Senate Standing Committee on Natural Resources and Water

AB 2215. Calderon has been pulled by the author from today's agenda. 10 bills are proposed for consent. Bills will be heard in file order. If necessary, we'll recess for lunch and reconvene in the same room in the afternoon. I'm gonna go present myself over in appropriations and come right back. So I'm gonna turn the gavel over to our vice Chair.

Alright. Did he already go over this? Okay. So we're gonna try to be in file order, but we're also going to, take advantage of people that come in out of file order and are the only authors here, which we apparently have that situation right now. So Mister Hart, if you would like to come up.

That way you don't have to nervously look at the door and hope that your colleagues don't come strolling in. Mister Hart, you are are, presenting AB 2461. Correct? That is correct. Alright. Thank you. You may begin when you're ready.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to be here on time and and first step. Thank you Mister Vice Chair and the committee staff for their work on this bill. I'll be accepting the committee amendment. I'm pleased to present AB 2461, a bill to clarify oil and gas bonding requirements in California to ensure that companies, not taxpayers, are paying the full cost of properly plugging wells and decommissioning facilities.

California has tens of thousands of aging and inactive oil wells that eventually need to be plugged.

According to the Carbon Tracker Initiative, California's onshore oil production decommissioning and site remediation liabilities could total as much as $21 billion. Existing law, AB 1167, passed in 2023 already requires operators acquiring wells or facilities to provide financial assurance sufficient to cover plugging, abandonment, and other costs. When operators go bankrupt or otherwise face financial trouble, taxpayers are often left on the hook to properly plug wells and decommission facilities.

Over the last two years, multiple acquisitions through all stock deals by California Resources Corporation were determined by CalGEM to not trigger these financial assurance requirements. In 2024, CRC acquired Air Energy, one of the California's largest oil producers.

In December 2025, CRC also announced the acquisition of Berry Corporation for $717 million, including the assumption of Berry's debt. Both transactions were structured as all stock deals, meaning control of the companies transferred without a traditional asset sale. So CRC was determined to not have to meet financial assurance requirements designed for this exact type of ownership change. That bill, AB 1167, was designed and intended by the legislature to prevent operators from shifting closure costs to financially unstable operators in exactly these types of circumstances.

AB 2461 strengthens accountability by clarifying that even in the case of these all stock transactions or corporate restructuring, existing financial requirements already approved by this legislature still apply.

This bill will also strengthen financial assurance by eliminating the carve out for certain higher producing wells. This legislation strengthens California's oil and gas bonding requirements to ensure that companies, not taxpayers, are paying the full cost to properly plugging wells and decommissioning facilities. Speaking in support of the bill today is Victoria Rome, Director of California Government Affairs with the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Pasha Madhavi, Associate Professor and Acting Chair of Political Science at UC Santa Barbara.

I will thank you both both for being here this morning. And if you could limit your comments to two minutes each, that would be appreciated. We have a lot of bills on the agenda today.

Absolutely. Thank you. Good morning, Mister Chair and members. I'm Victoria Rome with NRDC, one of the cosponsors of AB 2461. The state and taxpayers face a projected $21 billion liability, if oil companies don't meet their obligations to clean up their oil wells.

Assemblymember Wendy Carrillo from 2023, AB 1167, sought to address that risk, which is heightened when wells are transferred from one owner to another. That law was written to apply to acquiring the right to operate a well by any means, including, and I quote, "By purchase, transfer, assignment, conveyance, exchange, or other disposition." The long standing definition of the right to operate a well is equally broad and includes anyone who has the right to control a well or production facility.

In NRDC's view, CalGEM should have applied AB 1167 to the CRC era, acquisition, and their failure to do so is putting California's taxpayers and communities at real risk. Following a similar merger with Berry, CRC now owns nearly half of the idle wells in California.

As a result, there is very limited financial assurance for the well closure liability that CRC now holds. AB 2461 is an important clarification to that original law. We urge your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Next speaker, go ahead.

Good morning, Mister Chair. My name is Paasha Mahdavi. I'm an Associate Professor of Energy Politics at UC Santa Barbara. My research for the past twenty years has focused on oil and gas policy, including as an adviser for oil producing governments here in California and around the world. I'm here today to testify in support of AB 2461.

The cleanup of oil wells that are no longer producing is a critical issue here in California, where over 30,000 oil and gas wells sit idle, and roughly 18,000 of the 54,000 active wells are marginal producers, those that extract 15 or fewer barrels per day. That will soon require remediation. Time and time again, companies have transferred these unproductive assets to operators that lack the financial capacity to cover a well's end of life cleanup cost.

Research has shown that greater accountability for well cleanup provides clear benefits for communities across the state, improved air and water quality, increased property values, improved agricultural productivity, not to mention the sizable climate benefits of remediation. But how to pay for cleanup?

So far, the answer has been the taxpayer. My own research finds overwhelming bipartisan public support for companies, not the state, to increasingly foot the bill. 68.9% of residents in oil producing communities in Kern County, LA County, and Ventura County say that oil and gas companies should pay the costs of well plugging and restoration. 2461 strengthens requirements on well decommissioning to ensure full financial assurance from oil companies when transferring ownership.

And in general, this bill imposes the same level of accountability on the oil industry that every other industry from chemical manufacturers to steel mills to cell tower operators must face.

When your asset is no longer generating value, you clean up after your mess. You cannot just pawn it off to someone else who can't afford the cleanup costs. I respectfully ask for the committee for your aye vote on 2461.

And thank you both of you for adhering to the two minute rule. That's awesome. You're able to get all your testimony in under two minutes. A good rule for others to follow. At this time, we'll take people that would like to support this measure come up to the microphone. State your name. Yeah. Turn turn around, Mister Hart. You can see how close it was to you not presenting first.

Good morning. Christina Scaringe for the Center for Biological Diversity, proud cosponsor. I'm also registering support for the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment, Union of Concerned Scientists, Food and Water Watch, Clean Water Action, Consumer Watchdog, Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, Baykeeper San Francisco Bay, and I don't know if Mitch is here, California Federation of Teachers. Thanks.

Good morning. Katie Valenzuela, on behalf of Communities for a Better Environment, and support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. I'm a little shorter. My name is Marsha Lieberson from Walnut Creek. The organization said support 2461 and therefore oppose AB 2716, are 350 Bay Area Action, Protect Monterey County, 350 Humboldt County, 350 San Diego, 350 South Bay, covers Los Angeles, 350 Southland, Ventura County in Riverside, and Legislative Alliance, and lastly, Climate Health Now.

Thank you.

Good morning. Josefina Barrantes in support from EPIC: Environmental Protection Information Center.

Hi, everyone. Mercedes Macias, Sierra Club California and Center for Biological Diversity, in support.

Good morning, Mister Vice Chair, members. Mark Fenstermaker for Earthjustice, in support.

Vanessa Flores, on behalf of Clean and Healthy California, in support.

Good morning, Vice Chair and members. Marissa Hagerman, Trattenprice Price Consulting, registering support for California Environmental Voters. Thank you.

Good morning. Doctor Ruth McDonald with Climate Action California, Volunteer, in support. Thank you.

Jim Lindburg, Friends Committee on Legislation of California, in support.

Environment California, strong support.

Leo Dale, on behalf of the Climate Center, in strong support.

Graham Lewell, 350.org, strong support.

Good morning. Karen Lang, on behalf of the City of Goleta, in support.

Alright. Anybody else? Going once, twice, sold. Alright. At this time, do we have any, speakers in opposition to this as as lead opposition witness?

I'm gonna be neutral, if we can testify on on that regard, if you don't mind.

Okay. Did you wanna be lead neutral?

Yeah. I'll be lead neutral. I can standing is fine. Thank you. My name is Ben Turner.

I represent Signal Hill Petroleum. I work for Axiom Advisors. We are to quote Daniel Barad from the Union of Concerned Scientists in the SB 237 dialogue last year, "We are aggressively neutral to this bill." When the Governor signed AB 1167, he noted that there could be significant unintended consequences that could result in increased risk of desertion due to the bonding restrictions in this bill, as reflected in the committee analysis.

There have been a significant reduction in transfers that reflect a freeze in assets, for oil and gas, operators that have reduced the value of their business properties, reduced access to capital and, in fact, increased the risk of desertion.

This bill, however, it consistent with, you know, actually a bunch of members from Santa Barbara, AB 1960 by Nava, AB 2729 by, Das Williams, AB 1057 from Limon, and AB 1866 by Assemblymember Hart. It's a long chain of bills that have strengthened bonding and transfer requirements to reduce the risk of idle wells. So, this bill in conjunction with AB 2716, which you'll hear later today, will tighten the bonding requirements for transfers.

It will close the corporate loophole that was left by AB 1167 and combined with the two, AB 2716, will provide a feasible compliance pathway that will unfreeze the market and enable operators to consolidate in this difficult regulatory environment and reduce the risk of desertion. So, thank you.

That almost sounded like the third person for the proponents. I'm grateful. I got tricked. Anyway alright.

Is there anybody that is a lead opposition for this issue? If not, anybody who would like to come up and express their opposition for this bill? If not, we'll bring it back to the dais. Senator Laird.

Thank you, Mister Chair. I floor managed 1167, and and it was hard. I think we got it out of the Senate with the exact number of votes. And yet, it made a clear statement and I think what this bill does is at least address one unintended consequence that came from that bill and tightens up a loophole.

I am disappointed that it is linked with the other bill because I might have some problems with the other bill when it comes by and yet I don't want this bill to suffer because I think this bill is the right direction.

And it really, the statement that was made by the legislature and the Governor when that bill was passed and signed is that people have to take responsibility and obligations. We have, at some point, I don't know where it is now, but when I sort of had oil and gas in my portfolio, there were an unbelievable number of orphan wells with regard to the bonding requirement.

And if we don't surround the extraction with that, then it's the taxpayers that are the bonder, and that was really trying to get to a point that there was responsibility. So, am I wrong or did a quorum just walk in?

I would pause if you wanna call the role for a quorum.

We would love to do that. Can we establish a quorum?

Thank you. [Roll Call].

And so, at the appropriate time, I'm happy to move this bill. Thanks to the author for bringing - I'm sorry. I was in a - I don't see anybody else here. I was in a thirteen and a half hour hearing that ended I got home after 11:00 last night, and it started at 09:30. So, I'm still trying to figure out where I am.

