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

Good morning and welcome to Assembly budget sub 4. Today we will review the administration's spending plan for extreme heat mitigation and outdoor access chapters of Proposition 4. We'll also hear from the departments within the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Parks and Recreation.

We have eight items planned for presentation today, so we have a lot to get through. For each presentation item, I'll ask each of the witnesses in the agenda to introduce themselves before they begin their testimony.

At the end of the presentation items, Members of the Subcommitee may ask questions, make comments or request a presentation on any of the 13 non presentation items. We will not be taking a vote today on any of the items. After all the items are heard, we'll take public comment.

For Members of the public who wish to provide comments, please limit your testimony to items on the agenda. If you have comments on specific budget augmentations not related to the departments before us, please refer to the daily file for which subcommitee hearings the pertinent department will be.

Before this, each member of the public will have one minute to speak. Let's begin. And appreciate that our panelists have learned the drill and they're already up here and ready to go. And this is extreme heat. The mitigation spending plan is issue number one. And we'll begin with the panelists.

Hi. Good morning. My name is Ahmad Sid.

Whoa, you're not. We're not hearing you.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah. And just for the panelists, please bring that thing. We can't move ours. You can move yours. Bring it right up to your mouth so that everybody can hear, particularly the old guy up here with bad ears. Right. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Hi. Good morning. I'm Ahmad Sid, Deputy Director for the Strategic Growth Council under Land Use Climate Program Agency. My programs are the Transformative Climate Communities and the Community Resilience Centers. So with the expected budget year, we're looking at opportunities to continue to do technical assistance.

We're looking at opportunities that would expand and really follow the lines of the Proposition for guidelines and requirements. Some of the technical assistance work that we're thinking about would include capacity building, building out from round, Round five of transformative climate Communities and from round one of the Community Resilience Centers.

Okay, thank you.

Hi, my name is Abby. Much better. Okay. It's really up here. So. My name is Abby Edwards. I'm the Senior Deputy Director for the Governor's Office of Land Use and climate innovation, formerly OPR. And the administration's climate bond expenditure plan includes 16 million for the extreme heat and community resilience program in 2025-26 and 31.6 million in 26-27.

So initial funding for the program was provided in 2022 and the program is really the first comprehensive solutions driven approach to mitigating extreme heat, the state's most deadly weather related hazard. The program supports coordinated high impact strategies across three pillars, the first being critical infrastructure, the second public health strategies and the third extreme heat preparedness planning.

The program has received 50 million as part of the 2021-2022 climate packages and the program has also received 14 million as a part of the Aliso Canyon Recovery Account which is dedicated specifically to communities that are impacted adjacent to the Aliso Canyon. There are currently 48 projects that are awarded with over 95% serving disadvantaged communities.

Round one saw 300 million in funding requests for only 33 million available. The projects range in scale from 100,000 to 4 million. And the climate bond investments will really build upon prior funding to leverage our existing infrastructure, our existing partnerships and a lot of the community trust that we've established in rounds in the past.

And the expanded funding will provide up to funding for up to 150 additional communities, implement and immediately provide 15 million in the budget year to backfill general fund proposed for reduction in the Governor's budget and increase capacity for extreme heat issues. So that's our overview.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Members. I'm Brian Cash from the Natural Resources Agency and here to talk about the Urban Greening program. The Administration's climate bond expenditure plan allocates 100 million for the Urban Greening program over the next two years.

The program provides funding for competitive grants for Urban Greening which includes projects that mitigate the urban heat island effects, rising temperatures and extreme heat impacts. Projects include replacing school asphalt with green areas including native trees, plants, pollinators and to have nature based outdoor play areas restoring wetlands or riparian corridors and then constructing new non motorized trails.

The program was established in 2008 originally at the SGC and moved over to just at the agency in 2016. The program's received about 285.7 million over the life of the program so far. So this is an existing ongoing program, very oversubscribed with each round that we do.

The funds are used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and and achieve multi benefits and is focused on the disadvantaged communities throughout the state. And the climate bond funding of course will continue to provide these same type of benefits ongoing. And I'll turn the time over now to Matthew Reichman from CAL FIRE for Urban Forestry.

Well good Morning Chair Bennett, Members of the Committee. Matthew Reichman, Cal. Fire Deputy Director for Natural Resource Management. Thank you for the opportunity to present oversight of our urban forestry program. The Administration's climate bond expenditure plan contains 50 million for urban forestry.

We plan to use the initial funds to support staff to develop guidelines and provide technical assistance to our grantees through the application process. Urban forests are crucial or critical for resilience within our communities.

And through our grants, we plan to support a variety of activities, including tree planting and maintenance, regional and local policy updates, improved urban forest management, build partnerships, expand the workforce for tree care, and ultimately support education and outreach. The program was established in 1978 through the adoption of the Urban Forestry Act.

And we provide competitive bids to both the cities, counties, special districts and 501s. We received since 2014 a total of $342 million through the program. 43 of those are Ira funds. Through the Forest Service, where we continue to provide a variety of urban forestry grants, we expect to plant approximately 15 to 20,000 trees with these funds.

We'll engage in tree inventories to develop urban forest management plans so that cities and counties have the roadmaps to increase urban forest canopies. And ultimately, we plan to let somewhere in the area of 30 to 40 grants.

With these funds, we'll track our success through tree planting and maintenance with urban forest management activities, as well as the environmental benefits that our program will provide. Thank you.

Good morning. Jamie Gonzalez from the Department of Financing. And I am appearing on behalf of California Department of Food and Ag.

You got to be a lot closer. Bring it to you. Don't go to it. Bring it to you, please.

Is that better?

I don't want the workman's comp claim coming to budget set of four. Right. That's it. That's much better. Thank you.

All right, let me start over. Jamie Gonzalez, Department of Finance and I'm appearing on behalf of California Department of Food and Ag because they are attending Ag Day outside the Capitol today. So I'll be presenting on behalf of the fairground updates as they relate to Prop 4.

The administration's climate bond expenditure plan includes 37.61.0 million million 1.0 in 25-26 and staffing costs through 28-29 to support implementation of the fairground updates. The California Network of Fairs operates under the oversight of the California Department of Food and Agriculture's Fair and Expositions branch and consists of 79 fairs that operate under a variety of governance structures.

Fairgrounds in the network are put are part of the state's emergency response and preparedness infrastructure and provide year round resiliency services to their local communities, many of which are rural and or historically disadvantaged.

Services include converting entire fairgrounds to cooling centers during extreme heat events and becoming a fire camp and or incident command post for CAL FIRE in the event of large fires. To enhance the ability for the network to perform these functions, CDFA has received 120 million for infrastructure at our most frequently activated and accessed fairgrounds since 2017.

Given the number of fairgrounds, the respective service areas, and the cost of these projects that involve updating or building physical structures, funding received to date has only allowed F and E to address a portion of the needs in this network.

CDFA plans to utilize the 40 million made available to the Climate Bond to implement critical fairground updates such as repairing and upgrading restroom facilities, installing energy efficient hacks that HVAC systems, repairing, updating, upgrading electrical systems and repairing replacing roofs at many of the key sites as possible in order to maximize the number of fairgrounds equipped to provide shelter to large numbers of people during extreme and extended heat episodes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Rachel Aylers with the Legislative Analyst's Office so as you can see on page three of your agenda for the Extreme Heat chapter, The bond authorizes 450 million in total.

The Administration's proposal proposes about just under a quarter of that for this first year, more in the second year, maybe about a third, and then the rest kind of over the multi year period. So this chapter is a little different from some of the others that we have discussed and will discuss in the coming weeks.

For example, you'll recall in the Wildfire chapter there were several new, brand new programs within the bond. In this chapter it's all existing programs. So there are really fewer policy choices immediately before you in this chapter.

That doesn't mean you couldn't look at some of these existing programs and make some policy changes to criteria and how the program is administered if you wanted to. But absent that, the main decision before you is the timing of when to put this funding out.

In our review of the administration, as you can see in the figure on page three, there are some programs that the Administration is not proposing funding for this first year instead in future years. In our review of the proposal, we thought there was pretty good substantiation for that approach.

All of these programs have received previous funding from the general fund or other sources and so thinking about the flow of that money, how much capacity there is to take on new projects at this time, you know how much capacity there is for the departments to administer additional rounds.

And the administration's indicated that this timing reflects kind of that capacity both in the field and at the Administration. So that seemed to have justification for us. But again, if you are hearing different things or have different perspectives, that may be something you want to push on. But overall, this approach seems to make sense.

And this is one where, if you are comfortable with the structure of the programs, you might want to think about a multi year plan as compared to some of those others we've discussed where there are more policies, policy decisions in play that you may want more time before you kind of sign off on a multi year plan.

Thank you very much. I have some questions, but I'll turn to my colleagues. Questions.

Hey, Mr. Chair, just really fast, can you tell me how the urban forestry program and the urban greening programs are coordinating? Because I think to the untrained eye, they might sound very similar. Yes.

In the urban greening program, we do have Members of the urban forestry staff that sit in on our committees that actually evaluate the project. So they help out with the forestry portion of the urban greening program, and then we have experts from other areas that sit in and help out with the other functions.

Jeff, anything to add? No, that's accurate. We provide the technical expertise in support of their grant program and we coordinate very well.

So having two separate pots of money for it though, how are you also reconciling the difference between staff time or when you have a program that kind of blends between the two? How are you accounting for that from a budgetary perspective?

Well, the programs are separate. When they're evaluating projects for us, they're still being paid by the urban forestry program because they're focusing on the, the tree canopy and, and that portion of the greening projects. So the staff time is divided up by the, the time spent on the urban greening program than the time spent on urban forestry.

Okay, but we're very close and coordinate between us and. Yeah, and the real difference is the, the focus of urban forestry is on the trees and everything. And then urban greening can focus on other things like green alleyways and trails and some more gray infrastructure that may not be included in the urban forestry program. We're close cousins.

And with this additional, with this funding, is there an ability for, say, local cities or local counties that have wanted to start programs relative to this that they can participate or is this just going to go towards existing programs? Existing design?

Definitely. Yeah. And we both programs plan to do a lot of outreach to find those folks who may not have Been participating before. Each time we receive additional funding, there's outreach that's done and it's a way of bringing in new people into the programs and, you know, providing those benefits throughout the state.

Yeah, I appreciate that. We just had a relief organization start up in my hometown that I was particularly interested in the issue. Great. And then just one quick question on the fairground. Fairground upgrades.

Obviously we've seen curtailment of horse racing for our fairground that is not a death sentence, but certainly means that they need to repurpose or rethink how they're using those fairground resources. Have you been coordinating with local fair boards on some of these upgrades to see what their future plans might entail?

I'm going to interrupt before you do that, just for the benefit of us as we go forward because she's just pinch hitting. We might want to send messages back to them and you can ask the question, but we're not expecting you to be the expert since you're not actually working in that Department.

