Senate Standing Committee on Rules

All right, we're going to call the Senate Rules Committee to order on Wednesday. More May 14th. Again, we truly appreciate each and every one of you being here today. Madam Secretary, let's establish a quorum. Call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Quorum has been established. We are going to invite. We have Senate royalty here today, and that's Nancy Skinner. So we're going to have everybody rise. I'm kidding, but we are very grateful. What we are going to do, though, is that we're going to have Senator Skinner to please come forward and come to the table.

Madam Senator, as you are making your way forward, we're going to go through our administrative portion of today's agenda. We have several items on the administrative portion of the agenda. We promise you we are going to be efficient. And then we'll get straight into Governor's appointees required to appear, starting with the California Energy Commission.

So, ladies and gentlemen, Committee, what we'd like to be able to do is move to items 2E through I, Items 2E through I. This is Governor appointees not required to appear, discussion, debate or motion. We have a motion by Madam Vice Chair. Any discussion or debate. Last call discussion or debate hearing seeing none.

Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

That motion pass passes. We're closing the roll. We're now moving to bill referrals. Item number three on today's agenda. Discussion, debate or a motion? We have a motion by Madam Vice Chair. Discussion or debate? Last call hearing seeing none. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

5 0 vote. Motion passes. We're closing the roll. We're now moving on to floor acknowledgments. We're looking for discussion, debate or motion. We have a motion by Madam Vice Chair. Discussion or debate from Committee. Last call hearing, seeing none. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

5 0 vote. Motion passes. We're going to close the roll. Ladies and gentlemen, we're now going to make our way back up on the agenda. This is under Governor appointees required to appear.

And we are always grateful that we have the good Senator from Berkeley who has done so much good in her Career serving the people of the East Bay and of course the State of California. And Nancy Skinner is now in front of the Rules Committee in a new capacity.

And I have been told you have taken on some of the largest parts of the entire Commission's portfolio now and would expect nothing less for Senator Skinner. Senator Skinner would like to talk a little bit about run of show. So we'll provide three minutes for opening testimony.

We'll give you a 30 second prompt as you get close to the end. Would welcome you to acknowledge any individual, family, friend who is here with you today, either in the room or online. Once you're done, we'll open it up for questions, comments, any discussion and then we'll open it up for public comment.

Senator Skinner, it is always a good day when you are here. Welcome back to the Capitol. It is so wonderful to see you. The floor is yours. You have three minutes.

Thank you very much, Chair McGuire, also Senate Rules Committee Members. It's great to see you all again. I'm very honored to be here before you and Secretary Contreras, I'm very honored to be here before you having received the trust and honor from the Governor to be appointed to the Energy Commission, to California's Energy Commission.

And of course that appointment comes as the Chair mentioned, with the requirement for Senate confirmation, which is why then we are gathered here. Now let me acknowledge, yes, I do have some good people in the room. My husband Lance is here.

So many of you know my now CEC staff team, Sarah Lim, Jeffrey Lu and Patricia Carlos, a number of the Commission's key staff people such as our CEO Drew Bohan, our ledge Director, Sarah Brady, among others. I won't introduce all of them.

And then many of my former staff, my former Chief of Staff Jess Bartholow is here, as well as my predecessor in the Assembly, former Assembly Member Dion, are also have many former staff and friends and family members who are watching online through the webcam.

So I won't try to introduce all of them, but I'm just very, very appreciative of their support and their being here. So this appointment, you know, there's always that question of what do you do? You know, after your service in the Legislature, which I loved, I loved being in the Legislature.

But interestingly enough, to be appointed to the Energy Commission is for me like coming full circle in my public service career. I happened to start my first public service position was being appointed when I was a grad student at Cal to the City of Berkeley's Energy Commission.

The City of Berkeley had a citizen advisory Commission on energy at the time.

It was created at the point where we were in the middle of an oil crisis in the United States and when the Three Mile island accident had occurred and the City of Berkeley was trying to look at, you know, interestingly enough back then, how it might become energy self reliant, how to improve energy efficiency, how to promote renewable energy, for example.

And so I was put on that Commission. And there I met Art Rosenfeld, who is known, or really deservedly credited as the godfather of California's energy efficiency policies. He was on the very First Energy Commission appointed by Jerry Brown in his first Governor role. He then served again under Governor Schwarzenegger and under Governor Brown too.

But Art was one of my most important mentors, amazing person. And so again, it feels like coming full circle, my current portfolio at the Commission, as the chair referenced it, is large, but then there are five commissioners. So each of us do have very significant portfolios.

And what I'm responsible now for, in addition to, just like in the Legislature, you vote on everything, I have certain things that I'm responsible for and those include supporting California's transition to zero emission vehicles and expanding our zero emission vehicle infrastructure. I also have building and industrial decarbonization in my portfolio.

Also am second on all of our efficiency work, both of buildings and appliances and, and responsible for the Commission's work with our ports, which of course are very stressed right now, my personal goals and priorities for being on the Commission.

As a former Legislator, and I don't say this lightly, I really do view my role as implementing your legislative and budget directions, which of course those directions are also directions from the Administration because they do not get, they do not become law or become part of the budget unless the Governor also signs them.

But they are directives that both you as the Legislature and the Administration give us and the Commission. So I take that responsibility quite seriously. I also, and of course to do that in a way that we meet California's energy needs affordably and sustainably, which I know are overriding goals of most affordability is of course a serious challenge.

And while the Commission, the Energy Commission's role is quite limited in that area, we do not set rates, we do the planning and the forecasting for our energy needs and we administer programs that help meet those needs and also help in effect, you know, where we.

And my mentor Art Rosenfeld taught me this well, that really the objective is to maximize the benefit or output for each unit of energy that is produced, to use the least amount of energy possible to achieve the results. And that of course, reduces cost to the entire system and is the most.

It's the wisest way to approach these things. And of course, as we project our energy needs, the more efficient we are, the more productive we are with each unit of energy, the less we will need as we go forward, even with our expansion for electrification and such. Thank you.

So clearly a great example of that is the breakthroughs that have happened in efficiency. I think any of you who converted, say, your lighting to LEDs see what a difference it is that just how much electricity an LED uses for versus an incandescent bulb.

Anyway, my final thing is that I'm also very committed to working to make sure that CEC's work is accessible and user friendly, that our reports can be understood by non experts, that our grant solicitations are regs. Because, look, I have a good amount of background, but am I an expert in all of this? No.

And so I want everyone to be able to read our materials and know what we're talking about and not be written in such a way that somehow it feels like it's obfuscation. So that's an important goal of mine. And I look forward to your questions.

Madam Senator, thank you so much. We are grateful that you are here. Thank you so much. It's wonderful to see Lance, always to so many members of your team. The Assembly woman who is here today, thank you so much as well. Why don't we open it up for comments, questions, Madam Vice Chair?

We'll kick us off and then we'll go to the remainder of the Committee.

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you, Senator Skinner, for meeting with me yesterday via Zoom. You did forget one thing in your introduction, which is my favorite part about you. That you're Ronan's gram, nana. Yes. So that was left out.

And the only reason we say that, or I say that is because I'm a grandma, you're a nana. And. And that's just a big important part of our life when we get to this point in life. So I just wanted to make sure that I pointed that out. That's my favorite part about you.

Thank you for meeting with me. I really do appreciate it. I know, as I said yesterday, I deeply respect you. I really do. And I think we worked well and I told you how much I missed you and Tony and Susan and everybody who kind of left Jones and I here from 2010 with.

With all these new members, and so I do. But we do have a very different opinion on policy, specifically energy policy.

And when I got the information that you were going to be appointed or brought before rules, I did have staff go back and request everything that you had passed or been a co author to regarding the increase in cost in energy. And so I have the top 13 here.

But this is the entire sector of legislation that has increased cost and to constituents, all of them, not just mine, but everybody on the dais as well.