You're in the right place at the right time.

Thank you.

Hopefully, this won't go thirteen and a half hours today.

Well, the thing that happened that you just got around is when we started at 09:30, I said, I predict we have a quorum at 04:00, and we got the quorum at 03:51. So, thank God we're quorumed up here. I'll be ready to move the bill at the appropriate time.

Okay. Vice Chair.

Alright. Thank you very much. So, you know, the the cleanup of these orphan wells and and wells that are not producing is a is a big deal. And I think our goal is and has been to how do we get these cleaned up so they can, you know, we can move on to other uses for that land and and do it in an efficient and and effective way.

And I think the speaker that came up that was was semi-neutral, pointed out one of the issues is when we pass legislation, we have these unintended consequences that wind up pushing us in a different direction than what we wanted to go in.

In other words, slowing down the process. With this particular solution, how does that not slow it down even more? Because if I'm one of these corporates that could take over the well and handle it appropriately, but we have these additional costs for the corporation and and what's their incentive to do that? And so these wells wind up staying with with the with the people that have no means to do that. They don't have a buyer, and they just wind up being abandoned wells.

And and when there's abandoned wells, we're the ones that get to to be on the hook anyway.

So, how do we how do we balance that out with trying to incentivize the market so it goes to the people that can actually remediate wells the correct way versus freezing that market out. Because I think the initial foray into this resulted in a slowdown of that those transfers. And that's my concern about it is; okay, is this not going to do the same thing on a bigger scale? Are we gonna create more disincentive to take those over? Or what's gonna happen here?

Well, I'll start with the 40,000 foot answer and then perhaps, Professor Mahdavi can answer more. The problem the the reality is that the obligation financially remains with the company that has the oil wells and that doesn't this, doesn't change that. There is an allegation that there are more orphan wells as a result of the situation now. The data is inconclusive about that. In fact, it may indicate the opposite.

There are people who are making the point that there are fewer transfers. That may be the case. I think that indicates that there's a problem. And the point of the bill is to very clearly say, if you cause a problem, it's your responsibility to clean it up. And so, that fundamentally is the purpose of the bill.

It was the purpose of the previous bill, and it's important to maintain that principle and to and to make clear that that's the law in California. If you make a mess, you're gonna be responsible for it. Right.

Okay. I would just concur with that assessment, Mister Chair, that, you know, it it there are indeed fewer transfers. The data does show that, but it has not increased the number of orphaning of wells. And I think applying these kinds of standards does prevent orphaning to begin with and ensures that the proper companies are getting, these wells that can in fact pay for remediation and restoration, which is the other key piece to make that land more productive again.

Alright. Thank you. And now there's two speakers that would have been ahead of you. So, it's your lucky day, sir.

Senator Cabaldon?

Thank you. I'm supportive of, actually, both bills for some of the reasons that the neutral witness mentioned and also because I want this bill to become law. And so I'm intending to vote for it.

I'm gonna be contingent on making sure that we advance the other bill, as well without a sunset in it so that we're keeping faith with that agreement, mostly because I think we need both paths, but also because this path is the more important one to me and I want to make sure that we're doing everything that we can to assure that it is successful in both making it to the governor and getting signed. So, thank you for sticking on this issue.

I represent the Brentwood Oil And Gas field, which is the largest one, the farthest north substantial oil field in the state, and we've had all these problems in every way possible, including ownership issues and transfers and transfers that should have happened.

And so, we definitely need strong action in every pathway that we can to accomplish the transition and also to protect the taxpayers from footing the bill for irresponsible practices that been part of our legacy. So, thanks, Mister Chair.

Thank you. I'd like to thank you the author for your leadership on this issue and making effort to follow-up to address known concerns with the existing law. The oil field issue in our state, like other states, is a potential billion dollar issue for state taxpayers. We have to ensure that we take every step to protect our state taxpayers from paying for the oil industry to clean up after a cell phone industry should do so. I am an aye vote with today's amendments.

And with that, please, however will you close close?

I'll just respectfully ask for an aye vote. Thank you.

Excellent. Okay. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call].

Wait. So we it should do we have a motion? Motion from Senator Laird? Okay.

The motion is do passed as amended to Appropriation. [Roll Call].

3-1; that bill is on call. Your others are on consent. Have a good rest of your day. Okay. We're gonna go in a follow order. We do seem to have Assemblymember Ramos.

And Mister Chair? While - Mister Chair, while Mister Ramos is moving to the seat, I would move the 10 items on the consent agenda.

Excellent. We have a motion on the consent calendar. Can you please call, let's please call the roll on the consent calendar.

[Roll Call].

Alright. 4-0 on the consent counter. That'll stay on call. Excellent. Senator Ramos, thank you for being here.

Go ahead when ready.

Well, thank you, so much, Mister Chair and, and Senators. I want to begin by accepting the committee amendments and and thank the committee for working with us, through this important issue. AB53 authorizes the Wildlife Conservation Board to provide tribes with access to grants and loans through the California riparian habitat conservation program and the inland wetlands conservation program. The bill also declares a legislature's intent to create a process that would facilitate the return of ancestral lands to federally recognized tribes.

California has made a clear commitment to rebuilding its relationship with tribal nations.

When the governor issued a formal apology for the state's historic harms and launched the Truth in Healing Council, he emphasized that tribal partnerships must be central to how we protect and manage our natural resources. Tribes have been stewards of these lands for centuries from time immemorial, long before California was a state, yet administrative barriers have too often prevented tribes from participating fully in conservation projects.

There are also those who question whether tribes have the capacity to share this responsibility and fully participate in such habitat restoration programs. Tribes already operate fishery programs, lead forest restoration efforts, and collaborate with the state through co management and co governance agreements to protect ecosystems across California. What tribes lack is not capacity.

It is access, access to the lands that have historically been cared for by California's first people. That is why AB53 focuses on removing those barriers and creating a path for tribes to engage in the conservation work offered through these programs. Additionally, this bill will also be seeking to facilitate land return to tribes, an issue that has long been plagued by administrative barriers.

In order for tribes to truly become partners in the state's efforts, we must ensure tribes have a direct pathway to restore and be stewards of the lands that they call their own. AB53 is about letting tribes continue to care for the lands that they have protected for generations, leveraging traditional knowledge traditional knowledge now that is being welcomed by the state of California.

Although committee amendments strike out current language on the land return, we appreciate the willingness to continue to work together on these issues to continue moving forward. Joining me today to speak on the importance of this bill is council member Scott Quinn from the Karuk tribal government and Melody Meyer, conservation attorney for the Environmental Protection Information Center.

Welcome, both of you. You each have two minutes. Go ahead.

Alright. Councilor. Hey, Keith. Good morning. My name is Scott Quinn, and I serve on the Karuk Tribal Council, and we're proud to sponsor AB53.

The Karuk tribe is one of the largest federally recognized tribes in California with ancestral homelands extending throughout the Klamath River Basin. Since time immemorial, Karuk people have stewarded the forests, rivers, fish, and wildlife of our Aboriginal territory through cultural practices and traditional ecological knowledge that sustain both ecological and cultural health. Stewardship is not a new concept for tribes. It is a responsibility we have carried for thousands of years.

AB53 recognizes the important roles that tribes continue to play in conservation and resource stewardship and provides meaningful opportunities for tribes to participate more fully in California's conservation programs.

And I understand that there's been been some questions about whether transferring conservation lands could somehow weaken the protections that already exist on those properties, and I wanna be clear that that's not what we're seeking here. We support maintaining the conservation purposes of these lands if existing conservation easements, mitigation requirements, grant conditions, or other legal restrictions apply to a property. We are prepared to honor those obligations. Our goal is not to remove protections.

It is to bring our knowledge and stewardship practices and our long term commitment to caring for these landscapes.

Research consistently reflects that we know to be true that indigenous people are the best stewards of biodiversity lands and waters. In fact, a recent systematic review by the University of British Columbia documented that indigenous managed lands equal to or outperform government designated protected areas in preserving forest cover, mitigating wildfire risks, and sustaining animal and plant populations. The Karuk tribe has demonstrated what tribal stewardship can accomplish. The Karuk tribe has long been a leader in advocating cultural fire and ecosystem restoration throughout the Klamath Basin and beyond.

Traditional indigenous burning and other stewardship practices reduce hazardous fuel accumulations, promote habitat diversity, improve forest health, and increase resilience to climate change and severe wildfire.

Those efforts benefit everyone, not just tribal communities, but all Californians. California faces enormous conservation challenges, catastrophic wildfire, biodiversity loss, and declining salmon populations. We need every capable partner at the table. Tribes have the experience, the commitment, and the deep connection to these lands to help meet those challenges.

And you're wrapping up. Can we please just

AB53 partnership, recognizes tribes as trusted conservation partners and provides additional tools to help us fulfill the shared responsibility to protect California's natural heritage. On behalf of the Karuk tribe, I respectfully ask for your a vote on AB53.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Good morning, Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Melodie Meyer. I'm the conservation attorney for the Environmental Protection Information Center. We're a North Information Center. We're a North Coast environmental nonprofit engaged in the conservation advocacy since 1977, and we are proud to support AB53 and thank Assembly member Ramos for his leadership.

As an environmental nonprofit, EPIC fiercely advocates for the conservation benefits of tribal stewardship in all its forms. We need not relitigate those benefits here as the California Natural Resources Agency has already recognized tribal stewardship as an official pathway to conserving 30% of California's lands and waters by 2030, and has set a goal of bringing 7,500,000 acres of land under tribal stewardship.

EPIC regularly seeks partnerships, with tribes on conservation and land protection efforts, and we champion land back initiatives precisely because we understand the huge benefits that tribal stewardship has on conservation. The state of California perpetuated genocide against its indigenous peoples carried out by formal policies and laws, including forced removal. The genocidal effort ultimately failed, but the harm, in particular, severed connection to land continues to reverberate across generations.

Tribal nations are sovereigns, but that sovereignty remains unrealized because there are so many barriers that prevent California from returning what was taken. Removing those barriers is the only meaningful way to account for that loss.

I ask you to sit with the humility that it takes for tribal nations to compromise at all, to accept restrictions and caveats on their own sovereignty, And I ask you to acknowledge what an extraordinary insult it is to be told that you cannot be trusted to steward lands by organizations that have directly benefited from stolen land. This bill places tribes on equal footing with non profits and state and local agencies.