So just want to make sure everybody. Knows that was going to be very. And they will be here. And by the way, the fairgrounds people will be here in two weeks. Right?

Perfect. Yeah, they're out. I know. Food and AG. Looking at the highland cows. I don't. I'm envious of them. But if you could take that back, that'd be great.

Absolutely. No problem.

Great.

Is that it? All right. Member Alanis? Oh, I thought you had questions. Right. Great. All righty. So the other thing I'll ask you to take back.

So when they come from the fairgrounds that they're ready and that is I'm particularly interested in these funds being used for the new crisis that we all recognize we have, which is we need to up our game dramatically if we're going to decrease our losses from wildfires.

And so if these fairgrounds as they're doing these upgrades can be doing these upgrades with.

To focus on these facilities being used for fire prevention activities, you know, for the firefighting, but also the training of citizens to make sure they know how to harden their homes, they know how to handle things to the extent that the fairgrounds can help with that because they play normally a pretty critical role when it comes to staging areas for fire.

And so it just makes. Makes sense that they would be involved in that. So if you'd pass that on. I know that cooling centers is the other cooling is another thing.

Quite frankly, I don't see fairgrounds being used as cooling centers anywhere near as much as they're going to be used as fire staging centers and emergency staging centers, et cetera. So I think we ought to err on putting the money there.

The second thing is, my guess is you don't have this off the top of your head, but for Urban Greening and Urban Forestry, I would like to have a breakdown of where the dollars are being spent. What communities are these dollars being spent into, what percentage, you know, Northern California. What percentage Southern California? What percentage rural?

What percentage urban areas? That would be very helpful. Like to have that. And then there's something else I'd like.

Mr. Chair, would you like that over the last, like, five years?

What I really like is since the beginning of the program, if you have it. But if you don't, over the last five years would be certainly sufficient.

Urban Forestry goes back to 1978.

Exactly. So that's, that's why, you know, it'd be great. I mean, if you had some computer that could just kick it all out, it'd be great. But I'm most, I'm particularly interested in the last five years. Right. All right. In terms of that. Thank you.

The other thing, that won't be just for this, but I hope we can start to develop a.

This is a standard practice here, and that is, you know, we get these programs from the Assembly standpoint, we don't care, get very much information about how, you know, what, what exactly is the money being spent on, you know, what are we getting?

And I know it's impossible for you to come here and explain all of that, but what I would like to do is have something that would give us some feel. And so this is the, this is a initial request that I'd be happy to modify with you guys as you give me feedback.

But if, if you could have some pictures of the five best projects that you've done in the last five years. Right. You know, the ones you're most proud of, et cetera. It would help build support for your programs. Right. And it would help give us, you know, some idea, you know, so where the dollars are spent.

So we, we have that and we can assure Members that. Because we're starting to get more questions about, about that. And then, you know, what are your best projects? Right. And your five best, you know, over the last five years.

And then I particularly like to see, like, in the last year, what, what were the best two or three projects that you did? So with that.

Mr. Chair. Yeah. Just wanted to say that we, we've really been working on that over the last few years. Anytime we make awards for urban greening, we reach out to the members who are actually receiving the funding in those areas. And I think my counterparts do the same. So we just we echo your comments.

We agree, we want to make sure everyone knows and that there are projects going out and they're making a difference.

So for those of us that haven't had an opportunity to be called because there was a project, it'd be good for us to see the projects in those other communities, if we can do that.

And then the final thing that relates to question one on our why is technical assistance so important for the capacity building and specifically for the programs administered by LCI, the Transformative Climate Communities, Community Resilience Centers and Extreme Heat.

Okay, I'll do some covering here and then maybe Abby can join in too if we need to. I just want to also come back a little bit and talk about Transformative Climate Communities and the Community Resilience Centers as I jumped ahead a little bit in talking about where we're at today with Prop 4.

So kind of similar to what we're hearing, we have projects for both programs that are statewide and this is implementation projects that are very large scale projects on the Community Resilience center side, up to $10 million. We're talking about holistic time type of investments for both CRC and TCC.

We're covering urban greening, we're covering a lot of extreme heat and very much in that community centered approach. And so when we talk about technical assistance, LCI, SGC have been leaders across state agencies in implementing technical assistance and capacity building types of programs.

And this runs the gamut from technical assistance with application to implementation technical assistance to also evaluation in that technical assistance space in the capacity building space.

When we talk about capacity, we're looking at communities that are maybe Low resourced, maybe deemed disadvantaged communities, per Cal Enviro screen, tribal communities that need additional support in actually getting into state funding, federal funding or leveraging some of their funding sources.

So what I wanted to mention here is technical assistance is a critical role for any of our agencies that we want to reach those hard to reach communities or the communities that have been most impacted by climate or harm.

And this is a space where it provides that opportunity to really go after some of the complex programs that we have on deck, especially when we're talking about community benefits agreements and matching with regional partners. These spaces provide those opportunities for them.

Anything else you want to add?

No, I think that's pretty good. It's really around ensuring equitable access to our programs, being able to support the on the ground implementation of the work, being able to facilitate the multi sector collaboration, being able to, being able to enhance the strategies, you know, the technical strategies associated with climate change.

So a lot of that just extra support to be able to support communities across the state. I will note on that the last comment about the storytelling.

I will say that the Extreme Heat and Community Resilience Program is doing, conducting an evaluation that was in statute for us across the Community Resilience Centers Program, Urban Greening, Urban Forestry, our program, to evaluate the strategies that these programs are implementing to see what's most effective when it comes to mitigating the impacts of extreme heat.

And we also have photos in the evaluation. So hopefully that would be helpful to tell the stories.

And we would like you also to provide sort of a breakdown of where these funds are flowing in the state. And then my final question. Well, not my final question, but one question for Mr. Reichman.

In our Urban Forestry Program, how much of the focus is on planting new trees in the urban forest versus all the other things that you identified in terms of trying to manage the forest, et cetera?

I think tree planting is probably our most funded activity.

So do you have statistics on how many new trees have been planted?

Yes.

Great. Can you get those to us?

Yes.

Great. Thank you. All right. And then how will the backfill of the Prop 4 funds for the Extreme Heat community resilience programs disrupt the open round for grant solicitations that's currently underway?

So the 15 million General Fund backfill will not impact round one funding and there's not currently a round that's available. So round one applications closed in May of last year and award letters were sent in November and December to the 48 grantees for the projects.

And the climate bond funds will be combined with the remaining GGRF funds that we have for a second round of funding for 22.5 million to go out later this this year.

How many awards do do you expect to be able to fund with the. Prop 4 transform across the board?

We're estimating up to 150 at max. You know, we still are scoping out sort of how the funds will roll out based on the requirements for Prop 4, but up to that number.

Great. Thank you very much. We're going to go on to issue number two, Outdoor access spending plan. Thank it.

You have double barreled speakers, sir. Right.

Good morning, Chair and Members. My name is Armando Quintero, and I'm the Director of the Department of Parks and Recreation. And I'm going to be discussing two items under the climate bond, which are outdoor access and...

Excuse me, you're a little bit light, so why don't you pull both microphones since you've got that in front of you. It might actually help. Just don't. There we go. Thanks.

Is that better? Thank you. I'll start over. My... Good morning, Chair and Members, My name is Armando Quintero, and I'm the Director of the California Department of Parks and Recreation. I'll be discussing two items under the climate bond and the outdoor access spending plan. First, the Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Program creates new parks and recreation opportunities in underserved communities outside across California. And these are communities that are not in state parks.

These are communities that don't have any recreation facilities or recreation centers and things like that. The Administration's climate bond expenditure plan includes 190 million for this program in 25 and 26, and funding for the program delivery is allocated through 2030-31. Since 2008, roughly $1.2 billion in grants have been awarded to 313 projects across California. And funding from...

And this funding has come from bond funds including Proposition 40, Proposition 84, Proposition 68, and the General Fund. The historical difference between the applicant request versus available funding shows a continuing need for the program in underserved communities. And when you said earlier that images would be great for you, it would be wonderful to bring to you some examples of communities that prior to this investment had nothing and now they have world class facilities in their neighborhoods.

Based on historical averages, the funding included in the 2025 Governor's Budget will will fund approximately 48 park projects in underserved communities throughout California. The Administration is proposing to appropriate all project funds in 25 and 26 because we know that the demand exists for these projects and the funding is greatly needed.

The funding available in the climate bond will help to bridge a needed gap in close to home parks that are accessible and sustainable for current and future generations. And I'll go to deferred maintenance now. Okay. The Administration's climate bond expenditure plan for state parks deferred maintenance program includes $84.4 million in funding for the program in 25 and 26, with the remaining project funding in 26 and 27 and 27 and 28.

The proposed deferred maintenance project spending plan will address maintenance that has been delayed, bringing state owned facilities to an acceptable and operable condition while maintaining or extending their useful life. Since 2016, approximately $228.6 million have been appropriated for deferred maintenance projects from various funding sources including the General Fund, Proposition 40, and Proposition 68.

The Administration's multi year funding proposal will build on previous investments by addressing prioritized projects throughout the state, including projects that address health, safety, and public access. And these investments will address high priority projects to enable improved access and an enhanced visitor experience across the state.

And I'd like to mention that we are working on projects from previous deferred maintenance funding that includes a complete restoration of the Pigeon Point Lighthouse down on the coast. And one of the things that we're going to be doing is having ribbon cuttings for these events because they are spectacular projects. And so with that, I'll say thank you and I'm happy to address any questions after the Administration's presentation.

Good morning. My name is Valerie Termini. I am the Chief Deputy Director at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. The Administration's climate bond expenditure plan includes 10 million in 25-26, 20 million in 26-27 and 27-28 for our lands program. We own and operate over 1 million acres and over 750 properties throughout the state. That's akin to State Parks, but our properties are found in downtown LA as well as in the Modoc Plateau in the middle of nowhere. These long standing lands programs are really important for the communities as well as for biodiversity.

We have existing funding of approximately 57 million from a mixture of funding sources, including the General Fund, special funds, bond funds, and federal funds. The $50 million investment from the climate bond will enable the Department to continue protecting biodiversity while increasing equitable access, will build relationships with tribes, facilitate community access, install visitor amenities within underserved communities.

Many of these properties have never even had a toilet. So when you're out in the middle of these properties, it becomes very difficult to access the properties without basic amenities such as that. Since COVID too, there's been a dramatic increase in recreational use of our properties throughout the state.

Yet most of our properties, as I just mentioned, lack basic amenities such as restrooms, trail maintenance, interpretive signage, and wildfire preparedness. The climate bond investments will build on recent project funding of almost 111 million in the past five years and improve the experience for all Californians. Thank you. Can answer questions.

Bryan Cash again from the Natural Resources Agency. I have three programs to present. They're all new programs within the bond. The first is the reduction of climate impacts on disadvantaged communities and expansion of outdoor recreation. The bond allocates 200 million for projects that create, protect, and expand outdoor recreation opportunities in disadvantaged communities and also for vulnerable populations.

