My colleague just said thank you, Mark, when he said to get us back on time. So I will certainly be short on my questions. As you know, we did quite a bit of work last year in the area of capacity building. And I'm just wondering, both for Miss Croll and Miss Watkins, as well as Mister Simonin, if somebody was to ask you what is capacity building, what would they see? What would they understand that to be in each of your perspectives? And then what kind of timelines are you thinking about when you say, we need capacity building?

Sure, I can start. Thank you for the question. So offshore wind developers think about capacity building as providing resources to the communities in and around offshore wind projects and to tribes that are in and around offshore wind projects. And it's resources for their time. So compensating people to show up and participate in conversations, participate in meetings, review plans, it's also resources so people can hire expertise that they trust to review plans. And help evaluate science or do science that they're comfortable with.

So resources, it's really giving people the money that they need to participate and even the ability to hire people or compensate people for their time. And it's needed now because a lot of that work is needed upfront so that both communities and tribes can come to the table with developers to talk about community benefits agreements.

So capacity building happens first. It's separate from community benefit agreements. It's the getting ready piece. And then community benefits agreements would follow, but also so that they're ready to participate in permitting. We're going to have a programmatic EIS come from BOEM this month, apparently, or expectedly, I should say so. That's going to be a big document for people to be reviewing and responding to and commenting on. So things are happening now that people need resources for.

And I would agree, and just expand on that slightly, that it is, yes, all of the above. It is staffing for small agencies. You don't have a lot of people, you don't have a lot of spare time. So it's either staffing to help us perform the work or to bring in consultants to assist you in evaluating these very technical conversations, as well as on some level just some seed money to be able to do some preliminary or conceptual studies to figure out how to engage in these conversations and get the ball moving forward. Because having the resources and the ability to sit at the table and participate in the conversation.

It just goes back to our conversation about having agreements in place, something that's predictable. I mean, we realize there's no crystal ball, but we do need to be prepared. You know, we look at in construction, people retire, people get started. There's other things to be concerned about locally. You want to have a local workforce, local, sustainable workforce that'll be able to step up when it's needed for sure.

Just an exclamation point, Mark, I think that's really, really critical. Not just as I'm thinking of port development, operations and maintenance and all of the other work that will go into the projects I think are really, really important. On the north coast. We've had challenges over time with different kinds of industries, extraction industries that have boom and bust kind of things. And this is one of those that feels like it should be a stable long term things. And so I think as you start looking at those workforce benefits for local workforce, the ability to transition to other kinds of work, that's still within the scope of what IBEW journeymen and others do. So I think there's tremendous potential there and I know the community in particular is really interested in that.

I have a question for Miss Croll. The site survey work that's about to begin or has begun, how transparent is that data going to be to stakeholders, scientific community and the public? It sort of sets the tone for all the things that we're talking about. If that information is really reliably accessible and through the capacity building investments.

That we have, the resources here locally to be able to start on a good foundation and collaboration kind of fits in with what Mister Simonin was saying too, about the community workforce agreements. Where are we in the process of making those agreements? All of these things have a long lead time and require the, the first steps to be on good fitting to be successful over the decade that we're talking about this effort requiring.

Yeah, excellent question. Thank you, Assemblymember. So three of the companies have book on site surveys, and two of them have finished their first campaign collecting some geological and biological data. And then the other two are going to begin either 2025/2026. And we are in, the companies are in active discussion about that question of data sharing. There are some types of data that are easier to share and more suitable for sharing than others, but there's certainly a desire to contribute to the scientific understanding of all of the community members and stakeholders that are looking at these projects. So, yes, there's a desire for that.

I would just add that the seafloor and the marine environment is a public resource, and I don't know that there would be any real justification for a proprietary view of that data. I mean, I think this is foundational to the whole effort, is, you know, we need to understand what exists in the marine environment that, because everything comes from that. And I'm sort of anticipating the comments from the next panel that would say, you know, we need access to that information.

So, you know, I would urge the companies involved to be fully transparent, make all that information available. I think it would strengthen the partnerships that are required to be successful through the permitting process and ultimately to deliver something that everybody in this Central Coast and North Coast can be comfortable with.

Yeah, and I can follow up with you offline about this. Yeah, there's a desire to be, share as much as possible, and it's really more a matter of timing than it is like. Yes, no.

Well, thank you to our panelists on panel two. We very much appreciate you being here. And we're going to transition into panel three, which is on mitigation and impacts of offshore wind with Doctor Ruttenberg, Amy Wolfrum, and Christopher Kubiak. And I'll just keep talking while they're coming up to say that responsible development of offshore wind energy includes robust scientific research and monitoring. So perfect segue, Assemblymember Hart, because we do need to understand, we want and need to understand how habitat and marine life will interact with offshore wind energy infrastructure and development activities.

And AB 525 did task the CEC with coordinating relevant state agencies around environmental impacts and use conflicts with renewable energy. And so we'll take questions at the end of the panel. You each have 10 minutes, and I'll introduce all of you first. Our first speaker is Doctor Ruttenberg, Director of the Center for Coastal Marine Sciences at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Our second speaker is Amy Wolfrum from California Ocean Conservation Policy Senior Manager at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. And our third and final speaker for this panelist for this panel is Christopher Kubiak, who is the Liaison Officer of the Central California Joint Cable Fisheries Liaison Committee. So I'll turn it over to you, Doctor Ruttenberg, for about 10 minutes.

All right, thank you, Assemblymember Addis, and to the Committee for the invitation and for the San Diego Chumash for hosting us here today. This is wonderful. I have some slides, if we can pull those up. If not, I'm happy to just start talking. Okay, swell. I'll just start talking then. So I'm here to talk today about some the potential environmental impacts of floating offshore wind. What we know, what we're trying to learn and trying to talk about this topic in 10 minutes is basically impossible, especially for a Professor. But I will do my best. So. Okay, there it goes.

Okay, so there are obviously lots of potential environmental impacts or environmental effects of offshore wind. We've talked about lots of them, so I'm not going to belabor them here. There is a range of different critters, a range of different habitats and ecosystems. Going to require a ton of work to understand what's happening in all of these systems.

Okay, so we've heard that there is a lot of offshore wind that has been developed elsewhere, along with a good deal of environmental studies. The problem, though, is, as we've heard, is that many of those wind farms are in shallow waters, you know, generally less than 200ft. The ones here in California are going to be 20 to 40 miles offshore in up to 1300 meters or 4000ft of water.

And so even though there are wind farms in other places and we have some information from them, there really is no equivalent to what it's going to be happening in California in terms of the species, the ecosystems, the ocean settings, etcetera. And so there's really limited data, you know, in this. We have no - very little information from elsewhere and limited data in California from places like this because there aren't, frankly, there just isn't a lot of activity that's happening that far offshore.

Anyway, so what do we need to do? So we're going to need to use a variety of different approaches. There it goes. And so several different kind of thinking out broad analytical approaches to generate this information. One is looking at proxies.

So when we don't have a lot of information in a local system, we look to other places and try to synthesize what we've learned. It's a really good step when we don't know a whole lot to help sort of bound the problem to bound what the things we think might happen. We've got a little more information.

We can start doing some modeling studies, trying to, trying to, you know, use what we understand about a system to predict what's going to happen. You know, if we put something in this place, what's going to happen to that, to that system.