Some of the bills that are in here, the 13 that I thought were the most cost exposure to the constituents that we have and the increase in, you know, affordability and electricity rates or the things that were passed, we just have a difference opinion.

We talked a little bit yesterday about how we really want to reduce those costs, but we have a different way of approaching that. Obviously I'm going to drive the former natural resources secretary nuts with this comment, but I do represent 70% of the state's oil. When we could get permits.

It used to be the top oil producing county in the United States and now it is barely surviving because I think we got 21 permits last year. Thousands of jobs have been lost in my district.

People of color, second chancers, businesses are barely hanging on trying to figure out how they're going to either transition to Texas or other places. We have refiners that rely on our oil to. We have refiners, they go on a pipeline. It's produced, it goes in a pipeline and it goes to the refiners.

It's the most, least carbon intensive way to get crude oil to refiners to produce the fuel. And California still uses about 1.6 million barrels of oil every single day. And we import a lot of that in December.

And I asked you this yesterday, In December of 2022, you said, quote, it is absolutely the case that the oil companies are price gouging California. So I have a couple of questions in regards to that response.

Are you aware, especially in this position that you're taking now that oil is exchanged on the global market, that California's producers can't change that price? Whatever it's set globally is the price, whether it's $20 a barrel or $200 a barrel, our producers in California cannot change that price. Are you aware of that?

Yes. And that's the price of crude, not the price of refined product.

Exactly. Just want to make sure. But it was, you said the producers, which is the oil producers. So I wanted to make sure that the word was producers. You said producers are debt, price gouge. It's not producers. They just take the oil out of the ground and sell it for whatever price is set on the global markets.

So I mean, like my little producers are not changing the global market price. I know that you introduced ABX2.1 and it gave the CEC broader authority over the refineries and minimum levels of inventories.

Some of the on the ground stuff that was after that bill was passed is that a lot of local authorities don't allow us because to create more storage inside the refineries. Is that still your stand? How do you force them, how do you force locals to allow them to the refineries to create more storage capacity?

So the bill you referenced, which I was a co author of, is a follow up to the original bill, which I was the author of, which established the Department of Petroleum Market Oversight. And the second bill you referenced, the AB, was a permissive bill and it provided some tools potentially to the Commission.

And you'll note that the Commission has not used any of those tools yet. And what the, both the original bill, the primary work of trying to understand price spikes in California was to collect data.

And so that was the original bill I authored was really authorized the division and the Commission to really extensively collect data and then analyze it. And then based on that, the data they got, then the analysis to then determine whether they were appropriate actions that might protect our consumers.

So far the Commission has not acted on any of the tools given and is still in the data collection and analysis process. And so I think it remains to be seen whether, you know, whether they decide.

We decide, but the analysts have not recommended yet an action to take or not, but it will be based on really comprehensive analysis of the data that is collected.

Thank you. And I just remind everybody that was the emergency executive session that we came up here to immediately implement so we could stop some price increases. And I know it's, some of it has been moved recently under the purview of the CEC.

Do you have a concern that if we lose 12% more of our refining capacity with Valero and PBF that the cost of fuel will go up?

We need the refiners that are in the state. We still have, as I think all of us know, I mean, I still have a, I have one electric vehicle and one hybrid, so I still utilize gasoline, as do most Californians. We still need refined product.

So as we are in this transition, and I am committed to a transition to zero emission vehicles, but it's not an overnight transition by any means. And so in the process of doing so, we want to do it with the least disruption and we will need refined product.

So I think even though this is a somewhat years ago circumstance, when I was elected to the Assembly and we're in the middle of the recession, I represented the refinery in Chevron in Richmond that was in my district.

And there were some community groups and residents in Richmond who had sued over the city's acceptance of the, of Chevron's CEQA document. And what Chevron was going to do at the time was some upgrades to the facility which were going to result in cleaner air and result in their ability to have more capacity, which was needed. Right.

It would deal with supply issues. And so I asked, and Jerry Brown was the AG at the time, I asked AG Brown to involve himself in mediation to try to get a settlement on that lawsuit so that Chevron's project could move. Because I saw the value of the upgrade to that facility.

Unfortunately, the parties could never get to agreement. So, you know, it just ended up playing out in court and there were many, many, many years and all of the work was never really done, which is very tragic.

But it just shows, I think, what the purpose of my telling that story is, that my commitment to that, yes, I have a commitment to this transition. And yet I also have a clear, clear understanding and acknowledgement of our need.

And I will do everything I can to try to make sure that we meet both of those things.

Thank you. I know you have a deep commitment to the transition. You made the statement just now about lease disruption. We've lost over 100,000 jobs in the Central Valley that are associated either upstream or downstream from oil. Chevron just put out a notice of another 50 employees.

We have second chancers, people of color taking on McDonald's, Taco Bell, every job they can get to try to replace the income of a $100,000 job they had in the oil industry that's been stripped from them because of policies that have come out of this building and not the ability to get permits arbitrarily denied with no due process.

I guess my question is that I know that California is looking at what they call a just transition. Lorena Gonzalez put out. There is no just transition. Is there a time frame? I just, you know, they had estimated a time train time frame by 2045.

And then with the permit cuts and reducing in state production, they have accelerated that to almost, probably 2028. If they don't get any permits, they'll be gone and there'll be no capital investment.

And I'm concerned about that because without capital investment in our refineries and our energy Sector, we're not going to be able to produce the fuel that, that constituents. Like you just said, you have electric car and a hybrid car. I have a hybrid car.

So there's not a, not going to be able to meet that demand for fuel.

I got a text just yesterday from somebody that even as of now, the refiners at the rack, meaning that after the crude is turned into refined product and then there's this board that goes or rack so they walk across, they fill up the trucks that go to the retailers, they're limiting and rationing fuel at the rack, which creates more trucks on the road.

Because if you have a contract to deliver say just 100,000 gallons of fuel to the corner gas station and you have to make multiple trips to do it because you're only getting half of what you go to pick up because they're rationing it. Now I think we're in a pivotal moment, I really do.

Especially with the refiners having, you know, discussions about even staying in California. Two of them have given a war notice, I believe is what it's called because under a piece of legislation you authored, they had to have a 12 month notice before they left the state. We do have two refineries doing that.

Is that of concern to you or do you have a plan at the CEC as some of this is moved into your purview to fix that? And if so, what is it?

So as I mentioned, I think I in the previous answer gave some clear expressions of that. And I will note that the Governor has now established a multi agency task force because clearly there are many agencies that have influence on our oil production, on our refined refineries, on, you name it.

And so he has established now this multi agency task force force which is charged with, you know, digging deep into these things.

And within the Commission our Vice Chair, who I know you are familiar with Sivagunda, is the person who interacts with that and is also the one in our Commission who has the oversight for the Department of Petroleum Market oversight and also the data collection and such. And I would say that I have incredible confidence in Siva.

He is a very, he is thorough, he does not act, he as coming from an academic background. He does not just come to conclusions until he has data and until he has analyzed it. So I feel that we are in very good hands there and I look forward to supporting Siva and following recommendations from him.

Thank you. I do know that you have spent a lifetime, I remember in the Assembly and I wanted to Bring. You'll help me with the name Lord Christopher Monkton, I think.

Lord Brown.

Yes. So I wanted to bring that person and I had. I went into your office as a new Member and you were a seasoned member and you very politely told me that would probably not be appropriate.

Yeah, actually, the other person you're thinking of. Yes, it was a different person. I was thinking of Lord Brown, who was then the head of British Petroleum, who I had helped organize meetings with him and Governor Schwarzenegger and some other folks. And under his leadership, British Petroleum was doing a transition away from fossil fuels.

Well, I just know, I want you to know that I do have a deep respect for you. You were, you really. I mean, we just come from different backgrounds and different spheres of influences. I mean, you represented Berkeley, I represented the oil industry. I mean, obviously, how much farther can you get apart?

So I do appreciate you answering my questions and I do have a deep respect for you. As I told you yesterday, I couldn't vote for the confirmation, but I know you're going to go to the Senate Floor. It's a pretty given. But I do look forward to working with you in your new position.