For opposition to suggest that tribes would not conserve lands acquired under this bill in perpetuity is both paternalistic and a fundamental misunderstanding of traditional ecological knowledge.

Where federal trust land questions arise, the state has existing pathways set forth in federal law to work with the tribes and Federal Government to ensure that state conservation protection laws are carried over. EPIC is proud to support this bill as an environmental nonprofit, and we respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Do you have others in support? Others who'd like to register their support?

Alex Loomer on behalf of the Emeril Law Foundation in strong support. Thank you.

Charles Wright on behalf of the Yahavia Thomas, Samuel Well Nation, and Santinez of Chumash Indians in support.

Christina Scaringe for the Center for Biological Diversity in support.

Cesar Gonzales with the California Rural Indian Health Board, in support. Thank you.

Buffy Campbell, executive director of the Intertribal Sinking Wilderness Council, in support.

Okay. Anyone in opposition? Do we have anyone in opposition? Please come forward. Is that okay if you yeah.

The mic? Great.

Good morning. My name is Chris Howard. I'm a Del Norte County supervisor, also having worked with fairly recognized tribes for for over thirty years as both an employee and as a wildlife and fisheries biologist. Donar County values the cultural, historical, and governmental relations that California Native American tribes maintain with their ancestral lands. The county has long standing government to government relations with local tribal governments, including the Tallahawadini Nation, Elk Valley Rancheria, and the Yurok Tribe.

I support the portions of AB53 that expand tribal eligibility for grants and loans under the California riparian habitat conservation program. However, two provisions raise concern about long term land management, public accountability, and the ability of local governments and the public to understand and weigh in on decisions affecting lands in their jurisdictions. Many of California's parks, wildlife areas, and other conservation lands were purchased through bond funds approved by voters who wanted these lands protected.

They are held in trust for the public, including the taxpayers who funded them and the communities who rely on them to access nature. I greatly appreciate the committee's work to resolve the major concerns presented in Section four of the bill.

Thank you for these changes. However, a few practical questions remain. What transaction costs and ongoing maintenance costs would transfer involve, and who would bear them?

Thank you for these changes. However, a few practical questions remain. What transaction costs and ongoing maintenance costs would transfer involve, and who would bear them?

What happens to the payment in lieu of taxes, including those currently owed to counties? The bill allows to sell, exchange, and transfer property and fee without requiring a record of easement to preserve the land as wildlife habitat in perpetuity.

Because of tribal sovereignty and federal law, a federally recognized tribe is not like other public or private entities. The bill does not address how the state would retain jurisdiction over the land once it is taken into federal trust, or how contracting with sovereign tribal governments would differ from contracting with other entities. These important questions

to start to wrap up, I gave a Yes. A little extra time.

I respectfully ask the committee to consider amendments before moving the bill forward. A limited waiver of sovereign immunity as a condition of receiving the public lands, continued state environmental enforcement jurisdiction, and resolution to contract disputes in state courts.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair and committee members. My name is Jake Schultz, and I'm here on behalf of the Endangered Habitats League. To begin, I'd like to note that we're an in betweener. While we are not formally opposed to AB 53, EHL would like to express concerns regarding the intent to allow California to transfer some state land own lands to federally recognized tribes.

The Endangered Habitats League is generally very supportive of land return programs and of efforts to include our tribal partners in grants and other conservation activities. In fact, when we initially saw the amendments to this bill, we found no immediate issues. It was during a very recent and more in-depth review of the technical process, pine land transfer, that we identified some potential points of hesitation.

We appreciate the authors and the committee's work in compromising to remove the land transfer language from Section four for now, which may have led to unintended consequences for existing conservation protections, contractual obligations, and state oversight. California spent decades and billions of dollars in bond funds to build a network of protected conservation lands, and we believe the state has a continuing obligation as a public trustee of those resources.

The remaining intent language outlined in the committee analysis signals that a formal transfer process is still in the works. Getting that process right warrants a full and transparent legislative review. We respectfully request that to the extent section four is revisited, the development of the land transfer framework to be taken up next year to allow for appropriate safeguards that honor both the state's conservation obligations and the legitimate interests of our partners. Thank you.

Thank you. Others in opposition?

Good morning, Chair members. Peter Ansell, California Farm Bureau. Like the last witness, we are not formally opposed to the bill. We've submitted a letter of concern that are primarily aligned with the comments, of the previous two witnesses. We understand the importance of the bill.

We appreciate the committee's analysis recognizing our concerns. We wanna take a look and see what's being accepted and what's being proposed to turn into a two year bill, and we'll continue to engage. We've reached out to the author's office, haven't connected with staff, but we'll make that effort again and hopefully continue that conversation as the bill moves.

Okay. Thank you. Great. Taking it back to the committee, Senator Laird.

A few semi connected comments. And the first one is is that I wanna salute the author. He is without peer in the legislature and in the public sector for trying to reverse the injustices that have existed for, time immemorial, and, bill after bill does that.

And we, have worked I know that that it's very interesting because when I negotiated with the North Coast tribes on marine protected areas, I was worried because if a tribe could demonstrate a historic take for subsistence or ceremonial purposes, they could actually go in the conservation zones of marine protected areas and have a take.

And I was worried when that was negotiated because a key to it was you had to demonstrate the historic pattern of of ceremonial purposes or subsistence and was very surprised by the tribes who basically said, we've been waiting for you to ask.

We have this information, and we have had it forever, and we've been waiting to show it to demonstrate what it is. And and so for the 28 tribes that were recognized on the North Coast, they acquired those rights, when it came to marine protected areas, and there have been negotiations about co management and and taking it forward to the next step.

And when I visited the Dixie Fire, which was roughly a million acres in Northeast California, we met with tribal people that showed that some of the pre work they had done had significantly impacted or or worked against the heat of the fire when it was at its its top. So it's demonstrated that the historic practices that you mentioned work and need to be incorporated. We had a bill that was similar, and I've lost track.

I would guess it was about three years ago, and it was Assemblymember Gallagher. And this committee, actually put a requirement on his bill that if there was a conservation easement, the conservation easement transferred in a binding way, along with the land transfer. And I think that's the intent, of the amendments here, and it's not questioning the stewardship or the ability of stewardship.

But if we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money to protect land, then the protection they bought should transfer with the land. And I think the net effect of the amendments is to reinforce that.

And while I get from one of the witnesses that maybe they don't think it's as strong as it should be, I think that's our question between now and when it gets to the governor, is just making sure that we know that the protections are there that would transfer an appropriate way that they would stick. And so I think the amendment that sort of moves in that direction gets us to a very good place.

And and I really appreciate it because it is just in the last few decades, there's developing capacity for the tribes. There's trying to increase assets, and everything isn't always unity when the Klamath Dam removal was going on. A majority of tribes were in favor of that process, but there was one tribe that actually was opposed.

And so I recognized that everything isn't uniform in this. So I think this, bill addresses a long standing injustice. I think the amendments make it work. And at the appropriate time, I would be willing to move the bill. Thank you.

Well, thank you. I wanna thank you too for bringing this bill forward and for all of your work. Earlier in this session, we moved forward a water rights bill that you had championed for many years and take very seriously all these issues that you're bringing forward to right the right the wrongs from the past. And, yeah, so I think in particular, this one is showing that federally recognized tribes are eligible for wildlife conservation board grants and Department of Fish and Wildlife contracts is very important.

We appreciate you taking the amendments and will allow us to continue to work on a faster public process.

I think that's why everyone's interested in a faster public process for land return. It's important that we get that right, albeit, an aye vote on the bill today. Would you like to close?

Well, thank you, so much, chairman and and senators for your comments. And it's true. We've reached a point here in the state of California with the current administration, the governor, with a formal apology that set in in place in motion, opportunities, for California's first people to, start to acquire land but have a stronger voice. It wasn't so long ago that those that were practicing traditional fire burns to maintain, the plants and and livelihood of that were were arrested for arson and and charged.

Now that very practice that was frowned upon where where criminal charges were put towards members that still carry that on on their on their background is now being accepted by natural resources, as a adequate way to preserve the state of California.

I believe that this bill puts in motion that respect for California's first people and also that knowledge that was overlooked that now should be in the policies in the state of California. I ask for your aye vote.

Excellent. We have a motion from Senator Laird. Do you wanna read the motion and call the roll?

File item one, AB 53 Ramos. The motion is do passed as amended to appropriations. Senators Becker? Aye. Becker, aye.

Sarato, Allen, Cabaldon, Grove, Laird Aye. Laird, aye. Stern.

Okay. It's two to zero. We'll keep it on call. Thank you

for your word.

Alright. Assemblymember Rogers, the member of Hadwick go first. Wow. Okay. And they and and they say that they say bipartisanship is dead, but not here in the in the California legislature.

Okay.

Bad that I was here so long. So

Go ahead. You have a B2679. Go ahead when ready. K.

Thank you, Mister Chair and members. I would first like to thank the Chair and the committee staff for working collaboratively on this critical issue. I'm very grateful for your consideration of this bill to address the dangerous situation in Lake Tahoe in my district. Lake Tahoe is a beautiful international destination sitting on the West shore of the lake. Emerald Bay is famous for its brilliant blue green water panoramic vistas and rugged mountain backdrop.

It is widely considered one of the most photographed locations in the world. Every year, millions of travelers from every nation in California visit the Lake Tahoe Basin. Growing visitation and limited roadway capacity have increased safety risks and environmental impacts along with state highways in the Lake Tahoe Basin. State Route 89 is a two lane, 55 miles an hour highway that runs north to south on the West side of lake and provides access to Emerald Bay.

Along this highway, many people park illegally on the highway shoulder under rockfall areas and teetering over ridges.

This results in both shoulders being clogged, pedestrians walking on the highway, crossing the highway, and traffic congestion. A 2025 safety review for the Emerald Bay Corridor documented 759 wrong way drivers and recorded over a forty day period and more than 20,500 pedestrians crossing the highway with no crosswalks or pedestrian facilities. AB 2679 advances a safety framework that addresses these dangerous conditions.

This bill allows the California Department of Transportation to work with Tahoe Regional Plating Agency, the Tahoe Transportation District, and El Dorado Placer Counties to improve parking management and public access improvements, such as developing public parking, transit, pedestrian pathways, trash cans, and restrooms. I accept the Senate Transportation Committee's amendments, which is reflected in the committee's analysis, and the committee amendment clarifies a variety of provisions as intended to address the concerns of the sole opposition on the to the bill.