But there's really no substitute for actually doing the field based monitoring that is actually getting out on the water and collecting those data. A lot of times that can be done with, with automated systems. That doesn't mean we have to have ships out there all the time, but having robust information collected from these systems is critical.

Wow, this slide did not translate at all. I do not know what happened. It's not supposed to look like this. So several years ago, we had an incredibly talented undergrad that started to synthesize some of what we knew from other places. This was our first step to try to understand, understand proxies.

So I guess you'll have to ignore this for right now. But what she found, generally by looking at similar types of equipment in other places, was that some of these impacts were likely going to be pretty minimal. Things like electromagnetic field effects, noise effects, especially from floating turbines. Water quality likely to be relatively minor.

There were a few that maybe were going to be more significant. Particularly upwelling downstream might have an impact. And then, of course, things like structural impediments, that is, mostly birds and marine mammals flying or swimming into or around some of this equipment. Again, stuff that's going to need. I see what's going on. Okay.

We call that an operator error. Come on, machine. Okay. Anyway, so. So what do we know? We know from work elsewhere, again, not great proxies for California, but we know that many of these impacts are negligible, too small or at least mitigable for many features. Obviously not all of them.

And there's a lot more that we need to know. There have been some modeling studies in California. Some recent studies have shown that upwelling might decrease downwind of those turbines, of those wind farms, particularly on the central coast.

But what we still don't know is even a slight decrease we have upwelling for anyone who spent any time on the coast knows that it is a really variable system. That's the cold water coming up.

Generally, when you get strong winds blowing along the coast, it brings up cold to deep, nutrient rich water from the bottom, helping fuel these coastal ecosystems. But that's a really noisy process, both in time and in space. And so the net impact of that is unknown.

And we really don't know what the impact on the ecosystems is going to be. Some recent work, co led by our partners at Cal Poly Humboldt, found doing some modeling of seabird sound that found that a few seabirds might be vulnerable, but most of them probably aren't.

But of course, the devil of all these things is in the details, and we just don't have those details at this point. And so what are we trying to do right now? Well, so one of the things we're trying to do, it's been alluded to the development of the monitoring guidance.

Basically, with so many different factors out here, such complex systems, how do we figure out what to measure so that we can detect whether there's an actual change in an impact? That work is ongoing, funded by the OPC.

I was actually on an hour and a half call this morning talking about the potential impacts to phish about this. And again, the nuances of just one thing is sort of mind blowing. And then you multiply this times all these factors, it's a lot of information. We're also trying to synthesize information about what's out there.

There are lots of monitoring programs that are collecting data from the ocean, but they're scattered. And so trying to understand what information do we actually have that we can put together in one place that might help us move all of this forward a little bit.

We're going to need a ton of additional modeling, especially because we know that the climate is changing, the oceans are changing, and so where things are is not necessarily where they're going to be. That map shows some work that we did a couple of years ago.

It was published this year, looking at highly migratory species that's sort of offshore Deepwater fish, where that fishery effort is happening. What we know as the climate changes, those fish are going to move. And so that map right there is what was happening 10 or so years ago.

We're pretty sure that's not what's going to be happening in 102030 years from right now. So trying to understand what that's gonna, how that's gonna work is gonna be really important. And so the feedback amongst all of these opportunities is really gonna help us push our knowledge forward.

And so obviously, all these things are gonna require resources. I just wanna give a brief, shameless plug for the Pacific Ulsher wind consortium. It was alluded to earlier. This is a multi University collaboration, including us at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal Poly Humboldt and Oregon State.

And our goal of this is to assemble a West Coast wide regional network of expertise to conduct some of the research, to help some develop some of these technologies, to understand what some of those questions are. We've talked a lot about workforce development and training.

So we are three major universities on the West Coast and have the ability to train students to move into this, into the many, many fields that are going to be needed here. And then, of course, it's been alluded to a lot today about outreach and engagement that's really important.

As these universities that sit in the places where offshore wind is likely to happen, we are generally trusted sources of information, generally trusted sources of unbiased information that we can provide to these communities.

So just as one example of this, there's been a lot of misinformation flying around about whales and the impact of offshore wind development on whales. There have been two recent, what we call unusual mortality events. That's basically a lot of whales have been washing up on, on shore, dead, both on the East Coast and the West Coast.

It has been often linked to offshore wind development. And I will tell you, the science is pretty clear that that is false.

On the West Coast, there was a whole series, about seven years of strandings of gray whales up and down the Pacific Coast that had obviously nothing to do with offshore wind, since there was no offshore wind activity until this year and the event ended last year. Likely.

In the end, it turns out it's likely linked to climate changes and changes in their food availability up in Alaska that led to them starving. This mortality event on the West Coast is actually more a result of climate change, certainly, than any renewable energy development.

On the East Coast, it's mostly with right whales that have been critically endangered for a long time. Most of those are attributed to both to ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear, and has been alluded to also. Many of the vessels that are going out to do offshore windwork are required to maintain space from marine mammals.

They're required proceed at a. At a Low speed, and they're required to have marine mammal observers on board. So it's really unlikely that this increase in ship strikes on the East Coast has anything to do with offshore wind.

So again, just as a highlight that there's lots of false information out there, this is just one of those examples. So funding this work is clearly going to be important. AB 80 is a great start.

Some sort of a new offshore wind entity can help prioritize some of that research, to help make sure that research funding is allocated efficiently. And to summarize the information that we need.

We do strongly believe that developers should pay for this work, but that funding needs to be firewalled to avoid both real and perceived and perceived conflicts of interest. But still, the developers need to be involved.

As collaborators and as someone Member Hart alluded to, we strongly believe that any data collected as part of this has to be publicly available that will help us better understand what's happening in these systems, which, as you alluded to our public resources and allow us to advance the science much more effectively if all of that is public.

So anyway, the bottom line is, I believe that on the scientific side, we can do this. This is not a moonshot. This is something that is absolutely achievable. It's going to require resources, it's going to require a lot of effort, but I believe that we can do it. Thank you.

You actually did it.

No, I did it. Really?

1021, Miss Wolfrum.

So thanks for pulling up my slides. I'll go ahead and start. Good afternoon. My name is Amy Wolfrum. I am the Director of California policy and Government affairs at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Thank you to the Chumash band for having us here today.

And thank you to the Committee for the Opportunity to speak about why it's critical that offshore wind development proceeds off of the West Coast of our nation. And it's done responsibly with the health of our marine, wildlife and ecosystems at the forefront.

While the aquarium's focus today is on the ocean and science, it's important to acknowledge that the needs of disproportionately burdened coastal and indigenous communities also deserve careful attention in this process.

At Monterey Bay Aquarium, we understand the need to act urgently in the face of climate change, and we also know that we're facing a biodiversity crisis where human activities are leading to a significant risk of species extinction and disruption of ecosystem function at a global scale.

Transitioning to a renewable energy future must use the best available science to ensure that any offshore wind energy development happens with minimal impact to ocean, wildlife and ecosystems. In order to be done responsibly, offshore wind must avoid, reduce and manage any negative impacts on wildlife and ecosystems and habitats.

Ensuring their protection must minimize disruption to other ocean activities. Actively consult with tribes and local communities, ensuring their voices are heard. Engage state and local governments and other affected parties from the start, involving them early in the process. Take special care to avoid impacts on underserved communities.