So thank you for answering my questions. And like I said yesterday, if I miss one more Doctor's appointment, she's going to beat me with a stick. So I have to leave and get on the road so I can be there by six. Thank you.

And it's important to take care of your health. So thank you, Senator Grove. Thank you, Shannon.

Thank you so much. Madam Vice Chair. We're going to turn over the Majority leader.

Thank you, Mr. P.T. And thank you so much, Senator Skinner. And it's so really great to see you. I do miss your voice in these halls and I just want to say thank you for your work as a Legislator.

I sat with you many, many a times in Energy Committee and you taught me a great deal, I would say personally, about the way of compromise and just how to navigate these very, very difficult issues on energy affordability, the decarbonization, sending market signals to industry and ensuring that you're doing so in a very fair way.

And so I want to thank you for, for that. And now we're in a different. This was during the Biden era.

Now we're in a much different era under the Trump Administration where we're seeing rollbacks to clean air, rollbacks to our waivers, rollbacks to our really ambitious policies that have really set the stage for the rest of the country, if not the world, to be able to diversify our energy program portfolio because it can't always be about fossil fuels.

Certainly understand that the time horizon is down the road for the phase out, but we have to diversify. So with that, how do you continue.

How does you as a Commissioner will continue to maximize investments in zero emission and continue that work both on the light duty and for me the medium heavy duty side with our ports, Port of Long beach and Los Angeles, in which I represent.

Great question. Under, as you referenced, under the Biden Administration, the State of California was in line for some very significant and good funding to help us with the infrastructure for zero emission vehicles, also help us with infrastructure at our ports, not only to help them electrify, but also to support offshore wind and a variety of other things.

And we are seeing obviously across the country, not just the State of California, the current Administration really pushing back on those things and saying no. So for in my portfolio, the particular thing that I feel very directly is the halt by the Trump Administration on the NEVI funds. And NEVI being the national. Let's see, where's my.

I forget the exact acronym for NEVI, but I will find it quickly. National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Funding, and that funding was.

Would have supported and we had the State of California was given by formula a certain allocation and it would have supported not only mostly heavy duty and medium duty, but huge depots for charging infrastructure off of our interstates, off of our goods corridors, which as you're concerned about, Senator Gonzalez, is where we have some of the worst air quality problems.

That money has now been frozen. The our Attorney General Rob Bonta has joined with many other states and sued the Administration on the freezing of that money. So we wait and see what happens. But we had already put out solicitations, we already accepted proposals and we're ready to go forward.

So that unfortunately is halted and there's other things like that halted. But fortunately we still have the clean transportation program, what we call the ctp, which was first authorized by an Assembly Bill back in 2006, I believe, then reauthorized in like 2010 or 2012 and then again just recently.

Senator Gonzales, you were involved in that reauthorization just last year or the year before. And those funds, they come, they are special funds so they don't have the General Fund pressure. And they do. While nothing is ever guaranteed, it does pretty much give us a predictable 100 million a year.

And that 100.0 million is then the CEC is responsible to figure out through an investment plan how best to allocate it.

And we always include the medium and heavy duty and also infrastructure like drayage trucks and such at ports because we know that not only are those very good for getting us this transition, but also because it helps clean the air. So. And we're still committed to that and working on it.

Well, thank you so very much. And I know you'll continue to be been a large voice and very intellectual voice on the issues of electric vehicles as well as hydrogen too. And I know that now it's very uncertain.

There's market signals that are just a little coming from the Federal Government, I should say, that are uneasy and confusing. And so I think that we have a real.

Your role is going to be even more significant now in this space of letting the rest of the, the, the world know where we stand on our energy sort of diversification, but also ensuring that we are getting to the heart of the matter which is protecting people and their, their air quality too in many of these programs that we put forward.

Thank you very much. You're welcome.

Thank you so much. Madam Majority Leader Center.

Thank you. And I appreciate meeting with you and appreciate the work that you have done over decades. And also a thing I asked you and you might clarify, you hold the seat that is engineering and what science explain what you got your degree in and who taught you.

I do have bachelor's of science. My master's is not in science, but we won't tell that story why. But it was much harder to do a policy type environmental science degree at the time. I was trying to pursue it. All of it was more in the quantification side, you know, like. And that was not my forte.

It was the policy side.

But some of your professors. But my professors.

So I mentioned Art Rosenfeld, of course, who I also took classes from. But for example, John Holdren, who was Obama's the White House advisor on the climate crisis. I took his first class as a postdoc from Harvard. Not me as the postdoc. He was the postdoc. But so I was a student of Holdren.

I was also a student of John Hart, who I was a student of many, many of the scientists who now make up what is called the ipcc, which is the International Panel on the Scientific Panel on the Climate Crisis. So yes, I was fortunate to get that early schooling.

And I think while again I don't have that type of scientific expertise, I do have the exposure to it and the degree which is what allowed me to be able to fill that slot in the Energy Commission.

And one of the major issues is really that is in the purview of the Energy Commission is grid reliability. And I know when we were talking about the Diablo Canyon extension, it really depended on what some of the estimates that were coming from your agency were.

So could you speak to sort of where we are right now in grid reliability? Because it has even changed a little since, since that bill was passed in 2022.

So 2022, when we passed that and we created, we, I say, we know as former Legislator, we created the strategic liability reserve. And we did so because we had just experienced some very serious power outages.

And we also had experienced those fires where you had to, where power had to be turned off in order to protect against those fires expanding. And that's a very serious hardship on residents of the state.

So with the increasing pressures of fires, with the heat, you know, having more high heat days, we, the state realized, look, we need to be really smart about what our energy resources are on our grid so that we have reliability, that we do not have to face those kind of outages unplanned especially.

And so that's why we undertook that exercise, all of us. And we extended Diablo Canyon, for example, we put funds into, we also extended some once through cooling plants. Those are peaker plants, natural gas powered. We also funded a variety of what we think about as ways to become reliable.

And that really gave us in good stead because, for example, In September of 2023, we had the highest electricity demand day ever in California and we did not experience any outages due to that demand.

So now our projections, and the Energy Commission is primarily a planning agency and it does the projections for what our electricity needs are going to be coming into the future. And, and those projections put us in pretty good stead up into the 2030.

And you know, again, depending on, you know, we're always tweaking it, but into the early 2000s, it is at that point. After that, it's, we have to look very carefully at how to meet the needs because as we expand electrification, we will need more generation.

And when we given that our generation is primarily from renewable sources, and that's our goal, and not all of those renewable sources, in fact, most of them do not generate 24/7. How do we meet those needs? And we have met them, we have been able to balance much of that renewable electricity generation through battery energy storage.

Now, fortunately, and Senator Laird, you may ask me some other questions about battery energy storage, which I'm happy to answer, but we are already seeing some technological breakthroughs in storage where we may see different Technologies and not just battery storage.

And of course, we encourage that because we hope that by 2030 and on, we have new technologies, we have other things to help us in that reliability. And that's part of the Energy Commission's job to do those predictions.

But we're working very closely on that and of course, look forward to working, interacting with the Legislature too, to make sure that we have a reliable grid.

And you just inferred it and even teased up my next question. But if you look at what the projections were at the time Diablo Canyon was extended, we're a little ahead.

And it is meaning we have more generation now than we had predicted we would have at this point in time. Exactly.

Yes. And it is in part because of a growth in battery storage, is that correct?

Yes, it is. And I'll give an example. The Legislature also passed the Opt in program, which was to, you know, speed up the permitting of certain types of projects. And the one that is going to be on the Commission's agenda in June is called the Darden Project.

That one, it's not online yet, but it is a solar plus battery. So it's new generation solar generation, which we know will not generate 24/7.

But the developers are also, they're going to use the solar generation to power that battery while the solar is creating electricity, and then they can turn to the battery for the backup when the solar is not generating electricity.