And I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Today, I am joined by El Dorado County supervisor, Brooke Lane, and Devin Middlebrook representing Tahoe Regional Planning Agency.

Okay. Welcome both of you.

Alright. Good

morning, Chair and members. I represent South Lake Tahoe, the Highway 50 And 89 corridors through Emerald Bay and as far north as Tahoma. As Assembly member Hadwick just stated, this is a very dangerous corridor. In 2024, 15 agencies and partners gathered around one table to tackle the Emerald Bay corridor issues. Caltrans was present, including law enforcement, transit providers, government officials, and several planning agencies.

And the question was simple. Is there a problem at Emerald Bay? And the answer by 45 professionals in the room was yes. Year one was a success. We took a thousand cars off the road, and roughly 5,000 cars off the road, and roughly 5,000 cars off the road.

And practice. Gives Caltrans the authority to partner with local agencies to manage parking, implement traffic calming, and develop the transit connections and pedestrian pathways our recreation areas urgently need. Plus, it pays for itself by authorizing public Plus, it pays for itself by authorizing public parking fees be reinvested back into the project. I urge the committee's support of AB 2679. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, Chair, committee members, and staff. My name is Devin Middlebrook with the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency or TRPA. We were formed through a bi state compact between, California and Nevada in 1969, and TRPA is charged with protecting Lake Tahoe.

We are happy to serve as the sponsor of this bill with Assemblymember Hadwick. AB 2679 was written to help us address the transportation access and environmental challenges at Tahoe. The intent is to create a framework to designate safety zones along our highway corridors and implement actions to reduce dangerous parking and develop better public parking, transit stops, and bicycle and pedestrian infrastructure in the right of way to access Tahoe's public lands. AB 2679 also supports regional consistency.

In 2025, Nevada adopted Nevada Senate Bill 426.

This law created a similar framework on the Nevada side of the lake. We are asking California for legislation to provide consistency, around the region. While aspects of this bill, what this bill proposes are allowed under existing law, AB 2679 addresses the unique aspects of the Tahoe Basin and focus specifically on recreation access to public land and environmental impacts to our lake clarity. We are actively engaged with CalSTA, Caltrans, California State Park staff on the support and legislation.

Thank you for your support in protecting Lake Tahoe for all Californians to enjoy today and for generations to come.

Okay. Thank you. Are there others in support?

Good good morning. Steve Wallach on behalf of the California Tahoe Alliance in support.

Good morning. Noah Bonayan on behalf of Keep Tahoe Blue.

Good morning. Steve Frisch on behalf of Sierra Business Council in support.

Great. Anyone in opposition? Seeing none. Anyone on the Senator Laird?

Yes. Inevitably. I wanna salute you for bringing the bill, and I know after we successfully had the bi state negotiations to update the general plan, we had a working group on transportation from both sides. And it was difficult because they're just different requirements on Nevada and California's side, and it was trying to figure out how to harmonize them and get people out of the cars. And and we had some success, and it was with shuttles and other things that were going on.

And I'm as a former resident of Emerald Bay, I'm sorry Senator Feinstein isn't still alive because she would be making sure this happened without a bill. And so I just wanna salute you for being willing to weigh it in. And there was one issue that that was constantly being grappled with, which is some of the transportation funding is based on the population.

And yet there are few places, Tahoe, Mammoth, Monterey Peninsula, where there's so many more residents at the time of tourism and the formulas the federal formulas now appropriately recognize that, but the state formulas don't totally. So, I think this is really a good direction.

And if Senator Grove doesn't wanna move this bill at the appropriate time, I will.

I'd like to thank the thank you, Mister Chair, and thank the former Chair of Natural Resources for interrupting my, first call when you went that way first. But, anyways, I'd like to thank you for bringing the bill forward. It's a good district bill. And I was just in Tahoe a couple of weeks ago and on that Emerald Corridor and the Emerald Bay Corridor. And the problem is is that you do see people walking down the middle of the streets blocking traffic, cars in very dangerous situations.

And so for you to bring this bill forward and the collaboration and the work you put together to bring all parties to the table and the discussions that were made So it's a very thoughtful bill, and I would move the bill if my good colleague, the former Chair of Natural Resources, would allow me to.

Okay. Well, yeah, I saw the note there was 759 wrong way drivers, including the and the 25,000 plus pedestrians crossing with no crosswalks. Very dangerous as you mentioned. We have a motion from the great center for Bakersfield. Would you like to close?

Yeah. Thank you for considering this bill. I'm gonna come back to you on that formula and fix that in my tenure, hopefully, and just wanna thank you guys for the consideration and ask for an aye vote when appropriate.

Okay. I just do wanna confirm because we are taking amendments from the transportation committee. Amendments that you are accepting.

Yes. And that removed the opposition.

Okay. So we have a a motion from Senator Grove to pass as amended to appropriations. Please call the roll.

Senators Becker?

Aye.

Becker, aye. Sarato? Allen? Cavaldin? Grove?

Aye. Grove, Aye, Laird. Laird, Aye, Stern.

Three d zero. On call. Alright. Now we see Assembly member Rogers proves that chivalry and bipartisanship is is not dead.

I need I need all the karma we can get. Right?

Okay. This is hello there.

You have two bills. You can start with, AB1666.

Yes. So appreciate it, Chair. AB1666, we will be accepting the committee's amendment. As our state further adapts to a changing climate, as well as, the wildfires that we have seen, we need to do something different with our forests, and particularly with the byproduct of managing those forests. The Air Resources Board estimates that there's 14,500,000 dry tons that'll be produced of biomass if we are to achieve those goals.

That's on top of the 10,000,000 that currently exists in other types of industries, such as Vineyards and crops and orchards. AB 1666 would create a biomass innovation hub to focus on non combustible uses for that byproduct, to both better steward our land as well as address some of these threats that we see. With me to talk about the bill are Sam Uden, who's the cofounder of Net Zero California, and Steve Frisch, who's the president of the Sierra Business Council.

Welcome both of you.

Thank you, Chair and members. My name is Sam Uden. I'm with Net Zero California, and we're proud to sponsor AB 1666, which would establish one or more biomass innovation parks and support a sustainable wood waste bioeconomy in the state. California is facing a wood waste crisis where millions of tons of forest and agricultural biomass are being piled and burned or left to decay every year causing significant carbon and air pollution.

In response, the state has established a goal to expand a sustainable bioeconomy that takes this wood waste and converts it by non combustion technologies into low carbon products such as mass timber, clean hydrogen, biomethane, and carbon removal.

This goal is clearly identified in multiple state plans including the AirBoard's 2022 scoping plan, the recent SB 254 report on how to manage wildfire risk and cost, each of the Sierra Nevada, North Coast, Central Valley, and Kern County Jobs First plans, and the recently published California Wildfire Task Force's draft action plan.

ABC six sixty six simply aims to implement the state's existing goals on wood biomass with incentives and targeted reforms, including establishing biomass innovation parks with available Prop four funding, as well as addressing key barriers to project development, including related to feedstock contracting, demand side incentives, and others. The state has really struggled to make progress on wood biomass issues to the point where local governments have considered strategies such as exporting forest slash from the Port Of Stockton to burning coal fired power plants in The UK.

This points to the scale of the problem and the public safety threat that would push communities to even consider this as an option, underscoring the fact that we can't ignore this issue any longer. I wanna thank the Assembly member and this committee for their amendments, and we respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead. Thank you, Chair and members of the committee. My name is Steve Frisch. I'm the president of the Sierra Business Council, and our organization also works as the small business development center for Northeastern California and the economic development district for the Central Sierra Nevada region.

In addition to the environmental reasons to be supporting AB 1666, we wanted to highlight some of the economic rationale behind the bill. By investing in wood waste utilization, innovation parks, we create economic uses for wood waste and reduce the cost of forest and vegetation management treatments by moving waste management from a cost to a profit side of of the ledger on individual projects. This stretches our very limited California wildfire resilience funding further and gives us the ability to treat more acreage.

In addition, we can leverage federal and private matching funds to develop biomass innovation parks. As a matter of fact, the USDA just announced a $115,200,000 in wood utilization loans nationwide.

$62,000,000 of that came to California. We worked on two of those projects developing the loan applications. One, a $25,000,000 loan for a non combustion gasification facility in Calaveras County, and another an $18,500,000 loan for a small diameter timber mill and cross laminated timber manufacturing facility in Eastern Nevada County. These projects unlocked more than $50,000,000 in private capital, in order to advance the projects.

And this represents a great opportunity for California funding to match federal funding to achieve our forest management objectives and to unlock private capital to help achieve our state goals.

Finally, we think this is a great example of how economic development and environmental improvement can work hand in hand in the rural regions of our state to create jobs, to create new industries, and to achieve our forest management goals. We respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Excellent. Right at two minutes. Others in support.

Chair members, John Wenger here on behalf of the RNG Coalition in support.

Mister Chair, members, Paul Yoder in support on behalf of the Placer County Board of Supervisors. Thank you.

Michael Jarrett with The Nature Conservancy in support. Thank you.

Jake Schultz on behalf of East Bay Regional Park District in support. Thank you.

Opposition. Do we have opposition? Opposition no. Seeing none. Take it back to the committee.

Senator Laird. I wanted to address one thing because there was opposition listed in the analysis, and it framed it in a way that I don't think is the the frame of the issue because it basically said it only promotes processes that don't offer climate benefits and and then represented that it was a an array of harms.

And I think that's not the right way to look at it because the issue here is is I know I never understood, during the drought in, early part of the last decade, there are always these precise numbers of the number of trees that had died. At one point, it was something like a 129,000,000 trees. I kept thinking, who knows that?

Who who who can figure that out? But when there are that many dead trees, they are going to deteriorate in place. So there will be bad climate benefits from that deterioration. So the question is is if that's happening either way, can it happen in a way that produces electricity and tries to have more efficient processes that that can capture the electricity with less greenhouse gases going in the air. And so that's why I think this bill is a good direction.

