Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection and Energy

Senate Budget Subcommitee 2 on Resources, Environmental Protection, Energy will come to order. We are holding our hearing in the O Street building. I ask all Members of the Subcommitee to be present in room 2200 so we can establish a quorum and begin our hearing.

I want to thank you all, first of all, for being here for Budget Subcommitee 2 for our first hearing on resources, environmental Protection and energy. I also want to thank our Senate President Pro Tem, Monique Limon, for appointing me to this position. I'm looking forward to chairing for this next term.

We have some very tough challenges ahead of us. Climate change and resiliency continue to be two of the most important challenges that California faces. The work that this Committee will do over the coming months will have long lasting impacts on how well California addresses these challenges and how we will help lead the world on solving climate crisis.

My priority is to make thoughtful decisions so that we can continue to advance smart, long term investments in our natural resources, environmental protection and energy resilience while being mindful of the condition of the state's budget. And we will hear so much more about that.

That being said, also with the uncertainty from Washington D.C. it is more important than ever that we prioritize clean air, preserve our natural resources, support renewable energy, and discuss many other topics of importance within this subcommittee's jurisdiction. I see the work of this Committee to be an investment in our state's future.

Investments in clean transportation, in affordable energy, investments in open space, investments in the quality of life for all Californians. As someone who has been an advocate for many of these issues during my time in the Legislature, I'm excited of the work ahead. Now, brief housekeeping announcement for each hearing.

After the discussion issues are heard, there will be an opportunity for the public to comment on all issues listed in the agenda. We have a slight change. We will not be voting on items today. And with that, I'd like to welcome back Dr. Choi, Senator Choi to this Committee.

We look forward to having Senators Blakespear and McNerney join us shortly. Dr. Choi, would you like to make some opening comments?

Thank you. I look forward to hearing all the status and then also governance proposals and the budget situation. And as the chairman mentioned, environmental issue is very important, but how we can make it work for all our daily lives at the same time with the businesses. And at what cost we have to invest what amount of money at the time of budget deficit. I am curious how state is budgeting. Thank you.

All right, we don't have a quorum yet, so we're going to begin As a Subcommitee, we're going to begin with issue number 17, an overview of the California Natural Resources Agency. We will first hear from the Legislative Analyst's Office, followed by the secretary of the Natural Resources Agency and then we'll open up to Members questions.

Come on up, please. And the Department of Finance. Our first presenter is Ms. Rachel Ehlers representing the Legislative Analyst Office. Welcome.

Good morning. Thank you. Rachel Ehlers with the Legislative Analyst Office. Good job on my name pronunciation. Thank you.

A little help. .., all credit where credit is due.

Appreciate that. So I will be speaking from a handout which you should all have and which also is posted on our Lao.ca.gov website. And it draws from two recent reports that we put out on the Natural Resources Environmental Protection budget and on Proposition 4, which should also be passed out to you on the dais.

So my comments are really intended to kind of provide some context and overarching perspective from our office on all of the issues that you will dive into later today as well as in the coming weeks here in the Subcommitee.

So turning to page one of the handout, just the I think the the under blanket of everything we need to talk about is the state's budget condition at this point. The good news is that the stock market is booming and continues to boom.

In fact, our office put out an upgraded revenue forecast late last week reflecting continued robust stock market. The question is how long will that last? And we see several signs in the market that historically have been signs of an overheated market. So at some point it is likely that there will be a downturn.

We don't know when and we don't know to what degree, but that is pretty risky. And so that is some of the caution that we provide to you that even though the state is benefiting from this strong robust revenues right now, we don't know how long that will last.

And so being prepared for that, despite this very strong revenues we're having, the stock market is up 50% now from a year ago. The budget proposal before you from the Governor is still relying on borrowing as well as using reserves.

Usually when a market is booming, that's a time when you're putting money into your reserves, not taking money out of it. So the overall structure of the budget raises concerns for us as well as looking ahead at the out year.

Even though the governor's budget proposal is balanced for the 26-27 budget year based on the borrowing and reserves, when we look out, both the Administration and our office see very significant deficits, 20 billion to 30 billion a year in the out years after 2627 reflecting a real structural budget problem.

The governor's budget proposal does not address this out year. There is indication from the Administration that they will bring some proposals before you in May to start dealing with that out year. We think that's kind of late for you to have to make some very serious decisions and difficult decisions. And addressing these structural deficits will be challenging.

A lot of the low hanging fruit, if you will. The easier actions, things like pulling back one time spending, which is also not easy, but easier than cutting into ongoing spending, has already been done. So looking at raising revenues or making reductions to ongoing spending are some of the choices before you.

So that is the context against which my subsequent comments on the exact proposals and environmental budget before you take place.

So turning to page two, while we have these concerns about the overall budget structure, when we look specifically, I'll use environment budget as a shorthand, but we're talking about the proposals related to the Natural Resources Agency and Environmental Protection Agency. We think the Administration really did take a pretty bare bones approach.

There aren't too many proposals and most of them are focused on pretty pressing issues in our view. So we think the Administration deserves credit for that constraint in putting together the budget, given the limited budget condition. But even proposals that are strongly justified do come with trade offs.

In the context of a budget deficit, every bit of new spending necessarily comes at the expense of something else, of something existing. And so that's the context with which you are having to consider these proposals.

If you want to spend more on something, even if it seems justified, what are you going to cut essentially to make room or raise revenues to make room for it may be tempting and have some justification to think about proposals funded with special funds differently from proposals funded with the General Fund.

We have a lot of special Fund resources across these budgets and there are a lot of reasons to think differently about those. But we would just caution you that even proposals that are funded with special funds we think should have a pretty high bar for approval.

Because special funds can be a tool you can use across your whole budget to focus on your highest priorities. Absorbing activities that maybe historically were funded by the General Fund, loaning to the General Fund.

So as you're looking across your whole budget, thinking about the General Fund and special funds as tools to focus on your highest priorities we think makes sense.

And then finally we would recommend that even with the stock market still booming, now is the time to start thinking about addressing these out year budget problems as well as developing plans for if revenues do turn downwards, how will you address that? Some of the solutions you might want to employ will take time.

For example, if you wanted to raise fees, that can take time to think about how to structure them, weigh the trade offs and potential implications of those. So starting to begin that hard work now. So, turning to page three of the handout, we took a little different approach this year in our office.

Usually we look at each individual proposal and weigh its merits, and we did do that. However, as I noted, when we looked across almost all of the proposals, we found some justification for them. In a robust budget year, we would probably say, yeah, move forward. These make sense given the budget context.

However, we tried to find some tools and options for you to think about and instead kind of approach this as a framework. And we think you can use this framework, either these criteria that we came up with or some of your own that will be a helpful tool for you as you're weighing the individual proposals.

So the first piece of this framework is, as I noted, having a very high bar when thinking about new proposals, because in the context of a budget deficit, all of your new spending necessarily comes at the expense of something else you had.

So the guidance we would suggest is thinking about proposals that meet critical health and safety concerns that really must be done this year or there will be irreversible implications. Those are the types of things you might want to move forward with, even with your budget constraints.

Proposals that don't meet that high bar, even if they have really kind of strong policy merits, you may not have room for those in this year. And again, if you want to make room for them, what are you not going to do instead? For each of these criteria?

We have examples in our report and in your hearings coming up today and in the coming weeks, we can give you specific examples of proposals we think meet these types of different criteria. We think you could consider modifying proposals that are before you if you think that they make sense.

But you, given your General Fund condition, you could look at special funds, for example, to sub out some of the General Fund proposals. You could look at raising fees. Some of the proposals before you are activities that could be supported by fees.

So you could look at raising fees not without trade offs, obviously for the fee payers, but another tool for you. You could also think about funding some of these proposals at a lower level also comes with trade offs. But in some cases, doing some of the activity may be better than doing none of the activity.

So maybe you are funding fewer Conservation Corps Members, for example. Maybe you're Doing a lower level of cleanup, but you're still able to do something if that is a priority for you. Another one of the criteria that we offer is taking steps to address the budget condition.

So thinking about whether some of recently proposed and approved activities continue to be your highest priority. In some cases it's easier to stop doing something that's just getting started, rather than going back and looking at a long standing program and cutting that. If it's still being phased in, that could be a time to scale it back.

Thinking about additional budget solutions like fees, for example, taking a look and doing robust oversight over existing activities to see if they still represent your highest solutions. And then being really cautious about expanding, either through policy bills or collective bargaining, expanding ongoing expenses and increasing the problem which you're going to have to face.

And then finally here, ensuring remaining expenditures. Focus on the most important activities as you figure out how much you can spend. Thinking about how should those dollars be targeted most effectively. Just because you don't have new money to expand programs doesn't mean you can't focus on your priorities. It means you may have to shuffle things somewhat.

But for example, if you look at zero emission vehicle budget, there are existing programs, there are existing funding. What's the mix you want? You want more money for heavy duty and medium duty vehicle activities? Well, maybe you have to do less of light duty within that mix. It doesn't mean you need new money to do new things.

Similarly within your wildfire budget, thinking about forest health, home hardening, home inspections, thinking about what your highest priorities are with the funding you have, it doesn't mean just because what you've been doing is what you need to continue to do if you need to focus on your highest priorities.

And then on the final page of the handout here, with regard to Proposition 4, which I know is a cross cutting issue, you'll be talking about both today as well as in the coming weeks. You can see in the figure here the governor's proposal includes 2.1 billion from Proposition 4 in the proposed budget year.

Combined with the funding the Legislature has already appropriated, that would be just over half, about 505556% of the total 10 billion that the voters have approved. As we looked across the proposals, they seemed very reasonable to us, consistent with the bond requirements. We didn't see anything that jumped out as highly problematic.

Generally, the Administration provided a sound rationale for the timing of the funding across. You can see across the different chapters that it does differ how much is proposed, and that generally had to do with capacity of departments and other existing funds. We heard pretty much pretty strong rationale for the timing.

Doesn't mean you can't change it as the legislative body, but this seems like a pretty good starting place to us. Also, you may recall that last year the Administration proposed a multi year spending plan and kind of to put things on autopilot.

This deviates from that in response to legislative feedback that the Legislature wanted to consider proposals and receive budget change proposals each year to check in rather than putting it on autopilot. So this is responsive to that.

As we looked at the existing funding that has already been provided, we found that it at this point is taking a while to get out the door. It's been pretty slow in part because of the requirements that agencies and departments have had to have for developing guidelines and going through the emergency regulations process.

Now you all just didn't pass AB107 which will help address that issue in the current year, but it remains an issue for out years. There is a policy Bill that's moving through the process that might alleviate some of those delays.

One thing we want to highlight for you is that there are some examples and we have them in our report of new programs. Many of the bond programs are continuing that were funded with previous bonds or General Fund and it's just kind of continuing the same efforts. But there are some examples where it's new.

And so this is a natural opportunity for the Legislature to express its priorities for those funds or defer to the Administration. So I'll give you a couple examples. There's a category in the bond that's called reduce climate impacts on disadvantaged communities and expand outdoor recreation. That's a pretty high level description.

You could do a lot of different things under that category and still be consistent with what the bond language said. So do you want to express what you want those funds to go to? Did the Legislature have things in mind when it put the bond together? Are you comfortable with the Administration deciding across those kinds of categories?

Nature, climate, education and research facilities grants. Another example of a very broad category. Even in a category like home hardening, where it's a little bit more specific, there are a lot of decisions about how should that Fund, how should those funds be used, how wide or how deep do you want those funds to go?

So those are examples of areas where you could defer to the Administration. If you're comfortable. There are a lot of experts in the Administration to make those decisions. Or if you had something in mind, we would suggest that adopting statutory guidance would be appropriate. There is, I Think you will probably have this on a future agenda.

There is some budget control section language the Administration has proposed regarding Proposition 4 that would allow some flexibility to move funds across departments to get rid of some administrative burdens and, and particularly to facilitate larger landscape level projects. As we looked at that, it seemed reasonable to us.