Promoting equity and use the best available science and technology to ensure that our decisions are data driven. So why are research and monitoring essential for the development of floating offshore wind? To be environmentally responsible, we must address the knowledge gaps and understanding about how it could potentially impact impact our unique marine ecosystems.

With multiple potential wind farms along our coast. Floating offshore wind turbines in California will be a first in the United States, and with that comes uncertainty that needs careful study and ongoing monitoring.

Robust, usable, and transparent data is necessary to reduce the risk of inadvertently harming the ocean, wildlife, and ecosystem health that California is so committed to protecting.

Initial studies are essential now to set a baseline for existing ocean conditions and understand the changes that are already happening, and ongoing research is critical to detect the effects and impacts that occur during construction and operation of wind turbines.

For example, as Doctor Brettenberg just discussed, we need to understand how operational turbines might affect seabirds and bats, how underwater infrastructure affects marine mammals and other important species, how mooring systems could alter seafloor ecosystems, and how this development impacts all ocean life.

Monitoring through all phases of offshore wind energy development will allow us to see how changes manifest and assess actions intended to prevent or mitigate effects. These adaptive management strategies depend on access to relevant and useful science.

Given the magnitude of this undertaking, the aquarium, with strong leadership provided by you chair Addis, is urging the creation of a collaborative West Coast science entity that can coordinate a path forward to understand the ecosystem effects of offshore wind.

Such an entity would bring together federal and state government agencies, industry representation, conservationists, and indigenous communities to define key research priorities together develop multidisciplinary studies, align data standards, and foster transparent information. Sharing a centralized body would help avoid fragmented and duplicative efforts and ensure all decisions are rooted in sound science.

Ideally, this science entity would start here in California and enable participation of Oregon and Washington as well. As we know, species and ocean currents do not stop at state lines. A West Coast science entity would also help streamline efforts and ensure that what we're asking from offshore wind developers is aligned with state priorities and environmental requirements.

It's important that the state continue its engagement in this coordination so we don't end up with different requests and conflicting approaches.

Other regions of the United States have also recognized this need for coordinated and comprehensive science as offshore wind advances off of the Atlantic coast, we've seen the regional wildlife science collaborative developed by state agencies in New York and Massachusetts, along with federal agencies and conservation groups and offshore wind developers.

And those developers that are working there, that are also here in California and hold leases are equinor vineyard winds, invenergy, and ocean winds. The Gulf of Mexico is also moving quickly to establish a science collaborative, recognizing the potential to include other energy uses, as the broad benefits are comprehensive, coordinated science and monitoring are understood there as well.

The ocean and our coastline are a key part of our communities, supporting tourism, recreation, and coastal economies. To protect our rich and diverse ecosystems, from our kelp forests to our submarine canyons, we need thorough, comprehensive, coordinated science. So what is the state's role in next steps?

The State of California and the Ocean Protection Council understand the importance of ecosystems, our ecosystems, in science, and I want to take a moment to thank the Legislature and Governor for prioritizing $3 million in state funds, as well as three full time positions to do this work at the state Ocean Protection Council.

We greatly appreciate the understanding and leadership that California has shown, and we must stay the course by continuing to support coordinated research. The state helps ensure offshore wind development is guided by data and science based decisions to protect marine life and ecosystems while advancing a transition to renewable energy.

Going forward, the state must continue strong engagement, coordinating efforts among agencies to ensure coordinated science and monitoring requirements. By maintaining clear and unified asks, we can ensure that the offshore wind development process proceeds in a way that balances our renewable energy needs with our ocean health.

In closing, like many of you here, the aquarium understands we need to urgently move to address climate change, and at the same time, we are committed to protecting our ocean and its remarkable biodiversity. With your support, we can ensure that our offshore wind future is one that works for both people and our living ocean.

And I'm from the aquarium, so there's a sea otter slide for you all.

Thank you. And Mister Kubiak.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I am Christopher Kubiak, and I'm a Californian, originally from Newport Beach, where my maternal grandfather began our family's venture in commercial fishing. Our family then moved to Texas, where I went to sea for the first time and began fishing shrimp with my father and brother.

After moving back to Los Osos, California, in 1978, I went fishing full time and in the 1990s bought a 72 foot shrimp and ground fish trawler.

In 2006, I left fishing for fishery management, taking directorship of the Central California Joint Cable Fisheries Liaison Committee, which is a mutual benefit nonprofit corporation that works to facilitate inter industry communication, coordination, and cooperation between the commercial fishing industry of Central California and undersea fiber optic telecommunications companies that are operating in Central California.

So I wanted to start just making that point that fishing has been very important for my family, even though I'm not doing it anymore. So the Committee, the Joint Cable Fisheries Liaison Committee, was formed concurrently with the execution of an agreement between cable companies and fishermen for the purposes described in the agreement.

The agreement identifies, establishes, and confirms certain mitigation measures and monitoring programs which are intended to facilitate environmental review of the Member company's cable projects and reduce potential conflicts between the installation, continuation, and maintenance of the cable projects and commercial fishing activities. So I wanted to shift a little to the fishery retrospective.

Historically, the Central coast harbors of California have sustained a vibrant fishing fleet whose year round landings have provided the foundation for fishery related businesses and harbor economic infrastructure.

In recent years, seasonal and area closures, reduced quotas, increased costs, and changes in harbor governance and economic priorities have caused severe stress on the participants in these fisheries and on related businesses, eventually impacting the harbor's ability to provide marine related services such as fuel, Ayes, chandleries, and seafood buyers.

This is especially true in California harbors that have experienced a change in economic priority from working waterfronts that depend on access to the water and the activities, such as commercial fishing that occur in the ocean to visitor serving Non Ocean Dependent uses.

So, moving to offshore wind and a concern there is fishermen and small fishing dependent communities have concerns about offshore wind energy production to ensure that such a change in ocean and harbor use does not further diminish our local fishing fleets and local businesses capacity to support harbor infrastructure.

We are concerned that a change to offshore wind energy production without appropriate safeguards will collapse the many small scale fishing operations and the fishing dependent harbors that rely on them.

Once traditional fishing uses are eliminated in a coastal community, they do not come back, representing a real and permanent loss to the nation's seafood supply economy and missed opportunities in promoting sustainable fisheries under the umbrella of ecosystem based fishery management.

The clear impact from offshore wind is turbines, power generation, cables, and other associated infrastructure will result in area closures for fishing. In order to achieve the scale necessary, these closures to fishing will be substantial, and fishing is already occurring in limited areas.

We encourage you to move carefully in your development of offshore wind energy production and deliberately try to protect existing fragile fishing businesses and small fishing dependent harbors. And so I wanted to thank the Select Committee and chair, Addis, and also give a shout out to your staff who they were very, very helpful in preparing for this meeting.

So thank you.

Thank you, Mister Kubiak, and we'll go to a couple questions here. I'll ask first for our science folks, both from Cal Poly and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

I think one of the challenges of living in a community where there's so much conversation around this is getting that accurate information out to the community in a way the community can understand. And I think you showed some, and we've talked about the complexity of scientific information is out there.

But could you speak to any efforts, initiatives you have, resources you have currently where the public who is thinking, I believe that we need to take action on climate change, I'm not so sure about offshore wind.