CDFW just talked about the 50 million for their part of this and agency will be working on a program, developing a program over the next year for 150 million of this. The program development will involve agency reaching out to stakeholders and to potential grantees and educating them and getting their feedback on how to develop the program.

But then also when the solicitations happen, walk them through the steps to apply and what type of projects could be funded. The program is going to support project types that are similar to programs and projects that we've already funded in other programs throughout our agency.

And then the second program is enhancement of natural resources value and expanded recreation opportunities. This program, the bond provides $100 million for the protection, restoration, enhancement of natural resource values in the state park system and also for expanded recreational opportunities and public aspects to the state and public park non-motorized trails.

The Administration plans to do similar with the last program to do outreach to state parks and also to local park programs to develop the program over the next year and then we'll come back to the Legislature in 26-27 to actually request the project funding. And then the final program is the Nature Climate Education and Research Facilities Grant.

This is similar to our Museum Grant Program that we've had over the years, but with a little twist. It was established in the in the climate bond and has $45 million available. We plan on doing two rounds, so 42 million this year and then 42 million the next year.

And then this new program will provide funding for public education work about natural landscapes and biodiversity, which will include things like visitor centers, nonprofit aquariums that educate people about natural landscapes, improvement projects for museums, zoos, and aquariums. In harmony, we're going to be using the what we've learned from the Museum Grant Program to roll this one out. This will be a competitive program and we plan on doing a solicitation in February of 2026. So we'll develop the program and then release this solicitation then and then award the funding later on in the year.

Thank you. LAO.

So if you look at the... Again, Rachel Ehlers with the LAO. If you look at page six of your agenda, which highlights the outdoor access package, it's really kind of two stories happening here. The first two rows for that the Director presented on the Department of Parks and Recreation. You can see almost all of the funding.

Excuse me, my page six. Yeah, it's this. Oh, mine are numbered differently. Yeah, I have a special agenda. Great. Got it. Okay, go ahead.

So the Parks proposals are for existing programs, and you can see almost all of the funding is either in the first or second year because those, again, the Department has identified that there's sufficient need and they're ready to go with existing programs. And I'll just highlight for the record that for the deferred maintenance that's also one of the items that has a General Fund backfill of $14 million. For the other three programs, as you heard, these involve new activities and new proposals for that the Administration is developing.

You can see some of the funds in that final column for pending allocation where they'll come back to the Legislature to request the funding. But some of them are already proposed for multi year rollout, particularly that bottom one, as you just heard Mr. Cash say.

They're planning to run a program solicitation in the budget year even though that's a brand new program that hasn't quite yet been developed. So I think we would highlight for you on those bottom three programs that those are areas where you may want to be more involved in deciding how those funds will be spent.

At a bare minimum, having the Administration come forth with specific plans for how they plan to spend the money, but also potentially getting involved in making those decisions and having some of those policy calls based on what the Legislature had in mind when it created these categories of the bond rather than sort of deferring to the Administration to develop the programs and then roll it out. So I think we would suggest that you might want to think about these two categories differently within this package of those that are existing programs, again, versus those that are brand new.

Thank you very much. Member questions? Mr. Assembly Member Lackey.

Yeah, this is a little bit off talk topic, but I know that we have Mr. Quintero here who I believe would be able to at least address in a very general term the problem that that I has been brought to my attention that is that there's 86 park police vacancies and wondering if... I know that this has nothing to do with deferred maintenance, but it is a very big concern to many and wondered if there's any plan to address these vacancies?

Could, could you, could you just repeat the part of the question? You know there's something. And I didn't quite catch that. So I can understand his answer. He said, you know, there's some problem. What is the problem?

Yeah, the problem is the, the vacancies that are currently exist. There's 86.

Okay, okay. I didn't hear that word, vacancies.

Thank you for the question. You're correct in that recent years we've had difficulty recruiting new officers for our cadet program. We have our own police academy or park ranger academy. I can report to you, but that this last year we changed our recruitment strategies, and right in April, we're going to graduate the first full class of peace officers that we've had in several years.

And that was through improved recruitment and review methods for accepting new applicants. So the trend is a good one. And we've also had quite a few retirements in the last couple years. So we're playing catch up, but we're actually increasing our speed and effectiveness.

And if I could ask, excuse me, approximately how many, how big is your class?

It's 40. 40 peace officers.

Congratulations. Thank you.

Thank you.

Other questions? So I have a few things. There we go. One, in terms of your out year funding and pending allocation when it comes to deferred maintenance, completely supportive of us keeping that all in there so you can plan properly. It makes sense. But not only for here, but also if there are people still in the room from issue one, I have more concerns in terms of issue one about some of the out year just allocating that funding without any more specificity.

So just want to put people on notice that we'll be looking at the out year funding issues. Less so in this area of deferred maintenance, but certainly significantly in terms of the issues of climate impacts, reducing climate impacts in disadvantaged communities, and also the enhancing natural resource and expanding trail access. So I think to LAO's point, there are Assembly Members that are interested in having some input there. So if you want to put you on notice that we will be doing that.

Mr. Chair, if I may add. Lizzie Urie, Department of Finance. Part of the Administration's strategy, including those dollars in that pending allocation item, was really to have this conversation with the Legislature about the Legislature's intent for those new programs. So we do look forward to that.

We greatly appreciate it since we feel like we led on the Prop 4 more than the Administration did. And so we feel some ownership. And so that makes everybody feel good that they're that you've made that recognition. So thank you very much. And for the State Park Revitalization Program, you're going to be opening a new round for the grant program or do you plan to do this awarding through the existing open round?

We will be reopening a round or a new round.

Thank you. All right. And I'm sorry, we're just trying to move on everything here. Department of Fish and Wildlife. And these are some questions we just want to make sure we get into the record. You received 57 million, increasing accessibility to land the Department owns and operates. Over how many years was that funding provided to the Department?

Thank you for the question. The 57 million, just to clarify, is actually our entire lands program annual budget, and that comes from a variety of sources, including ELPF, Prop 12, General Fund, amongst others. In the past five years, we've spent about 110 million over a variety of priorities, including wildfire resilience, biodiversity enhancement, kiosks, interpretive panels, things like that.

So the last five years, 110?

57 million is what you have...

Correct.

Half of that goes for staff funding to manage those properties throughout the state as well.

All right. And the 57 million is what you have for this annual year?

Correct.

Patched together from various sources.

Duct tape and bailware.

All right, good. And has the Department of Fish and Wildlife collected data on the number of visitors before and after access, the accessibility upgrades?

Right. So we don't have capacity to track specific visitor use throughout all our entire properties. We do track project outcomes, and so we can... I actually do have a packet with me of images, if you would like to see, of our projects that we've done in the past few years.

If you'll make sure our staff gets that, we'd appreciate it.

Of course. And we are also updating our website to make it more available for the public to know where our properties are and how to access them.

Great. Question on the Prop 4 backfill. What will be the impact on the delivery and the timeline of the wildfire resilience projects across state parks that receive General Fund from the Stewardship of State Owned Land Program?

In effect, the proposed $68 million fund shift in the Governor's Budget is a change in the type of money from the General Fund to bond funds. And this will allow state parks to continue to advance the critical efforts started five years ago that have supported forest and wildfire resilience treatments in over 100 state parks, state park units.

And while expanded planned wildfire resilience efforts have been paused at other state land management, and we're doing that while other wildfire resilience plans have been paused, climate bond funds will provide renewed funding for the stewardship of state lands beyond state parks at CDFW wildlife areas, ecological reserves, CAL FIRE demonstration forests, and the State Lands Commission administered lands. Much of the work is not supported by current appropriations.

Specifically the backfill itself. What will be the impact of having a backfill from Prop 4?

We're going to be able to continue work that we've already started, as I mentioned, five years ago. We've got 100 parks, we've got fire projects ready to go.

So you don't think there's going to be a disruption in activities by switching funding sources?

Let me ask my team here. Okay, if I can. I'm going to ask Jay Chamberlin, who's a Chief of our Natural Resources Division.

Great, thank you.

Good morning, Chair Bennett and Members. Jay Chamberlin, Natural Resources Division Chief, California State Parks. As my Director said, the effect that we believe we will feel from the shift of General Fund to bond funds is, is modest, given that we are driven by project level implementation at over 100 state park units to date. And we've, we have a long history of implementing bond funded programs to do resource restoration work. So we are very confident that this is a, this is merely a change in the type of fund source as, as my Director identified.

Okay, but no impact on projects? Right. Then my final, final question in this area is, if we had $12 million more for State Parks, what would happen in terms of deferred maintenance? What, what, what's, what's next on the list that would be happening?

Well, we do have a significant need for deferred maintenance. That's your question, right? And the Governor's Budget proposed to shift $14 million from previous General Fund to climate bond funds. And that reduces the overall funding available for parks for deferred maintenance projects. However, this proposal helps achieve General Fund savings to enhance budgetary resilience in the face of significant budget uncertainty.

Okay, great.

So I think we're good.

All right, thank you. Back to CDFW. You said you're tracking projects instead of visitors, right? Anything to sort of track the effectiveness of the accessibility grants that you're getting?

We do, yes. We track all of our projects pretty extensively. I can get back to you with a list of those deliverables if you'd like. And as we move into the future, we're trying to take on a more collaborative role, particularly with tribes, and think about co-management as well as additional additional, you know, restoration, biodiversity work we can do with the communities and where we are, where we're located throughout the state.

So I guess, you know, part of what we're wrestling with is we're in the era of limits now. Extreme limits with the federal government cutbacks, et cetera. In terms of trying to prioritize things, how much more for accessibility grants versus how much more for deferred maintenance? Well, if you don't know whether the accessibility grants are having any significant change in accessibility. So if to the extent, the burden's on all of us to try to justify that's why these dollars are going here because it's having this impact.

So I completely get it that you don't have the ability across all of the parks to track the accessibility. But even if there was some effort put into these projects caused this outcome, it would be helpful. So that's, that's the suggestion slash request for us to try to do better, whatever better is, but at least to have something. Because we, we're so much more into this era of limits.

And then when you get a Prop 4 funding that come along, you have even a greater responsibility to try to say, hey, these, we're really spending these dollars on the best thing. So if you want accessibility dollars, we have to know how they compare to deferred maintenance dollars to the other kind of programs that are out there, as much as possible.

Chair, we completely agree, and we will develop a plan and get back to your staff with how we will implement that.

Thank you very much. Anything else, Members? Right. I think there's still two more questions over here. Is there a plan to engage the public on program development and future spending for the new programs for the unallocated funds in this chapter?

Definitely. As we talked about earlier during my presentation, agency will be reaching out to stakeholders, the Legislature, and to potential grantees to help develop the program. And then after the guidelines are developed, we'll also be doing outreach, since it is a new program especially, we'll be doing outreach throughout the state. We'll have public meetings to help educate people on how to actually apply for the program, and then also how to make their project stronger and more competitive.