We think you may want to add some reporting language so you can keep track of how that's used. But that seemed reasonable. And then finally, there are some Proposition 4 proposals that interact with other proposals in the budget that are funded by General Fund or other sources.

So we would suggest, as you consider those home hardening as an example, where Cal Fire is proposing General Fund for some inspection inspectors of. I'm sorry, not home hardening, defensible space, inspectors for defensible space, as well as funding from Proposition 4.

So that's an example where we would suggest you might want to think about those two Fund sources and proposals together and make sure your decisions are in alignment. And with that, Madam Chair. Happy to answer questions after the Secretary speaks.

Thank you, Ms. Saylors. Thank you so much. The report that you provided was very detailed in your report and I appreciate that you provided those to us. Now we'd like to hear from Secretary Wade Crowfoot. Welcome, Secretary Crowfoot.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. We appreciate the opportunity to begin this discussion on this coming year's budget and the opportunity to share an overview and answer your questions about our proposal. Let me first thank Ms. Ehlers. Good job. And the Legislative Analyst's Office.

You know, over the years, I've come to learn just how important this oversight is to the proposed budget from the Administration. Frankly, it helps the budget be better when it's finally passed. So really appreciate that and the professionalism with which we interact.

This is our eighth and final opportunity to present proposed budget on behalf of the Newsom Administration. So I wanted to take a moment to reflect on the challenges we face together as well as our progress. It's been a remarkable near decade in California.

Governor Newsom took office in the wake of the campfire which claimed 85 lives and largely destroyed paradise. A year later, our state underwent what we call a fire siege where over 4 million acres of California burned through catastrophic wildfire.

All told, in the last decade, almost 9 million acres have burned in California, much of it in a dangerous, catastrophic way. That's almost 10% of our land mass. We collectively navigated through the driest three years in California's history, where 5 million Californians were underwater rationing and we were struggling to prevent the extinction of certain salmon species.

That historic drought was broken by the wettest, what probably is the wettest three weeks in California's history, which created catastrophic and deadly flooding across the state. We have experienced the longest, hottest heat wave in the history of the American west in 2022 that very nearly disrupted our grid and the ability to provide electricity to Californians.

And sea level rise, which sometimes gets dismissed as a future planning exercise, has had real impacts, whether it's to coastal communities impacted by storm surges intensified by climate change, or whether it's erosion in Southern California worsened by climate change, including erosion that has disrupted passenger rail service between Los Angeles and San Diego.

So we know in California, as a Mediterranean climate, climate change is a clear and present danger. We've navigated a changing, a dynamic relationship with the federal Administration. Certainly in President Trump's first term, we navigated what was a real lack of alignment, I'll say, in our values and our goals to protect the environment and our natural resources.

We experienced four years of remarkable alignment and historic federal investments. And now we are in a situation where, quite frankly, we are defending our state, from my perspective, against attacks to our public lands and our standards that protect air and water and our coast. Together, we've navigated very tight budget situations, including this year.

And we have worked to invest historic surpluses that have allowed us to make generational improvements on all of our shared priorities. And amidst this, we all navigated a global pandemic. And I'm so proud of the 26,000 women and men across our agency that kept moving on all of these challenges and all of our priorities in that time.

So let's talk about progress. Your leadership, the governor's leadership, has invested nearly $40 billion in our fight against climate change, whether that's in the areas of water, energy, lands, transportation, and so much more. And it's delivering real results. We're decarbonizing our energy grid faster than expected. Two thirds of energy in California last year was clean energy.

90% of days last year at, at some point during that day, 100% of the energy that powers the fourth largest economy in the world is clean energy. And we know that over time, this is going to be the abundant, accessible, affordable energy that we need to power our economic future.

We're shifting to better, less polluting technologies faster than expected. I work for Governor Brown, and we set a goal of 1.5 million electric vehicles by 2025 and got laughed at. And guess what? Thanks to Californians, we met that goal three years early, thanks to your investments, we've made huge progress building our resilience to these climate extremes.

Resilience meaning our ability to adapt to weather and ultimately to thrive through these threats. Billions of dollars of investment in wildfire protection, yes. Improving the remarkable response capacity of our heroes at Cal Fire, but also investing in over 2,500 projects in and around our communities to protect communities from wildfire before it ever comes.

On the water topic, we collectively have built local water resilience, whether it's effective implementation of the Sustainable Groundwater Management act or improving the way that we can recharge groundwater basins during floods. While we've made progress rehabilitating modernizing the backbone infrastructure of our water systems, that's been so critical.

And on the coastal front, thanks to your investments, coastal communities have resources to plan and adapt to these changes that we know are already coming. The Legislature and Governor have established protecting 30% of our lands in coastal waters, 30 by 30, as a law, a world leading goal to help nature and people thrive together.

Thanks to your investments, in the past few years alone, we've added 2.5 million acres to conserved lands in California for the benefit of not only the fish and wildlife that depend on those lands, but for people that can get out into those lands.

This has included restoring or reintroducing keystone species across landscapes in California, called keystone species because they're critical to shaping the whole ecosystem on which life thrives. California condor are back. Beavers have been reintroduced. Salmon are swimming over 400 miles of habitat in the Klamath river, the largest restoration river restoration project in American history. Your investments.

Our investments have returned over 100,000 acres of land to Native American tribes in California, many of which that had been dispossessed of their land for well over a century. I'm proud to say that 57% plus of our state parks are under co management or tribal access. Expanded tribal access agreements with California Native American tribes.

Together, we've uplifted this priority of helping all Californians get outdoors and recognizing not all communities, not all Californians have safe places to get outside and recreate. And we put over a billion dollars together into getting parks and open space into park poor communities and found really interesting innovative ways to help people get into our parks.

Including enabling state park passes to be checked out of our local libraries, which parenthetically I've learned is the most popular checkout at most local libraries in California is that parks pass and actually bringing a lot of people into their local libraries for the first time in years. And we're innovating always innovating.

Thanks to you, thanks to our Governor, we've got groundbreaking methane and wildfire satellite projects. We created an online database, interactive database to help local Communities identify where 30 by 30 opportunities exist in their backyard.

We've moved fishing and hunting permanents online so that somebody can carry their license on their phone, which is not only simpler but ultimately more of an affordable way to do this. And so none of this would happen without the investment in the partnership.

Now, from my view, there's still a lot more to do, as Governor Newsom says publicly. But I can tell you, he says privately, a lot is we are running through the tape. So I wanted to share with you our key priorities over the next year. Within the agency. One is just advancing and completing key projects.

The world's largest wildlife crossing in greater Los Angeles, which we need to break, which we need to cut the ribbon on by the end of the year, God willing, sites reservoir project, which would be the first large reservoir project in a generation.

Open space projects that are critically important to communities, like the river west project In Fresno, that's 500 acres along the San Joaquin river in Fresno's backyard.

And also breaking ground on projects that frankly, the Next Administration will cut the ribbon on, including breaking ground on important projects in the Salton Sea that meet our responsibility to protect against harmful dust there. And important infrastructure investments into Exposition park in Los Angeles that will welcome the Olympics in two short years.

We're doing all this trying to streamline project delivery, taking direction from the Legislature and the Governor that we can do things faster and better, whether it's building housing or clean energy or restoring the environment.

We've got exciting work underway to expedite wildfire safety projects to do what we call cutting the green tape, delivering restoration projects more quickly and effectively, and even expanding our state park system thanks to legislation that you all passed last year. By bringing in no cost acquisitions to enlarge our parks, by streamlining the process to acquire those lands.

We're issuing an updated action plan for wildfire resilience, launching, as the Governor noted, a new water plan for California, thanks to legislation that passed last year establishing the next installment of our strategic plan to protect the ocean and coast, trying to create continuity for our progress while enabling the Next Administration to put their mark on these priorities.

I am personally investing time in nature based solutions, which is all of the ways and elevating and building our movement to improve the way that we manage land, not only to capture and store carbon and buffer our communities from climate impacts, but for all sorts of benefits including water retention and protecting our world renowned biodiversity.

Now at the same time we know that to meet our carbon neutrality target, it's going to take restoring nature and also engineered carbon sequestration, which is a responsibility that lives in our agency. So we're working on advancing that this year. You'll hear more today about managing human wildlife conflict.

Wolves, bears, mountain lions, these are really important species for our ecosystems and the health of our landscapes. There are proven strategies to manage these animals living next to around our communities. And you'll hear a case made for resources to build our capacity to manage human wildlife conflict.

In some ways it's remarkable that we have a state that enables this coexistence, but it needs to be invested in. You'll hear more about that. And then lastly, just continuing to improve how we do our work.

We're weeks away from issuing our first tribal stewardship policy, which really institutionalizes a lot of the work that we're quite proud of to make it a standard practice moving forward.

We're doubling down on scientific partnerships like one with NASA Ames to take what is the statewide LIDAR data, this remote imaging data, and make it accessible to community based organizations doing wildfire safety work so that they can actually utilize it.

And then lastly, I'll just say as we move into the budget presentation, Proposition 4 is an absolute game changer for the continuity of this work.

And I want to thank the legislature's vision for putting it on the ballot and thank Californians $10 billion of investment to ensure that we continue to protect our communities from this clear and present danger. We improve the way that we do business to improve our affordability and future economic prosperity.

So I won't belabor this because you'll hear more about this later. But there's critical investments that we're proposing in forests and wildfire water, coastal resilience, extreme heat, outdoor access, and of course protecting our biodiversity in these nature based solutions. So I'll just end, because this is my last presentation at a budget by thanking you.

It is a remarkable place to do this work and to live. And I couldn't be prouder of the partnership between the Legislature and the Governor. I also want to take the opportunity to thank partners and that are not part of government that are delivering these solutions, whether they're conservation organizations or tribal governments, local governments.

All this work that we're able to claim as progress happens because thousands of leaders and groups are doing this work. And then final, final is just to thank our budget team. Brian Cash and Amanda Martin are the best in the business.

They help me sound smart or try to sound smart every year when I come before you, and ultimately, the Department directors and the people that you hear from after me that comprise these 26 different departments are the folks doing the work.

It's not a better and more important time to be a public servant, and it's been an honor to lead this agency. So thank you for the ability to mark some of our progress, and I look forward to any questions you may have.

Thank you. Secretary Crowfoot, I want to thank you. I think that the work that you have done as secretary of this particular agency has been phenomenal. You've taken us through so many, just as you've mentioned at the very beginning, and I appreciate your leadership.

Thank you.

And I appreciate what you presented. I think that the balance we have here, I think, is extraordinary. Department of Finance.

Courtney Maskingale, Department of Finance. I have nothing to add, but I'm available for questions.

Thank you. Before we begin with questions, I'd like to establish quorum. Madam Consultant. Senators Reyes. Aye. Present. Blake spare. Choi.

Here.

McNerney. Here. Thank you. And I also want to thank our consultants, Joanne Roy and Eunice Roe, who are phenomenal as the new chair of this particular subject. It's great to be with consultants that know the business and carry the message and then help us share the right message.

So I want to thank you for your leadership in this. So with that, I'd like to open it up to questions, comments from the Members.

Thank you, Chair, Secretary, I would like to say that you sounded very smart and among all the important aspects that you have described, I didn't hear anything about the update. I'm from Southern California, 37th district is Orange County.

It has been a long time concern to me that when the tunnel for the water conveyance from Northern California to Southern California will make progress, but no report has been made.

And as far as I'm concerned, that's a very important human element that environmentally we need to supply necessary water to Southern California and also Central California for agricultural activities. I've heard that many farmland had to just quit their farming because of lack of necessary water.

Can you update me what the progress has been made and what your plan is? To my understanding is that the cost was not going to be from our state general fund. That was going to be all borne by water districts who will be benefiting from the water supply.

Yeah, thank you very much. So I'm glad to address this. I think most broadly we have a challenge moving forward about how we adapt our infrastructure, which was really built 70 plus years ago, to the changing hydrology that we now know we face.

So longer dry periods and getting most of our precipitation in the winter, increasingly through these big winter storms. So we think it involves a lot of solutions, some that are localized. For example, I said, I explained trying to get more of these flood flows percolating into our aquifers for local supply.