I don't understand the science and engineering, like, where those folks can access understandable information, if that exists yet, and I'll put a plug into the developers to please share your data. I agree with both assemblymember Hart and the folks on the panel that the data really, truly is needed, as well as understandable data for the public.

So I guess as someone in Slo County, I will take that first. That's a fantastic question, and it's really important, and it requires resources and people. And part of, as I mentioned, part of the mission of the Pacific offshore wind consortium is to do exactly that.

And there are some efforts underway to synthesize the information in a digestible, understandable way. There's a couple of websites that exist. One is through Seer, I forget what it stands for, through the Pacific Northwest national labs. There's another through California Sea Granthenne. And we hope to be developing more of that as well.

And so in some ways, just standing up the resources and being able to point people at the things that exist is important. Obviously, there is no substitute for being in the community and having conversations, meaningful conversations with people. We've done a little bit of outreach and engagement, but again, that just requires people time.

Those are complicated to organize and can be really time consuming. So it's one of the majority goals of the consortium as we get this thing more stood up and actually rolling. And so we're looking forward to collaborating with everyone to make that more of a reality.

I'll also say how important of a need that is and how complicated it is, as somebody who's just worked on getting my own personal head around all of it.

So at the aquarium, we're thinking through how we communicate with the public about it, and thinking about digestible communications in ways that both our staff and educating our staff is also important. And so I think we're really, you've really hit an important need, which is digestible, understandable information about what is a.

Complex process, and I'll put my plug in. I do see this as a vital part of capacity building as well, is how we get accurate scientific information into the public. And it does take resources. It doesn't happen overnight.

But for Mister Kuiak, you talked about the, the cable agreement, and are there any lessons learned that we can apply to the conversation around offshore wind and either capacity building or on the community benefits side?

Right. Thanks. You know, I think one of the, there are a few really key differences, and one is when we started back in roughly 1999, we being the fishing, local fishermen and the cable companies, there were already cables in the water. We've had them, you know, undersea telecommunications cables, since I think the 1970s.

So they were already there. We were already interacting with them. So the companies wanted protection for their cables, and the fishermen wanted protection for fishing areas and dealing with things like gear loss, for example. So we already had that existing matter.

And so when we formed the Committee, we formed it to work out those issues that were already known. There is also a fishing industry improvement Fund, which is money that goes to various projects for the improvement of fisheries. So then when we think about the wind energy, it doesn't exist yet.

And so you couldn't really take the same approach. Some people have looked, really jumped right to a money part, the compensatory mitigation. And I think that's a mistake, because once you go to that, that's where the focus is. And you really need to look at all of the other things that you might be able to do.

I don't have sort of specific suggestions other than what you're doing now. Do the outreach so that you hear from people. It's so important. People are, and I run into this all of the time. They just want to be heard.

So I think you're doing it, and I think also looking at the legislation that you've already passed for the fisheries perspective in that the fishing issues were covered. And so I think you're really on a good pathway. The other really key difference is those undersea telecommunications cables. Once they're installed, they're benign.

There haven't been any interactions with the new ones. The interactions in the past, those cables were surface laid. So since the 1990s, any telecommunications cable that's gone in has been buried. And once it's in, there's really no effect on fishing. There's all kinds of fishing occurs over the top of them.

That won't be the case with offshore wind. When you have the turbines in the area, then you're not going to be able to fish there. So you're going to have to look at other ways to address the impacts. Thanks.

Thank you. And if either of you have questions.

Yeah, just a question. Thinking this floating infrastructure, this is not unique. I mean, the oil industry has been used in tethering floating platforms for years. So recognizing that our coastline is different, obviously, and the ecosystems are different, are there any lessons that can be learned from other floating tethered technologies?

I mean, it's the North Sea, east coast, the Gulf of Mexico. So what can we learn from that that will allow us to take the necessary steps to be certain that we're protecting the environment off our coast?

Yeah, that's a great question. That comes back to the point. I was talking a little bit about proxies, that we've done some of that work to look at proxies in other places. And that's exactly one of the proxies that we used in that study to these floating tethered oil and gas structures to understand what those impacts were.

And generally, it seems like, with respect to direct impacts on marine organisms, those seem to be pretty minimal in General. But again, those are all in completely different systems. It's not quite apples to oranges, but they're certainly not directly comparable either.

And I would add to that that the scale of these, of the infrastructure is much larger, potentially more numerous, like more turbines. And then we're looking at that infrastructure in multiple places along the coast, along the West Coast. And so what are the impacts that we're seeing over a larger scale and over a larger ecosystem?

It's the California current is the ecosystem we refer to. So looking at that as an ecosystem, ecosystem wide instead of site by site, is what we're trying to think about.

And just to follow up. So some of the oil platforms are pretty massive. They're spread out, obviously, much more than what we would see the intensity of with the offshore wind.

But in the studies of proxies, are you, some of the things that obviously are hugely challenging on our coast around is entanglement issues with fishing gear and that kind of thing.

What has been the impact in some of these other areas of that kind, or has there been, has it been an issue at all because there is fishing in these other waters?

I think the big differences, as Amy referred to, is scale. First, these are going to be in much deeper water. They're going to be tethered with very, very long anchor cables that extend out quite a bit laterally from those individual platforms. There's going to be, I don't know exactly what the number is.

It's going to be a lot of them covering hundreds of square miles. And so you're going to have this array of cables out. And so, like I said before, there just isn't a proxy for that. And so we don't know, in the places where offshore wind has been deployed elsewhere, the vast majority of it is fixed bottom.

So they basically take up a single, basically a pylon, drive it into the piling, drive it into the seafloor. That's very disruptive, but only during construction. Once it's in, it's just a fixed thing that doesn't have the same kind of entanglement risk in other places.

And again, I'll caution that those are all in completely different types of ecosystems, and so we honestly just don't know. There's a lot of work ongoing to try to understand what some of those impacts will be. In General, though, the consensus seems to be that people aren't really worried about marine organisms getting entangled on the cables themselves.

These are going to be very thick cables that are going to be very taut. So it's unlikely that something's going to get hung up on that cable, but it's that fishing gear might get hung up on the cable itself, and then something gets entangled in that.

There is work on going to develop ways to potentially detect whether fishing gear is hung up on a line that can be sent, you know, that can send a vessel out or even an autonomous vehicle to go remove that? So, again, all that technology, all that work is in development. That technology still needs to.

Needs to be developed. Great. Thank you.

One of the things we're spending some time thinking about is there's entanglement risk, but will these animals just move out of the area completely? Will they move away from migration places that they've done before and potential food sources or ways they have found a mate before? So what are these? Are these animals going to. It's called displacement.

Will they be displaced from there? So that's something we're also thinking about if they're not having interactions with the platforms or the mooring, like, what might be happening? Are they moving?

I just kind of wanted to follow up on the question that I asked the representative from the developers about collaboration and your comfort level with the engagement with the industry. And, you know, things start off with either a good foundation or not.

And I'll be provocative, making you give a letter grade for where we are now with those relationships. Where do you think we are?

Well, you know, I'm a Professor, I never give, I never give out grades before the term is over. So. But in General, I would say that the engagement has been pretty good. We have, I would say that the universities have a pretty good working relationship with all five of the California developers.