And this is never a standalone issue. I mentioned earlier visiting the Dixie fire, and I can't remember who it was. The Sierra Institute or somebody had done biomass on the edge of Greenville or not far out of there, and they did it where they felt like the the stuff that was given off was the equivalent of a few wood burning stoves as opposed to the traditional large industrial way of burning and releasing things in the atmosphere.

And I know that that's the accompanying challenge is always making sure we are looking for those more efficient processes to deal with biomass, but that's the choice. So I look forward, to supporting the bill.

Well, thank you. Yeah. When I was chairing budget, sub two, and, wildfires are always an issue, there and thought about all the solutions we were working on and and developed my own eight point plan, but one of them was biomass. You have to figure out how to deal with it and that you do so in a innovative way by supporting, innovations in this area. And anecdotally, we hear about, these innovations and coming up with a comprehensive way to support things is really important.

I vote, I recommendation. Would you like to close?

Yeah. I I think just echoing the comments. I think anytime we talk about creating a circular economy that involves natural resources, and this might be a primer for our next bill as a discussion point, There's always going to be concern about whether the tail wags the dog or the dog wags the tail.

And how do you put in sufficient safeguards to make sure that you're both creating that economic incentive to deal with what is a real problem without then making sure that that's driving the natural resources side of the equation and and how we choose when and how to extract these resources. I think that this bill has sufficient safeguards and really strikes that balance, particularly to meet some of the other state's goals, like around wildfire resilience and vegetation management.

With that, I just respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. Motion from Senator Grove is do passed as amended to appropriations. Please call the roll.

Senators Becker?

Aye.

Becker, aye. Sarato, Allen, Cobaltin, Grove, Grove, aye, Laird. Laird, aye, Stern.

You have three zero, and we'll keep that on call. Thank you.

Thank you, witnesses. And we'll have your next bill, AB2494.

Howdy, howdy? How are you? Good. Doing well. Good morning.

Good to see you.

So first and foremost, I wanna just start off by expressing gratitude to Edith for all of the work on the bill. An incredibly thorough analysis, I was joking with my wife last night that the bill had to pass to conserve the trees that we killed in creating the analysis, but it was really well done. And I just really wanna thank you for taking so much time with our team on the bill. Recycle here. So Of course.

You know, there, there's a a quote that I frequently heard when I was first running for office that is oftentimes attributed to our former congressman for the area, Doug Bosco, and that's that everybody on the North Coast loves redwood trees. Some like them vertical, some like them horizontal. And, certainly, my region is not new to discussions about what the proper forest management practices should be of our forests. This bill is very much narrower than some of those discussions that were had.

This bill focuses just on the demonstration state forest system.

There are 14 demonstration state forests in the state. The largest by far, about half of the system, is the Jackson Demonstration State Forest, which is in Mendocino County. And despite such robust discussions and at times violence in our community related to this discussion, the forest laws have not really not caught up over the last eighty years since they were introduced to where California wants to go.

And specifically, when we talk about what we know now related to climate change and biodiversity and wildfire and vegetation management, it's time for us to update those practices. And so that's what this bill does.

It will update our forest practices to better reflect our climate resiliency goals, governor Newsom's 30 by 30 goals. And it also codifies some of the good work that CAL FIRE has been doing in tribal co management and moving in that direction that you had the discussion on your first bill or second bill with, with Assemblymember Ramos about how do we make sure that we are including the folks who have stewarded the land, for a millennia in the discussions about forest management.

To be very clear, this bill does not prevent timber harvest. It just makes sure that the maximum sustained production piece, which is the driving factor in current law, is, not the focus That we utilize our public lands for the other public benefits, recreation, research, carbon sequestration, biodiversity, and there's extraction and taking that happens in accordance with those principles, and will still continue to happen. But will help to rebuild that trust with the public and with the agencies as they do that work.

It's notable that in the analysis, as you're working through the, the support and opposition, I kinda laughed when I saw it just lists over 1,700 people as individuals in support, which I think tells you just how important this is to folks who care about these forests and wanna see these forests not left alone entirely, but actually actively managed in a way that makes our community safer, that makes our our climate better. It could help and assist in things like, stream restoration, fish management as well.

With that, I will turn it over to our witnesses. We have Melody Meyer, who you already met, who's the conservation attorney for the Environmental Protection Information Center. And, Buffy Campbell, who's the executive director for the Intertribal Cinqueote Wilderness Council.

Thank you so much.

Like me to go first? Yeah.

The founder of the Intertribal Cinque Wilderness Council, Priscilla Hunter, once said, our view of sustainable forest is a forest that sustains our culture, our values, and our way of life, not one that is managed in order to cut trees for profit. This bill is a step towards reparations for the removal of native people from our homelands. We know the trees and all the living souls in and around these trees.

And by knowing who we care for and what they need, it's crucial and critical for restoring biodiversity. Successful stewardship means respecting what the land has given to us, and in gratitude, we take only what is gifted.

We are ready to reconnect traditional ecological knowledge to the land using cultural fire, as well as bringing modern forest management to these areas, including regulated harvesting, habitat restoration, and our view of sustainable resource management. With tribal stewardship, the results are wildfire resilience and healthy ecosystems. Both preservation and conservation are essential for protection of the environment. Focusing on preservation at cultural sensitive sites and conservation and other areas will lead the way for healthy forests, which benefits everyone.

We also acknowledge that CAL FIRE has taken steps to include tribes at JDSF.

However, there is no statewide framework that guides how sovereign relationships work at demonstration forests. This bill provides clarity and codifies the state's policies of tribal stewardship, which includes a goal set by the California NRA to tribally steward 7,500,000 acres of California lands and waters. Modernizing state forest is overdue and is going to take time, but AB 2494 is a great start.

Tribal people are already at the forefront of protecting our ancestral lands and waterways, and we are the perfect partners to guide this transition. Thank you all for your support.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members of the Committee. Melodie Meyer, conservation attorney for the Environmental Protection Information Center, and we are proud to sponsor this bill. EPIC is a North Coast environmental nonprofit that has been engaged in protection advocacy of forests since 1977. The movement to change the commercial logging mandate for demonstration state forest has been underway for nearly twenty years. With AB 2494, we are closer than ever to a path forward.

This bill will prioritize public trust values legislature has already adopted, including goals to conserve biodiversity, increase wildfire resilience, store carbon, increase tribal stewardship, and promote outdoor access. The bill will also rejuvenate rural economies by encouraging a shift towards restoration forestry and ecotourism. By allowing CAL FIRE to draw from the timber regulation and forest restoration fund as needed, rather than rely solely on timber sales, we are stabilizing CAL FIRE's capacity to steward these forests.

Some opponents have mischaracterized demonstration forests as a shining example of climate forward forestry that needs no improvement, but the history of public engagement with the largest demonstrations forest tells a different story. Lingering concerns include weakened forest management plans, inadequate tribal engagement, and delayed species recovery.

Meanwhile, a 2023 USGS study documented widespread tree loss across California driven by wildfire and climate stress. Growing older, bigger trees and restoring ecosystems at a landscape scale is the most meaningful path to fighting climate change in our forest. However, this approach isn't achievable under the current commercial logging mandate. While we are aware that some want sustained yield logging to be included in the definition of management, including sustained yield as a management priority would narrow the scope of what can be demonstrated on these forests.

We've also taken many amendments to make sure it is clear that logging is not prohibited on these forests.

In fact, active management is required for under the bill for wildfire resilience and biodiversity conservation. EPIC is proud to support this legislation, and we are deeply grateful for the hard work that this committee has put into the bill. We respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you. Alright. Others in support.

Good morning, Mister Chair, Members. Karen Lang on behalf of the Mendocino and Humboldt County boards of supervisors in support.

Victoria Rome with NRDC in support.

Good morning. Christina Scurridge with the Center for Biological Diversity in strong support.

Morning, Chair and Members. Doug Houston representing California Outdoor Recreation Partnership who are in support.

Ben Friedman, Save the Redwoods League in support.

Josefina Barrantes, giving support on behalf of, with permission, the following organizations: Clean Water Action, Clean Earth for Kids, Environmental Action Committee of West Marin, California Institute for Biodiversity, Council for Biodiversity, Council of Mexican Federations in North America, Forest Working Group of the Grassroots Institute of Mendocino County, and the Friends of Harbors, Beaches, and Parks in support. And on behalf of over 1,700 individual supporters for AB2494.

Thank you. Alex Loomer on behalf of the following entities, Resource Renewal Institute, Trout Unlimited, California Trout, the California Native Plant Society, California Environmental Voters, and the Mendocino Fire Protection District, all in support. Thank you.

This is an essential step that's so well articulated by the three people here before you. I, I fully endorse this as an incredibly first step to make a change in mandate, for Forrest River. Thank you.

Good morning. Ruth McDonald with Climate Action California in support. Thank you.

Mercedes Macias, Sierra Club California in support.

John Bienstrom, private citizen in support of 2494.

Zoe Jonek, on behalf of 350 Bay Area Action in support with thanks for the amendments to explicitly include nonfederally recognized tribes.

Good morning. Jim Lindberg, Friends Committee on Legislation of California in support. Thank you.

Good morning. Leo Dale on behalf of the Climate Center in support.

Hi. Tara Thornton on behalf of Freedom Angels and Protect Tahoe in support.

Okay. Opposition. Do we have a lead opposition?

Here we go.

Chair Becker, Committee and Staff, thank you for this opportunity. I'm Sarah Bisbing. I'm a forest science researcher studying forest resiliency at three of our demonstrate forests. I testify with my opinions and not those of my institution. I'm concerned about the changes that AB2494 makes to the management framework of the demo forests.

I'm also concerned that Jackson targeted legislation will disrupt critical wildfire and climate change mitigation across the state of California. The bill was written for management at Jackson but impacts all 14 forests. The demo forests are not intended to be parks nor protected areas, but instead for conducting long term applied research on adaptive and sustainable management and for testing new techniques to meet diverse forest stewardship objectives. Of the 33,000,000 acres of California forest land, the demo forests are at 85,000 acres.

They are highly impactful at point 2% of the forest land base.

I appreciate the work to modify the bill, but remain concerned about the impact it will have on research. Experimentation on climate mitigation, designed by my lab and others at Berkeley and elsewhere, are being targeted by the bill's sponsors, even though it tests the proposed acceptable forest management detailed in the bill. Experimenting with techniques to maintain forests requires us to cut some trees. Moreover, prioritizing durable on-site carbon storage can conflict with managing for climate resilience. I respectfully offer that public outreach has not been broad based.