But from the perspective of the Newsom Administration, we think it's absolutely necessary to modernize what we call the backbone infrastructure of the state's water supply system. So the state water project provides water to three out of every four Californians. And we have real challenges.

The way we describe this is earthquake risk within the delta that could knock out our levees and disrupt that freshwater supply, as well as the longer term risk of saltwater intrusion into the delta.

So we have for a very long time been very clear and transparent about just how important we think that conveyance project is through the delta. And we recognizing that there are strong differences even within the Legislature on this proposal.

But we are continuing to move it forward because we see it as critical and we don't think that we can defer this project if we really want to assure the water reliability for California moving forward.

The point you make is a good one, which is, I don't talk about this in the state's budget context because we're not suggesting that this be a taxpayer funded project. It's what's called a beneficiary pays project. So the water agencies that benefit, that get water from the state water project are those that are investing.

But Governor Newsom is very clear on this infrastructure, other water infrastructure. We need a system that allows for these proposals to move through the process and then be approved or disapproved. And part of our challenge to date on a lot of these infrastructure projects is our process is frankly too complex and takes too long.

So oftentimes the question doesn't get called that projects ultimately die through delay. So we've been really focused on moving infrastructure, including delta conveyance through the process as quickly as possible. Where that project sits right now is at the State Water Resources Control Board.

They that entity within our sister agency Cal EPA has responsibility to issue a water right for this project which is a big complicated sort of quasi adjudicatory process. And so it's moving through that process as expeditiously as I think it can.

We don't have weekly or we don't have really any contact with them on this project because they essentially sit in that quasi adjudicatory capacity. So our focus from our agency is getting everything in place and then doing whatever we can to help the regulatory process, the permitting process, the assessment process happen as quickly as it can.

I will mention one other thing. This budget does include funding for regional conveyance, which is not the delta conveyance, but it's other important aqueducts in the state. Our state water project south of the delta needs help. It has been impacted by decades of subsidence.

California, the last state in the American west to manage groundwater until SGMA was passed in 2014. That has had real impact on the aqueduct that moves water to Southern California and throughout the Central Valley.

So there is funding through the climate bond for regional conveyance upgrades which could include the state water project as well as more localized conveyance, you know, off those more backbone systems.

It's just a follow up is good news included in there. But the focusing upon the delta conveyance system specifically through the tunnel. The state Water Control Board, are they making progress, positive progress, or are they stalling it? And also was the Governor Newsom's position to help it to go through or just sitting idle doing nothing?

Yeah, so you know, I work closely with our leadership of the state water board on a number of other issues and I have full confidence that they are moving as quickly as they can on this, what they call a proceeding on this.

And as well as a process to consider a water rights permit for sites reservoir, which I referenced, which is also a major goal or sort of Commitment of the governors as well as other items.

It's a terribly complicated process that includes our water rights system and a lot of, you know, decades of sort of state regulations and process. We know that projects as large as this one are often litigated.

So it's important that the Water Board move through its process in a thorough way so that whatever it decides ultimately is durable to legal challenge. So I can tell you from where I sit, which is somebody who wants to get these projects done.

You know, I can be constructively frustrated with the time it's taken, but I do have full confidence that the Water Board is discharging its. Its responsibility effectively.

Should I take it as a positive note.

I would say I can tell you this. You know, the Governor is going to remain focused on. On these infrastructure projects until the very last day in office. And we're doing everything possible respecting sort of the legal constraints and the process to get these projects in place.

Yeah, it'll be his legacy if he makes sure that before he leaves, that will go through. Thank you.

Thank you.

I think one of the best things, Senator, is that they have you as an advocate. And so the subject comes up and then you get to have an answer from the secretary of the agency. Thank you, Senator McNerney.

I thank the chair. Ms. Ehlers, thank you for your presentation. It seemed like a lot of that was pretty common sense. I mean, if you have a bad budget year, you have to look at how to. How to save on the margins. I didn't see anything. I didn't hear anything.

I was a little late, which I apologize for. I didn't see or hear anything that really stuck out as this is going to be an important way to save that we wouldn't thought of through common sense. Do you have anything that you could brag about that would be helpful?

I wish that there were easier answers than reduce your spending or raise revenues. I wish there were, you know, some of the other creative tools like borrow or, you know, pull back other spending. Those are tools, but they have been exercised quite a bit already. And so I think that is part of our message.

It may seem like common sense, but it is hard. It will be hard. And I think particularly coming off of many years of surplus, it makes it even harder because frankly, I think all of us, this is my 22nd budget with the LAO. All of us are out of practice.

A little bit of thinking about a very constrained budget environment, coming off of a surplus, because thinking about how to expand and spend new money on so many needs, so many needs.

Across these budgets and across the whole budget is a different mindset than thinking about pulling back, constraining, and what is actually truly essential government service versus what is more aspirational government service, perhaps in a more constrained environment. So, no, I wish that I had something easier or creative to offer you rather than.

The risks seem pretty significant to us. And we are concerned that the budget situation will get worse before it gets better at this point.

Thank you, Secretary Crowfoot. You know, I just, you have so much enthusiasm and you've got a great list of accomplishments. It's really great to hear all that. You can't be excited about the proposed cuts to positions in the agency, and at least I don't think you could be. The single biggest holdup with construction projects.

I mean, we've talked about permitting and all, but that's the single biggest holdup is the CDFW permitting. So that's something that we need to think about. How can we streamline those permit requirements and regulations? Do you have comments on that?

Well, first of all, I agree we need to do more to simplify and streamline our permitting process in California to get things done. This does not mean sacrificing environmental review or environmental protection.

But I can tell you, eight years into this job, if there's one thing I wish I would have focused on earlier, it's really breaking down this complexity and driving forward by reforming our permitting process. Clearly, the Legislature, the Governor, are really focused on that. There are important steps that we're taking, and I could go into those.

Capacity is a real constraint. So, for example, there are hundreds of clean energy projects that have to be approved through multiple state agencies. One of them is the Department of Fish and Wildlife. State law requires that they discharge their authority or responsibility through issuing all of these permits. And in order to do so, you need people.

We can improve the processes, we can streamline the processes, but people are really important. I'll leave it to the Governor and the Legislature about positions, but I just say capacity does matter. I'll tell you, we're being, we're trying to be creative about bringing more resources in from those entities that are seeking permits.

There's a fee for service where, you know, sectors that are driving a lot of permits through will sometimes fund positions. There's absolutely no quid pro quo. There's a total separation between funding that goes into positions and permits. But it's a way.

For example, our high Speed Rail Authority has funded certain permitting agencies to provide capacity simply to consider those permits. So we're trying to figure out if we can do that in the wildfire space and the energy space. But it's no substitute for this question of resources and state funding.

Well, that's right. Eliminating positions is not going to speed up permitting. And so that's something that I'm very concerned about. Also, when you look at the delta, we have these invasive species like the mussels, the golden mussels and the algae blooms and the water hyacinth. Again, if there's positions cut, then those are going to be much harder.

I mean, I've lived through the water hyacinth problem. We had a lot of progress in terms of being able to contain that. Golden mussel seems like another very big challenge. So we need those positions to be able to deal with these big, big invasive species problems.

Yeah, and I'll just share. The invasive species problems are getting more challenging and sometimes it feels a little bit. One may ask, well, how does that impact, you know, my life? Well, if golden mussels are hugely invasive in our water infrastructure, and if they take over, they get to be very costly to maintain and remove.

And that impacts water rates. For example, the water hyacinth impacts all sorts of things, including, you know, commerce and recreation that occur in the delta. So couldn't agree more. That investment in invasive species control and removal is critical and capacity matters.

So we agree on some things. There's issues we may not be in total agreement on. The conveyance, the state water project, you know, you mentioned subsidence in the south of the delta, and that's a critical problem. If that continues, it threatens the water supply for what, 27 million Californians. We also have.

The levees in the delta are old. Some of them haven't been managed since the 1800s. So I guess there's seepage under some of the ones near Victoria Island. These are big problems that we're going to have to deal with.

I've got a piece of legislation out there, SB872, which will provide funding for both of those issues for 20 years. And I think that's what it's going to take to do that.

And if that happens, if we get that through right now, we're asking for GGRF money, but we're open to other forms of money, other sources of income that we can use to do those two things. And we need a. We haven't had in California, a real discussion about the future of water in California. We haven't had that.

In my opinion. It's been, well, let's put in the tunnel and that'll solve everything. And no, I don't think that's the case. For example, if you just put in the tunnel and you forget about subsidence, you've solved nothing.

If you let the levees fail, we'll be facing just a massive amount of damage, people's lives at risk and so on. So there's, there's. I think if we look at how we can do this in a practical way, strengthening the levees, dealing with the subsidence, we can provide a reliable water supply for California for the next generation.

And I think that's kind of where I'm at in this position and this issue. And we have, interestingly enough, we have the water contractors and the environmentalists on the delta agreeing with this idea. And that's something you don't always see.

You almost never see.

Yeah, yeah. So we're really proud, we're really proud of that. And we're going to, you know, not knowing that, but we've worked with other entities and stakeholders that are interested in this. A lot of, for example, the Delta Counties Coalition is strongly behind it.

I think we, we're in a good position to move forward on that and get this discussion started and take first steps. There's other things we should be doing that I'd like to throw in as a Christmas ornaments. More groundwater storage, more recycling, more conservation, more efficiency, maybe a little bit of esol.

Those are all things that are going to help reduce dependence on the delta. But right now I think I'm focusing on the subsidence and the levy strengthening. So I think that puts us in a strong position for future water supply for California.

Thanks. I'll just reinforce two points you made. One is there's no silver bullet for water reliability and water resilience. You know, water security for California communities and a healthy environment. There's no silver bullet. We, we, we contend that the backbone of, of our distribution system, our infrastructure, including the delta conveyance, is really important.

But that is no replacement for the breadth of investments that we have to make, including levy strengthening in the delta. You know, the delta, delta health is important. You know, whether or not this project happens to cities like Stockton and local communities, but also to the state, because so much is.

Is move to the delta in terms of water. I think that. So I would agree with you, I would agree with you there. And from my perspective, it's an. And not an or.

I think, you know, from our perspective, we have to have this tough conversation about how to modernize conveyance, and we have to shore up the existing infrastructure.

Thank you. I'll yield back to the chair.

Thank you. Senator McNerney. Some of the comments that were made earlier, and I appreciated that in the comments from the LAO, that the Administration deserves credit for the budget they've proposed for this particular agency. And then to remind us that even with that, we have to look at the big picture.

We do have a structural problem with our budget. And even if we're able to balance it this year because of the stock market being so strong and we may even have a surplus that we get to applaud, we still have that structural deficit.

And if we don't take care of how we spend now, we're going to have a problem next year and the next year and it has to be dealt with. I appreciated the comments about, you know, what needs to be cut and there are trade offs. If we approve something here, there's going to be a trade off.

Otherwise, we do have problems. There are other subcommittees that are dealing with very serious issues like health and food and housing. The issues we deal with here are also very important because it has to do with the future of California.

And we need to be sure that we protect the investments we've made and also make the investments that are necessary. So we are protecting the future of California and for all Californians and having that access to open space and making sure it's available to everybody. And these are all very important.

I appreciated the lens of serious health and safety concerns, making sure that if we're going to have to make cuts, let's not make cuts to those items that we can classify as being serious health and safety concerns. The robust oversight. I appreciate that very much.

And I think that rather than saying, okay, we agree, Administration, we agree with what you're proposing, saying we agree, but let's rein it in. Let's make sure that we have some oversight so that we know that what we had intended to spend this money on is how it's being spent.

Without saying, okay, we're allowing you to make all of the decisions, what the agency has been through. And I appreciate that you've thanked all the men and women who have seen us through so much and helped us to stay afloat and to do well.

Quite frankly, I think that wildfires, the drought, the wettest three weeks as you talked about sea level rising, the erosion, all of these things, we have to deal with them. We have to deal with the delta, make sure that we have the water for Californians.