But it is many of the projects that have come online since we approved the Strategic Reliability Reserve have been that combination, a combination of renewable generation plus storage.

And for the uninitiated Darden projects in rural Fresno County.

Yes. On.

Very sorry that my colleague has left already.

Yes, it is.

You would enjoy that. Yes. So then if, if you look ahead, because we had the incident earlier this year in battery storage, there have been a number of different steps that have been taken. I mean, there's legislation, but the Public Utilities Commission has done a new order and safety.

And you have incorporated some of those safety things into your review process for what you're doing. And the Darden Project is really. Is that the first one that will come to you under AB205 or have there been a couple of others before?

It's the first one that we'll approve at a business meeting. Yes. And AB205 being the opt in permitting. Okay. Yeah. But on the battery storage issue, of course, the Moss Landing fire was, you know, tragic, terrible. Nobody wants that.

But I will note that the Moss Landing battery facility was built before the state even had any kind of mandate for battery storage. It was also built without any state permit, purely and solely local permits. And it was before we had statewide safety standards. So the PUC has just upgraded those safety standards.

But we, the state already had safety standards in place. And every state battery project, so every battery project that the CEC has either permitted, authorized or funded, there has been no fire whatsoever? None.

And the upgraded safety standards beyond even those that we had in place, that PUC has just adopted, we've incorporated now in our, in everything we do.

And we didn't talk about this, but then the issue is, is that there's a certain small percentage that is older and was approved before a lot of this.

There are not too many, but there are a few. Yes.

And that is going to be a public policy challenge over the next period of time about what to do about them, whether to upgrade them or deal with them in a different way, because they are not what you just described as the newer technology that's safer, where there have been no fires.

And I mean, we clearly we've seen in the, in the development of batteries. I think we've all remembered times where, you know, you heard about stories of someone having their laptop on their lap in the airplane and getting a burn. Right. Well, so those. That has changed, you know, I don't know from what year.

Batteries in laptops are not like that anymore. Batteries in cell phones are completely different. So the, you know, I would hope that developers, the entities that own any of the projects that were that first generation would themselves voluntarily want to upgrade just in the same way that laptops, phones and everything else did.

Because now that we know, you know, now that we know that there's, there's some issues with an old technology, it's the time to bring it back up to date.

But I think your point is one that has been lost in, in the discussion, in the sense that moss landing was 100% approved local control. And when there's an argument about return to local control, that is the result of local control.

And so it is a real question of having these standards and making sure that we adhere to these standards going forward. I appreciate your willingness to serve and your meeting and look forward to supporting you. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much. We're going to go to Leader Jones.

Thank you...Good Afternoon, Senator Skinner. As you can probably imagine, I share some of the same concerns and comments as my colleague from Bakersfield.

But I do—rather than relitigate those comments and concerns—I do want to kind of camp on the battery storage facilities a little bit and specifically, AB 205. And I'm going to make the counter argument to my colleague, from the coast, on the local control.

I'm very concerned about the lack of local control on these battery storage facilities, and I understand the arguments made on Moss Landing for sure. And I do appreciate you kind of explaining the upgraded requirements that the PUC and CEC, because those are becoming more—and I'll get to why they're becoming more important.

I'm not sure that the Otay Mesa facility in San Diego County was built in the same era as Moss Landing, or if it's under the newer requirements, or not. I'll look into that now, based on your comments here. But in my district specifically, there is a one of the original.

So, I would imagine it was on the old facilities or old policies in Escondido, that also caught on fire earlier this year—or last year, late last year—and burned for quite a while.

And then, you know, obviously we've seen the instances of the vehicles on I-40, the vehicles on I-15 that have stalled traffic and caused some pretty significant environmental damage, as a result of those fires, but specifically to AB 205 and local control, and in my case in my district, I learned by accident, actually just by driving by.

It's actually in the precinct in which I vote, my local City Council, that there was a battery storage facility being built, and I only found out about it because I drove by it and saw the concrete wall going up on a—next to a sidewalk across the street from a high school, and I peeked around the wall and noticed that there was batteries being placed there.

So, I called my local energy provider and asked about it and set up a meeting and had a tour two weeks ago. And the battery, the PUC or CEC, whoever, the setback requirement is 100 feet.

This 10-megawatt battery storage facility is now placed at the base of a pretty somewhat significant substation, but it's within 100 feet of the closest house, which is the requirement. So, it's actually 110 feet, so they beat the requirement by 10 feet. It's within a couple hundred feet of a several hundred-unit apartment complex.

It's across the street from a high school that has, I believe, currently around 2,000 students. More concerning to me, to the west, about a quarter mile, is a county ran convalescent home that most of the residents there are invalid, meaning that they are bedridden and are non-mobile.

And the point that it's to the west is important, because in my area when we have a Santa Ana, the wind blows west and it's—I would imagine within the wind zone, if that were to catch on fire, which if it's going to catch on fire, most likely would catch on fire during a Santa Ana.

The contractor, the builder, was only required—wasn't even required to tell the city or the local City Council Member that they were building this there. Now fortunately, my local energy provider is responsible and has a good relationship with the city, so they did provide that information to the City Manager and to the Fire Department, but that information didn't make it to the elected officials.

That information didn't make it to the residents that live around the facility so they could have their voice heard about it.

In, in that meeting, they kind of walked me through some of the meetings that they had with the Fire Department. They still don't—and it's partially charged up at this point in time, even though it's not active. But there is energy being stored currently in the batteries. They hadn't finalized a fire plan or an emergency plan. They're working on it.

And then, all the arguments I'm hearing in favor of that battery storage facility are the same arguments I heard in favor of Escondido, in favor of Otay Mesa, in favor of, oh, it's going to be safe, we have this thing figured out, we know what we're doing now. I'm just not convinced of that.

And so, I would be interested in your comments, and you know, in relation to AB 205, returning some of that oversight authority to the locals, so that they have the ability to say, hey, this is across the street from the high school and a convalescent home. This isn't a proper location.

So, it's a long setup for the question. So, I'll turn it over for your response, please.

Certainly. And I can't speak to the Otay Mesa project because I don't...

I'm gonna look into that.

So. And did you ask the energy provider who was installing this, what permit they did require? Because our, the opt in under 205, most of the projects have to be larger than what you're describing, but.

I was told the PUC, but.

So, PUC, yes.

So, it's not the CEC. That's what I thought, so it—not to diminish its size from your perspective or from that neighborhood's perspective, but that is a, the opt-in permitting is a larger megawatt. So, it would not fall under the CEC. It would fall under the PUC.

But as we've described, the PUC has, they already had safety standards, but they have further upgraded them. And while I don't know exactly when your—the facility you're describing went to the PUC for the permit, but given that it's not operative yet, we would hope that the upgraded standards would be being applied to it. But yeah.

All right. I will look into more and get more background on that.

Sure.

And I do share my comments with Senator Grove in having the highest respect for you and of course enjoying you working on the floor and missing our interaction.

And hopefully, we'll be able to work together on some of these issues that concern my district specifically and the policies that I promote. It will be a difficult vote to not support today, but as we've had vigorous policy discussions in the past, we'll still walk away respectful of each other, and I appreciate that.

Thank you. And I look forward to working with you if this, if this appointment that I'm in is successful. But also, I welcome your anytime calling me and anytime on any of the issues, either that you're just considering legislatively or in your district.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Leader Jones. We're going to jump back to Senator Laird.

I was just going to add, in the exchange that just happened, is it under Senate Bill 38 that was adopted in 2023, any new storage facility like that is required to file a safety plan, which includes evacuation and other things, with the local jurisdiction.

If it's an unincorporated area with the county, it's in the city with the city, that is a requirement. And as the order that that the Commissioner referred to, that the PUC just adopted, they are now taking over monitoring that to make sure that that is being done with every new facility. So, that is a requirement.

No, and I have no doubt the organization building and are following the current policies. I'm just stating here, I am not sure I agree with the current policies.