Due to a lack of open conversation during the development of this bill, it does not explore the rationale behind research nor the breadth of opinions to meet proposed targets. The language is ambiguous and will impact our ability to inform stewardship. The bill also piles in the loss of federal forest research and funding and further limits our ability to learn in California and beyond. It appears rooted in historical debates rather than reflecting how climate change is impacting forests across California.

I respectfully ask that you not further impede our ability to do good work on the ground in wildfire and climate change mitigation in the forests of California.

Good morning, Chair Becker, Members of the Committee. My name is Matt Dias. I'm the president of Cal Forests. And I wanna first start I agree wholeheartedly that the bill analysis, conducted by staff here was well executed, does a great job of not only outlining the bill, but also some of the concerns. I think CalForce and other members of the coalition that are standing in opposition less amended would like to see to make the bill better.

We agree with several key provisions that are in the bill. Tribal co management on JDSF as well as the other state force across across the demonstration state force system seems like a very rational outcome. Elevation of some of the benefits, public benefits as it relates to recreation, research, and other elements also should be elevated on public lands. But that should not be conducted at the cost of sustainable forestry.

I would like to just state, like, right off the get go, the bills, findings, and declarations clearly state that is the intent of the legislature to recognize that the sustained management of the demonstration state force is a key piece as it relates to the needs of the public for wood products.

And the bill analysis in and of itself states that the that the demonstration state force condition, which is exemplary in nature, has been achieved through sustained management over the course of now seven decades in some cases. So with that said, I think that there needs to be some really modest revisions at this point that would allow folks that are in this opposition state or oppose unless amended to be integrated to the bill that would pull us off very simply.

I have I can address those issues if you like. I will cease there, and I appreciate the consideration on only the committee. And, again, the really well, conducted analysis by staff.

Thank you. Thank you. Others in opposition?

Mister Chair, Members, Paul Yoder on behalf of the counties of Shasta, Placer, Madera, and Tulare all in opposition. I wanna thank the author for meeting personally with our clients. Appreciate that very much. Sequoias in Eastern Tulare County.

Would you need to

I urge a no vote.

Thank you.

Morning, Chair, Members. Peter Ansel, California Farm Bureau. Align our position with CALIFORIS and with Miss Bizbing who did an excellent job explaining the importance of a balanced approach to on-site and removed carbon storage.

Good morning. Staci Heaton with the Rural County Representatives of California representing 40 rural counties statewide. We remain opposed unless amended and aligned with the two lead opposition witnesses. Thank you.

Good morning, Mister Chair, Members. Brian White on behalf of the California Licensed Forces Association, respectfully in opposition.

John Anderson with the Humboldt and Mendocino Redwood companies in opposition.

Alright. We'll take it back to the Committee. Any comments? Senator Laird?

I well, I have some comments, but ask the author to maybe address CalForce said that some additional amendments, like what the nature of the discussions are and whether you think you can address the issues they raised.

No. I, I really appreciate that, Senator. And I think, as you know, we've been very open that we are happy to consider amendments from folks, particularly on the technical aspects of the bill to make sure that we get it right. If we continue to be open to that, we'll be open to that all the way through this process.

The hang up for many of the folks that have wanted to propose amendments is around that question about sustained yield and whether or not that would undermine the overall purpose of the bill, which is to allow for the environmental considerations to drive the priorities within the forests.

And the question about sustainable doesn't mean necessarily sustainable forest, but sustainable economic, interest coming from the, the forest.

We're we're happy to continue to talk to folks, but that's been the big hang up is going back to my previous comment about the tail wagging the dog or the dog wagging the tail, we wanna make sure that you are able to do timber harvest plans that are in accordance with these principles that we've outlined around biodiversity, carbon sequestration, conservation, research, recreation, that it it is not taking trees for the sustainable, to show the sustainability of the economics of it, but rather recognizing that this is public land.

And I will say, one of the, the comments triggered for me, let's talk about the scope of this as well, because the demonstration forests are less than 1% of the total yield that comes from the state in terms of timber.

And we recognize the demonstration aspects of these forests and the importance that that plays, which is why, and I'll I'll quote from the analysis, authorized research on the demonstration state forest that inform forest management strategies, science based decision making, biodiversity, durable on-site carbon storage or sequestration, habitat, water or soil quality, watershed health, tribal stewardship, or other goals that further a healthy and resilient ecosystem, and that timber harvests, in furtherance of research, demonstration of management strategies available to non industrial landowners, and applying proven techniques or testing novel or emerging management approaches is all still allowed in this bill.

So there was a a comment about how this would prevent people from being able to do additional research or to test out new new attempts of forestry. That is not the case.

Well, the if you read some of the opposition letters, it seems that there's a view that this will have substantial impacts outside the demonstration for us. Could you speak to that?

Yeah. I think it gets to that that last part is that there are individual landowners that do benefit substantially from the research techniques or the proven techniques that occur in the Demonstration State Forest. I think that that's what we are trying to recognize here in this piece of the bill. Then you look at the cascading impact of that, which is for many of these communities, they do have an economy that has been based on the extraction of timber.

And you do have small sawmills that are concerned about the impact that they could have if they have some contracts with these timber harvest plants that are coming for the demonstrate force.

We also tried to recognize that by asking Cal Fire to create a local preference program for small or local sawmills in recognition of that concern that folks had as well.

I'm still trying to understand it. I mean, I have this interesting thing where three county supervisors in my home county wrote letters with a position, two in opposition, one in support. And there's a long time sustainable, timber company, Big Creek, and they seem to think they will be affected by this bill. And that's what I'm still trying to understand. How would they be affected?

How would this disadvantage them?

So from my perspective, right now, you have a demonstration state forest system that is maintained off of the sale of timber. So the amount of work that is done in it is leads to the amount of work that can be done in it because that's what sustains it. What we were trying to do is we all agree that a well managed forest is better for California. And so by changing the guiding principles, we can have other goals that are just as important to us.

And in fact, when we first started talking about this, the fact that maximum maximum sustained production was the goal with everything else that's nice to have.

We wanted to elevate those nice to haves to you must have. And we were looking at more funding structures for it to be able to do more types of work. So going back to the funds.

I'm still not sure I'm getting this because let's just say in your district, Mendocino and Humboldt Redwoods, that before the current ownership, they would harvest for three shifts a day in Fort Bragg, and that was clearly way above sustainability. And then they moved to more toward one shift, which is really sustainable. And it's like, how does this bill affect that? I don't understand.

And I was getting to that. So we have a local scientist who did an independent analysis that actually shows that within the principles of this bill, if you have proper funding for projects, you could actually see more board feet, but a better managed forest. More board feet, more work. It actually I think it quoted about 300 additional jobs that could be created in my district alone. If you allow for the continued timber harvest and don't just make it reliant on timber sales to fund that work.

I think we can all agree that the benefits of the forest, outpaced just the production of wood products, that is a important part. But when we talk about conservation and vegetation management, those are things we're spending money on anyway, so we can elevate that.

Am I not, if I'm not I

I may, I may be misunderstanding you, Senator, that I think

what the question Senator Linner is asking is this bill's focused on demonstration for us. We're getting concerned for folks outside the demonstration for us. How and I think

he's trying to figure out what I was Yeah.

I well, I think it the part mentioned about research and techniques is the part that we hear the most about from folks that the demonstration force provide them with demonstrations and techniques, trying new techniques that they can use on other lands. This bill does not apply to private land. This bill does not apply to private timberland or individual owner timberland, just the publicly owned land.

But that's what we hear the con the concern of the drop off from folks in private areas is that the research that is being done or the techniques that are being demonstrated on the public land, informs better management practices for them on the private land. We think that we've captured that

But it does not extend a requirement to them Correct. To do anything on Correct.

Yes. Correct.

Okay. That's what I was trying to get at. It took a while.

Yeah.

But but I was trying to get at that because I think that's their question. And, you know, you have it used to be that that timber companies were just totally into extraction at the maximum level. And now there are those that are more sustainable, and I'm trying to make sure that those that are more sustainable are not impacted in a negative way by this bill.

Yes. And I apologize. I, I was not sure where you're going with that. But as I said at the beginning, this thing

trying to get you to speak to them because they're opposed to what they think your bill does, and you're telling me that's not what your bill does. And so I am trying to get clarity.

I, I appreciate that. And some of them are opposed. You'll notice that some of the largest private timber industry folks are not on this bill because they recognize that this is only the public lands and us saying that the public gets a say in the management of their owned land.

But the sustainable ones Yes. Seem to be opposed, which sort of implies that the sustainable ones are threatened by something in your bill.

I understand it. Yeah.

I know you understand, but you're telling me clearly that's not the case. Right? Okay. Good.

Yes. I appreciate that.

Yes. And then the one last thing is is having the SoCal demonstration forced in my district and close to it, been there a ton of times. I know that only as late as this last weekend, some of the nonprofit people there have submitted amendments to you, and that's really short. That's not anything that you could really do in time for this hearing, but will you continue to work with them?

Yeah. Yeah. As recently as 5PM last night. We we are still, as I said, willing to work with folks, especially on the technical aspects of it. I've been really honest with people about what the intent of the bill is, and that's to change the frameworks that the focus driving the management are these other environmental principles, not the economics.

And so long as we don't undermine that intent with the amendments that are being given, then we are absolutely

You see, I know that there is is a view of the people around the Soquel demonstration force that this bill was really crafted around the Jackson demonstration force, and why are we being dragged into this? I think that is is the reason for some of the local opposition. And so I, I, I just hope that this hearing isn't the end of the conversations, and that will continue to be addressed.

And I know that that it seems like there have been some places where it has been proposed to narrow it to Jackson, but the very committees you're going in front of say, don't do that. Do it statewide.

And yet, some of the other force are reacting in in that way. So when I first heard you were doing this bill, I said you were crazy, just because this has been such a historic issue with such strong opinions. And, and so I'm willing to move it along, but I really want you to address these stakeholders. Because if, in fact, they're not affected, you ought to be able to engage with them in a way that that they move.

And I know that the worst thing in our business is when you take an amendment that says this bill doesn't do what you think it does, and you litter the code with those kind of sections.