These are all things that are extremely important, reminding us that not all Californians get out into the open space and it's so important, has to do with equity. It has to make making sure that all of our communities have the parks that they need so that the kids can get out and be kids.

Sometimes we forget that because the poorest communities oftentimes are overlooked. And I know that the next presentation will be on our parks and we'll have a little bit more to say there. I do want to ask some questions, especially now with the Administration, our current Administration and the changes that we have had to deal with in California.

Very specifically your agency. What federal actions has your agency or its boards or departments or offices had to respond or make up for? And is the agency or your boards and offices anticipating any federal action that we're hearing about that your agency is now having to prepare for?

Well, it's been a chaotic last year. Plus certainly a lot of these key federal management agencies have been gutted. Upwards of 30% of their personnel have been dismissed in a really chaotic way. And that has created real challenges.

Give you one really good example, what I think is a good example, which is the river forecasting center, which is critical to emergency flood operations, joint center between the Federal Government and the state government, so critical to have staffing at both.

And, and when we see a big atmospheric river come in, it's the river forecasting center that is, provides that real time information to first responders on the ground that actually impact where you put equipment and personnel to protect life and safety. Well, almost overnight, you know, the river forecasting center lost most of its federal staff.

And so the Administration had to come in with essentially an emergency appropriation or emergency, not an appropriation, but essentially emergency funding through the administrative, existing administrative funding to supplant the federal staff because we couldn't let the river forecast system fall down this winter. That's one really good example.

There's others where the fast elimination of programs has reduced data coming in, including data on offshore storm swells that impact coastal communities in California. Large cuts to the Forest Service and National Park Service also impact land management. Slowing down the ability to do wildfire safety on federal lands, the National Park Service reducing access to our parks.

You know, half of California's land mass is owned and managed by the Federal Government. And when you talk about a reduction in one year of a third plus of the capacity it has, it has real impacts.

So we've got, you know, Cal Fire stepped in and tried to supplant where it's seeing gaps in the Forest Service state parks, where it's seen gaps in the National Park Service.

Our parks director, who you'll hear from, actually was able to raise funds so that we could open our parks on Martin Luther King Day, when President Trump actually removed free entry on that day and changed free entry to his birthday, believe it or not. So we're finding creative ways to. To supplant that, that absence of federal leadership.

But we want to make the case that, you know, we do not want this to be business as usual. The Federal Government has responsibility to manage half the lands, and we don't want to all of a sudden shift the burden on the state taxpayers or state agencies.

So we'll do what we need do to protect life and safety and protect landscapes and the environment with the expectation that this pendulum will swing and the federal investment needs to come back.

And we hope that that will be soon. Senator Blakesbier, do you have any questions you'd like to ask? Thank you. All right, well, I'd like to thank you all for your presentations. And we will move now to our next panel. Thank you.

All right, our next item is issue number 18, an overview of the Department of Parks and Recreation. Director Quintero, welcome.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chair.

I think your mic is on.

Okay. Sorry, I kept turning it off. Let's start over. Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Armando Quintero, and I'm the Director of the California Department of Parks and Recreation. Thank you for this opportunity to provide you a brief overview of the Department.

The Department is responsible for protecting and preserving the state's most valued natural, cultural and recreational resources. Across 280 state park units spanning roughly 1.6 million acres, California operates the largest and one of the most diverse state park systems in the nation, serving over 80 million visitors annually.

I want to mention here that we also manage funds to invest in communities across the state. And since 1968, over 800, almost 900 communities in California have benefited from investments from bonds and projects. And I looked at the.

We looked at the investments in your districts, and the number or the amount of investments that have been made in local parks ranges in this group from $60 million in the last, since 2011 to about $30 million. And we can give you lists of those investments in your community.

One of the things we're doing is trying to brand that.

So people, go ahead, just pause here for a moment and say, yes, we would like to receive that. It's always good to be able to tell our communities and to brag about the investments that have been made in our respective.

We actually have the information here that we can provide you today. And when I first came into this position, we were talking about this and we've, as we've met with legislators, we provided each of them with this information.

And I can honestly say in my first two years, only two of the legislators that I met with were aware that the very funds that you were approving were benefiting their own districts to that degree. So it's really exciting and, and something that we all need to brag about.

I mean, it's your, it's your decisions and investments that have made that possible. Sorry, I. Yeah, sure. I mentioned that there's 280 state park units. This is the largest and most diverse state park system in the nation. We serve over 80 million visitors annually.

This includes the Department's Division of Boating and Waterways which funds, plans and develops boating facilities, water recreation opportunities and actually treats the invasive species in the delta which the Senator was asking about. And we do this across the state.

We also operate the Division of Off Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation which provides high quality off road recreational vehicles at 9 state off highway vehicle parks. And we also oversee the State Office of Historic Preservation which is responsible for administering federally and state mandated historic preservation programs.

Since 2019, the department has made significant investments to expand access to the outdoors and address the impacts of climate change. The department's commitment to advancing California's Outdoor for All initiative has resulted in programs that enable safe, equitable and enjoyable access to parks, open spaces and recreational opportunities.

These programs remove historical financial and logistical barriers that prevent children and families from accessing, excuse me, state parks and amplifying the admissions promise of a California for all.

Some of the highlights include the Outdoor Access Program, which we began in 21-22, has significantly reduced cost barriers and expanded equitable park access across the state, including the California State Library Park Pass which offers free vehicle day use entry to state parks through partnerships with the public and tribal libraries statewide.

Every year we've been able to provide 33,000 of these passes to libraries. And we've also developed the Adventure Pass which offers a full year of free day use entry to 50 state parks where we have developed curriculum based activities for fourth grade public school students and their families.

To date, we've issued 95,000 fourth grade adventure passes and the Golden Bear Pass which provides year round free access at over 200 state parks for families who receive CalWORKs, individuals who receive supplemental Security Income income, eligible Californians over the age of 62 and participants of California's Tribal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families Program.

Through this innovative partnership with the Department of Social Services, Golden Bear Pass applications have increased by over 4,000% since 2021. At present there are 100,000 of those passes in the hands of families in need. We also opened Dos Rios State park in 2023 and that is the first California State park to be opened in 10 years.

And this reflected the restoration of a 2,500 acre agricultural site at the confluence of two big rivers in California, the Tuolumne river and the San Joaquin river, and this provides floodplain habitat, climate resilience, new public recreation, groundwater recharge, and our opportunity to provide educational opportunities to people from the Central Valley.

This fulfills a long standing goal outlined in the department's 2009 Central Valley Vision Implementation Plan.

With the recent passage of SB 630 by Senator Allen and AB 679 Pallorin, the Department is actively engaging with our Land Trust Conservancy and nonprofit partners on no and low cost land acquisitions which will expand the existing state park system while creating operational efficiencies and protecting and preserving sensitive ecosystems and critical wildlife habitat corridors.

As the Secretary mentioned, we are actually on track to add quite a significant amount of acreage to state parks in the next few years of properties that are going to be no cost and are either adjacent to or inside state parks that are privately owned.

Tribal Acknowledgments and Tribal Memorandums of Understanding the Department has partnered with California Native Tribes to create land acknowledgement content for 191 state parks, and these MOUs allow that we add new signage, create public events and on parks, public websites and educational materials. We talk about these tribal partnerships.

The Department has also focused efforts on MOU agreements with California native tribes.

The MOUs establish mutually beneficial activities between the Department and the tribes, and the beneficial activities include easy tribal access to parks, gathering of plants and materials and minerals for cultural practices, the application of traditional ecological knowledge for the management of important resources, data sharing between parties and communities, collaboration on interpretation and cultural and natural resources programs and protection.

With these added agreements, as the secretary mentioned, the department's tribal MOU program now encompasses 57% of all state park lands, and we have additional agreements in negotiation. The Department is also keenly focused on the implementation of the Climate Bond.

Highlights of these efforts include our statewide park program and the Statewide Park Development and Community Revitalization Program creates new parks and recreation opportunities in underserved communities across California. Those are the investments that I mentioned earlier about the investments that are made in all of your districts and all of the legislators districts.

The 25-26 expenditure plan included $190 million for this program with 1.9 million proposed for this next year's budget for program administration. Since 2008, roughly $1.2 billion in grants have been awarded to 313 projects resulting in new and improved parks that provide walkable safe recreation opportunities to thousands of California's in previously parked poor communities.

Forest Health and Watershed improvements for the stewardship of state owned lands State Parks has significantly increased the pace and the scale of its wildfire and forest resilient work in recent years, treating over 32,000 acres across more than 100 parks over the last five years, including over 10,000 acres of prescribed fire.

The treatments have protected irreplaceable natural places like the South Grove of giant sequoias and Calaveras Big Tree State park, protected public and visitor safety in places like Castle Crag State park and have restored beneficial fire to parks like Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais, providing benefits to communities in the wildland urban interface.

The $33 million proposed $33 million proposed in the current budget will be spent on prescribed fire and fuel reduction project implementation and program support at state parks as well as other state land management agencies which are consistent with the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan.

I might mention that most of these projects involved interagency cooperation with Calaveras Big Trees. We worked with Cal Fire, local fire departments and tribal fire departments to apply fire and learn how to work better together in these landscapes. Efforts also prioritize wildfire management planning and align with the facilities ignition reduction program and emergency preparedness work.

All work aims to transform parkland and other state loan ands into models of proactive stewardship. And I can say that when we implemented Fire, Mount Diablo, Mount Tamalpais had been many many years since that had been done and it was done with 100% public support.

And so that is clearly welcomed by communities and we're looking to better adapt to this. And this is all about better adapting to the changing climate, benefiting biodiversity and supporting resilient communities. I'm almost there.

Deferred maintenance is the last time I'll address to address a statewide backlog exceeding 1.2 billion, the climate bond provides 84.4 million in 25-26 and additional funding through 2030. Health and safety are a key factor in the prioritization of deferred maintenance project funding.

For example, the Malibu Pier at Malibu Lagoon State beach will provide critical safety upgrades while increasing recreational access. The budget proposal before you today requests for $400,000 for program delivery and program delivery costs represent the expenses associated with administering, implementing and sustaining the program's ongoing operations, and this includes personnel costs, operating expenses, and equipment.

These strategic priorities reflect the Department's evolving role not only as a steward of the state's most iconic natural and cultural landscapes, but also as a critical partner in advancing equity, climate resilience, community well being, and belonging across California. Thank you so much for your time and we appreciate your ongoing support.

I'm happy to take questions now or can move to the next item.

Okay, I'm gonna. oh, I see. I'm sorry, I didn't see the numbers in front of the items. They have 19.

California State Parks Library transfer.

Okay, I am looking at it. I apologize.

We request the ongoing transfer of 6.75 million from the General Fund to the State Parks and Recreation Fund to transition the library parks program from prior one time funding to an ongoing program.

The program was launched under the California Outdoors for All initiative as a three year pilot in 21 and 22 and it provides 33,000 state library park passes to more than a thousand or 1,100 library branch locations statewide including library tribal libraries. 60%.

We have a QR code on the passes so that people can self report what they're experiencing or what they would like to share with us. 60% of pass users report annual household incomes below $60,000 a year, demonstrating the program's role in expanding access.

While the Department does offer other free and low cost pass programs such as the Adventure Pass and the Golden Bear Pass for income Eligible Californians, the Distinguished Veterans Pass and Disabled Discount Pass, these are all tailored to specific groups. The library pass is the only free pass available to anyone with a library card.

Then I will mention if you ever bump into a librarian guaranteed if you ask them about the State park library pass, they often get emotional. It's the most checked out item in libraries and they're thrilled about families coming in and actually wanting to know more.

Time spent outdoors and in nature is crucial for both mental and physical health and well being. Certainly we saw that during Covidparks were packed and really demonstrated the public's demand for our mental health in times of stress. Scientific studies estimate that every dollar spent on creating and maintaining maintaining trails can save almost $3 in healthcare costs.