We've had lots of conversations about the work that we're trying to do and that we have a lot of shared goals. And so I don't want to say, I don't want to give a letter grade for how the industry is doing so far because I honestly don't know.

But so far from where we sit, the engagement and the conversations have been very positive and so we are encouraged and there's really good conversation both ways. So we're learning from them, they're learning from us. And that's the process we hope continues over the next however long this takes.

I'll build on Doctor Ruttenberg's analogy. I'd say the term has started, the classes have started, we're all in the room and we're starting to sit down together. But I'd say it's early and. But we're having some conversations and so far it's.

Well maybe you could say yeah, so I'll just go on and figure out different analogies and make that. But I would say, I think at the aquarium we're cautiously optimistic that we can, like. Our goal is to work together with the science entity and have collaborative collective work that we do.

So our hope is that all parties will come to the table and sit with us together and work on solving for our ocean. So it's not going to give a letter grade either. But it has not been. I'm optimistic. I'll say that.

Just quickly. My experience with the three companies that are operating in our area, they have hired liaisons and they have all three been very proactive. They put out a lot of information and they shared the information with me. They built lists and I was on there. And even earlier this year there was undersea telecommunications cable install.

One of the wind energy company liaisons received inquiries from fishermen over a ship that was out there working. They immediately assumed it was a wind energy ship. Were very upset. And she told me, she said, hang on, I know a guy. She called me and she said, is that the cable installation? Which it was.

So they've really worked hard and I think they've done a good job. I always hear that. I heard it yesterday again, that. For. Whatever reason, there are situations where something happened and somebody didn't know about it, but generally, I think they've done a good job.

Thank you. It's really helpful. Appreciate that. Good news for the industry as well.

Well, thank you to panel three, and we will move on. Very much appreciate your time. Move on to panel four, which is on tribal and local engagement.

And while folks are walking up, I'll just say that as a Member of the state Legislature and a co founder, along with Assembly Member Hart of the California Legislative Central Coast Caucus, it's really our duty, I think, in the Legislature to work for a climate future that is livable and free of the kind of catastrophic weather events that we've experienced over the last five years.

However, as a resident and former City Council Member in a frontline community, I know what it's like to bear the brunt of large infrastructure and to sort of be left with that infrastructure with no real plan for the future.

I'm also very sensitive and know deeply that tribes and other local people have to be valued and have to be able to participate in authentic ways when projects such as offshore wind energy development are being considered. So I want to thank the two of you for ending us today with this panel around tribal and local community engagement.

And we have two presenters, Sam Cohen of the Sani Inez Band of Chumash Indians, as well as Arlen Singwald, community development Director for the City of Morro Bay. And you've each got about 10 minutes, and then we'll open up for Committee questions before we end.

Does the order matter? So, good afternoon, Assembly Members. My name is Airlin Singewald. I'm the Morro Bay community development Director. It's really a privilege and an honor to be invited to address you this afternoon. I've given many presentations over my career at the local government level. This is the first time addressing Assembly Members.

And of course, I would like to thank the Santa Ines band of the Chumash tribe for hosting us this afternoon. So I have a presentation here. So I did want to start with a real quick introduction. Again, Erlynne Singwald, City of Morro Bay Community development Director. I am very new to the City of Morro Bay.

Next week will be my fourth month. Four. I'm also really new to the discussion on offshore wind development. With that said, I am not new to coastal permitting and planning on the central coast.

For the last 17 years, I worked at the County of San Luis Obispo Planning and Building Department, where I had the opportunity to process many many coastal development permits and engaging with the Public and Coastal Commission on coastal local coastal program amendments.

My last several years at the county, I managed the planning and building department's environmental, long range planning and current planning divisions. And I want to point out too, that I'm speaking today as a land use planning professional. I'm not speaking on behalf of the Morro Bay City Council. And again, I'm new to offshore wind development.

So really my focus is on planning and the process and public engagement. So now about Morro Bay. We are a small coastal town, the population of about 10,800 residents. Morro Bay incorporated in 1964, which means we just finished our 60th anniversary celebrations.

And I did want to talk a little bit about the history of the Morro Bay waterfront. Morro Bay's history in large part revolves around its working waterfront. And just quick history lesson. So in the 1940s, the US Navy really developed the waterfront of Mora Bay and the embarcadero into what it is today.

It was built as a world war two training ground. So breakwater was built, the bay was dredged, then Thailands were filled to create the embarcadero that we know today at the Morro Bay waterfront. The waterfront Embarcadero is a thriving destination for visitors and provides real critical sales tax and transient occupancy tax revenue to the city General Fund.

And the northern section of the Embarcadero is protected by voter initiative for commercial fishing and Recreation. So this slide here shows the 107 acre power plant property on the working waterfront of Morro Bay.

I think this exhibit really illustrates how the offshore wind discussion in many ways lies at the intersection of Moro Bay's industrial past, ecological awareness and the President its key location in terms of operation and maintenance facilities for offshore wind development. Power plant was developed or first built in 1955. In 2014, the power plant closed.

Currently, the city is processing an application by Vistra for a battery storage facility where you see those tanks on the property. The tanks are now removed and the battery energy facilities proposed to be located on that tank farm site that applications currently in process.

Vistra owns the power plant property, but PG and e still owns that substation there, which ties into Diablo. So as I was putting together my recommendations or list of needs I wanted to spotlight in this presentation, certain themes emerged. And I wanted to start by just highlighting these themes that I'm calling guiding principles on this slide.

The first one is the importance of protecting the community character. That is a very foundational concept in in land use planning. Any development project we process really needs to protect and enhance, at least not detract from, the community character. And again, the waterfront is such an important part of Morrow Bay's character.

In addition, engaging the public is critical to the planning process. I like the way chair Addis mentioned the importance of authentically evolving and engaging the public in the process. There was, you know, discussion earlier on, on an earlier panel about efficient permitting.

And of course, you know, when we have limited resources, we want to use our resources efficiently, and there's nothing efficient about listening to the public, but it is a very important process. And just last night, I was hosting a kind of a town hall eir scoping meeting on a controversial project in Morro Bay.

And one of my points that I'm going to say again to you all is that in my 20 years of experience as a planner, public involvement and engagement, and authentically listening to the public always results in better outcomes.

And I say better outcomes because sometimes the outcome is denial of the project, sometimes the outcome is approval of a substantially modified version of the project. But the public engagement is a critical part of the process at the local level. The third guiding principle is recovering costs. So City of Morro Bay is small city.

Our planning and building Department is structured to process smaller development projects. Our community is mostly built out. We get a lot of accessory dwelling unit applications, very small remodels, occasionally a new permit for a new home.

But we're really not staffed and resourced to the level to process large regional scale energy projects or to engage the public at the level that the public deserves in the process for those types of projects. And so we believe it's critical to have mechanisms. And in future slides, I use an example of a reimbursement agreement with developers.

So there's some mechanism when we participate in the Coastal Commission consolidated CDP process, and when we engage the public as part of that process, we need an ability to recover our staff at cost. And this slide, I think, really emphasizes that point.

Again, being very new to the discussion on offshore wind development, I've been thinking about what would this process look like once we receive. Orlando Coastal Commission receives an application, and there are several stages in the process.

And while SB 286 removes local control from the process by giving the consolidated CDP authority to the Coastal Commission, you can't remove the local community from the process. We have to be part of the process every step along the way.