You don't wanna do that. And yet at the same time, if it doesn't do what their fears are, there has to be an explicit way to demonstrate that and, and make sure that that they get that your bill isn't gonna get there. Anyway, I, I've driven this into the ground, but I appreciate the exchange.

Well, thank you for taking on a a difficult, issue. The analysis is is rife with references to the high wire act and such, which is fun. But, yeah, I have a lot of faith in the author, and we believe this bill does take even steps towards modernizing the demonstration state forest system to reflect the state's values around biodiversity, public access, and climate change adaptation.

We do encourage you to include our committee on the bill in discussions as the you move forward and appreciate all the collaboration, productive conversations that have happened to get here. Encourage you as discussed with the former natural resources Chair to continue engage with stakeholders going forward.

Do you have an eye recommendation? Would you like to close?

Yeah. No. Just I really I appreciate again all of the work that the committee has done. I appreciate that I am helping to present and argue a bill in front of senators who have been dealing with this issue for decades. And I will just say that this is really a a community driven bill, and I appreciate everybody who has come forward, folks who came up, to testify in Sacramento, folks who continue to offer amendments.

We wanna make sure that we get this right. And we wanna make sure that our forests are actively managed in a way that has multiple benefits for our community and for our state. With that, I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. Do we have a motion? I vote. Alright. We have a motion, Senator Laird.

Due pass to appropriations. Please call the roll.

We we took them as author's amendments.

Yeah. Committee amendments. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So it is the motion is do passed appropriations.

[Roll call]

That's two zero. We'll stay on call. Thank you to your witnesses as well. Thank you, Assemblymember Rogers. Alright.

Assembly member Papan, you have two bills.

Neither of which involve trees. Although I do love the topic. I really do.

Well, always good to have the Chair of Water, parks, and wildlife

Exactly.

From the Assembly in our committee here. So

Well, good morning, Mister Chair. I I'm delighted to be with you to present two bills. I will start with the two two three four, which deals with geothermal. That's the first one, I guess. Wait.

One's file 13 and the other, I don't know what it is. Okay. Alrighty. So, I'm here to present AB 2234. I'd like to first open by thanking the committee and the Chair for, their diligence on this important issue, and I'm happy to accept the committee one of my favorite topics.

So it just modernizes the statutory definition of geothermal exploratory projects to reflect that we have some advanced technologies as it relates to geothermal exploration. So my office has been working diligently with the opposition stakeholders over the last week, and we have reached an agreement on the language that will be acceptable. So the goal of AB 2234 is simple. Let's expand geothermal energy and the definition of these exploratory geothermals so that we can signal to developers California is ready for exploration.

With that, I will turn it over to Kate Brandenburg on behalf of Sonoma Clean Power.

Thank you very much. Thank you. And, before we get started, I'd like to say go team USA. But as Assemblywoman Pappan stated, you know, this modernizes the definition of geothermal exploratory geothermal. And we feel if California is going to meet the climate goals, we need to look at the future and and figure out how are we going to get clean energy while maintaining the system of reliability and that is affordable for rate payers.

So we believe AB 2234 will do just that, and we appreciate all the help that, the consultants have helped with the language. Thank you.

Okay. Governor and you are accepting the committee amendments? Oh, yes. Excellent. Others in support?

Good morning, Chair, backer, and members. John Kendrick on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce in support.

Michael Jarrett with The Nature Conservancy in support. Thank you.

John Winger here on behalf of Coloma in support.

Opposition. Any opposition? Weiner? Shane Levine on behalf of the Northern California Power Agency. Appreciate the author, the sponsors in the committee.

We did resolve our differences. We are removing our opposition and now neutral. Thank you. Appreciate it. Love to hear it.

Love to hear it.

We're gonna move forward.

Alright. Take it back to the committee.

Thank you.

We have a motion. Our clerk is out for the moment. We'll be back very shortly. Hold on a second. We'll take a quick moment here.

We move on to your next bill and then we'll take a motion, shortly. Great. Move on to, two Pleasure of

the Chair. I'm happy to do that.

Yeah. Two five two one.

Yes. So, so this bill is about recharging our ground water, And when we have too much water, how can we make recharging our groundwater happen really fast? And, so part of what you have to do when we have these big deluges of water, right, we don't have as much from our alpine snowpack anymore. We're getting much more water and the ability to recharge through atmospheric rivers and whatnot.

So the point of this bill is is how can we act quickly to get water diverted should we need to, and how do we determine and in order to do that, you need to determine what excess water is.

And it is a very important determination to all those that might have water rights along a particular waterway. So what this bill does is it says the California Council of Science and Technology will be doing watershed wide water availability analyses to make that determination of what is excess water when we have it.

And it's really the bill is about using the best and the brightest that we have here in California to make those determinations and hopefully relieve some of the folks that are applying for permits to take water from a certain location, take some of the burden off them. We held an informational hearing and they all said, you know, they each have to spend for their permit about $2,530,000 dollars to do these assessments to make that quick judgment to get excess water when it comes.

So this is to sort of relieve that burden.

Let's get our best and our brightest, make the determination, and relative to various permit app, applicants, they can use that as a source. They say, well, this excess water determination was made by the best and the brightest, so allow us to take the water when it comes, recharge our our groundwater. And as we all know, recharging groundwater is terribly important, not just because things are sinking, but it's also a way that we can store water should we need it when it comes.

So, the you know, we've got a lot of ambitious goals here as it relates to recharging groundwater, and I think this bill is just one way to make it easier for those folks that are trying to get water and rainwater when it comes.

Yes. And, you'll accept the committee amendments?

I will indeed. Thank you.

And you have a witness?

Just for technical, things we do not.

You have others in support. Others who would like to weigh in in support. Anyone in opposition?

Good morning, Mister Chair. Paul Reeve with Reeve Government Relations on behalf of the Valley Ag Water Coalition, which represents farm water suppliers throughout the San Joaquin Valley. The coalition members appreciate the motivation and the intent of the author on this bill. This is a very challenging part of the law to deal with in real time and real life, But we do have a number of concerns with the bill.

First, there's no requirement in the bill that the State Water Resources Control Board will take notice of the results of the study.

So if we don't require the State Board to to concur with the water supply availability assessment in the study, then then what is the purpose? And the goal of the bill is probably not achieved. Second, the State Water Resources Control has a duty to consider the impact on public trust resources.

This bill only recognizes the water rights and water quality permits that are in in regulations, but as as we all know, the terms and conditions in a water rights permit, some of them approved thirty, forty, even sixty years ago, probably predate a lot of the public trust requirements in the Clean Water Act and then the California Endangered Species Act and and subsequent enactment. So the bill leaves that out.

That could be a concern also that the state board would have. Finally, there's no funding in the bill. There's no funding in the current budget to support the study that this bill would encourage, I suppose, the department to undertake. The author mentioned the 20 to $30,000 that this cost. That's true.

That's but that's just the fee that the state board requires when you make an application. The water supply assessments are costing upwards of $50,000 complete with no guarantee that that expenditure is going to result in even a temporary permit being granted by the board. So, again, applaud the author, like her intent, but we think the bill falls short of that and we'll request a no vote.

Others in opposition? I will take it back to the committee.

None there. All the members? I have a question because it seems like there's this catch 22 when in the opposition, which is on one level, they don't want this to be prescriptive out of the study. On another level, they say, well, we don't support this because it's not prescriptive. And so I'm trying to understand, whether or not this bill is prescriptive.

I mean, if a study comes out of this, are there requirements that people take actions based on the study?

No. They can the purpose of the bill is is that you don't have to go hire your own expert. And the DWR may accept your own expert's output study. They may accept this independent one. There's no guarantee that they're going to accept whomever is submitting a study.

But what we heard was that was an expensive part of the process. So what we were hoping was to get a neutral and then have permittees or people seeking permits to be able to go to that neutral instead of spending their own resources. And and and their own resources on their own study could be looked at with that they may be less objective. We just don't know by DWS.

And excuse me. And the amendment that you took basically says this bill doesn't get in a way of the regulatory authority of one agency. So so it it specifies that in a way that it's clear. Okay.

Basically, we're gonna create a resource that people can tap into to determine that excess water, and it makes us presumably more nimble along the way.

And are you continuing discussions? Do you think there's a chance that that you can move them off of the opposition?

Your guess is as good as mine.

I was gonna say it's I read the facial expressions as ambivalence.

Well, you know, the the purpose of the bill really is to promote neutrality in so many ways. So it's it's difficult to say, here's your neutrality. And by the way, well, we're not comfortable with neutrality. I I don't know if I can help that goal.

It's not unlike the previous bill where the question was is to take amendments that say this bill doesn't do what you think it does, and then you clutter up the the statutes with that. So I take your comments at face value that this provides more information but does not specifically guide the regulatory process.

Fair. Yes.

Okay.

Thank you, Senator. Fair.

With that, I will be recommending I've this is a, obviously, critical issue and getting the best advice you say that we have, the California Council on Science and Technology involved is a wise way to do it. Would you like to close?

Miss Buckley, your question, I vote, and thank you for the discussion.

Okay. We'll first take a motion. Do we have a motion on this bill? No. Senator Laird moves.

So this would be a motion on file 14, do pass as amended to appropriations. Please call the roll.

Senators Becker? Aye. Becker, aye. Searto, Allen, Cabaldon, Grove, Laird? Aye.

Laird, aye. Stern.

That's two to zero on call. Now we'll take a motion. We have a motion from Senator Laird on file item 13, AB 2234. That is also do passes amended to appropriations. Please call the roll.

Senators Becker? Aye. Becker, aye. Searto, Allen, Cabaldon, Grove, senate Laird. Laird, aye, Stern.

Okay. Two to zero. Thank you for the time. Thank you. Okay.

Assemblymember Ellis, you have two bills. Welcome to our committee. Okay. We are you gonna do two four one zero first?

Yes, sir.

Okay. Excellent. Welcome. Ready? Go ahead.

Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Thank you, Mister Chair and senators. I wanna thank the committee for the hard work on this bill, and we'll be taking, committee amendments. It's evident to everyone that just how critical our wildfires are to the state, the issues are with wildfires.

In January 25, California experienced some of the most destructive wildfires in the state history. Fires are now considered among the most costly natural disasters in US history. Recognizing the urgent need, to to reduce wildfire risk, the governor issued an emergency proclamation in March 2025 that suspended CEQA, the Coastal Act, and other regulatory requirements for fuels reduction projects. Since then, over 400 wildfire safety projects have been approved statewide with some projects being approved as little as in thirty days.