Additional studies show that access to parks and open space can reduce stress in children, improve academic performance, increase physical activity and improve sleep. The proposal represents what we believe is a modest investment with proven exponential outcomes. I appreciate your support here and happy to take questions.

Department of Finance.

Daniel Ross Jones, Department of Finance Nothing to add but available for questions.

Thank you. LAO.

Brian Metzger, LAO we recommend the Legislature reject this proposal. Consistent with the framework we presented at the beginning of the hearing, we suggest the Legislature apply a high bar to its review of new spending proposals.

While this proposal has merit, certainly as a way of increasing access to state parks, it does not meet this high bar. It does not address near term and significant health and safety risks or other time sensitive objectives. The proposal also would commit the state to ongoing General Fund spending at A time when significant deficits are projected.

And Parks also offers other discounted and free pass programs such as those that were previously mentioned. And happy to take questions.

Thank you. Yes, Senator Blakespear.

Okay. Okay. I have a couple questions on a couple topics. So thank you very much for the presentation. I very much apologize for being late and I am excited to have been able to catch all of this part.

So our state parks are critical to the state of California, I mean, for the reasons that the Director described at the beginning. And I just want to say that I strongly support the library pass program.

And I just want to share this small anecdote that I was at the library with my son and we were in line and the person next to me was an older woman who was attempting to check out a pass. And she was told by the librarian that they were all full. There was a long waiting list.

But he said, if you want to check out the backpack, the backpack comes with poles for walking and also includes the passenger.

And I started chatting with her about why she wanted the pass, where she was going with the pass, and what was clear is that the parking fees associated with the state parks were a barrier to entry for her and her husband.

And so she they really enjoy the state parks, but they're just not able to absorb that in their budget. And so being able to have a pass allows them to be outside and to go to the places that they love in the state of California.

And so, and she couldn't speak more highly of being able to get this pass at the library. So to me, this is really, it's an example of something that is. Has such clear benefit directly. And we have a lot of state funding for a lot of different things and we of course have a lot of needs.

But to me, this is a very high value add for people that we should Fund. And so to me, it seems like something that should be a priority.

And I was grateful that she was able to check out the backpack with the Poles, even if she didn't quite need the Poles, because then she was able to do these things with her husband. So, anyway, I appreciate this coming up.

I understand the LAO's perspective and also kind of rigidity around if we're going to be serious about the budget, we have to look in these categories only. But I think there are things that are so public facing that have such direct benefit that we should prioritize those. So I just wanted to put that out there as important.

The Other thing I'd like to circle back to is the system for reservation at our State Parks. So I don't know if you're going to be touching on that in a different. Like in issue number 20 or in the future, but I'm very concerned about making sure that we do not have our reservations being sitting open.

And when we had this hearing last year, we talked about this extensively, and I wanted to have an update on what's happening there.

Give me just a second. Well, I can just say that we too recognize that our reservation system is a reflection of what State Parks is doing for the public. And our teams work on a daily basis with this new reservation system provider. And we often get.

Liz and I are often provided with the communications from the reservation system operator, Tyler. And we see the problems and we also see the resolution pretty quickly.

And we recently got a couple of letters which were resolved almost immediately and absolutely understood the concerns of the users of those of that reservation system and the problems they ran into in some cases. Well, we found several things.

The information on our website and on Tyler's website now provides more clarity that, for example, when you go to make a reservation, you need to log in before you start searching for a reservation.

Because what happened is people were searching for reservations and then they were getting kicked out and they didn't realize that they had to log in. So we're correcting those kinds of problems. And I like to think that we are putting a lot of attention to this, to fix this in real time.

And we're communicating directly to the Members of the public that are encountering these problems. But there's also creating better understanding of the legislation which was passed, which really said, here's what you need to be doing with the reservation system. We have implemented everything that's in that legislation, and this is a very high priority for us.

And it's a daily part of our conversations. And I will also. I need to really give credit to our IT Department at State Parks. They are. The Director of IT is involved in these conversations and really he does jump. They jump on this right away. And we do reach out to the public. They have only been.

They've been running this reservation system since August of 24. And we're still. We're working with them as we find new challenges. So, for example, one of the most recent things that we started doing was creating a new lottery system for high. There's four high demand parks and it's really tough to create just that competition.

So we're experimenting with a lottery system for those sorts of areas. And I don't know. Liz, do you want to add anything else to that?

Thank you. Liz McGurk, Chief Deputy Director at State Parks I would just add that. So the implementation of the legislation that was recently passed around, the no shows, people who modify their reservations, we have inform the public that we're beginning to implement those new processes and rules and they should take effect July 1st.

So we wanted to give the public ample time to understand the changes and they will go into effect July 1st. So we think we will see, we'll see more compliance and less of the open spaces that you've experienced and talked to us about.

Okay, so last year when we had this hearing, there was, the explanation was we have a new Internet system and we don't have the data yet that shows whether it's working or not. So now it's been, you know, almost a year.

So do we not have any actual data about whether we have a higher rate of basically a lower rate of no shows and a higher rate of spots being filled? Do we not have any data that shows where we are on that? Because I'm, I appreciate the, you know, there's a complaint about needing to log in.

I mean, those things like, clearly need to be dealt with. But I'm really interested in, like, at a systems level, that our park system is providing the opportunity for people to stay overnight when they want to.

And I think, you know, as I expressed, which I'll express again, people are able to game the system because they want to stay on a Saturday and they start booking on a Thursday and they don't come on Thursday or Friday and they might not show on Saturday because it doesn't cost very much anyway.

So it's like when you walk around even these really high demand campgrounds in the morning and you see vacancy, vacancy, vacancy, vacancy, and they all have signs that say reserved, reserved, reserved. And you're thinking, what are we doing as a state? And so to me, that should be like a really top priority.

And I guess what I'm hearing you say is that you haven't really started any change to this until July. But, but there should be some data that shows like, where are we right now? So if you could just address that more directly.

Sure. We are explaining on the website, for examp, that when somebody makes a reservation, that reservation is held until 12pm of the morning. They were the day after they were supposed to be there. So that can explain some of those vacancies.

But it's also very clear as to how many days, a reservation includes to reduce that gaming system and picking five days to get one or two nights. And that's in our website, and it's also on Tyler's website and in.

I don't have the answer for the data right now, but I do know that the daily discussions do involve that. But I didn't. I didn't bring that.

So what you're saying is if somebody books for a Thursday, a Thursday, Friday, Saturday night, and they don't show by noon on a Friday, then they lose their whole reservation. Okay. And then what do you do with that vacancy?

It's immediately available.

Okay. And it's immediately available on the website or for a walk in.

Both. Okay. And the way that it works is if you go. If you go to us, this is one of the changes that we made that's different from last year. If you go online to a state park and you pick the name of a camp ground, immediately you get.

You get all of the campsites listed, and if they're available, they're green. If they're not available, they're red. And the system is set up so right there, you can just click on the green and it puts you into the reservation system. You log in, and you can get it right then.

The system before was much more archaic than that. So we're making improvements. But honestly, what I'm seeing is as we make improvements, it's like, oh, we didn't expect that, but we really are. I really want to say the teams are really jumping on this, and we take every complaint very seriously.

Okay, yeah, I'm thrilled to hear that. So what is it that you think will be happening or should be improving in July?

Right. So the actual, you know, rules and policy will take effect July 1st. So that includes that if you no show, I think it's two or three times in a year, you cannot book a campsite for a year that you. If you no show, you automatically lose your reservation.

Those all take and will be implemented as of July 1st. We're doing education for the public now so that they know that this will happen, because losing your ability to book a campsite for a year is a strong penalty, and we want to make sure people understand that. So the changes will be implemented as of July 1st.

I will say prior to that, though. So, for example, in a campground, if it's Thursday and the person has not shown up, the park staff will call and say, are you coming? And if they say they're not coming, we will open it up immediately for reservations. So we're not waiting for that to happen July 1st.

We're doing things now. It's just the strict rules will be implemented on July 1st.

Okay, I'm very happy to hear that. Because last year it seemed like the answer was, well, our new system is to send reminders. And to me, that was like actually not getting at the problem at all. But it was.

What was the approach was, well, we want to remind people, but the reality is that this is a high demand activity and we had an enormous number of vacancies. And I don't even think we were actually quantifying what they were, but it was constituent complaints. And personal experience was like, we are not doing a good job here.

So we really needed to get on top of that. So I'm happy to hear that you have, without legislation implemented, you know what you see, because you're the closest to the problem.

You have, obviously staff who are working on site who are walking around every morning and seeing these vacancies and so saying, you know, we really want to get to as close to 100% occupancy, especially during summer and the times when so many people.

There's a big waiting list and people want to be outside that we make that happen. And it's a high priority. So I'm happy to hear what you're sharing. I would like to see some data on vacancies. If you're able to provide that to my office, that would be great.

And thank you for talking about this internally and continuing to make this a high priority. Because this is one of the most public facing things that the state park does. And when you compare it to private campgrounds and federal campgrounds, you know, you don't want us. We want to represent the state well. Right.

And we have beautiful places and we want the public to be able to be there.

I will mention that we are working with other park partners like Hip Camp and other groups that assist with those reservations. So it's just not one avenue or two avenues of either walking in or talking to Tyler. You can actually go to partners and also be able to secure campsites with their assistance.

Right. Okay. Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, Chair.

I think, making sure that we have the data. Then I think, as Senator Blakespear has requested, I think that's a fairy quest to get an idea that we really are getting a handle on this. I did want to go back to the Del Rio State park when that opened.

I was chair of the select Committee on State Parks at the time, and we had the presentation on the new state park and it was a big thing to celebrate after having had no state parks open for so many years, for a decade, I think you said. So that was. Congratulations on that.

And I think the state of California is much better because of that. On the park pass program. I agree with Senator Blakesbier. I appreciate the comments from the lao. And we do have a big, we talked about this big structural problem that we have to deal with.

But some of these nuggets that are so good to the very Californians that we represent is extremely important. And the success of that program, again, during the Select Committee on State Parks, that information was provided and it's clear that the community is aware of it and it's clear that they're using it. So thank you for that presentation.

All right, then, let's move to issue item number 20, low cost accommodations, BCPs.

Okay.

Brian Dewey is joining us and he works with our acquisitions and development.

So anyway, you want to go ahead and give the report? Sure. Thank you. Good morning. Brian Dewey, Assistant Deputy Director, State Parks issue 20.

Due to the low cost accommodations, the Governor's budget requests 3.8 million for five new and continuing low cost accommodation projects, including 2 million from Prop 68 for two low cost accommodation projects at Pfeiffer Big Sur State park for the construction phase and Fort Ardunes State park construction phase.

1.8 million in reimbursements and donations for low cost accommodation projects at Silver Strand State beach for the working drawings phase, Angel Island State park preliminary plans and Emma Woods State beach also for preliminary plans for funding for these continuing projects will support the department's goal to continue to provide high quality, low cost coastal accommodations throughout the state.

And with that, I'll be happy to take any questions you may have.

Thank you, Department of Finance,

David Jensen with the Department of Finance. No questions, but happy to field any questions that you may have as they come.

Thank you, Eliot.

Brian Metzger, LAO. We reviewed these proposals and had no concerns. They primarily use bond funding and reimbursement authority to advance the planning and construction of these projects and once completed, would improve access to state parks and therefore have merit.

Thank you. Questions?

No, but I'm just. I'm looking through the agenda of the issues and just want to. It seems like the Director might be leaving after this. Or are you continuing to? Because I wanted to bring up the issue of the wildlife coexistence program, but I'm not sure exactly where that would fit with the issues.

Is that Fish and Wildlife? That's Fish and Wildlife. zero, okay. The new Director is Here. Okay, okay. Okay. Got it. I just know that I was leaving. I got it. Okay. You know, can I just mention something about lower cost accommodations? It's important. And we do have a lot of lower cost accommodations along the coast in particular.

I'm so glad because that was my question. So please tell us.

Well, we have campgrounds, cabins, cottages, and RV sites. I'll give Oceano Dunes as one example. To camp on the beach overnight at oceano dunes is $10. And the. The fees for these already are lower cost.