Well, you see, the interesting thing is, the reason I brought it up, is that there are two facilities at Moss Landing, one at PUC, I mean PG&E, and one at Vistra, and amazingly, we discovered that neither one of them had complied with the law on the safety plan, at the time of the disaster.

And so, it is a very important thing, and it is required by the Legislature and the law.

Thank you. Just wanted to add that.

Thank you so much. I'm going to give it one more charge and talk batteries, if that's all right. Thank you. Oh, boy. Exactly. All right. Welcome to Rules. All right, see, there we go. First and foremost, I want to acknowledge Senator Laird.

Senator Laird has taken public safety, especially on commercial grade battery plants, to heart, advancing legislation today. And hopefully, it will go into law here this year. And I think we need to be very clear what was originally installed, to what it is today, night and day, where you have an individual capsule, if you will, around each pod.

And you're not combining these large commercial batteries all in one structure. Very similar to what we saw in Senator Laird's district.

Yes.

And then, I think the other item is if there were—I think we're up to now 15,000 megawatts of battery storage across the State of California. The most recent numbers is my understanding. And it has absolutely helped us in our times of great esteem, when it comes to energy use.

And I think the piece is this is if there is a fire at a refinery, for example, not going to shut down the refinery, going to go in and focus on what we need to do to improve the safety of the refinery. And the same can be said in regards to a commercial grade battery storage.

And I don't think we can paint with a broad brush what happened, which was horribly tragic, by the way. Want to be very clear about that. But just being blunt, we need this power, long term, to be able to grow our economy and to be able to meet our current need. Senator Skinner?

Yes, absolutely. And I think you made a good analogy. And we could use it on multiple things, where we know there is fire hazard, whether it's a refinery or any number of—I won't try to, you know, make the list of what things have the highest fire hazards, but what we always need to do as a Legislature, as a society, as our public safety officials, everyone is to design them in such a way to minimize that, that aspect of that risk and to do the safety plans and the protection, as best as we can.

Because we are dependent on many of these resources, again, whether it's the refinery or the battery project. And fortunately, the, the new generation of batteries are less fire prone, not immune, but less.

And one of the things that the CEC funds, we have a program called EPIC, where we make investments in technological breakthroughs and we are putting funding towards products that are being developed, that would be long duration storage, that are not lithium-ion batteries, that are completely different technologies, which would be a great advance.

And if they come to market, that's going to be a great advance for us.

Thank you. One last item, and this is in regards to EV infrastructure. The Attorney General, let's see, 60 days ago, issued the bulletin ensuring, trying to push local jurisdictions along, in regards to approval and streamlining. Can you just give us an update on that?

Because I think that's been one of the bigger challenges that you've taken on this portfolio is making sure that the EV technology is deployed within city and counties.

Right. Well, one of the things that I've been doing in my, as newly appointed, is meeting a lot with all the different entities in the EV infrastructure ecosystem system. So, meeting with, for example, EV Go, a new consortium called Iona. Iona is a consortium of a bunch of vehicle manufacturers—BMW, Hyundai, Toyota, amongst many others, Honda.

And they are, they are building out. They've already acquired a number of sites in California. They hope to by the end of '26, have 75 sites with many, many fast chargers. So, like a gas station model, you can pull up, there'll be conveniences there and such. And what have they encountered—their two biggest obstacles in getting there.

You know, they can have a site and they want to put the stuff in the ground and have it ready for you to pull up and charge is the local permitting and then the utility energization. And so, this was Go Biz.

Even though I have this responsibility for this work, Go Biz was given the specific charge to look at this issue of local permitting.

And so, I think, you know, they helped bring it to the attention of the AG's Office, who then put out that like, because the Legislature did pass a law saying that local governments needed to, to, you know, not delay on such permits. But it is possible. And I think, I think we're—I'm now having my staff look more into this.

And so is Go Biz, of whether there needs to be some additional actions because part of the issue is local governments haven't zoned for EV charging. They may be zoned for a gas station, but not EV charging.

And so, when they are faced with that, where should we put it? We don't know. None of our, you know, do we treat it like a gas station? Do we treat it as—what do we treat it as? So, that's part of what local governments are challenged with.

And so, the Legislature may want to think about what, you know, what else we might need.

Thank you so much, Senator. I appreciate that. Before we open it up for public comment, we'd like to be able to see if there's any additional comments, questions, from the Committee here today. All right, hearing and seeing none, let's open it up for those who would like to be able to speak in support.

We're looking for those who are in support of the appointment. If you could please give us your first and last name, your organization, and your position on the appointee. We're going to ask folks to be able to leave it at those first and last, organization, and your position, please. So wonderful to see you.

Wonderful. Great to see you too. Jessica Barthlow, with SEIU California, in support.

Thank you so much. Hi, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Theo Pahos, representing Calpine, in support.

There we go. Thank you so much. Welcome, Assemblymember.

Thank you. Assemblywoman Dion Aroner, in support, Brighton as a constituent. That's why I'm representing one of her constituents. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Silvio Ferrari, here on behalf of Renew Home, Rewiring America, Invenergy, Pearlx, and the California Building Industry Association.

Thank you so much. Hi, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Vince Wertmaja, with MCE, in support, as well as on behalf of Cal CCA. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Members. George Miller, on behalf of M&A Energy, in support.

Thank you. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Michael Daft, with Electrify America, in support. Thank you.

Hey, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Dan Chaw, pleased to support...nomination on behalf of the Port of Long Beach, Ava Community Energy, and Green Gen. Storage, a pump hydro developer.

Thank you so much. Hi, good afternoon.

Chair and Members, Brandon Wong, on behalf of the Electric Vehicle Charging Association, in proud support.

Thank you so much. Hi, good afternoon.

Hi. Julie Malinowski Ball, on behalf of the California Electric Transportation Code Coalition, in proud support.

Good to see you, Julie. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Daryl Little, with CalStart, in support. Thank you.

Hey, good afternoon.

Bill McGaven, with the Coalition for Clean Air, pleased to support Senator Skinner's confirmation.

It's good to see you. Hey, hey. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, Mr. Pro Tem and Members. Erin Nemala, on behalf of Intersect Power and the California Energy Efficiency and Demand Management Council, in support.

Hi, good afternoon.

Hi, good afternoon. Kate Eager, with the Vitamin Group, on behalf of Air Products, Bloom Energy, and Blue Planet Systems, in strong support.

Thank you so much. Hey, good afternoon.

Hi. I'm Ryohei Hinokuma, with Daikin, the world's largest HVAC manufacturer. Also, the leading heat pump manufacturer in the US, and I'm in support.

Thank you so much. Kai is in the house.

Hello. Kai Clausen, on behalf of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, in strong support. Thank you.

It's good to see you. Thank you. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Theresa Cook, on behalf of the California Hydrogen Coalition.

Glad to be in support. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Cook. Hey, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Nicolina Hernandez, Regional Director of State Government Affairs for Toyota. Happy to support.

Thank you so much. Hi, good afternoon.

Hi. Sara Fitzsimon, on behalf of Independent Energy Producers Association and also Calpine, in strong support.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Gracia La Castillo Kranz, here on behalf of the California Energy Storage Alliance, and happy to support. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Good to see you. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. John Moffet, on behalf of NRG, in support.

Thank you. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Alisa Reinhardt, here on behalf of General Motors, in proud support. Thank you.

Thank you so much. All right. We're going to do a last call for those who may be in support. I think we have 80% of the room that have come up, which is always wonderful to see. But we're going to do a last call call for those who are in support.

If you could please advance at this time. We're now going to look to those who may be in opposition. If you could please come forward at this time. Looking for those in opposition. Good afternoon, sir.

Thank you. My name is David Bolog, and I'm opposition. I represent—all this to say I'm another constituent who's concerned about the high cost of living in California. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bolog. Grateful you're here. Thank you so much. We're going to check in—one last call for those who may be in opposition. If you could please step forward at this time—those in opposition. All right. Why don't we bring it back to Committee to see if there's any additional discussion or debate from Committee.