Okay, thank you very much. We're going to go to issue three, SB 54 implementation. That's the Plastics Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Program. That's too bad, because that is. That's too bad. Okay, we'll let you begin. I understand we have somebody pinch hitting for Director Heller.

Yes, thank you very much. And hello, Chair and Members. I'm Mindy McIntyre. I'm the Chief Deputy with CalRecycle, and I have with me Brandy Hunt. And as you said, we are, we're pinch hitting for our Director, Zoe Heller, who can't be here today and she sends her apologies. So SB 54. SB 54 represents the most ambitious reform of plastics and packaging.

Could you pull it a little closer?

SB 54 represents the most ambitious reform of plastics and packaging management in state history. The law goes further than any other state in cutting single use plastic at the source and marks a major step forward towards the circular economy. CalRecycle is committed to implementing this law in a way that achieves the goal of reducing plastic waste and supporting a circular economy while also minimizing costs. In the coming year, CalRecycle will continue to work with all interested parties to adopt regulations in a manner that seeks to achieve this balance.

CalRecycle has been working to implement SB 54 statute since 2023. We have held seven informal regulatory workshops in 2023 to solicit feedback on preliminary regulations concepts from the stakeholder community. We've appointed a 13 member advisory committee board. We have published a list of covered material categories as required by the law.

In January 2024, CalRecycle selected the Circular Action Alliance as the PRO, the producer responsibility organization, to implement SB 50. CalRecycle also initiated the formal rulemaking process in March of 2024, and we held three public comment periods, the last one ending in December.

To establish a baseline for SB 54's source reduction baseline, CalRecycle conducted an analysis of the amount of single use plastic packaging and food service ware sold, offered for sale, or distributed in California in 2020 and CalRecycle reported, adopted that report, released the report in December 2024. We appreciate the Legislature's partnership in advancing this work and look forward to sharing next steps in the coming months as we work to implement SB 54. I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you. We'll hold our questions till we hear from all the witnesses. Anything you want to add?

Nothing to add at this time.

Thank you. Our next witness, Department of Finance.

Department of Finance, John Parsons.

LAO?

Frank Jimenez with the Legislative Analyst Office. No prepared remarks for this informational item, but happy to answer any questions.

Okay, I have lots of questions, but I'll defer to my colleagues for first and then hit it. Mr. Rogers.

No, thank you so much. I think we probably have some similar questions, mostly about the delay in the regulations. If you can kind of tell us a little bit about why was that caused? What can people expect in the future? If you have to go back to the drawing board, is that going to increase the cost, staff time? What are the actual implications for that of the implementation presentation?

Thank you for that question. To the delay of SB 54, SB 54 is quite a complex bill, as we all are familiar with. And so the delay in regulations is really a step back to really take the time to consider all of the comments that we received in the regulatory process and to reevaluate how we can again meet the needs of staff statute while also minimizing the impacts on all stakeholders.

So we don't necessarily need to go back to the drawing board from scratch. We do have a lot of, as I mentioned, a lot of input from stakeholders as well as a lot of evaluation of the statute itself. And we have done a lot of coordinating with stakeholders on how to develop the regulations in a way that works for everyone. So we are taking that into the next round of regulation. So we will reinitiate the regulatory process. And we are, of course, committed to all of the deadlines in the bill and meeting those statutory requirements.

So do you have an expected timeline?

We're evaluating that right now and evaluating all options on on how we can implement the regulations as as quickly as possible.

You got very specific answers there. Right? I'm going to... This is a significant issue for the Assembly and for Members in the Assembly. So I want to emphasize how important this is. There was a deadline, and when you say you take the deadline seriously and you want to do that, this is a deadline that's not been met.

And about the only people I can find that are okay with the deadline not being met are people from industry. And so you have this, we've had this normal tension that's been out there between industry and people that have advanced a potential initiative and people advancing the the bill that was the compromise.

And so this was not a small deal on the part of the Assembly. And as you point pointed out, it's the most historic change in sort of plastic recycling that is out there. So when we say, hey, you know, this is a complex bill, we need the time to be able to do this.

We need to hear what was it about this that wasn't anticipated. We knew it was a complex bill a year and a half ago when we, you know, sort of reached all these deals and everything else. So we knew it was complex. We knew it was going to take a lot of energy, and yet we didn't meet the deadline.

So it would be helpful for us if we had some idea of what part of the complexity or what part of the regulation is the part that you're not comfortable with yet that you have to that you say, hey, we have to make the fairly significant step of not meeting the deadline of going public with not meeting the deadline and because there's this part.

So are you able to let us know anything about which part of the complexity is the part that you're struggling with that's not done yet, assuming there a whole lot of things must be done to your satisfaction at this point in time. Can you help us with that?

Yeah, and thank you so much for that question. And we know that this bill and the measure is important to the Assembly as well as the Senate. We absolutely understand that. And having been the Leg Director when this particular bill passed, I absolutely understand the efforts that the Assembly put in to help negotiate and balance 54.

So the Department is absolutely committed to SB 54. We have a team of very dedicated folks that are working on developing these regulations. As mentioned, it is the first of its kind, this bill, and it is by far the broadest and biggest EPR program we have ever implemented. It has novel components that don't exist in any other EPR bill, including source reduction, including an eco modulated fee, and...

The second thing, source reduction and included?

Eco modulated fee.

Okay, Right.

Which is quite complex. So we do need to get it right because we recognize the eyes are on California. Director Heller would be saying the same thing. She's very dedicated to getting this right and moving it forward in a way that it's going to be successful. And we can demonstrate that California can in fact achieve this, this large EPR program. I think we do need to work through some of the timelines with the PRO to make sure that they can meet some of the reporting requirements.

Again, this is the first of its kind, and the plans and reports that we will need in order to meet these ambitious goals are different than what we've seen before. So we are working on those details, and again, we will provide more detail to the Legislature and you guys will be very involved in understanding what the regulations package will look like going forward.

How much of it is a need for you to work with industry to understand the industry's input about the regulations that have been out there so that you feel like you can have regulations that will be practical in terms of implementation?

We'll be engaging. Again, in the regulatory process, it allows us to take public comment and input. And we received a lot of letters in the last comment period. And the way the regulations process works is that you get those comments and if you make changes, you need to open up another comment period. So even to address the comments we last had, we need to have another round of language that can address some of the components that we hadn't seen before. So we're really going to be relying on the regulations process to get some of that input.

So is it safe to say that industry opened some issues that you now feel like you need more time to be able to evaluate?

In fairness, a lot of stakeholders have raised issues on how we can improve the regulatory process and the regulations themselves. So it won't be just industry. The regulations process is open to all of the stakeholders.

Great. And then, privately, I'm hearing that privately you're, you think you can have this done by the summer, end of summertime? Is that a ballpark area? I'm not, I know you're not ready to commit to a specific thing publicly, but ballpark. Are we talking about end of summer or are we talking about two years from now? Which is closer?

Yeah, CalRecycle is committed to doing this as quickly as possible. I think it would be very ambitious to do by summer, but we will be looking to do it as quickly as possible.

It's very ambitious to do it by the end of summer?

The regulatory process has very significant timelines that are built in from OAL, and so we're going to be following that process, but looking to achieve those goals as quickly as possible.

And when you say regulatory process has very specific deadlines built into it, those deadlines are relative to what the goal is in terms of being finished. It'd be helpful if we knew what your goal was. Even if you said, tell us your goal is... You should be able to look at the regulatory process.

You know all the deadlines. You say this is this complex. This is the problem. So you guys have all that inside information. Can you then just give us the goal? Not that you. But it'd be helpful for us if we knew the goal was by the end of summer, by the end of this year, or literally two years from now. What are you shooting for? Not just as fast as possible, but just nice, but doesn't tell us much. Can you help us with that?

Again, we're committed to the timelines and statute, which would have the PRO delivering to CalRecycle a plan by January 1, 2027. So our goal is to have regulations in place well ahead of that so that they have information on how to develop that plan. So that would be by 2026.

Okay, then how do you plan on funding for the revisions of the regulations? So you've got some funding issues there. What's your plan for that?

John Parsons, Department of Finance.

Sean, got to get that closer to your...

John Parsons, Department of Finance.

These guys all want to lean instead of pull, right? I don't know. Go ahead.

As far as the funding so far from the BCRF loans, There's been about $21 million in loans in the past couple of years. About 14 million of that has been spent out of the 21. So we haven't spent as much as we had the authority to spend. And in 24-25, there is also another plan potentially to have another loan of about 9.4 million.

Okay, so you have enough funds, you think, to handle the funding you need for these, these rule revisions, these regulation revisions? This new route.

The fund... Yeah, Beverage Container Recycling Fund is in a healthy position right now, so they can support these short term loans until the billing of the PROs occurs in 26-27.

So how will the fact that the Governor didn't submit the regulations, how does that impact the Beverage Container Recycling Fund loan used for the regulation development? Is it going to be...

As far as the regulation regulations not going through, I don't think it impacts the Beverage Container Recycling Fund, given the fact that we anticipated giving these loans anyway. I don't know that we've gotten to the point where we're going to increase the loans that were already anticipated. We haven't gotten to that point yet and discussed what that would entail.

So you're saying you don't anticipate that you're going to need more funds to complete the regulations and ensure you're going to meet the... You know, if we're talking about 2027, September of 2027, and we've got a 2032 deadline, you know, set under Prop 54, you're saying you're okay in terms of the funds that you need?

As far as the funding that's been provided from BCRF to this point, we don't see an issue with. We would have to have further discussions with CalRecycle as to what additional funding they may need in addition to what we've anticipated. As I said earlier, 24-25 we've anticipated another potential loan of about 10 million. But during this process, CalRecycle is sort of formulating what their strategy is at this point and whether they would need additional funding beyond that.

Well, the goal of this subcommittee has as much as possible tried to match expenses with the cause of the expenditure. And to the extent that we're doing loans from the Beverage Recycle Program, we're getting further and further away from that. So we're trying to, as fast as we can, get these regulations and try to get the match of these expenditures, try to get the cost of the program down by having the producer responsibility benefits of having them say, well, now that we're on the hook for it, we're going to design the packaging differently.

We're going to design the delivery differently, we're going to design recycling differently as it goes forward. So we've got a public trust challenge. CalRecycle has a public trust challenge in front of them. Any new ideas in terms of how you're going to build and maintain public trust as we go forward? The Department got have some great program we can, we can cite or look forward to.

Well, CalRecycle has a strong track record of implementing EPR, and you know, we also do did go through quite a robust stakeholder process and we look forward to re-engaging with those stakeholders to deliver on these regulations going forward.

All right, so I tried to be clear about how important this is, about how this not meeting the deadline has shaken things. At the same time, we want the Department to be really successful at doing this. This is a huge thing for California. And I want to take this moment to try to point out our biggest advocates for this are the cities and the counties that represent the ratepayers who are paying rates that keep going up and up for the recycling of waste.