And when we talk about lower accommodations, which Brian described, these are simple cabins that families or individuals could rent for somewhere in the neighborhood of like a hundred dollars100 dollars is what we consider lower cost accommodations when there's a structure involved. But definitely all of the campgrounds.

And, and I would say that state parks overnight facilities inherently are low cost. But with the demand that we have and the opportunity to really, you know, I really do think of the visitorship of park parks as being an opportunity to really continue to develop a constituency amongst the public about the public lands.

And not only that, you mentioned Dos Rios. Dos Rios is actually an opportunity to really talk about water in California. And along with the questions about water, I do think that it's the most critical issue that is least understood in the public. I served on the California Water Commission for six years. Or five years. It was six.

And I also served on a local water board in Marin, where I live. And I was astonished at the. I mean, there are 10 basic questions that nobody can answer, and you could certainly answer those questions when it comes to your car and gasoline, but you can't answer those questions.

So I think a critical part of understanding the public's understanding of water in California, it's actually pretty simple. I. In a way, it can be very clear. And I do think that parks are a perfect platform for providing that information in place that people can take home.

Very good. I thank you so much. Questions. Very good. Then let's move to item number. Item number 21, Department overview for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Senator Blakespear. I am incredibly thrilled to be here. My name is Megan Hurtle. I'm the new Director of California Department of Fish and Wildlife. I am on day nine, which is why they've sent law enforcement up here with me to make sure that I stay on my p's and Q's.

But I will say I do have some team Members here that are going to help answer your detailed questions, just given my newness in this role. And I also wanted to let you know that I'm really looking forward to having a robust working relationship with all of you after we go through the Senate confirmation hearing.

So looking forward to that conversation. So today I'm going to talk a little bit about myself, just because we haven't met before. I'll give an overview of the Department, talk about Proposition 4 proposals and service based budgeting, which I know we've all talked about before. So quickly, about me.

I'm coming from California Natural Resources Agency, where I had the privilege of working with Secretary Crowfoot, who you heard from earlier today.

My previous role was Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat, which means I led the state's 30 by 30 effort, as well as worked on cutting the green tape, which is one of the prime initiatives that the Department has that's looking at permit streamlining to improve the pace and scale of environmental restoration.

And the third part of my portfolio there was all things biodiversity. So some days that was wolves, some days it was giant pandas and Zoos. You never knew what it was going to be. But all of those things, plus 20 plus years in California, conservation has really prepared me for this role.

But more than all of that, I'm the person that grew up building pretend forts in the vacant lot behind my mom's apartment in North Carolina, or when I lived in Florida, waiting anxiously every year for sea turtle season so I could watch the little turtles go to the ocean. And I'm still the most happy when I'm outside.

And that is why it is such a privilege to be part of this Department. I strongly believe that we have to protect our natural resources in California and that we have to do it in a way that also creates livable, resilient communities and that increases opportunities for people to get outside. That's why I do this job.

That's probably why you all have a passion for this. We need to create that for more Californians. To put the department's mission very simply, we care for California's nature and we do that for the benefit of Californians and the people that visit here.

And we do it for the benefit of the plants, animals and wildlife that make up California and make it unique. And, and it is not an easy task. As you helped set up in the hearing today, we are one of the globe's biodiversity hotspots. There's only 36 of them.

What that means is we have more plants and animals here in California than most other places in the world. And that's because of this incredible Mediterranean climate A little early for allergy season right now, but otherwise incredibly beautiful. We also have amazing geography, some of the highest places and lowest places places in the United States.

And of course, part of this is also our long commitment to protecting the plants and animal species that make up the foundation of California. So our staff at California Department of Fish and Wildlife are on the front line every day.

As your trustees and the people of California's Trustees for Fish and Wildlife, we have the legal jurisdiction to manage, protect and care for these plants, animals and wildlife for the benefit of Californians and for the benefit of future generations. So a couple facts about the Department.

The proposal is an $800 million budget that is made up of state, federal and bond funds. It comes from, in descending order, special funds of around 379 million, General Fund of 181 million, and then further descending order, federal funds, reimbursements and bond funds. We have roughly 3,300 incredible people that work for the Department.

I will admit I have not met them all in my first nine days, but I have met a fair number of them. And I just wanted to let you know that routinely every one of them starts with how passionate they are about the mission of the Department. And I've also been impressed at how many are long serving.

And what that tells me is we've got a workforce that is committed, that is passionate, and has deep expertise to do the work that we're asking them to do day in and day. Out of the roughly 3,300 people, the vast majority of them are permanent physicians, so about 2,900. The rest are temporary.

And what a lot of people don't know is we actually have 500 folks like Chief Arnold here who are part of our law enforcement division that are out there protecting wildlife, but also protecting people. And Senator, we'll get to your questions on coexistence and human wildlife conflict.

So this year through the BCPS, we're requesting 68.5 additional permanent positions. And my colleagues who are in the audience who will come up and join for some of the more detailed BCP conversations can provide details on that. So that's a lot of numbers.

But just to make that real about what happens in the ground, we organize ourselves into six outward facing programs or work areas. Biodiversity conservation, land management, hunting, fishing and public access, Law enforcement, communications, education and outreach, and oil spill prevention and recovery, or OSPER as most people would refer to it.

Some examples of this work, we just heard from Director of State Parks about the incredible public access that they provide. The Department also manages 1.1 million acres of land in California. So it's a little bit less than state parks, but. But much of that land does provide public access.

Other parts of it are closed for sensitive species or restoration. And we also manage hatcheries helping recover fisheries. Our law enforcement side, which Chief Arnold will talk more about, is not only busting illegal cannabis grows, but is also stopping illegal international wildlife trade. So they're protecting species here and also internationally.

Just last month they did an incredible effort in Fresno where they stopped an illegal shipment from Thailand in that included ivory, elephant, walrus and sadly other species as well. They've been providing protection to the people of California and our species for more than 120 years. It's an incredible act of service, our biodiversity conservation.

Senator, this will get to some of your question on permitting. Actually one of the things we do under that is cutting the green tape, which Secretary Crowfoot talked about. And that's an effort to increase the pace and scale of environmental restoration.

One example of that in this last year, there was a project called Wildwood Canyon Wildfire Resilience Project. It's in San Bernardino. And this is in a landscape that looked much like the LA landscape did before the fire. So a really invasive species, high fire risk.

We put that through a statutory exemption for restoration projects, or cerp, which a lot of people call it, to speed that project forward, reduce costs for it. It's going to remove non natives, put in fire resilient native plants that reduce fire risk and help recover species like crotches bumblebee, burrowing owl and western spate foot.

And the final one I wanted to highlight, actually, Senator, comes to the question you've got. So I wanted to talk a little bit about communication, education and outreach. So this is one of the areas that we think a lot about when we think about human wildlife conflict.

It's only 11 of the prongs or one of the ways we need to address it. But studies have shown that outreach and education is an incredibly effective way to prevent conflict from happening.

I saw this incredible presentation actually from a state parks individual who said, you know, if you're in downtown city, you wouldn't leave your laptop on the side of your car when you leave it parked. So in Tahoe, don't leave a granola bar. And I thought like that kind of simple outreach and education means the world, right?

It can help people really understand how to avoid the conflict in the first place. And so that's the type of work our outreach, education and communication team does. So in Prop 4, the Department is requesting 10.2 million for a salmon parental based tagging program.

That's a very long way to say taking genetic samples from small baby fish before we release them so that when they return we know where they came came from. This is an efficiency improvement because it helps us understand what's working and what's not working. As we work to help recover salmon and native fish populations.

We're also requesting roughly 20 million for Central Valley hatcheries. This is going to help us with capital improvements, facility repairs so those can operate successfully and 20 million to complete projects on some of those public access lands that I talked about earlier. So.

So making sure that when people go out there, it's safe, they have a place to park, potentially can use a bathroom and that those facilities and trails are adapted to extreme weather and climate events that we are already seeing on our properties. So we have a handout. It is also available online.

I'm not going to walk through each of these, but this does detail some of the service based budgeting. The public can also see it on your website. I think all of you are relatively familiar with this process, but if not just quick cliff notes on it.

In 2018, the Legislature directed us to go through a service based budgeting process. This basically means we looked at our mission and our mandate and then we looked at how many dollars does it take to do it right down to how much does it take Chief Arnold to operate his.

How much does it take to run a hatchery? When that was completed with a consultant, Deloitte, who is a world expert in doing this, we found found that the Department was operating at a 3x deficit. So basically we were trying to do $3 of work when we had $1.

The great thing from this is we now have data and tools that allow us to do this year in and year out. Right. So we can track change on it. As of FY2425, we were at 2.64x was where we were at. So that was our service based budgeting numbers.

We are in the process right now of going through the 2520 update on that and that will let us know both where we have gaps, but also help us prioritize the spending and look for where we need to put it.

So I will just close out by saying there are a lot of people that think that you cannot reach climate targets, address natural resource issues, have a strong economy, be affordable place to live.

And I would argue that California, with your leadership and the Newsom administration's leadership and, and the work of departments like CDFW is proving them wrong. And it is not easy. And it is especially hard in tough budget times when we have to make choices.

But it's also the right conversation to be having, because it's these natural resources that support our clean air, our clean water. They provide mental health, public health. They're the foundation of our economy. This Department is one of the oldest organizations in state government. We will show up and continue to do the work.

We are committed to doing the work as best as we can to steward these resources now and for future generations. So thank you so much for your time and looking forward to the conversation.

Thank you.

Can we squeeze them up here? So coming up to join us are Deputy Director Dan Reagan, who is in charge of our fiscal Department, and you should ask the extra hard questions to him because he's an incredible expert. And Deputy Director Chad Diboll, who is in charge of our Fisheries and Wildlife Division.

Thank you. Maybe again, when you're ready. Are you here just to answer questions?

So, Madam Chair Members, Dan Reagan, Deputy Director of Fiscal Service Division, here to go through the presentation, along with my colleague, Deputy Director Dibble, on the additional items or answer any current questions you may have.

Let's go through the additional items then.

I think we're starting with nutria. Okay, so in front of you is a proposal from the Department that requests one permanent position and funding for existing staff and temporary help to support our and expand our nutria eradication program efforts. It's seeking 8.2 million for fiscal year 2627 and 8 million ongoing.

We anticipate the funding would allow the Department to hire about five additional temporary staff to help us with our efforts, along with some vehicles.

With those staff in those vehicles, we think that it will give us the capability to expand our coverage to seven days a week, a little bit more than what we're doing now, and increase our ability to survey the lands at about 10% from what we're doing today.

Nutria, as you know, their Colonies create extensive burrows, they increase soil erosion, reduce bank stability, and cause lots of issues and concerns for our infrastructure, including levee failure. It's a pretty big issue here.

As you know, the persistence of invasive nutria in California will result in increasing prevalent impacts to multiple sectors, including wildlife and habitat, conservation, agriculture, water supplies and conveyance, flood protection, greenhouse gas reduction, not to mention all the agencies that are responsible for all of those things have to also deal with them.

It's a pretty big problem for us. We're really concerned about it. And I don't want to give you a whole bunch of things, but I'm going to give you some metrics and numbers. We like numbers. We are scientists.

So just to give you a little bit of background of what we're doing at our current capacity, we're able to survey about a third of what we think is existing nutria habitat across the landscape. That's about 170,000 acres a year. Of the 500,000 that we think is where nutria are at. To date, we've deployed about 14,500 cameras.

We have about 1,000 of them that are currently active that we monitor. We've detected over 1500 sites across 11 counties where nutria are. We've deployed over 20,000 trap sets. And as of today, we've now taken a total of 7605 nutria and we've removed 9669N fetal nutria from the population.

So pregnant females, we continue to see that about 52% of all females at the average of 6 months old are pregnant. And as a reminder of how invasive these species are, pregnant nutria can create an exploding population. They breed year round. They can have three litters in 13 months with a litter size as large as 14.

And those offspring can become reproductively mature at six months, as I mentioned. So basically, if you were to take one female that disperses and gets out a pregnant female in just over a year, that single female can become 200 animals. So we're constantly on the lookout for these species.