Any additional discussion or debate? We also would welcome a motion. We have a motion by Madam Majority Leader. Please, Senator Laird.

No, I was going to make a motion, so I'll.

And there we go. We got a double motion. Hey, there we go. Love it. Motion by Madam Majority Leader. Thank you so much.

Senator Skinner, wonderful to see you. All right, why don't we go to the vote? Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

3-1 vote. Motion passes. We're going to close the roll. Congratulations, Senator Skinner. Next up is the Senate Floor. If we can please give a round of applause. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the Committee, and to all those who are in attendance, we're going to take a two-minute recess.

We're going to invite our next panel to come forward, representing the Board of State and Community Corrections, we're going to have our next appointees please come forward.

We will be back with you in two minutes.

Ladies and gentlemen, Committee, we're going to be coming back in 30 seconds. We'll reconvene in 30 seconds.

All right, welcome back. We are going to be doing a three person panel, all on board of state and community corrections. And I want to take a moment, say thank you to the three appointees for your dedication the State of California and just being really blunt about it.

You are serving in such a pivotal role and can, candidly, it can be thankless at times and we are truly grateful for your work. Let's talk a little bit about run a show. If it's all right with each and every one of you. We're going to start to my right, work our way down to the left.

We'll start with Ms. Branning, then go to Ms. Lai and then of course, Chief Scott. And what we're going to do is each of you will have three minutes to be able to provide the opening statement. We of course, request that you welcome anyone who may be here with you today.

Family, friends in the audience or watching online. All three have completed testimony. We're going to open it up to the Committee for any questions, comments, any debate, then we'll go to public comment. Ms. Branning, we are grateful that you are here. We're going to start with you. I'll give you a 30 second prompt. The floor is yours.

And welcome to Committee.

Great. Thank you very much and good afternoon, everyone. I would first like to thank Governor Newsom for this prestigious appointment and the Senate Rules Committee for this confirmation hearing. I would also like to thank my fellow board Members for their service as well as. Which is extremely important.

I look forward to bringing my rural perspective to the board. I would also like to thank the love of my life for the past 20 years for always being my biggest supporter, my partner, my best friend, Dave Woginrich. He's here with me for today and his family.

I'd like to thank my best friends Lisa and Charlotte for making the drive here to be with me today. I would also like to thank my brother Scott and his wife Lynette for their unwavering support and helping me truly build the foundations of my life along with the expansion of our family.

I'd like to thank the dedicated and exemplary employees of the Lassen County Probation Department. Because of their hard work and dedication, I'm allowed to serve at the state level. I heard that we had two minutes for our opening statements.

So that helped me really realize how blessed that I am with amazing people in my life because there's not enough time to thank all of them.

So what I will say to everyone that's played a role in my life is thank you for helping me build the foundations of what makes me always do the right thing, even when no one is watching.

And being proud to serve on the Board of State and Community Corrections and being proud to uphold and defend the Constitution of the State of California and the Constitution of the United States of America. So God bless and thank you.

Thank you so much. It's good to have Dave and Lisa and Charlotte here. Thank you so much for that acknowledgement. It's wonderful to see you, Dr. Lai. It's wonderful to have you here today. The floor is yours. You have three minutes. You should be good. It should be automatic. The floor is yours. You have three minutes.

I'll give you a 30 second prompt as we get close to the time.

Thank you. Good afternoon everybody. My name is Karen Lai and I am a board certified child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist. A medical Doctor by training, I also hold a Master's in Public Health because I've always been interested in improving the well being of communities and not just individuals.

I so appreciate Governor Newsom and his staff for giving me this really unique opportunity to learn more about the field of corrections and how I might help improve systems in working together, health care processes, and the lives of the incarcerated.

I was looking to volunteer some time in my community in a way that used my medical or public health training, applied to a seat on the California Medical Board and didn't hear back. Instead, I got a call from Samantha Diaz, from the Governor's office. Thank you, Samantha.

Who introduced me to this seat on the Board of State and Community Corrections. I was immediately intrigued. Here was a unique opportunity to learn more about the corrections system of which I knew almost nothing, but which strongly interacts with the health care system, in particular the mental health system, in which I work.

It's not too uncommon for me to have a patient at the Contra Costa County Mental Health Clinic who, due to a manic episode or to psychosis, spent some time in juvenile hall or in adult jail or prison. Or all too commonly a depressed teenager in my clinic in San Pablo, who survived a childhood without a father, who was in prison for multiple years and likely struggling with their own mental health challenges.

I treat children, adolescents and young adults on a daily basis in my two clinics, one in San Pablo and the other in Pleasant Hill, who battle to overcome their destitute, sometimes neglectful, often traumatic family backgrounds that have impacted their health and well being from so many different directions. This is how the cycle of intergenerational trauma continues.

A cycle that's precipitated by and impacted by multiple societal ecosystems. One of Them being the correctional system. The medical provider role on the board is very new and I myself am traversing a steep learning curve in order to be as effective as I can be to help make positive changes to the system.

I am so thankful to BSCC Chair Linda Penner, Executive Director Erin Mcguire, and all the staff who have been so kind and generous with their time in explaining all the things to me and of course to the In Custody Death Review Division Director Allison Ganter, who just the other week coordinated my first tour of a detention facility, the Martinez Detention Facility in Contra Costa County, and who has been providing me with a wealth of guidance and knowledge along the way.

But most of all, I have to thank my husband John, my 5 year old son Logan, and my 11 month old daughter Zoe, who are here in the audience today, who gave up their free time and allowed me to also give up my free time to be here today and participate in this potentially life changing work.

If through my time and work on this board, I can improve the lives of many who are incarcerated and prevent even one more death in a facility from occurring, it will be more than worth it for me. Thank you for your time and for your consideration.

Thank you so much, Madam Board Member. And Zoe is rooting you on. Hot dang. She's ready to go. Love it. Thank you so much and it's wonderful to have your family here today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Chief, it's good to see you. On behalf of the Majority Leader, we are really disappointed that you're heading back to Los Angeles. And Madam Majority Leader, I think the Chief's going to remain a Giants fan though. Am I right, Chief? Yeah. All right. Hey, there we go. It just got really awkward all of a sudden. Oh, man.

Sweating already.

Let me start by saying I like them both, so.

Come on. Hey, that's right. Exactly. On that note, Chief, thanks for not answering. So the floor is yours. You have three minutes. We'll give you a 30 second prompt. Okay.

Oh, man. Come on, Chief. Geez.

Well, thank you, Senator. I want to start off also by thanking Governor Gavin Newsom for appointing me to this board. It is an honor to be sitting before you for this appointment hearing.

I also have a lot of people to thank and I want to start with my wife, Frajan, who has been my wife for 36 years and counting, and she's here with me. And also my friend and colleague from the San Francisco Police Department, Acting Sergeant Al Duarte, who's here as well.

And I'm sure there are many others watching this on Television or online. And I want to thank them for their support. So just a little bit about me and why I'm here.

You know, I have been a Member of the law enforcement community for 35 years and counting, and this has been really a true blessing to be a part of this profession. But as we all know, there is always work to be done, improvements to be made, and things that have to evolve and change.

And I believe that this board gives a person like me, who wants to give back to the profession, has given so much to me, an opportunity to do those things.

I think I bring the insight, the experience, just from my travels in this profession over 35 years, where I can lend some perspective to the board, along with the difference between perspectives of all the other board Members. We all bring something different to the table.

And I think that has been a very, very refreshing and enlightening experience for the short time that I've been on this board. I'd like to thank Chair Linda Penner and Executive Director Mcguire, Erin Mcguire, because the onboarding process has... I've learned a lot already, but it's a steep learning curve. There's a lot of work to be done.

There are a lot of issues that the board takes on, and working together to make those situations better within our lane and within our responsibilities and authority is really an honor to be in that position. My time with the Los Angeles Police Department, 27 years with that Department, I saw a lot, learned a lot.