And so we will have a lot of people, and I want to get this on your radar screen at CalRecycle. We'll have a lot of people say, oh, you can't charge these higher fees for this. You can't charge these fees for this part of the CalRecycle program. But if charging these fees at the beginning creates the incentive program to not have the waste hit the waste stream in the first place so we have these bigger fees. It is always more expensive to clean the trash up than it is to not have the trash in the first place.

And so please keep that in mind as you have pushback on these fees that we will be able to show you on the other side of it all of the League of Cities and the counties and everybody else as the strong advocates to reduce the cost of the programs that they're running and therefore keep rates down. So this is not a net increase in cost to the consumer. It's going to be a net decrease. It's, again, cheaper to keep the bottle out of the and the trash out of the canal than it is to try to get the stuff out of the canal. Assembly Member Rogers.

I appreciate the discussion. You mentioned that the the BCRF Fund was looking healthy, is that... To me, that's not always a good thing, because if I remember correctly, this is supposed to be the payback when people return their cans and other types of beverages.

We have been having significant challenges in California, but especially in Northern California, with facilities shutting down so that there's less access for people to take advantage of that program, even though they're charged for that program when they purchase something that's eligible. So is that healthy feeling that you have from the BCRF actually a lack of investment in people's ability to participate in the program?

Appreciate that question. As you've mentioned, the BCRP is also going through its own reassessment, and the same year that SB 54 passed, we saw SB 1013, which not only included wine and spirits into the program, which increased the amount that we're getting in redemption funds.

So that has a positive impact on the fund condition, but it also allowed us to develop new ways of providing consumer convenience and collection, and allowing consumers to get back their CRV, including new dealer co-ops. Those are just rolling out this year.

And so we're anticipating that those are going to assist, especially in areas, as you're talking about, that have been traditionally difficult to serve. So, you're right that there have been challenges and there is action taking place to try to address that and allow consumers to get back their CRV.

So then looking upstream, to use the term, in a couple of years, do anticipate that the loan from the BCRF into this other program that then we're going to have to come back and backfill that once people are actually able to utilize this program?

So the BCRF does have a significant surplus that's kind of residual from the pandemic. When we saw in the pandemic beverage containers, sales went way up, and beverage container returns were still steady or even fell during that time. And so, the beverage container program does have a bit of a surplus right now.

So we don't anticipate that that will be a problem going forward. But we are looking to invest and in fact, again, the Legislature has allocated a significant and historic amount of investment in the beverage container program to, to expand the types and ways of redeeming consumer redemption.

So, we don't anticipate that it will have that impact because of the buffer that's in the program now. But we will be, of course, monitoring that very closely.

Do you know what the surplus is?

Good morning again. Brandy Hunt, Deputy Director of Administration, Finance and Information Technology at CalRecycle. Looking at our Fund condition statement prior year, which is the actuals where we've closed our books, we ended at 889 million and then moving to 24/25, which is our current year, we're looking at ending at 455 million.

So, we're committed to getting all of those incentive dollars out, which will reduce the balance.

And, is there anything additional proposed? You mentioned you've got the program that's starting up this year with that 459 million. Is there any other expanded programs that you're looking at to try to make sure that other people have?

So as Brandy mentioned, we have significant amounts of grants and loans going out that is anticipated in getting the 455 million down to 455 million. But that's significant investment, so we don't have any plans beyond those, but we are happy to discuss. The Legislature would like to.

Great. Thank you. And then before I turn back over the microphone, I do want to just punctuate the point that the chair made that probably by the may revise when we're talking about this, I'm going to want to hear a pretty concrete timeline for those regulations.

There's no way for us to hold people accountable if we don't have a timeline associated with it.

Absolutely understand and appreciate that request.

Famous, famous, line out there. No deadline, no accountability. Right. Members, anything else? Assembly member Connolly.

Thank you chair, good morning. I think the chair covered a couple of my questions and apologies. I was presenting a Bill and another Committee. This may have been already addressed, but kind of sharing some of the concerns about the delay or withholding of the regulations. Is California on track to meet the goals outlined in SP54 by 2032?

Well, SP54 included a number of measures for CalRecycle to implement in addition to the regulations.

So we are on track and on almost all of those requirements, including delivering on the Source Reduction Report that was delivered in late December of last year, as well as the covered material categories list that we were also asked to deliver on before January 1st of this year. So those progress metrics are continuing.

And as mentioned, the first statutory deadline for the PRO is January 1/2027 and we do anticipate we will be able to meet that timeline.

I appreciate that. So maybe specifically focusing on the delay for this purpose, will the delay affect California's ability to meet the 2032 targets set under SB54?

So again, the first plan is due in January 1/2027 and the PRO will need to provide us a plan to meet that timeline of the first deadline 2028, and then ultimately the 65% in 2032.

And then finally, what were the specific reasons for withholding the regulations?

So as mentioned, the regulatory package and the Bill itself is quite complex, and delaying the regulatory package allows us to address some of the significant comments that we received in the last comment period and address some of the issues that were raised after that last round of regulations was issued.

Okay, any further? Great. We'll continue to obviously dig deeper on this, but appreciate you being here and obviously we'll continue the conversation. Thanks.

Thank you.

I'll wrap this up with a couple of comments. Number one, when Director Heller, when it was discovered that she wasn't going to be able to be here today, I'm sure you guys were. Everybody was anxious to be the ones to show up for this presentation.

So we appreciate you being here today, in terms of trying to answer our questions. But we unfortunately walk out of here with questions that we still feel unanswered.

And the point that I hope you can take back to everybody in the agency, and particularly Director Heller, if she's not paying attention to this right now, is that this was a very clear, mandated deadline, and a very high-profile deadline that's out there.

And so it is understandable that sometimes things come up and you can't meet a deadline. When that happens, it seems like the burden is on the people that are not meeting their mandatory deadline to be very clear about why.

And so to get answers that leave us still unclear as to why, is I would, I would offer not a healthy way for an agency to move forward in terms of building up that trust and, and credibility. I'm perfectly fine to say extend the deadline if you can give me a good reason.

But to just say we want more time because this is complex and some things came up, it would be very helpful for us to know what are those things, and to not hear a reason why you can't tell us what those things are, is also not a healthy way for us to have this relationship so early.

When Secretary Crowfoot was here, I specifically talked about there is always going to be tension when you have three different state I mean, the Senate, the Assembly, and the Executive branch trying to do things. There's going to be tension and there'll be disagreements.

But if we can do it all professionally, we can increase the chances of us coming up with good government. We're left in the dark here about what the, what your anticipated game plan. There must be an anticipated game plan in terms of how fast you think you can do this to make this.

But we're being left in the dark in terms of that. We're being left in the dark in terms of what the problem is. And the implication is that, that it's just not that big of a deal.

And I don't think that that's the impression that CalRecycle should be leaving on the public, on the Assembly Members, that we can just meet that deadline. We don't have to; we don't have to offer any significant justification for that.

And we don't even have to offer what the new deadline is. that's, that's going to leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. And if there's a legitimate reason, it sure be nice to know because we want to be your biggest advocates. We want this to work.

We want to be there for you as you go forward. So, if you'll pass that along, that I hope CalRecycle recognizes how big of a deal this is and how much more justification we wish we would be getting. And we're scratching our heads.

And when people are scratching our heads and they fill in the blanks. Oh, it's because of this and this and this, which are usually they don't fill in the blanks with things that are the most generous, you know, for the agency and for the, for the politics involved there and stuff. So with that, we wish you well.

We hope we get there. And I think we've adequately expressed the frustration that so many members of expressed us, and asked us to express to you absolutely.

And appreciate that. And if I may, Director Heller absolutely wanted to be here today. She's not feeling well and was not able to be here. But I can tell you she's very committed and CalRecycle, our entire staff are very committed and understand the importance and the opportunity we have here in California.

And we are absolutely committed to meeting the goals and timelines of SB54 to the greatest extend.

Great, we wish you well. Good luck. We'll go to issue four.

Okay.

Thank you for being.

Thank you. Issue four is textiles. SB 707.

SB 707. The Responsible Textile Recovery Act of 2024 establishes the nation's first extended producer responsibility program for textiles. It requires apparel and textile producers to develop and Fund recycling, repair, and disposal programs to reduce text textile waste. Key provisions include developing a producer responsibility organization and developing a stewardship plan to meet the goals of the program.

Yeah.

It also outlines funding and fees, and cost to be repaid by producers. The law aims to reduce textile waste, promote sustainability, and support a circular economy by holding producers accountable. CalRecycle's VCP requests 27 permanent ongoing positions to be phased in over two fiscal years.

18 PY's in 2025/26, and ongoing in 9 PY's in 2027/28 with an ongoing total cost of $4.552 million dollars to be implemented to SB 707. CalRecycle additionally requests the loan to be equally split between the Beverage Container Recycling Fund and the Electronic Waste Recovering Recycling Account, to cover the implementation costs until reimbursement by the Producer Responsibility Organization.

SB 707 aims to address the significant environmental impact of textile waste. In 2021, approximately 1.2 million tons of textiles were discarded in California, with only 15% being reused or recycled.

By shifting the responsibility of textile waste management to producers, the act seeks to promote a circular economy, encourage sustainable practices in the fashion and textile industries, and reduce the burden on landfills. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Great. Any other presentations? All right, great. I have questions. Any Members have questions? A few things.

Number one, I'm going to go back to our last item because there's just 1 point I wanted to point out, and that is at the top of our staff report, there is the quote from Governor Newsom, and when he signed SB 54, he said, we have to act now with urgency to give our kids a future without plastic pollution.

And so, when you have that kind of mandate from the Governor, we have to act now with urgency. And we put a deadline on when we want to have the regulations out. Then it feels like something's wrong. There's a disconnect going on with that sense of urgency.

And in many ways, this applies to sort of where we're going here now with this next one. Although, you know, when you're talking with plastic, 12 million metric tons entering the ocean. 12 million metric tons entering the ocean of plastic every year, annually. A dump truck of plastic pollution every 45 seconds. That's real urgency that we have.

So, if we're delaying regulations because it's not as convenient to implement, that's probably not a very good reason. If we're delaying it because literally we can't get it right unless we delay it, that's a different thing. And I'd love to have heard more about that. Which takes me to my comments here about this.

This is going to be a challenging one and a complex one also. And the thing that I think is going to be most complex is, there are so many producers and there's people coming into the field and going out of the field.

And, you know, we don't have the same kind of infrastructure or culture of recycling that we already have for many of the plastic products that are out there. So, I really wish you well on this. This is an important one by comparison to the plastics. Get the plastic ones done right. You know, it has.

That has to be the urgency. But this one's going to be a really important one in the long run. We have to change sort of the whole way we handle. But this, buy it, wear it, throw it away culture is not going to it's not going to be sustainable for us.