We're constantly working with our staff, with the land managers that we work with, gaining access to these properties and trapping for these animals to remove them and as extensively as we can. And I think I'll leave it there.

Sonja Petek with the Legislative Analyst Office. Within the context of our overall framework report, this was one of the proposals that we highlighted as meeting the high bar for legislative consideration for approval. And that is because this proposal addresses important health and safety issues.

As already pointed out, these animals can be very destructive to vital flood management and water supply infrastructure. In addition, we would point out that spending money now can help save money later. Given how quickly these animals can reproduce and spread, doing nothing now could result in much higher costs down the road. Thank you.

Department of Finance.

Manisha Kapasiwala, Department of Finance. I have nothing to add and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Let's go to issue 23, the Golden Mussel Containment Program.

Again. That's me. Thank you. Maybe I should have formally introduced myself. It got said a couple times, but. I'm Chad Dibble. I'm the Deputy Director for the Wildlife and Fisheries Division at the Department of Fish and Wildlife. So thank you again for having us. Madam Chair.

Members, this proposal for golden muscle is requesting eight permanent positions to increase our capacity to prevent the spread of golden muscle from infested waters to uninfested waters. These positions will be funded for the next three years from the funds that were approved this year under Prop 1. Prop 4.

Excuse me, I think it was mentioned earlier, golden muscle is, is a. An issue we should be paying attention to and the Department is very much paying attention to. As, as was stated, the first detection in the United States was at the port of Stockton in October of 2024.

Golden mussels attach to surfaces, although they can attach and reattach, and their larvae suspend in water carried with flow. And they can also get entrapped in conveyance facilities and live there for a while before they decide to attach the surfaces.

They are present throughout the delta and, and we should assume that they're in every facility and every conveyance structure that the delta supplies and they will be detected at some point in the future. We continue to work through with those agencies and with our partners to detect, to look for detections across the landscape.

But right now, we have not detected any golden mussels outside of the delta and its conveyance system. They are a great threat to our state's water supply. They're a threat to our beneficial uses, including agriculture, recreation, and the environment. And they're more likely to spread overland than what we've seen with Quagga in the past.

Following detection back in 2024, the Department took immediate action and formed a task force, as you may know, led up of state and federal and local agencies to start working through some solutions.

We put out what we called the Golden Muscle Task Force Response Framework, which, which was intended to inform all of you policymakers, legislative folks, to give them some ideas about what we can do as a state to try and manage this and address this issue.

So we've continued to work with those partners over the last couple of years to provide outreach work with the communities.

Most importantly, and kind of in our jurisdiction, is to working with parties to address how they might manage water infrastructure, what types of plans those folks need to have, how they can work through alternatives and ways to deal with it.

And then also on our side, for our large constituent base, is making sure that, you know, we're working with the water operators and the reservoir operators to ensure that we still have access to the water bodies across the state for our boating constituents that would like to continue access, and we can do so in a safe manner.

So this proposal is just requesting the eight positions that would be supported through the funds we have to help us maintain the efforts we're doing now and help work with the communities to address golden mussels.

Helio. Thank you, Madam Chair. We've reviewed this proposal and think it seems like a reasonable request for positions. The Department needs people to do the necessary work. And we'd also point out that the department's had to redirect staff from other important jobs and responsibilities in order to respond immediately to this golden mussel infestation.

So this would help alleviate some of that pressure. Thank you.

Department of Finance.

Andrew Hull, Department of Finance. Nothing to add at this time.

Thank you. The final is issue 24, protecting California's federally listed species.

Again, this proposal is requesting five permanent positions to implement requirements imposed by Assembly Bill 1319.

These five staff would focus on the initial steps in AB13, which are the monitoring aspects of what was created in that bill, which includes monitoring regulatory, legislative, judicial and administrative actions, as well as proposed state legislation, regulatory changes monitoring particularly those that relate to the species in California, analyzing and tracking legislation, regulations and development recommendations preparing scientific and supporting documentation such as those required for provisional listings and publishing written findings in the California Regulatory Notice Register if needed, based on what's happening on the federal landscape.

Thank you, LAO.

Thank you. We also found this proposal to be reasonable. It's a modest request for positions to implement the monitoring requirements of AB 1319. And in light of the budget situation, as well as uncertainty about the extent to which the Federal Government will weaken protections of California species, this seems like an appropriate approach.

We would note that to the extent that the Federal Government does weaken those protections, we could potentially expect to see a request in the future for additional staff and resources to actually implement protections at the state level for those species.

Very good. Department of Finance,

Andrew Hall, Department of Finance. Nothing to add, but happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. All right, let's bring it back to the Members questions. Senator Blakespear.

Okay, thank you. Well, welcome, new Director. So thrilled to have you. We're looking forward to your tenure. So thank you for your work in advance. I wanted to ask about three species, wolves, grizzlies and beavers.

So can you describe any thoughts on reintroducing grizzly bears and also ongoing work with our recovery of wolves and the wildlife, human coexistence, and then also status on beavers.

Great. I'll make some just overarching and then I'm actually going to turn it over to Chad, who's been living this day in and day out for quite a long time.

So with respect to wolves, the recovery and reintroduction, well, the return, not reintroduction of wolves to California is incredible from an ecological standpoint and it is not easy on rural communities.

And that is the place that we're at right now is trying to figure out how to respond to protecting this amazing species that has made its way back into California and doing it in a way that still allows people in rural communities to have livelihoods and to be able to go about business. Right.

And so last year, the Department did a tremendous effort to have an emergency response to some pretty extreme conditions and also made some really difficult decisions. And so I want to turn it over to Chad to give a little bit of overview of what we did

then, because I think that gives you a sense of the scope of the challenge that we're facing in a relatively challenging budget year when hard choices have to be made.

Chad, you want to cover Bay of Sales?

No, just. I would. Wolves. Generally,

Generally, we have a lot of outreach going on right now with wolves. We recognize both the return of wolves is super important to the state and many of our constituents, and we also recognize the impact it's having in the agricultural ranching communities. We continue to work with those folks day in and day out.

We are a small but mighty team of three people that we've figured out how to reprioritize and shift funds around to provide the support. Those staff work incredibly hard to respond to incidents of depredation, work with the ranchers to talk about preventative measures and solutions that they can apply on their landscapes to help prevent depredation events.

They're the same staff that have to do the monitoring and research that we're trying to do to answer all of the questions that everybody has about how wolves are doing, where are they, the collaring efforts to try and collar animals so that we can track them and better understand them.

So we're constantly working with our folks and with those communities. We have ongoing relationships with every. Every county, frankly, that has wolves in it. We've set up sort of a structure that we are working with our regional managers who are more out on the landscape. They're meeting with these counties regularly. We're meeting with these counties regularly.

We held a meeting in January, or, excuse me, in December, where we invited all of the board of Supervisors from these counties, their agricultural commissioner and their sheriffs, along with several NGOs and other folks that are just involved in the Wolf conversations. We're continuing those conversations now.

Just Monday, we kicked off a workshop to start an evaluation of the existing Wolf livestock compensation program, which, by the way, thank you for your support over the last couple of years to put funding into that program so that we can help ranchers who are experiencing loss from Wolf and cattle conflict, as well as putting real techniques onto the ground and helping support them with their techniques to reduce conflict.

So we're through all sorts of angles to try and work through that. We're increasing our communications. As you know, last year we put up a Website that sort of helps the landowners and the public see where wolves are. For the collared wolves, we have. We recognize that that's. Not every wolf in California has a collar on it.

And so we still have some ground to gain there with how we can communicate better and work with those folks. But we are trying on all fronts to really work with the community to solve some of these issues and bring that into tolerable levels and figure out how we can have some coexistence.

The only thing I would add to that is. Thanks. The only thing I would add to that is that we recognize in a budget limited area that we're not going to be able to do everything.

So we've been working hard to work with partners like us, Fish and Wildlife Service, UC Cooperative Extension, Cattlemen, Defenders of Wildlife, California Biological Diversity. So, you know, we are trying to bring everyone together to find a path forward here. But resources are short to be able to reply to this challenge.

And as we think about the return of any top apex predators, there will be similar challenges. So that would be my statement on grizzlies, because we have not as an Administration, taken a position on any proposals there yet.

Okay, and what about beavers?

Beavers. I'm a beaver believer. I should say that that'll probably make some people in the audience really happy. But also, you know, there are, are again challenges with how beavers interact and landscape. And so the Department has been doing reintroductions and trying to work with landowners to get around that.

There is a beaver hotline for those who are experiencing challenges. Chad, you may have more to add on here.

Yeah, another great program. We've been working really hard. Again, thank you for some budget support a couple years ago that created this program within the Department to be able to make this happen. We've had several reintroductions that we're working through and we have several sites located for this year to continue. It is a seasonality thing.

So you have to sort of look at where you're trying to put these animals. What time of the year would be best to move them? What's the source locations we're looking for? We've had some success. We've learned some things along the way as well and we're seeing some great signs of what's happening.

The biggest issue is trying to find the right locations to reintroduce them to.

There is a lot of work that needs to happen to ensure that that habitat is ready to receive beavers again and that they will be able to thrive as we bring Them to those locations and then they enhance those ecosystems system benefits that we're hoping to get out of moving them there.

So lots of work happening there, lots of things coming in the near future. Great team inside the Department, super dedicated, working with the tribes, with the local, you know, land districts, with the forest service and other folks and partners that are really interested in this and trying to figure out how we can continue to move beavers.

Also paying attention to the human wildlife conflict side of things and making sure that we're finding the right locations where we think the beavers will have the best benefit and where they'll be able to survive.

And what's an example of where they're being introduced that's on more successful side?

The Tasman Coyum, where we just did our first location, was a great place. They had spent years investing in habitat restoration in that area.

So that you have willows, there's a creek side, there's places where these beavers can go in immediately and start building lodges and dams and have the protection they need to survive just from the General predators and other animals that are in the environment. So we're really working with them.

The Tule river tribe was another place where we're continuing to look for projects down in that area. We had some mixed success in the beginning because we're learning as to which is the right type of habitats. And, you know, no meadow is created the same, no river is created the same.

So we're really working through those as we go. We're developing tools to try and help us assess in the state where we think those locations would be. And if they're not ready yet, how we can invest other dollars to create those habitats to, to prepare them for future reintroductions.

So are they mostly in Northern California?

No, we're trying to expand. Actually, we have some sites that we're looking down south. I don't have that number or those places exactly yet, but we are trying to expand and find those locations. A logistical thing we have is that you have to have a source population and then there's also time.

We have a quarantine period where we bring those animals into captivity so that we can ensure that they're healthy enough, they're safe enough to move. So we have to have those facilities, then you have transport time.

So if you're traveling these animals really, really far from where we might have quarantined them and where we've held them for a while, there's logistics in all of that. So right now that's a Little bit of a limitation to find those locations.

We only really have two places where we can house these animals after we've captured them and then we transport them out.

Okay, thank you. So the Human Wildlife Conflict Program was a specific program that was funded and then it basically was allowed to lapse. But a lot of the work is still being done, it's sounds like. And I'm a big supporter of us and am introducing a Bill on us funding it and basically restarting it.

But I'm curious about the decision making around letting it lapse. I mean, as a priority that you hear about, you know, was that not something that you were able to make work in the budget?

So the conflict program has really started in like 2014 with some, we started noticing some of that. We had some very short one time dollars early on through the drought cycles of 1516 in that space. That was again came back up in 2021 through some biodiversity enhancement one time funding as well as continued with drought into 2022.

Those funds expired in 24, which is what you're talking about. All of those were one time dollars for us to stand up program and work through it. What you're seeing now is the ability to use those dollars and create some programs and some efficiencies where the Department can stay engaged at that level.

But a bulk of that program itself is literally just the staffing and the resources to be able to respond to those conflicts in a timely manner.

We've tightened our belt, we figured out how we can, to the best of our ability, pull staff here, redirect, prioritize here and do these things, which is what the public is still continuing to see. But it is not meeting the demands, as you have seen and heard from what the public expects.