And that includes pre application process, which is where I'd say we are right now, where we're focused on local capacity building. And I'm going to provide some examples of that in a minute here. Of course, entitlement process.

So having our review and comment role in that consolidated coastal development permit process with Coastal Commission and really maximizing public involvement, and then, you know, if and when operation and maintenance facilities are constructed and offshore wind is developed, the community will experience a lot of the impacts of construction and post construction, and we inevitably will have a critical role in that local compliance of those stages of offshore wind development.

And so it's, again, it's very important that we have an ability to enter into reimbursement agreements or other mechanisms to have our staff costs reimbursed and recovered for our role.

So we have developed a good cooperative relationship with the County of San Luis Obispo on a couple critical capacity building initiatives. First, we have just recently hired a firm to conduct an off, and Susie Watkins referred to this earlier on behalf of the port.

But we hired a firm to conduct an offshore wind operations and maintenance infrastructure study.

The best way I've heard this study described, and I'm new to my involvement in it, is it's essentially going to look at the site requirements for different operations and maintenance infrastructure that could be established in Morro Bay, such as berths for crew transfer vessels or service operation vessels, as well as office space and warehouse space, looking at the site requirements for that infrastructure, then comparing that to the on the ground conditions and constraints.

So we just had our kickoff meeting with a consultant for that study earlier this week. There's actually going one consult, well, one consultant and of course, a sub consultant. But there's two separate studies. One's focused on San Luis Bay, the other's focused on Morro Bay.

The other initiative that we were able to Fund using the state budget appropriations is a communication and education program.

And that's been a major theme of the discussion this afternoon, is the importance of being able to clearly communicate factual and accurate information to the public and myself, having to come up to speed really quickly on all this information and learn a whole new vocabulary and terminology I know firsthand that can be challenging.

So we're going to hire a communications firm to help support that infrastructure feasibility study and just help with the messaging and public engagement and education regarding operation and maintenance facility infrastructure and officer wind development.

Finally, we have worked with the County of San Luis Obispo to allocate, the county is going to allocate, or has allocated a portion of their state funds for offshore wind capacity building to the city to help offset some of our administrative costs associated with our involvement in these studies.

So we want to thank the Legislature and thank the county for their support and cooperation on that. Then this is my last slide. Just concluding, having this opportunity to spotlight the needs of Moore Bay as we plan and build capacity for offshore wind development. So again, just really summarizing points I've already made.

We need a funding source, an ongoing funding source for permanent staff, as we just don't have the staff that's necessary for this level of initiative that could involve, again, reimbursement agreements with offshore wind developers. In addition, I've worked with Coastal Commission in the past on consolidated coastal development permits, and there's always a local public forum.

We believe that this is such a major initiative and so important, we really would like the Legislature to encourage the Coastal Commission to really maximize local public involvement as much as possible during that consolidated CDP process. Not do the minimum, but really maximize that involvement.

And then finally, I forgot to mention that the city's local coastal program includes a waterfront master plan, which establishes the city's vision for the character and development and land use for the waterfront area. And we did just receive a grant from the California Coastal Commission to update the waterfront master plan, which is very exciting.

The plan hasn't been updated since it was first adopted in 1996, and it's an excellent opportunity, and it's well timed to really.

It's gonna be a very process that involves the public very closely and shaping where we can shape a vision for the waterfront, to look at what offshore wind operation and maintenance infrastructure could look like when incorporated into the fabric and the community's vision for the waterfront area. So that's an exciting opportunity.

And what you point out here on this slide is consistency with the Waterfront master plan. So when Coastal Commission processes a consolidated CDP for offshore wind development, we would want them to look to the waterfront master plan for as much, not just guidance, but as much direction as possible.

I think at times, the coastal act will be the standard of review that the Coastal Commission looks at and just looks to the local coastal program for guidance. Again, the importance of maintaining that community characters is so important. We would just want it really respected and considered as much as possible. And that concludes my presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. And Mister Cohen.

First, I want to thank everyone for trekking all the way to the San Ynez Indian reservation. I'm Sam Cohen, the government affairs and legal officer for the San Ynez Band of Chumash Indians. I love this tribe so much. I've been here for 20 years in my position, and I know all secrets.

Yes, the Chumash people range from Paso Robles south of Malibu, inland all the way to Bakersfield to the Tehachapi mountains. But there is only one federally recognized Chumash tribe, and that is the Sant Ynez band of Chumash Indians.

That is important because most of offshore wind is being permitted by federal agencies like the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, under federal laws like the National Historic Preservation act, Section 106, and NEPA, all of which can be triggered by federally recognized tribes.

So the Chumash, the San Ynez band of Chumash are forced to kind of lead this charge. There are other Chumash, and there are San Luis Obispo Chumash, but they're not fairly recognized. So we have to make sure that the interests of all the Chumash people are represented in this process. Let me give you an example. Noaa.

Have you heard about NOAA? The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration just designated the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary. And in that sanctuary is co stewardship. But NoAA can only co steward with a federally recognized tribe. So the Sant Ynez band of Chumash Indians are the co stewards of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary.

And this is terrific for 30 by 30 conservation goals. And the Chumash people are very into the importance of offshore wind and climate change.

I mean, Chumash sacred sites and cultural resources are directly impacted by sea level rise all along the central coast, and inland storms and atmospheric rivers periodically destroy all the roads in this area, isolating the tribe from all southern travel.

So the Chumash support offshore wind so much that they lowered the northern boundary of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary to south of Diablo Canyon to expose the power plant, which has infrastructure, and the Diablo canyon infrastructure for the three Morro Bay leases.

All right, so there's a gap between the Morro Bay, well, Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary and the northern boundary of the Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary. Unfortunately, we still have yet to work with offshore wind and have tribal engagement on any meaningful level.

In anticipation of this engagement, the Chumash established its own nonprofit, the San Ynez Chumash Oceanographic Institute, and hired our first oceanographer and our first ethnographer. But so far, there has been no data sharing. So far, there has been no assistance with capacity building. So far, all we got is a newsletter. I love newsletters.

All right, so we're waiting for at least our three offshore wind leases to begin capacity building with tribes.

And as a result of this frustration, we find ourselves supporting a variety of legislative measures, both at the state Legislature, like AB 2537 or at the federal level, or we even show up at Coastal Commission hearings writing hateful letters. All right, because we're just trying to get a little bit of attention.

So, in conclusion, we need to reset tribal offshore wind relations in Oregon. The tribes filed a lawsuit. All right. And scared away all the bidders such that they withdrew any offshore wind development. The Humboldt tribes have a unified oppose to any offshore wind. Now, it may be transient, it may be tactical, but for now it's all opposed.

Ironically, the Sanninz band of chumash Indians finds itself as the only federally recognized tribe in support of offshore wind, which is ironic given the tone of my speech. All right, so now is the time to reemphasize tribal support to reverse this degradation.

Because not only will you have to deal with the tribes on the front end, but when you do your operation plan and your eis, we're going to be there on the back end.

And the same data we didn't see in the front end, we're not going to trust on the back end and so we're going to oppose that. Right? So you're really not saving any time or resources. You're just kind of setting yourself up for massive litigation on the operations plan, which seems senseless. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister Cohen. I have to take a moment to process what I'm hearing because I think this is what authentic participation looks and sounds like in many, many ways in a conversation that we have to pay attention to. My question was going to be how is the conversation going on capacity building?