So, I just recognize that there's lots of complications with that, so I will. What's the Budget Bill Language does the department need to implement this budget change proposal and why?

John Parsons, Department of Finance. The Budget Bill Language would require loan authority language that would allow for BCRF and E-Waste to transfer the split of the four and a half million.

Okay. And then the ongoing cost of the positions requested the four and a half million until CalRecycle gets reimbursed from the PRO, the producer responsibility organizations. How confident is the Department that the two funds that are providing loans will be able to incur this ongoing cost until the PRO can reimburse the Department? What's your confidence level?

As we mentioned earlier, BCRF is in a pretty healthy state at 4,450 million in current year E-Waste. We have not fully recycled or reconciled E-Waste and that fund condition, but SEO reports indicate it's about 196 as of the end of 2024 fiscal year.

There you go. Great. Thank you. And then statutory deadlines included an SB707 for implementation. What are they?

Okay, so we can put you down as 100% confident. Right. Guarantee for us?

99.

Sure. SB707 requires PRO applications due to Cal Recycle by January 1/2026. CalRecycle must approve a pro by March 1/2026. All producers of covered products must join the approved PRO by 07-01-2026. The Pro must submit an initial statewide needs assessment by March 1/2027. CalRecycle shall adopt regulations to implement the program.

This is actually interesting language. No earlier than 2028. July 1 of 2028. 30 days after the regs are approved, producers shall provide a list of brands of covered products to the Department. Kaui Cycle may establish, review or adjust performance standards by March 1, 2032. Producers of covered products shall achieve performance standards after the March 1 or sorry, 2032.

That is interesting language in terms of that. But these, but these are the statutory deadlines and that's what, that's what everybody should be intending to live with.

Absolutely right.

Great. Thank you. I want to point out for to everybody that this is an item that is were is recommended by staff that we approve as budgeted. So it's not going to be an item, we're going to be coming back to. Just want to make sure that that's terms of revisiting and stuff that everybody's aware of that.

All righty. Great. Anything else? Anybody have on this? All right, let's go to issue five, please. Thank you.

And this is the LA Fires on State Park.

Thank you. Hello again, and my name is Armando Quintero, and I'm the Director of the Department of Parks and Recreation. And first, I would like to thank the Committee and the concern Committee staff for asking us to present on this item today.

Aare you ready to begin?

Mr. Chairman

Yeah.

Go ahead.

And, I've messed everything up by asking you to have two microphones. So move one of them away, and the other one, if you could, get it closer. Or move your notes up onto the base of the thing. There you go. Whatever works, right? Just don't lean forward. I don't want that. Go ahead.

Okay, start over. Well, my name is Armando Quintero and I'm the Director of the Department of Parks and Recreation. And I'd really like to thank the Committee and the Committee Members for asking us to present on this item today. The LA firestorms that began on January 7th caused unimaginable losses and heartbreak for so many of us.

And I will say in advance, forgive me if I get a little bit emotional. The Palisades Fire burned through the Topanga State Park and Will Rogers State Historic Park, both integral to the local community, causing significant damage and destruction.

The Palisades fire consumed over 8,600 acres of state park land, resulting in the loss of historic structures, recreational access, concession businesses, and it affected both owners and employees. Many State Park employees were directly affected, with some losing their homes.

Notably, several of these displaced staff played key roles in the emergency response and continued in the emergency recovery efforts immediately after. Literally, I was down there personally just days after the fire started and witnessed employees who had lost everything, wearing the only belongings that they had left, working on recovery from this fire. It was shocking.

The fire also claimed irreplaceable cultural resources, including the original Will Rogers ranch house, stables, barn and carpenter shop at Will Rogers, as well as the historic Topanga Ranch Motel at Topanga State Park. And it included several concession buildings that were a total loss.

Other structures, such as the Will Rogers Visitor center, sustained heavy damage, and their future viability is still uncertain. Beyond structural losses, the incident also caused significant but less visible damage to the park's natural and cultural resources, impacting sensitive habitats as well as archaeological and paleontological sites.

In response to this unprecedented event, state parks mobilized staff from across the state. We had state parks law enforcement personnel from across the state assist with the emergency response. State parks deployed over 50 resource advisors, or Reeds for short.

And we partnered with Cal OES, CAL FIRE, CalEPA, and this work guided the fire suppression efforts, ensuring dozer lines and other activities minimized harm to sensitive areas

And state park staff collaborated with tribal resource advisors from the Santa Ynez Chumash Fire Department, to repair damage caused by equipment and crews, underscoring the critical role in protecting public trust resources. Just a personal anecdote here.

When I was with our Reeds and folks from CAL FIRE, we went up to the summit of Topanga Canyon. And while we were up there looking at a couple of critical sites, one that was natural resource sites which had been flagged off and avoided by the bulldozers, went to another site which was a lithics site, and that is a historic or a prehistoric site that was literally a tool making site used by the Chumash up on the top of the mountains.

And this is about an acre of material that you could see on the ground of work stones and material.

And while I was standing up there with the Chumash tribal Members, we were looking down on the Palisades. And I was struck at the notion that what we were experiencing in that moment, was the witnessing of a loss that the Chumash experienced when their homes and villages were lost in that area.

It was a stunning moment of grief and empathy, which I think we all need more of. Overall, more than 160 state parks professionals contributed over 10,000 hours to emergency response, hazardous hazard mitigation, artifact preservation, loss assessments, restoration, planning, administrative, and peer support.

We brought all of our peer advisors from across the Department to support the teams on the ground there. There are 60 employees that work in the Angeles District, and I can say that across the Department this, this loss was a personal tragedy for many people in the Department.

State Parks has completed a preliminary damage assessment, and a total of 59 facilities were damaged and have been identified across both parks, affecting individual buildings as well as park wide infrastructure including: roads and trails. By the end of May, state parks will finalize a formal comprehensive damage assessment for FEMA's consideration.

This detailed assessment will provide a better estimate of recovery costs. However, estimates will continue to be refined over time. Not only as the projects progress through design, permitting and construction process, but just this last weekend we experienced mudslides, and debris flows, and additional impacts from this initial disaster.

So we continue to be on the ground managing all of this work.

State Parks will engage with the community and stakeholders on a robust planning process to develop a shared vision for the future of these parks, which will be similar to the Reimagining of Big Basin that followed the 2020 fire events, where we really engaged the public on the ground to find out what it is, how the public can help us re envision what these places will be in the future.

Thank you for your time and attention to this issue, and I'm happy to answer any questions about the LA fires at this time.

Great.

Any other presentations? Great. Questions? Great. Appreciate it.

The 25% cost share the state parks will have to come up with for the FEMA, you know, for the FEMA reimbursements.

I know that that will be a while, but it gets me to sort of the whole question of do you view PROP 4 funds as appropriate funding source for recovery efforts for Will Rogers?

Well, we think that it could be eligible. Some of this work could be eligible for PROP 4 funds. While the funding set aside for State parks is allocated for other purposes. There are other bond allocations that could be used for this purpose.

Once state parks has finalized our comprehensive damage assessment, the department will have a better sense of which climate bond allocations could potentially support recovery efforts. So it's, it's uncertain right now.

Okay, so you don't have a clear, clear, clear indication yet on that? The Fund sources the departments used when in the past, when you've had historical damage. What Fund sources did you use in the past?

Sure. The General Fund and FEMA reimbursements have been the main funding source to recover with other natural disasters that we've experienced in limited cases, insurance funds and donations have also been received.

For example, when the department received some donations, and support to initiate the early planning efforts for Big Basin's recovery before state funding was available and before we've had any FEMA reimbursements.

Okay. When do you anticipate having the information you need to make your request for state funding?

An estimate of the budget you year costs will be identified in a comprehensive assessment of damages which is currently underway. And as I, as I mentioned, we're literally in a situation where the ground is shifting beneath us, and we will be able to also estimate FEMA's reimbursement rate and out your costs. It's premature.

It's premature to say when resources may be requested until we actually complete the damage assessment. But it is ongoing.

Do you have a goal?

Do we have a goal?

A goal date. A date that you. Sure. It's premature to commit, but what is your goal? What would you.

There are over a thousand workers who are going into the neighborhoods in those areas, and identifying hazardous materials like batteries, flammable liquids, and other asbestos and things like that.

And what they do is they package those materials on site, and then they move them to an area where they're packed, they're combined into containers and then shipped to the processing areas. And the state park sites are being used for that right now.

But we work closely with them to make sure that that work is not impacting the natural or cultural resources there. And we could share pictures with you, but it's a very clean operation.

But it has caused consternation on the part of the community because they're saying what are you doing using state parks for sorting how hazardous materials, which is what it sounds like. But it's actually just putting those packaged materials into crates, and boxes, and containers to ship them out. So that that's as soon as that work is finished.

We know that they will be cleaning up both the Topanga Historic Site and making sure that that area is ready to be planned for. And the same with Will Rogers.

But we'll very quickly get the public in there to understand what we can do and also be able to inform them of our expected timelines and planning and funding.

And we are also working with our park partners like Parks California, to again get support early on to get assistance with getting planners in there with us to work immediately.

Thank you. Can you give us examples of non-eligible costs for FEMA reimbursement? What things do we have to anticipate that we know we're going to have to?

Sure. Well, FEMA, for example, will is my understanding that they will fund the rebuilding of existing structures or structures that were lost. But in this case, we're probably not going to be able to do that. For example, we're not going to be able to rebuild probably the Will Rogers mansion.

There are other structures like the barn, which we maybe we have all the plans on that so we could build a replica of that. But they don't Fund alternative structures, which we learned with Big Basin. With Big Basin, we ended up actually moving the infrastructure that was lost in that fire.

We ended up moving those types of facilities to an area outside side at the entrance to the park. And so, FEMA will only do a partial reimbursement for those. So those numbers also are unknown. Right now. Sorry.

And, have you used a 2.5 billion in DREA funds for your recovery efforts?

I'm sorry, could you.

Have you used any of the 2.5 billion? Andrea DREO of.

Lizzie Urie, Department of Finance Parks has received a portion of the DREO of funds for the immediate response activities that Parks has conducted.

And can you tell us how much?

I'm sorry, I do not have the number off the top of my head, but we're happy to follow up with your stats.

Can you get us that number, please? Great. Okay. Anything else?

As I mentioned earlier, we have facilities that will have to be built in different locations, which affects the how that works.

And I will say that we've already had outreach from community members and others who want to help fundraise for the rebuilding of facilities in those parks, because Will Rogers in particular has really been a lifelong center of activities, weddings, sports events, families.

And the community is eager to get access to that area because literally, it's a semblance of normalcy that they're looking for. And we're anxious to return that purpose to the community.

Go ahead. Question.

Yes, thank you. Thank you very much for being here and for your attention to the need to restore some similarities to the community, to kind of restore that safe place that folks are used to. And so, you mentioned that folks have reached out historically.

What have you done in regards to community engagement in the planning process to rebuild parks such as the two that we lost here in these fires?