And I think what we could do to do things better, as the Director mentioned, with outreach, with just working with the public to generally understand how we can avoid this from the first place so we don't end up with the phone calls that we get.

So there's lots of things happening and we do try our best every day to try and be as responsive as we can to the public.

Yeah, and hopefully you were here earlier when there was a really great analogy between in a coffee shop you wouldn't leave your computer sitting out, and in Lake Tahoe you shouldn't leave a granola bar sitting out.

You know, I think that kind of education and communication is really important with the public and also with those who live with apex predators.

Yeah, the benefits we had from those one time dollars and what you see today is what we call our Wildlife Incident Reporting System, or WIR System. That is an online tool where the public can immediately go in and report a sighting, whether it's just, I saw one, I need help.

They can, they can work through that to actually get a depredation permit, should they need it. There's all sorts of things there. That was a tool that came out of that one time funding that is still existent today, which helps us organize internally as well. It receives about 6,000 incidents reported to it a year.

However, we receive about 30 to 50,000 calls a year. So it's helpful and it's out there and the public uses it and we appreciate it. We still have more on that side.

The other thing that the one time funding created for us was to develop the toolkit we have online, where right now your first stop should hopefully go to the website and not call us because there's a myriad from bats to beavers to bears to mountain lions, of information and sources of materials and tools and things that can help constituents, it can help local communities, it can help folks that want to work with their homeowners association to get the word out.

There's all kinds of brochures and pamphlets they can download and things that you can use that hopefully eliminate the calls for us to come out and respond. And we can help as a community try and have a more coexistent lifestyle in some of these places where they continually have conflict.

Right. Yeah. I mean, the depredation permit shouldn't be where we're trying to route people to. It should be that we don't need to have the desire for so many depredation permits. And then I guess just as a final comment, Chair, thanks for the indulgence with so many questions.

It does concern me that the Department over many years has been trying to do with the money for one job, three jobs.

So, you know, the many different things that protecting endangered species, restoring these really important species and supporting the communication with the public and how to live together, enforcing wildlife laws, responding to oil spills, you know, and preventing them. There's so much really critical work and also, you know, protection of habitat generally, removal of invasives.

And I'll say I'm a recent convert to goats. I think goats are an incredible way to manage fire hazard. I hope that you're seriously looking at those. Is there, is there any involvement with 100%?

Some of the numbers that the secretary rattled off earlier with Wildfire Resistance and the projects we've been able to implement through some of the funds that we've received are directly aimed at that. We have a very extensive program that is looking at vegetation management on our properties.

So state properties is what we do, and goats are a large part of management and how we control vegetation across our properties.

Yeah, I mean, the reality that every other way that you might clear brush, you have to do something with that brush.

You either have to landfill it, burn it, compost it, but the goats just eat it and then poop out these little time capsules of nutrition and it just goes back into the land, you know, but you don't have this overgrowth of all the material. It's just. It really is an amazing.

And also herd animals, if you think about the idea that our land used to have both either fire or herd animals, and when you eliminate both of them, it's like we're going to have a problem. And so reintroducing herd animals to places that haven't had any brush clearing in a century is just such a great solution.

So I'm glad that you're looking at it as a Department.

But so basically, I just want to also just put in the concern about being able to do the core work that needs to be be done and making sure that in this budget year, it's not practical that we're going to go from staffing at 1 to times 3. So I recognize that.

But really just trying to support you and you identifying what your priorities are so that we can do that is really important to me.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

It is of great concern that you are doing the work with just one third of the personnel that you need, and I think, as my colleague has said, trying to find those balances.

When we talk about health and safety as a priority from the lao's office, looking at our budget through that lens is extremely important because we won't be able to Fund everything that we want to Fund, and we won't be able to start new programs and even implement some of the legislation that our colleagues had signed by the Governor just last year, implementing some of those that are extremely important, but having to make the tough decisions in our Committee.

Senator McNerney, did you have some questions or comments?

I believe I do.

Very good.

Thank you, Director. Thank you for coming in front of us in just eight days. That's pretty brave, in my opinion. Where did you come from before? What was your prior situation?

I was at California Natural Resources Agency, where I was Deputy Secretary for Biodiversity and Habitat, so I worked for Secretary Crawford.

Okay, so you came with some knowledge of the problems and Challenges. Thank you. Well, I've got three things to talk about. First of all, fairly straightforward. I'm encouraged that the CDFW is working with the Winterman Wintu tribe on the salmon restoration on the McLeod River. I think that's worthwhile and they're doing good work.

What I'd like is to ask, next time that your Department comes in front of us, you have a report about how the work is going and how the money is flowing, is that going to be a continuous? So I think that's important to me and to my district and the state, really. The second is the nutria.

I've never seen one of these things live, but I guess they're big rodents. And rodents, little rodents are already pretty scary. Big ones got to be worse. So, you know, hearing that these guys are multiplying at the rate that's being described is very, very concerning.

There's 1,000 miles of levees in the delta, and so preventing that species from causing damage to the levees is very concerning. It's a very big problem. And I want to make sure that we have a good start on this.

I guess the $8.2 million is a good start, and I just want to know if that's going to be anywhere near enough to do what needs to be done to get these rodents under control.

Like I said, right now, this proposal is essentially seeking to maintain where we are, given the fiscal conditions we're in in the state. The Department, since 2018, when these nutrients were first detected, has really tried to build a portfolio. We've had a multitude of avenues to Fund this. Over time, you all have provided some funds.

We've worked with others for grant funds. We've worked with other entities to create this portfolio. Those funds have depleted as many funds across the state have depleted. And so this proposal here is to maintain where we're at. And as I mentioned, we're not able to survey everywhere there is a nutritor.

We believe there is, but we're tackling about a third of what we think is existing habitat as it relates to nutri on the ground right now. We have taken more animals in the last three years than we've done ever. Last year was the highest we've ever taken.

And that's really just a little bit of us being able to concentrate on an area. It's kind of this give and take.

If you take all of your resources and concentrate on an area where you have known detections and try to really wipe that out or take that number down, it limits your ability to look at where dispersing nutria are moving and what other habitats so you can get in front of where they're starting to expand.

So we're trying our best to manage that in amongst a very vast waterway as you mentioned. I mean our whole central valley is waterways, which is how these animals move. They can disperse up to 50 miles. They eat, you know, 25% of their body weight in a day. And they're very reproductive, are very fertile.

So we work through all of that and it's our best guess right now is to continue where we're at. And that's what we're trying to do is just at least this will help us maintain where we are today with what's happening on the landscape.

So what kind of stuff do they eat? What's their favorite vegetation?

They'll wipe out a wetland habitat which is part of our risk here is that we're investing, you know, millions of dollars into our landscapes and trying 30 by 30 and our different wetland landscapes and we're putting a lot of effort into that.

And, and so this is really also a protection of the resources and the money we spent into those programs for carbon sequestration. It's a protection in our levy systems for health and safety, water delivery, all the above.

And in prior years how has the funding been spent?

Spent?

Yeah. How has prior money been used?

Do you want to cover that? So it's the task force and staff and nutrigrading eradication program. Yeah. Dan Reagan again, Deputy Director of Fiscal Service Division. The funding that we've received over the years, whether it be the one time grants from states, some federal funds or General Fund, is supporting the nutri eradication program within the Department.

Currently it's roughly 19 permanent staff with over 50 temp help staff that go out and do the trapping, do the detections as well as using detection dogs as, as well and a variety of different ways to go out and really try to eradicate the nutria by cell as well as continuing to be on top of new detections as we find them.

Yeah, thank you, Dan. I was not understanding that. Yes, about 50 staff, limited term, as Dan mentioned, with some permanent staff, we have tried some novel ideas, learning from others and as Dan mentioned, with the detection dogs to come out and help us seek areas where maybe these animals have dispersed.

Look at new areas where we haven't been able to get to in a more efficient manner than, you know, putting out cameras and just waiting.

We've also tried some, what we call Judas nutria, which is sterile nutria We've worked a couple times to where we'll bring those into our animals in, we'll sterilize them and then we will release them with tags or collars.

Not collars but radio tags on them so that we can track where they might go, see if they're meeting up with other nutria and to help. So we've had mixed success in that space. It's a little bit, you know, science researchy kind of stuff that we're still working through.

But our best effort is on the ground camera traps and just traps in General and deploying staff out to remove the animals.

Well, I'm worried about the cuts to the Department and the positions that might be lost. So that's something that we need to make sure we can get you guys the staff. You need to do that. The other question is the other comments that go on. Mussel. These invasive species invasions seem to be getting worse.

A few years ago, as I mentioned earlier in this hearing, the waters Hiathus were pretty much of a threat. They choked off a lot of the waterways that was. You couldn't boat down certain, you know, canals and so on. I think that's kind of controlled now, but I'm not entirely sure about that. D Nutri eat hyacinth?

No, division of boating waterways runs that program with the highest and control program. We work with them obviously, but that is the agencies that's responsible for that. I will agree. We've had years of boom and bust. I think they're doing their best to get out there and try to address hyacinth controls.

We actually recently, a year or so ago had some additional funding and worked with them to deploy hyacinth control, which actually was to our benefit so that we could access areas where nutria were because we too were having restrictions in our ability to get to some of those locations.

So we were working hand in hand with them to allow us to help get access to where some of these colonies were.

Can you detect nutria with infrared light like humans or other mammals?

Infrared, I mean, yeah, we don't like night vision stuff. Yeah, we don't currently do that now as part of our deployment, but I would imagine. Yes.

Yeah, no, I mean as part of. You can. As part of the trapping efforts and detection efforts. You know, we trap day and night and that's part of what this proposal does. The second part there that the challenges though within nutria and in their habitat also exist beaver and Muskrat and they all look very similar.

And so, you know, the detection Particularly at night, you need to make sure you have a positive detection of the right species before we go to attempt to trap or eradicate.

Well, is the CDFW providing guidance to help water agencies that convey water to operate reservoirs, to develop plans for the mussels?

Yes, yes, we're doing that regularly.

And you have the resources you need to do that?

We are working through. We're fortunate enough again, thank you, to receive some funds just this, this current year we're working through, as Minnie mentioned earlier about Prop 4 funds, trying to get those on the ground.

We've actually made some great strides to try and work through the responsibilities there which are working with water agencies to update their management plans and their response plans to ensure that golden mussel protections are part of it.

We are continuing to work with stakeholders to understand how they can be preventative in their water bodies to allow boating access and continuing that efforts. What we hear mostly is they're in the same boat as us. It's very hard to do this work. It requires new staff, new resources to be able to maintain these new activities.

And I do think that you're going to see the hardest hit communities which we're already starting to see in the delta proper. Now you're starting to see the agricultural impacts that are coming, the drinking water supply impacts that are coming.

You're starting to see waterways or conveyance facilities, whether they're screens or pumps, pipes that are starting to be infected by golden mussel and they're having to deal with that across the landscape. That is not something the Department is funded or worked to do that is falling on these local communities and these other water districts.

And I think it's something that you all are hearing about, we're hearing about and needs more conversation around how do they get some support in this space as well.

So they don't use more water, but they obstruct water.

They obstruct water. Correct.

And so tunnels or aqueducts or any kind of movement of water is liable to be infected and obstructed by these things.

Correct. And our biggest thing is over concern mostly is not only delivery systems because that's the easiest vector to get through, but you have overland concerns, things that sit in the delta or in infected water for any limited or any amount of time, they become infected.

So as those things, whether it's a boat, whether it's monitoring equipment, whether it's construction activity that goes from one place to another, those things now need to be decontaminated.

They need to be evaluated to ensure that maybe not decontaminated, but they need to be inspected to ensure that they're not carrying villagers or they're not having issues with golden mussel before they're deployed or put into another water body. And that's part of this preventative measures we're taking.

Those are the conversations we're having, those steps we're taking to help folks understand that risk and understand what protocols they can do to help prevent that risk.

So do they operate in saltwater? Do they live in salt water?