And it sounds like it's not going from the Santa and Chumash perspective. And same thing for Morrow Bay, how the conversation is going in terms of getting to a place where you can recover costs. If those conversations have started with developers, and if so, are they moving along? That would be one question that I have.

So those conversations have not started yet with offshore wind developers. I do want to use this as an opportunity to speak a little bit more about capacity building.

And like I mentioned earlier, we just had our kickoff meeting with our one consultant for the operations of maintenance infrastructure study and we're in the process of selecting a consultant for the communications and education program and we haven't received the development application yet. For offshore wind development.

We think where the local capacity building is really, really critical and where these studies are going to really come into play is for us to be able to be proactive and get ahead of an application with that education and the accurate fact based data and communicating that to the public.

So we have that before an application is submitted. And we're not just reacting to an application, but we're proactively informed and ready to thoughtfully process that application. And that would include hopefully an ability to negotiate a reimbursement agreements for our staff cost to process those applications well.

And I want to say we certainly, our office stands at the ready to support your conversations with coastal, as well as these conversations on capacity building. One to make sure with coastal there's more public forums and that we maximize what needs to happen locally in terms of public forums and capacity building.

And then Mister Cohen, you mentioned, and I heard you talk about more in depth about the importance of the Oceanographic Institute just for the public that hasn't heard about this and why it's a need, would you mind sharing a little bit more detail about why that Institute is so important and the kinds of resources that might still be needed to keep that Institute, get it, you know, fully up and running and keep it going?

Sure. I just want to start by saying that the offshore wind industry, Atlas wind is here, are very cordial. They'll return your phone calls. They're not hiding from us.

I mean, I think they're just early in the process and they're not sure what level of commitment they want to make to each individual stakeholder, at least not right now. But we understand this is complicated information. I didn't realize Atlas had finished their surveys. And it will take trained technicians and scientists to review the data.

And so we've established this nonprofit to receive capacity building funds so that we can hire the necessary staff that we trust to help us review this information. So it's important and we're trying to be ahead of the curve and proactive.

Yeah. I just want to thank Mister Cohen for his direct testimony. This is exactly the purpose of this hearing today is to expose these issues, you know, early on in the process to make sure that, you know, we have a foundation that's built for success.

And the data collection issue, you know, has come up a couple of times today. And the transparency of that can't be understated. The importance of the transparency of that cannot be understated because people will not believe the outcomes at the end if we do not have buy in on the information at the beginning.

And we've all, as local government representatives and state representatives, tribal representatives, experience this. That public trust is critical to the success of any kind of project. And how we start will determine how we finish. And we've got data out there that scientists, independent scientists, tribal government representatives need to see, need to understand, need to ask questions about.

There may be additional surveys that are necessary to go back and identify resources that weren't properly identified in the first survey. So I don't think we can say it enough that, you know, if nothing else is taken away from this hearing is, this is the most important thing that I've taken away from the conversation today.

Thank you. And I guess, Mister Cohen. Thank you. Thank you for that. My impression is, and I'd love, I want to talk more with the leaseholders in our area, but I feel like there has been more engagement of what?

And so I'm not sure exactly the answer of calls, but you're not getting that kind of engagement that you're looking for. It is ironic, though, that there seems to be more engagement with the companies on the North Coast, and the tribes have taken a position of opposition.

But my understanding is that the relationship between the tribes and the companies, the tribal governments and the companies, is actually good, or is fairly good. It's not perfect, obviously, but some of their challenges are with Boem and the Federal Government.

And so I am curious, as I do that, what is your relationship with relation to offshore wind with the Federal Government? Are you happy with that, or do you feel like you're not getting the information that you feel you need to for your government?

Well, to know me is to know I complain about the bone process. The bone process started off with an environmental. I'm a NEPA lawyer. All right, sorry. All right. The bone process started with a bare bones environmental assessment, all right.

With the finding of no significant impact and a programmatic agreement to issue all the leases, all the five elite California leases, with a deferral of the environmental impact statement until the operations plan was finalized, sort of after the surveys were done. All right, but I mean, that is just so not NEPA. That's like bifurcating your NEPA analysis.

I would lose in court if I did that on any of my tribal projects. But Boem insisted this is the way they want to go.

And now we're waiting for BoEm to issue a programmatic environmental impact statement, which we have not seen a draft of, which is unusual because tribes are cooperating agencies, oftentimes with federal agencies, and they're not sharing these documents in advance, which may be a violation of the programmatic agreement.

Boem is under a very large amount of pressure to permit offshore wind, and so they're doing things on an accelerated pace that you have not seen in any other permitting process at the federal level, at least in my experience. And the only thing that slowed them down was Oregon. So.

Thank you.

Well, thank you so much to our final panel. Very much appreciate your expertise. We are going to turn to public comment if, just out of respect for everyone's time, if we could keep the public comments to about one to two minutes each.

Of course. I actually just want to make a clarification for the record, Kelly Boyd with Equinor Atlas Wynn. We actually were able to share both our avian and bat study and the preliminary geophysical study with two Members of your team on Wednesday. So that's the first. There'll be significantly more.

I appreciate that they were in India and South America when we had the call, so it's above and beyond the type of outreach that the tribe has done, and it's greatly appreciated and we will be faster and broader as we go forward. Thank you.

And just to clarify, panelists, you're welcome to stay, but public comment isn't necessarily directed at you, so I don't want you to feel like you're held captive there. But. And if you could state your name and organization before you give your comment.

Sure. Thank you so much. My name is Annabelle Hopkins and I am the government relations manager for RWE offshore Wind. We are one of the leaseholders working to develop the canopy project off of the coast of Humboldt County. I'll be brief.

I just wanted to say a few thank you first, to the Santa Ines Chumash tribe for hosting us today. So graciously. Also to you, Madam Chair, for hosting such a thoughtful and robust conversation, and to your staff as well, Julie, who has just done a phenomenal job of organizing and getting us all here today.

Thank you to the panelists and to the Committee Members.

And then lastly, we just wanted to say that we are so appreciative of discussions like these, even though they are hard at times, they're really crucial, not just in the state capitol, but also in communities that are going to be impacted by offshore wind, as well as at our, you know, our dining room tables, you know, with loved ones and community Members.

So thank you very much.

I don't know if it's a shy group today or if it's just us standing up, but thank you so much for hosting this hearing today. I'm Erin Grizzard, the Vice President of government affairs for Invenergy. So one of the central coast leaseholders as well, you know, largely reiterating what Annabelle just said.

But the conversation today was really great and it was good to hear from additional local experts and then very clearly wanting to address what Mister Cohen mentioned and just stating a commitment to ongoing communication and work.

I'm not our tribal liaison, so I definitely have some follow up questions just to make sure that that engagement is happening as it should, and we'll ensure that we're addressing those concerns.

But want to end on the note of having continual conversations like this in public forums is really important so that folks can show up and contribute to the conversation. So thank you so much for having it. And last but not least, but thank you to the Sani Andes for hosting us today, too.

I should have started there, so excuse me for that. Thanks.

Any other public comment going?

Okay.