But I also saw the effectiveness of what this board can do just through oversight, policy, training and support.

And as a board Member, that is what I hope to bring to this board to help people like me, people like the chief people, anybody connected to this profession and this industry and the people that we serve, including those who have been incarcerated, because that's who we have to protect and we have some work to do.

There are issues that I've learned about since I've been on the board since last year that I'm excited to be a part of, because I think we have an opportunity to do some real, real good work. And we have an opportunity to impose recommendations.

And even though we don't have authority to enforce those recommendations, I've been in positions where on my side, I've received recommendations, and I know the public process is one mechanism to shed light on recommendations and help to get those recommendations actually into action.

And this is a very, very transparent process with this board in terms of what we do and how we do it. Of course, there's closed session that can't be made public.

But because that process is so public and transparent, I do think we have a lot of ability as a board to do good work to make sure the public knows it, sees it, questions it, understands it, but more importantly holds those recommendations to account for those who we make those recommendations to.

So I am really, really excited about this and I am thankful for you all for hearing us and welcome any of your questions.

Thank you so much, Chief.

Thank you, Chief. Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, Chief. Very grateful. We're going to open up for any questions or comments, please.

Senator Lear, thank you and thank you all for your willingness to serve. Dr. Lai, I have a question for you, but I should make a comment that you dodged a bullet by not getting appointed to the medical board. So you should be very happy. This is going to look easy compared to that potential service.

I was just going to ask that you are the first licensed health care provider to be appointed to this board. How are you viewing that in terms of bringing that experience and that viewpoint to this work?

I think that's a good question.

I think that so far I have been really trying to get to know the corrections facilities, you know, the processes that the board goes through in making recommendations and meeting with Allison Ganter quite a lot in getting to know, you know, what the in custody death review is doing, what they're up to, participating in some listening sessions.

I think that the community has a large voice in, in the area of health and wellness in these facilities.

And I hope to really broaden that perspective on the board and bring it, you know, give it, give it a voice and, and also see if I can help make, you know, improve the healthcare related processes in facilities as much as I can.

I think that's great. And even though you didn't ask for my advice, my advice would be don't hold back. You probably have a view that other people don't appreciate in a way that there's moments that you could really bring something to the table and you shouldn't wait for somebody to ask you.

So just as that goes along, make sure that you reflect that, that experience, because I think it's valuable. Thank you. And then a question maybe for the other two and you can comment. And that is there's just been a long standing issue about in custody deaths. It was mentioned during your opening statement.

There was particularly, I think in a 14 year period in San Diego, there were 185 people that were in custody deaths in that period. And state audit was done that reflected on that. And now the result was Senator Atkins, who did represent San Diego, county, authored the Bill about in custody deaths.

And now the board is charged in many ways with implementing that Bill. And so I would just ask on that subject, how do you think the implementation is going or what concerns concerns do you have? And maybe we'll start with Chief Scott and then go to the Director.

Thank you for the question, Senator Laird. I being on the board for now six months, you know, I, I was here when Ms. Cantor was appointed. Ms. Ganter, I'm sorry, was appointed to be to chair that board. And I think that's an excellent choice as far as the appointment.

Things are beginning to come together in terms of the Bill being realized and really, you know, the public process, the listening sessions, the visits to the different correctional facilities that I've become aware of because of the board, I think that's exactly how this Bill was drawn up to make those things happen.

But at the end of all this, at the end of the day, I believe what will come out of this is better policy. When I, when the report and the investigations identify that there are facility issues that may have led to a death, I think those corrections will be recommended and probably I would think implemented.

I think there will be a better oversight process for these deaths. I know the local authorities, when there is an in custody death, they have to do investigations and many local authorities like the one I work in right now have processes for that.

However, with the state oversight and the state at the Board of State Community Corrections having a hand in this, I do think there will be consistency across the state and I think we're going to be better off for it. And we're just beginning and I'm learning as I go on this, there's a lot to learn.

But I think Ms. Ganter has hit the ground running and kept the board apprised of the things that we should be apprised of at this stage. And I'm happy and excited to work with her as much as was then my responsibility on this board to make sure that we do everything that we can to support her work.

And just before we allow the Director, it occurs to me that that wonderful unique structure that's called the City and County of San Francisco is such that the sheriff has responsibility for the correctional facilities. But you didn't.

So is this new to you in the sense that you've never had responsibility for a correctional facility and you're really getting up to speed on that?

Well, some of it is new, but not exactly new. In the city and County of San Francisco, we only In San Francisco Police Department we only have holding facilities facilities. So we can only hold people taken in custody for a short amount of time and they have to be transferred to the sheriffs.

As you stated in the Los Angeles Police Department, however, there were jails actually within the Police Department and our custodies could remain in those jails until they were taken for arraignment. So that meant three sometimes if it was over a weekend, four to five day stays if there were holidays.

So I do have some familiarity with rules title 15 rules associated with this. Although my time in LAPD, which was 27 years, it wasn't long term facilities, but there were in custody deaths that occurred. So very familiar with some of what comes from that. Okay, thank you very much.

And then give the Director a shot at this.

Hi, Chief Branning. I believe in the work that Allison Ganter does and I know that she, she as a facility inspector was very clear and concise in following a process and I believe that she was always very consistent and I expect nothing less than that.

She will bring the best procedures forward to be able to look at standardizing how these reviews occur. So I have my full confidence in her abilities.

Great, thank you very much. Thank you. Please, Madam majority.

Thank you Mr. Pro Tem and thank you for coming in front of us. And I appreciate your responses to Senator Laird and my question. I hail from Los Angeles, so I'm looking at you, Chief over here.

You understand our, our county, but having, you know, being a large, a large county, you, all of us will have to understand this even, even more in depth. It's been about two years since the agreement.

It was a long running federal civil civil rights lawsuit challenging the substandard conditions inside the LA County jails in which that was done I think around 2023. So it's been two years. Has the board noticed any improvements in LA County jails and the adult jails?

And then what do you foresee in terms of additional work that the board can do to ensure that we correct many of the substandard and sub, subhuman really conditions there, long standing issue and certainly residents are asking a ton of questions.

Yes, please, I can just start. Although I'm new on the board, that was a story just being from Los Angeles that I follow and I do believe there have been improvements and I do also believe there are, you know, many improvements to make moving forward.

As I said, I'm new on the board, so I don't, I don't have the intimate details that was before I joined the board, but I did follow that and kind of kept up what was going on because I'm from Los Angeles and just it was of interest to me. But I do believe that there have been improvements.

And what I do know, just being on this board for six months, is that the board takes all those types of responsibilities very seriously. And as I said earlier, the board doesn't have the ability to enforce, but it does have the ability to inspect, to make recommendations. And I think that's an ongoing work in progress.

And those inspections will continue and the recommendations will continue. And I'm confident that with that there will be improvements.

Yes. Dr. I will just add that at the Board Meetings, we have been exposed to some of those inspection reports. And I have personally been impressed by how thorough and comprehensive the inspectors have been in going through those facilities and documenting, you know, whether or not the facilities have met certain regulations or not.

And I was, I was impressed by, you know, I think they have a particular schedule going through each of the facilities. They do both announced and unannounced visits. So I was, I was impressed by that regularity and consistency.

Thank you. I would just add that that was before my time and my appointment as well. But I do know that the inspection reports that come to us, the board and the inspectors take it very seriously. And we do look at them. And if there are problems, then, you know, everybody puts those recommendations forward. So thank you.

And I know the agreement, I should have said that in the beginning, may have provided more context. I apologize. The agreement includes a requirement that the county will create at least over 1900 new community beds as alternatives to jailing people with mental illness.

Close to 1700 of those new placements will be online within the next two years and then continuing to increase mental health services staffing, which we know is important. So I look forward to that.