I think Big Basin is a great example. We immediately started outreach to the community, and part of that was what we knew we couldn't bring back a park that we lost in terms of the facilities. And so, we very quickly engaged the community in looking at what existed and what we learned from the impacts of the fire.

Because we want to make sure that we avoid making putting buildings, and the public at fire risk with the things that we put in place, like buildings. And so, what we will do is engage the public immediately. And they're imagining, reimagining what Will Rogers, Will Rogers State Park will be.

I think the Topanga is likely because it was a group of buildings that were used for concessionaires, restaurants, and winery, and things like that. And also, there was a historic Topanga Hotel there that we were getting ready to rebuild. Anyhow, we were going to have to take that down and build it up again.

So, we have the plans for that. So, it's getting the public to understand those things that we can do and those things where we need their input to guide what their park will look like.

Got it. And based on. I know you said that they're still assessing and there's, you know, it's been used as a staging area thus far, but what kind of estimates are, do you have rolling in? Like, what have you heard so far in regards to being able to, I guess, do a look ahead and forecast it?

That's a moving.

Do you have any other.

Yeah. Thank you. Brian Dewey, California State Parks. We have a preliminary damage assessment, includes 59 facilities. That includes individual buildings, and roads, and trails. And so, we have folks going out there now doing trail logs and evaluating the roads, and the buildings. It's very difficult to come up with estimates for a historic ranch house and Barnes is stable.

So we're engaging a whole team of architects, engineers and other consultants to help us identify what those. Those costs are. I believe it'd be premature to provide a number at this time, but we'll get that to you as soon as we can.

Okay, I appreciate that.

One thing and one of the other things we have to do with our hazard trees. When you have large trees that have been affected by fire, we need to have folks come in and assess the health and the condition of those trees. So, we're still doing that work with our resources team.

And I imagine you, you'll have to replace some of the trees that need to be removed in. In historic incidents.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's the kind of thing that we'll be working with, with the public to talk about. Awesome. Thank you for. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We are going to jump from issue six to issue seven because Assembly Member Alvarez would like to be here for issue six. And so this is an APB bulletin for Assembly Member Alvarez. You're running out of time if you want to get here.

We're going to be on issue seven, but probably not too long. And then we'll go back to issue six. So, those that are on the panel for issue seven, if you would, please come on up.

All right, whoever would like to go first?

Thank you. Good morning. Chair Bennett, Members of the Committee, my name is Katherine Butler. I'm the Director of the Department of Toxic Substances Control. Thank you for this opportunity to provide updates on the two items. Two important initiatives for DTSC, the generation and handling fee and the Cleanup in Vulnerable Communities initiative.

I'll start with the generation and handling fee briefly, provide some background. It has certainly been a journey since our reform efforts four years ago in 2021 when the Legislature passed SB158. So this was our governance and fiscal fee reform Bill. One of the key aspects of this Bill is the generation and handling fee.

And it replaced, in essence, streamlined, four different fees into one fee that charges hazardous waste generators on a per ton basis. So the more waste you generate, the more you pay. The Board of Environmental Safety can adjust this set rate every year, and that's their authority to do so.

Revenues from this fee cover DTSC's costs to oversee safe management of hazardous waste, our permitting activities, enforcements, activities like inspections, other regulatory initiatives that are important to protect our California communities. In early 2023, this was the first year that the new fee was implemented.

As with any new fee system, the dust needs to settle and work out the kinks. So we discovered that revenues were coming in at only about half the level that we predicted, bringing in about 40 million instead of the 81 million we had expected.

The 2023-24 Budget act provided DTSC a one time loan to keep our Fund solvent so that we could take a deeper dive into the problem, come back with solutions, which is exactly what we did. And ultimately we identified some key contributors to the revenue shortfall. Primarily, generators were either paying their fee late or or not at all.

And in all fairness, on our end, our data systems had not caught up to the new system of the new fee. So we had incomplete data on the waste, making oversight enforcement of the fee difficult. We also encountered inconsistent or overuse of certain statutory exemptions to the fee.

So we took these findings and the 2024-25 budget approved by the Legislature included several statutory reforms. These were designed to increase revenues this year and into the future.

So this included increasing penalties for late or non payment of fees, clarification of some of the statutory requirements or statutory exemptions, and then also authority to issue emergency rulemaking so that we could implement other changes to clarify certain exemption review processes, establishing penalties for failing to report required hazardous waste generation data to our Department.

So thanks to our teams, we did end implement this emergency rulemaking. They were adopted in January and the Department will continue to implement them over the next year. So we're in the process now of establishing some new processes for exemptions.

We are working closely with CDTFA on other improvements, including expanding our agency's data collection and also doing increased outreach and communications to fee payers. That has been tremendously successful in clarifying, helping our fee payers understand what to pay on, when to pay by, when, how to pay, etc.

So we do see early indications that these statutory reform efforts are paying off. Since February, the generation and handling fee revenues are up 19 million compared to this same point in time last year, which is on track with what we had been planning for.

So it's still too early to say definitively that we won't have a shortfall this year. But we are on track and optimistic that these efforts, particularly outreach and the statutory reform efforts, are being successful. We will continue to further strengthen our fee Administration and oversight efforts through implementation of the emergency rulemaking I spoke to.

And ultimately this will ensure we have funding to fulfill our public health mission and also provide fair, consistent application of the law when it comes to fees. So now I'll turn to to an update on the Cleanup in Vulnerable Communities initiative we refer to as CVCI.

This was also created by the reform Bill, Senate Bill 158 in 2021. That legislation originally provided our Department with 500 million from the General Fund over three years to reimagine how DTSC oversees cleanups of contaminated sites so that we can really prioritize community needs and these cleanups can be more community based.

Due to recent budget constraints, the funding of CVCI had to be reduced. The reduction was partially offset by funding from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund. So now the CVCI funding totals at 231.5 million and that will go through fiscal year 2026 to 2027.

CVCI is comprised of several different programs, but I'm going to focus on the one that's most popular and there's the most interest in our equitable Community Revitalization Grants. And DTSC has awarded 58 assessment and cleanup grants in the first round totaling 88 million.

And then with the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, we were successful in doing a second round with 32 additional grants totaling more than 43 million. So because of the budget reduction, there won't be a third round.

But we did our best to maximize this funding that we had, collaborating with the California Environmental Justice Association, many community based organizations, tribal entities across the state to implement this program in a way that will serve as a model for equitable, transparent grant making processes and potentially oversight of our other cleanup programs at the Department.

So we're eager to take these lessons learned from the program. Look how we can leverage our existing resources in our other programs. And just for example, these programs that we implemented, the grants that we implemented, they're all overseen by the local municipalities, so or public agencies, nonprofits or the tribal entities.

And we're seeing a higher percentage of projects, for example, that provide affordable housing compared to some of our other cleanup programs. So we're seeing beneficial uses come out of this program. So thank you, Chair Bennett, for this opportunity and Committee Members to provide you with these updates. I'm joined here today by our Chief Deputy, Craig Scholer, and we'd be happy To answer any questions

Have other presentations. I have one question. Is there a concentration? I wouldn't expect that the grants for the equitable community revitalization would necessarily be spread evenly across the state. There'd be areas where we have more disadvantaged communities than others, et cetera. Can you help us identify where these funds are primarily flowing in the state? What, what ratio is going? Where?

So a total of 130 million is going to 49 cities and 22 counties across the state. There is a focus in communities that experience pollution burden from multiple sources.

And where are those communities located?

So we can get back to you with the specific geographic regions and percentages.

Okay, I would appreciate that. I'm just overall, is it the Central Valley, is it refinery areas of Long Beach? And those kind of that information would be helpful, but you guys don't have any of that off the top of your head? No. No. Right. Okay. All right. I have questions here, but do you have questions?

Couple how are the LA fires impacting generation of hazardous waste? Is this something you are specifically tracking?

So DTSC was responsible for the phase one cleanup of hazardous waste. And when it comes to the fees, this is an exemption because it was resulting from a natural disaster. So fees are not paid on the waste generated.

It's a relatively small tonnage in our grand system of hazardous waste across the state as far as the hazardous waste that was recovered from the properties themselves. So we didn't experience any sort of disposal capacity issues when it came to hazardous waste disposal.

Appreciate how is the trailer Bill Language in SB156 and the budget change proposal? How has it addressed the structural deficit in the hazardous waste control account?

Do you want to take this one?

John Parsons, Department of Finance it's still a bit early. We haven't gotten all the figures in. So we haven't reconciled the Fund to. See the full impact at this point.

And I'll just add that we are still in the process of implementing those emergency regulations as well. So that will further help us work towards reducing that structural deficit and agree. It's early to. Too early to tell you.

Frank Jimenez with the Legislative Analyst Office. It's our understanding that payments are generally made in November and February. So we're starting to collect those February payments from the state's perspective. So by May provision, the Department should have a better understanding of the impacts of the changes that were adopted in this past budget.

Okay. So in addition to 156from last year, did the Department raise a generation and handling fee?

So last year the board did raise the, the Board of Environmental Safety determines that fee rate and they did raise the fee rate. It went to 60 from dollars per ton. From $49.

Thank you. Yeah. What, what are the impacts the Department is seeing in terms of based on the changes in 156 you mentioned? Is, is, you know, is the desired effect occurring? You mentioned you're at 19 million. Is there, are there any other changes? How about the amount of reporting that's going on? Are you more confident that everybody is self reporting, et cetera?

Yes, we are getting already more data from the generators with our, what we call our electric verification questionnaire that we do annually and that was began already coming in last year. So we are getting more data from our generators. We're seeing positive impacts on that front as well.

So can you identify the outreach efforts that you've made to the generators? So you talk about sounds like you have a digital outreach, but overall, can you summarize for us the outreach to generators?

So last fall we did send a letter with CDTFA's assistance to notify all of our fee payers, more detailed information on the fee rate, the payment requirements, how to go about doing that. We held a couple webinars as well that were very well attended with 3 to 4,000 participants on our webinars looking for information.

And our teams were able to clarify all of the fee requirements during those webinars and we'll continue doing more outreach. I think that has been very successful so far.

Great. Thank you. On the Cleanup and Vulnerable Communities initiative, how many rounds were originally planned for the Equitable Community Revitalization Grant Program and how many are you now able to do given the reductions that you've had?

So we had three rounds originally planned and now we're doing two rounds.

Thank you. And the demand for the various grant programs under cvci? They.

There's a high demand, yes. Yeah.

Okay, great. And then final question. Does DTSC or the Department of Finance expect a need to take action regarding the negative Fund balance on the Toxic Substances Control account? Why or why not?

John Parsons, Department of Finance. We don't anticipate an issue on that Fund. It does show end budget year negative 3 million, but we have not incorporated the efficiencies that would have reduced expenditures that would have aligned with the positive Fund condition.