Good afternoon. First, thank you to the San Diego tribe for hosting us, and thank you to Madam Chair and to the whole Select Committee for hosting this conversation. My name is Brian Sabina. I lead clean energy terminals. We're partnering with Port St.

Louis Harbor District, investigating A, O and M Terminal in the Central coast, which we think is a vital connection between all the potential investment that will go on off our shores into the communities that make this region in California so special. We really appreciate the conversations that are happening here.

We want to echo some of the comments that were made earlier on some of the panels that we've made tremendous strides with programs like the AB 209 program, like the procurement Bill that was moving forward to give the private sector, like us, certainty to make investments in infrastructure that will make sure benefits flow into these communities.

We're at the starting point still, though, we would love to see a continued effort through Proposition four, but as well as through other opportunities to continue this.

Programs like AB 209 are really forcing us and giving us the opportunity to think broadly about how do we engage the community through the grant programs that could support the projects, but also through the community engagement efforts that those will Fund.

Whether that is this year or in future years, we certainly want to make sure that those sorts of opportunities continue on forward. So thank you.

Any other, this is your window closing. Nobody else that wants to make public comment? All right.

Well, with that, I'm sure we all have some closing comments to make, but I'll jump in and just say that as we move into the future, you know, tribal nations and local communities have been treated in ways that have caused lasting harm. And I do believe this is our opportunity to do better.

I think that the conversation is starting. There's a lot of goodwill, but I'm not hearing yet that it has gotten across the line. A number of themes have arisen today for me.

One is the need for accurate information based in science that's communicated well, a respect for cultural sites and artifacts, and remains understanding, both on land and underwater, what is happening.

The funding to participate in meaningful ways, I think needs to start coming more quickly than it has been, and the guarantee for the local workforce and the economy that it will strengthen locally, not just big picture across California, but that locally across the central coast and across the north coast that the economy will benefit and numerous other things.

I'm sure there are many other things you heard out there today, but I do believe we've all gained new perspectives, and those watching on TV have gained new perspectives. And I'm certainly committed personally to bringing this kind of information into our coming legislative discussions in the coming year and taking all of this into account.

And I'm confident my colleagues here and in the Legislature will be thinking about these issues. I really want to thank Sani Chumash for hosting us. Very gracious, and I know the kind of work that goes into putting these kinds of things on. So thank you to your staff as well.

Thank you to our staff from the Legislature rules staff, my own district staff in the back, and chief here next to me, my colleagues and particularly the panelists and the Members of the public that have joined in today. So thank you. And if either of you have any closing comments, you're welcome to make them.

Sure. I also want to say thank you for the hospitality of the Santa Ines Chumash and their beautiful facility here. I haven't been out here before. I have to say this is beautiful, striking country that I have not seen before. So it's a real treat to be here.

I have to say I've followed the offshore wind discussions from the very, very beginning, and each time we do something, I learn something new. And so much appreciation to the panelists.

I do want to emphasize something that we certainly in my team really talked about in earnest early as we were looking at these things a couple of years ago, is that the tremendous potential benefit for the climate, for energy production cannot be ignored.

And having representing communities that have had historic challenges with other industries that have kind of, for lack of a better description, left them high and dry. Certainly, I have tremendous respect for our tribal governments and the concern that this could potentially happen again.

And so the tone and concern you see from people is because of past experiences, promises made, promises broken, and lack of trust is very, very real. Very, very real. And then there are other extenuating circumstances we could talk about more, but I think you are well aware of that.

The potential for local workforce as a part of that community benefit is something we discussed a couple of years ago and how critical we absolutely believe that is a homegrown workforce among people who really and are in an economically depressed area.

I think one of the things I was impressed with, we took a trip back east to, why am I blanking to see the port development, New Bedford, and what that has done for the revitalization of a community. There is really encouraging what could happen in other communities.

And I recognize that the Central coast and the north coast are different, very different. But I would say there are a lot of folks on the north coast who would really welcome that rejuvenation, revitalization. And I hope that as we continue that. That focus on the local community and the benefits to the community remain in the forefront.

So once again, thank you, Madam Chair, for putting this together. This is the last Committee hearing I think I'll ever attend as a. As a. As a. As an Assembly Member. So I felt strongly about being here.

It's something that we followed for a while now, and it will affect the area that I live, because the next potential call areas are off the Mendocino coast, which is even closer to where. Where we. Where I live. So thank you very much. And once again, thank you for the hospitality.

I just want to thank our chair, Assembly Member Addis, for organizing this Select Committee today. This has been really productive conversation. And she is a serious leader in the state Legislature when it comes to offshore wind and environmental issues.

A perfect person to chair this Committee, as well as Doctor Wood's involvement in this issue from the very beginning. And his commitment to this coming 6 hours from home all the way down to our central coast.

To be part of this discussion today shows that his leadership and commitment and engagement is not going to stop, even if his service in the Legislature ends period of time. I really appreciate all of the panelists. There's such a great diverse array of interest and expertise today.

And I fully believe that transparency is critically important to the effectiveness of government. And in this instance, we have a huge undertaking that has such enormous consequences for our climate and our economy and really our future. And not just here in the central coast and the north coast, but the whole State of California and fundamentally the world.

We're testing this new technology. It has tremendous potential. It has really transformative economic benefits and environmental benefits that can't be ignored. But we also have to get the details right. And I think that the Central coast has experienced energy development that was not done well.

And we have been suffering from the impacts of that for a very long time. We're at a point in time where that industry is transitioning away and this new industry is. Is about to begin. And the foundation we build to make that successful is critical.

And I think we heard good, encouraging news and we had very sobering information from Mister Cohen that requires intervention and change. And I sense from the public comment from the companies that they recognize that that's been a missed opportunity and that they're going to fix that as fast as possible.

The links that the Chumash tribe has gone into to accommodate wind energy by modifying the boundaries of the Marine preserve is important to recognize and remember and shows the willingness of the tribe to work collaboratively to make things happen. That's the experience we have here in Santa Barbara county.

And I know that will be the experience if the industry treats that relationship with the care that it requires. So I think this will not be the last time that we have a Select Committee hearing on offshore wind.

This is probably a decade long commitment or more, and I look forward to the continuing conversation and the work together.

I don't do this very. I don't do this. I don't come back with another comment, but I want to just say in parting here, these are obviously very complicated issues. They're complicated water, land, resource, artifacts. I mean, communities are affected.

And we tend to really, in many cases, kind of, at times, overanalyze, over expect and say this with caution, because I'm not. I'm not Robert Mitchum, and this is not run silent, run deep, full speed ahead. Damn the torpedoes. That's not what I'm saying.

What I am saying is that there is a possibility that you could overanalyze and over do this to a point where the perfect becomes the enemy of the good.

And so there needs to be a balance as you move forward and recognize that this is new and there will be things that need to be adjusted over time, but we'll never get it perfect out of the gate.

And so I think for the sake of everyone, to keep that in mind, but with the spirit that there is a commitment to continue to do everything as good as you can to get to that point, but not to kill it by overanalyzation from the very beginning and get out and do this, because the benefits really are significant.

It won't be perfect, but it could be really, really good and eventually be perfect. But if we're trying to get it perfect first, we'll never get out of the gate. So thank you.

Well, thank you. And thank you to all of you for being here. And with that, we'll adjourn our informational hearing.