And I do know as legislators, we need to dive deep with you to be able to align our legislative work with the outcomes that you're all seeing on the ground in our jails. And so I really appreciate that. Just one last question, If I may, Mr. Pro Tem, on the. Just an overall.

On data collection, I know we all have to do. I mean, every agency across the state, this is the one thing, right? Like data collection is what we need to continue to prioritize in order to do the work that we do here in a very efficient way.

But as respective with the juvenile justice data collection, which I know is lacking in many ways. Do you foresee. Well, I'll first ask, do you track juvenile recidivism Rates currently? And if not, how can you evaluate programs or determine success and outcomes with or without this data? And how can we continue to work to get that data?

If not?

I can start with this question if nobody else has an answer yet. We do track juvenile justice data. Getting a hold of that data is quite difficult because of the confidentiality and the nature of it.

So that's sometimes one problem, and then another problem is that some of the statistical systems that we report our data to are very antiquated, and it is very difficult to be able to report it and to be able to get it out of there.

The definitions for recidivism differ sometimes, and so we look at how many successful closures we have versus how many unsuccessful, and that's done differently by each Department across the state.

Thank you. That's really important information, and so we'll keep track of that. I know Los Angeles County juvenile facilities are all, you know, certainly in need of that, but I think across the board around the state, we should do even more in this. In this space.

And antiquated platforms and systems are always an issue, but I think this is priority for getting better outcomes overall. So thank you very much for your answers.

Thank you so much, Madam Majority Leader. Mr. Leader. Thank you, pro tem. Thank you. I also want to say thank you for stepping up and wanting to be appointed to this position. I'm always amazed at the folks that come forward to fill these appointments and the work that's required behind them.

Looking at all of your resumes, I know that you all are very qualified for the position, and I know that Dr. Lai's position is new and bringing a new experience and background to the board. So I just had a quick question for Dr. Lai and then a General question for all three, maybe to respond to.

Given your great background and experience with UCLA, do you feel... Have you thought about this? And this is just a curiosity question, this isn't...Your answer is not based on your vote here today. So I'm just kind of having a discussion more than anything.

Is, do you feel like there is an opportunity for the UC system to become more involved with these facilities and fill in some of the gap in these mental health treatments that we might need to be doing, or is it a good experience for the students and the faculty to have?

I think that's an interesting question and a really interesting idea. As part of my training in my adult psychiatry training, we did not have any exposure to the detention facilities.

In my child psychiatry fellowship training, we did do a tour of some, like Juvenile Hall, for example, we didn't do any work there, but I actually do think some of the residents would be interested in doing some work there.

And I, my impression was there was some, there were relationships, maybe not training related relationships, but that could, if it was doable, I don't see why not.

Right. It might be just something for you to think about and then as your experience grows in this and might come back to us with some ideas on if legislation is required or, you know, some idea from the Legislature.

I think also because, yeah, forensic psychiatry is a definite area of interest for a lot of residents, so.

Good. Thank you. I do want to get a response from each of you on a particular item. As you all know, Prop. 36 passed overwhelmingly in November. It passed in every single county in the state and by 70% of California voters. So there is a, I would call a mandate from the voters to take Prop. 36 serious.

I've had some very extensive conversations with my sheriff in San Diego County about what it's going to mean for the county there.

Other sheriffs have, you know, raised concerns that there's going to be some costs involved with managing Prop. 36, including the expansion of drug and mental health treatment programs and, you know, and hopefully the benefits of those programs will be better than sending people to state prison or other institutions.

So the question kind of, it's a, I'll give some, like, some concerns and then, and then I'll leave it up to you to answer how you wish, because we're just kind of having a conversation today. Has the board, there's a grant program that was authorized under Prop. 36 for your board and whether.

Has there been any conversations yet about that grant program and how the board is going to be processing it and getting ready for it if and when it gets funded, understanding that, you know, it has to be funded, which I think so far that's not part of the budget proposal.

Has the board looked at doing a survey with the counties to get an idea of what are the local funding needs for these mental health and drug treatment programs? And can, are you able to give that information if you've done that?

Is it available for the Governor to consider in the, in the budgeting process as we go forward? And then giving the local law enforcement experience of the two of you that are from law enforcement, how important is it for the state to provide. And Dr. Lai, you certainly can respond to this, too.

How important is it for the state to provide the necessary funds to implement Proposition 36, the grant program isn't being discussed yet. Are you ready to give information to the Governor? And three, how important is this funding for Prop 36, do you think, for your role?

So I can say that for the, the probation industry, it's a big, it's very important. I haven't seen all of the grant requests for proposals come out. I do know that there have been some that have gone out through maybe the courts. So I think that that's an area where that question would lie.

And I believe that the probation industry has put forward some funding opportunities and needs to the governor's office. I don't think that that was funded. I know that there's no formal grant of probation with Proposition 36.

So it depends upon the jurisdiction whether or not a probation Department is going to participate because you're not mandated to supervise the population. So I think that that would be another problem. But for all of us, we will locally work out whatever it is we can to meet the needs within our communities.

Yeah, I would add to that. I believe there's $127 million. It's basically being rebalanced between Prop. 47 types of initiatives which are similar mental health and addiction services and then Prop. 36.

I do believe that Prop 36 will fill many needed gaps in terms of bridging the gap for people who need those services, who incarceration, particularly long term incarceration, may not be the answer. And there are a lot of those people out there. As somebody who oversees a frontline law enforcement agency, we deal with that all the time.

And from that perspective, many times if we've seen success stories where people have gotten the services that they need, particularly mental health and substance disorder services, and it really does cut down on recidivism. And I've seen that and I think there's evidence out there in many circles that will prove that.

So I think this is going to be something that I believe is a good thing for our state. And as Chief, as Chief said, we're kind of in the emphasis stage of these RFPs and there's a lot more to come.

But my understanding from, from what I know is that there's no additional money, as you said, but there's going to be some rebalancing between Prop. 47 and Prop. 36. And I do think some good things will come from that, in my opinion.

And just to tag on to that, if I may, speaking to your concern about funding and budgeting, I think from, I'm obviously biased, but from the mental health side and from What I know about prevention services versus, you know, on the back end, treatment services.

I do believe that there's a lot of evidence out there that, you know, if people get treatment in a timely manner to help with, you know, early prevention or primary prevention, that this will save a lot of costs down the road.

I agree. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Pro Tem. That's the extent of my conversation right now. Thank you all for again, for coming forward for this and I look forward to. Unless there's some outstanding opposition argument, I look forward to supporting your event, your appointment today. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Leader.

All right, we'd like to see if there's any additional discussion or debate from Committee at this time. Seeing none, we'd like to be able to open it up for comments, public comment from each and every one of you. We're going to respectfully request. Folks please come to the podium.

First and last name and organization in your position on the appointees. Welcome and good afternoon. Thanks for hanging with us.

Good afternoon. Daniel Sanchez, on behalf of the chief probation officers in very strong support of Chief Jennifer Branning today.

Thank you so much. Good to see you. I'd like to better see if there's anyone else who would like to better speak in support. We ask you to please come forward at this time. We're going to do a final call for those in support, seeing no one else rise.

We're now going to see if there's anyone in opposition. If folks could please come forward to the podium. First, last name, organization, and your position, seeing no one rise. We're going to bring it back to Committee to see if there's any final discussion or debate. We'll also welcome a motion. We have. Look at that.

We have a motion by Leader Jones. Thank you so much to the three of you. Thank you for your commitment to the people of California each and every day. We're grateful that you're here. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[roll call]

I'm here too. And also. Aye.

[roll call]

It's a 4-0 vote. The motion passes for closing the roll. Next stop will be the California State Senate Floor. Thank you so much. Wonderful travels home. Thank you. If you could you please give a round of applause. To the chiefs, to the Doctor. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen of committing to those in the hearing room.

That concludes the public portion of today's hearing. We will be going into closed session momentarily. We're going to let folks mingle a bit here in the back of the hearing room. Again, this concludes our public portion of today's hearing. We'll be going into closed session momentarily.