All right, so again, you feel confident that you're going to make it, right? I do, yes. Great. And I just want to point out we have. We reached an agreement on the mill fee. And what's that? Yeah. Okay. There we go. All right. Sorry. We'll cover that. All right. We did you. You talk about on time inventory.

We just finished issue seven. We're just starting issue six. We held. We jumped over issue six so you could get here. So thank you very much. Would the panelists for issue six come up?

Thank you.

I cannot imagine better timing. Were you just sitting out there waiting? No, no, I'm joking. Okay. We put it off. We put it back up. Yeah, we put out an all points bulletin for you all. Okay, we're on issue six, which is the Border Field State park infrastructure updates. And the panel will begin.

Mr. Chair, if you'll allow me just to respond to your final question from our previous Parks item. Okay, very briefly, parks has received 1.23 million out of the control section funding, which is the funding authorized via special session, and that is publicly posted on our Department of Finance website. So I'll provide that to staff, but just wanted to provide for the record. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Mr. Chair and Members. In addition to the administration's budget change proposal for the Monument Mesa Day Use and Interpretive Area Project, I'll provide an update on the Monument Road Realignment Project at Border Field State Park. Border Field State park is a 760 acre park situated in the southwest corner of California at the border between California and Mexico.

The park is an integral part of a larger 2,400 acre Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, which was established in 1982 and administered by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, or noaa. The park contains some of the most sensitive and important wildlife habitats, including saltwater marshes and sand dunes that support many threatened and endangered species.

Access to this park has been limited by chronic flooding caused by a combination of storm events and cross border flows of sewage, contaminated water and debris, rendering the park unsafe for recreational access. The Monument Road Realignment project was initiated in 2015 to address and restore access to the park.

The park project timeline was significantly delayed by the same restrictions and experienced by the General public. The limited access, combined with environmental constraints, delayed critical environmental studies and engineering reports that were needed to finalize the construction plans.

After many years of dedicated efforts, the Department has developed a plan in consultation with permitting agencies that were involved that balances the project's potential environmental impacts and engineering challenges and project objectives. As a result of the extensive upfront coordination, the current project is expected to receive the necessary approvals from permitting agencies.

An environmental impact report is expected to be completed by the end of this year, with construction anticipated to begin in 2027. In combination and concurrently with the broad project, the Department is updating and enhancing the day use and interpretive elements at the park in order to improve and elevate the visitor experience.

The Governor's Budget includes a proposal for $1 million from the Natural Resources and Park Preservation Fund for the working drawings phase of the Borderfield Monument Mesa Day use and Interpretive Area Capital Outlay project.

The project will update the outdoor educational plaza at Monument Mesa with areas for mixed use group events, as well as providing interpretive elements, exhibits, and improved walkways and landscaping. These improvements will discuss and highlight the border story as well as commemorate the importance of Friendship Park.

Construction of this project is expected to start in 2028 and conclude one year later. Upon completion of these two important projects, the public will once again be able to access and experience Borderfield State Park. Thank you for your time and we are happy to answer any of your questions.

I have one question. You just said construction is expected to start in 2028.

Those are my notes. Did I say the wrong date? Is it 27 or 28?

Because in the report here, it says it's expected to start in 2027.

It is 27. It was my typo on my part. It was a typo. 2027. Great. Thank you. Sorry about that.

I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Alvarez. Oh, do we have anybody else? All right, so. Mr. Alvarez.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, appreciate the opportunity and thank you to the staff again for the. The presentation. I want to ask more specific questions because you. You just have to. If you're even just, you know, the average San Diegan who has been expecting this project now for 10 years. And.

And we see that it's really still not. We don't even have an EIR yet. Is sort of fundamental questions I think are appropriate for this. So let me. Let me start with the sort of. The first basic question, which this started with the $1.1 million that were spent on design and permitting.

From the report that we have before us on the agenda, I like to know what exactly has been completed. I don't think that's been made clear to me. I know my staff has asked a lot of questions. I've read all of the answers. I'm not clear what has been completed as of today.

Yeah. Thank you. Brian Dewey, California State Parks so to date, it's been a combination of studies do soil analyses, hydrology studies, and natural resource studies, such as all the various species that are present. And those factors need to be considered in the design of the project. The conditions of soil, for example, and hydrology for engineering.

And those studies have been conducted several times because they do, in fact, they get old and have to be renewed. But the design of the road rehabilitation project has gone through a couple different iterations, trying to find a way to reconnect the public to this park, going through a very sensitive habitat.

And a number of iterations were evaluated from all aspects, from environmental, cultural, and also from engineering perspective, looking at budget and all those other sorts of things.

And it took us many years to come up with a plan that met all of those requirements that we believe is going to be supported by Coastal Commission staff, by the resource agency oversight agencies for permitting purposes. And we understand that the frustration and how long it has taken.

Our staff have been dedicated to trying to find a way to thread the needle, really, on this project, trying to find a way to solve all those problems simultaneously, which is a difficult challenge.

So you mentioned studies had to be redone because they became. You didn't say stale, but old. Or. Or they are outdated, I think is what you use. So we've had multiple studies on soil analysis. What other types of studies have been done multiple times now?

So it'd be bird surveys, various insect biological surveys, what species are present when they're present, and that informs where we can build, how we build. For example, dust mitigation, sound mitigation.

Are those studies beyond what is prepared in an EIR?

Typically those studies Would be included in our EIR? Yes.

So if the studies were done multiple times, why were we not able to prepare an EIR when the studies were done the first time the studies were completed?

Because the studies were used to inform design and the design kept evolving as we were trying to work our way through these problems, and once we finally have a solution we believe is going to meet all those requirements, we feel confident we can put that forward in an environmental document and have that reviewed by the public.

So typically I've reviewed probably hundreds of EIRs as a Council Member before made decisions on projects. Typically, EIRs are prepared with those studies and with alternatives that are provided for the decision maker. In this case, you have the authority to make a decision on how to move forward. We.

You say we haven't been able to produce an EIR yet.

We're in the process of doing that right now. The first public meeting is scheduled for April 17, and that's going to be at the the Tijuana Estuary Training Center. The time is tended to be scheduled for 6pm through 7pm an official notice of that meeting is going to be likely sent out on April 2nd.

So you have your draft EIR, and that's where the comment period begins.

The way we're approaching this is we're going to first meet with the public and provide some input on the project and some of the proposals, proposed alternatives, and then after that public meeting and we get comments from the public, then we would draft the administrative EIR document.

So, okay, so then when is the EIR going to be completed?

Based on our current schedule, we expect to have the EIR complete by the end of this calendar year. That's assuming the standard comment periods, and we are able to address those comments in a timely manner.

I have to ask, is this typical of a project like this for it to take 10 years to complete an EIR?

No, the EIR itself, I mean, if the project were straightforward and we had. We have other projects that EIRs go forward much more quickly. It's the challenge.

It's the combination of the engineering, environmental challenges as well as, you know, even the studies that had to be conducted, they couldn't be conducted until there was access to the site because of sewage and flooding that caused the same. So it's been very challenging. This is not typical.

Yeah. And I mean, I'm very familiar with the challenges, the flooding, the sewage issue there, but it just seems like in an effort to try and get public access, because this is what this is really about to coastal access to a community that's certainly disenfranchised from coastal access, that we would act with a little bit more urgency to try and get these done.

When we did have those windows, and I'm familiar with the windows of not only for access, but also then you're going to have challenges with construction because of potentially probably nesting that happens in these areas. So very familiar with that. But it's still really. It was. It's quite shocking.

And I think I want to acknowledge the concerns of everybody that a project like this, which is generally meant to do public good, certainly when it comes to access, is. Takes. Takes this long. I mean, we're talking about this is a mile of a road, maybe I.

Believe it's slightly more than a mile.

But yes, slightly more. Yeah. Yeah. So do you have the full funding now to actually complete this project, or are you going to be requesting more funding going forward?

We do have full funding allocated for the project. It's a combination of the funds that were appropriated in earlier in 2015, plus deferred maintenance funding that was initially appropriated in 2021.

And from now until then, since there will be no road if all goes to plan, which is a concern. Just want to be very, very clear with you that given how long it's taken that in 2029, we may have a road, we may not. So is there a potential.

And I to warn you, I would anticipate anybody that comes to your April 17th meeting, public meeting, is probably going to be asking when are we going to have access? Is there any alternative to provide access during the season when people can have access? Not obviously during rainy season or unfortunate sewage issues that happen there.

Is there a way to have access before then?

Yes. First I would mention that the project completion of the 2029 acknowledges that there may be some challenges with access.

But with that said, is the first leg of the road that goes through the bulk of the salt marsh that's most prone to flooding is going to be relocated outside of that hazard area along the toe of the higher lands to the east.

And once that road is developed and reconnected to the Monument Mesa, the old road section of road is going to be decommissioned and restored habitat that's likely going to be towards the end of the project. That will not necessarily impact visitor access to the park. It's going to be more of a closeout of the project.

So we would expect that access would be opened up as soon as those two legs of the road are fully functional.

Does that mean before 2029? Is that what you're trying to communicate?

Our hope is that construction schedule is one year based on when we issue a notice, proceed to the contractor. We acknowledge that there could be conditions that prevent the contractor from mobilizing and from completing some of the work right away.

And so we're Just acknowledging that it could take up to two years or more if those conditions persist. And speaking of those conditions, there's some cross border effluent collectors that are on federal property that have not functioned properly and have failed to stop some of the cross border flows of sewage.

Now to the extent that those remain functional and operational and reduce the cross border flows into the park, then we're hopeful that the storms are minimal and we're able to open the park park occasionally as, as the conditions are safe.

So this is a Budget Committee. So I think my last question would just be on what lessons are have you learned that we can share with the public?

And certainly from a regulatory standpoint that for this not to happen again, I mean I don't think anybody would agree that official a 15 year process for a 1 mile road, even in the difficult conditions that exist, there is an appropriate response from government to do something.

And we're hearing a lot, you know, from Californians about how everything takes so long and it costs more money. This is unfortunately a prime example of that. We could be using these resources to do a lot of other things. So what lessons have been learned as far as this process from a regulatory standpoint?

As we hear more conversations about this? You know, reducing the green tape was supposed to address some of these issues. I don't think it did anything in this case. What, what things can we learn to make sure that future appropriations for projects that people expect in their communities can happen in a. In a timeframe that is appropriate?

Especially when it comes to all of the prep work done for environmental review studies and all that that is required.

Yeah. I would say though one of the main lessons is coordination with our, the oversight the regulatory agencies like the Coastal Commission. We've had extensive discussions with the Coastal Commission, for example, on early engagements on projects such as these and so that we can earlier in the identify these a way a path forward.

And I think through projects like this we recognizing the need for that greater collaboration. And since then we've been working with Coastal Commission to improve those procedures and processes.

And I might also mention that several months ago we brought our Parks Commission down to walk them through the entire site. So they were aware about the issues that we're facing here so that we could bring it to our Parks Commission's attention.