While this proclamation has been highly effective, in accelerating critical prevention work, it expired on May 1.

To continue reducing the risk of the next catastrophic wildfire, it's essential that we maintain certainty for this necessary fuels reduction projects. Twenty four ten will exempt fuel reduction projects to remove non native species, 12 inches or less in diameter, or common species, eight inches or less in diameter with very high fire hazard severity zones and higher fire threat districts from CEQA requirements for three years.

This target exemption will help the state tackle extremely flammable species such as junipers in rural parts of the state and eucalyptus in more urban areas that fuel major wildfires. By removing these barriers, AB 2410 will accelerate critical wildfire prevention work, reduce cost and delays for local and state agencies, and better protect our most vulnerable communities from catastrophic wildfires. I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

I don't have anyone. I my witness could not testify today. So respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Okay. Others in support and would like to weigh in in support.

Leila Romero on behalf of the League of California Cities in strong support. Thank you.

Stacy Heaton with the Rural County representatives of California, representing 40 rural counties statewide. My colleague apologizes. He was supposed to be here to testify in support on the bill. But this, bill fills some really important gaps in current CEQA exemptions and include safeguards from the governor's, executive order, and, we support the bill today. Thank you.

Good morning. Caitlin Leventhal with the California State Association of Counties, also in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Opposition. Do we have a lead opposition? We do. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair and member. Jacob Evans with Sierra California here on behalf of over half a million members and supporters in California in opposition to AB 2410. We appreciate the work of the committee and thank the author for accepting amendments to remove the coal stock exemptions that were included in the bill. Sierra Club, California remains opposed due to the CEQA exemption for the specified projects remaining in the bill.

While narrow, the CEQA exemption remaining in the bill still hinges environmental protections for its qualifying projects on compliance with the governor's state environmental protection plan.

The guidelines in Thisblan are weak and largely optional. For example, known sensitive habitat must be avoided but there's no server requirement to identify the habitat. An riparian logging and heavy equipment operations on steep slopes must be avoided once it's quote not feasible to do so, Leaving little protection for the risk these operations can create. The legislature haSBrovided many sequence options for wildfire mitigation projects including those in SB 131 which was passed just last year.

Further attempting fuel reduction projects without having an opportunity to examine the impacts of these newly legislative sequo assumptions could lead to unintended consequences for environment and public health.

Sierra California and our members are eager for action from the state to secure more wildfire resilient future, but remain concerned that a sequo exemption of these projects unnecessarily jeopardizes ecosystems by removing harm mitigation and public engagement requirements. Rear Genova. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Sure.

Hello. Tara Thornton, Freedom Angels. We are opposed and less amendment amended. I'm gonna speak specifically to conventional herbicides. Our request is to remove conventional herbicides from the CEQA exemption.

We are while support in big support of urgent and ongoing prioritization of wildfire and fuels mitigation in our state. We think it's a priority. We think it's wildly partisan, but so is the issue of conventional herbicides, and Californians want less, not more. We are not looking to ban anything with this request. We are just saying if you want to streamline your fuels reduction project, that you have to use every other prescriptive method except for conventional herbicides.

If you want to use conventional herbicides, then stay in the CEQA process that's governed that process and application for years or decades. And we now understand that there is a very clear difference between the existing pesticide regulations that would stay with this bill. That's local, state, and federal pesticide regulations that govern application certification, label use, reporting, and, and things like that. But CEQA is a very different set of issues that are addressed. One, it requires an alternative analysis process.

It gives, public input and public recourse, as well as things like cumulative impact and and site specific review, but our our we feel that this is a very simple amendment to take that meets the needs of, you know, it's dancing, wildfire, and fuels reductions, while also not prioritizing because streamlining is prioritizing and it is a policy choice to incentivize the use of more conventional herbicides as opposed to switching the incentive to saying if you want the fast track bonus, then you get to use every other prescriptive tool.

We think it's a win for everybody. We can meet the intent of the author and what the direction Californians would like to see. And I'm happy to discuss levels of pesticide or herbicide use if that is helpful to anyone. Thanks.

Thank you. We'll take it back to committee. We are on filing 15. Any thoughts from the committee? Senator Laird?

Thank you, Mister Chair. The bill that is in print sort of goes at some work that the Chair has done and Senator Stern has done. And at some point, I would love for you to speak to that. I have you as the owner of something that this affects. I appreciate the amendments with regard to the Coastal Act because I think speaking for myself, but I know that it gets reflected by the committee as well.

We are not thrilled about exemptions to the Coastal Act, and I really appreciate the amendments, taking that out. The one question I sorta had, and I don't know if anybody can answer it, is there were a number of environmental groups in opposition, and I had expected to hear that the amendments would move a few of them to neutral, but nobody stood up and said that. Does anybody know what the whether the amendments have moved some of the opposition to neutral?

I I think it's so opposed.

Okay. And are you still in conversations with the opposition?

Yes. Absolutely. To the person that spoke on herbicides, we're we're more than open to to that. We do know that a lot of areas that you can may try to mechanically remove, but we are certainly open to amendments on this bill.

Okay. I would just encourage you to continue those conversations, and I'll keep looking at that to see if there's progress. Thank you, Mister Chair.

Okay. Yeah. I I appreciate this effort. I know that it's been very important for the administration and our our Chair of our current Chair of natural resources around these projects.

Speaking to this, you know, Senator Stern is the lead on the other bill, and I know he's been having a lot of similar kinds of discussions around this because I know that our, again, our current national resources Chair feels that, our not Chair, the current national resources agency head, believes there's very positive, story here around, safeguards in place, but still streamlining.

And so with that, with your appreciate your commitment here, the amendments. Again, you know, do fill this regulatory gap for fuel reduction projects that are exclusively moving small diameter flammable species with a reporting requirement and a sunset. The legislature can evaluate the success of this exemption and make adjustments as necessary. So we appreciate you taking those investments, amendments and having the discussions going forward. And I think, you know, as I mentioned, Senator Stern is engaged in some some similar discussions as well.

So I know this is all, you know, relatively new, and there being some important discussions, I think, over the break. With that, I'm happy to support the bill. Would you like to close?

Yes. I I I was in natural resources yesterday, last year, and I supported Senator Cern's, commitment and, sure, I'm positive with this bill, and I support him 100%. And this kinda coaligns with that. So, anyway, I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

We let's see. Do we have a motion? Senator Cabaldon moves the bill. A do pass as amended to appropriations. Please call the roll.

Senators Becker. Aye. Becker, aye. Searto. Aye. Allen. Cabaldon. Aye. Cabaldon Aye. Grove. Laird. Laird Aye. Stern.

Three to zero. Let's move on to your second bill, AB 2711.

Okay. So, again, thank you, Mister Chair and members. I wanna thank the committee for working with me on this bill and with accepting the amendments. I am proud to present twenty seven eleven, which is an essential measure that will bring clarity to California's drilling permit process. California is facing a serious energy crisis.

In state production of oil and gas has declined drastically, and the state is now down to six refineries from once operating more than 40. All the while, demand for fuel in the state has remained substantial. As a result, California has dramatically increased dependence on foreign crude supplies. Many of these source countries such as Russia, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Brazil operate under far weaker and nonexistent environmental safety and labor standards for those in as compared to those in California.

This increasing reliance on foreign imports has put the state at a heightened risk of shortages, price spikes, and supply vulnerabilities.

If we want to protect working families from these potential consequences, we must have robust domestic production. Unfortunately, loopholes in the current drilling permit process have allowed approval times for notices of intention to drill balloon from just days to many months or even years. These excessive delays are stifling production at the very moment that we need it the most. AB 27 is a reasonable measure that will restore predictability and efficiency to the permitting process.

The bill will require CalGEM to make a completeness determination of notice of intention within ten working days of the receipt of a notice and provide a list of missing or deficient items if a if a notice is deemed incomplete.

If a notice is deemed complete, CalGEM would be required to approve or deny a notice of intention within thirty working days of date of the determination of the completeness. And in the event of a denial, include a rationale why the notice was denied. This bill, very importantly, does not weaken environmental review whatsoever. This bill is clerical and basically in speeds up the timeline to get a permit issued. Anyway, so it'll restore predictability and efficiency in the permitting process.

With that, I respectfully ask your vote. And here with me to test testify is Ted Cordova with E and B Natural Resources. Go ahead.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair and members. My name is Ted Cordova, and I'm here on behalf of E and B Natural Resources in strong support of AB 22711. First, I'd like to thank Assembly member Stan Ellis for his leadership and for working with stakeholders to advance a bill that brings greater transparency and accountability to California's well permitting process. As the author said, AB 2711 does not reduce environmental protections or limit CalGems authority to conduct thorough technical and safety reviews.

Instead, it promotes a permitting process that is predictable and timely. We appreciate the bill's focus on providing an improved permitting process while maintaining California's rigorous environmental review standards. AB 2711 is a practical step toward a more efficient regulatory process, and we respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Others in support. Should we have others in support?

Sean Wallentine from the California Independent Petroleum Association, in support of the bill. Thank you, sir.

Paul Yoder on behalf of the Kern County Board of Supervisors in strong support. Thanks.

Hello. Jacob Lopez here with Holmes Western Oil Corporation in support.

How about opposition? Do we have opposition lead opposition witness? Yeah. Please come forward. You could sit at the table or

Hello, Chair, Baker and Senate natural resource committee members. I'm Juan Flores. I'm the organizing director for the Center on Race, Poverty, and the Environment. For the past fifteen years, I've had the honor to work alongside Kern County working families to help uplift their voices and concerns around the environmental and health impacts as a result of the oil and gas industry. For many of these families, these impacts are not abstract.

They live next to active oil wells and continue to experience higher rates of asthma, respiratory illnesses, headaches, nosebleeds, and other health concerns associated with prolonged exposures to air pollution from oil and gas operations. Today, I'm here to express my deep concern and opposition to AB 2711.

This bill will expand an automatic approval of a notice of intent to drill if the Department of Conservation's geologic energy management division, the state oil and gas regulator, has not already approved or denied a notice of intent within thirty working days from the date of receipt. This bill is yet another giveaway to the oil industry even as companies are making record profits and price gouging consumers at the pump.

Our communities are at a further disadvantage after the state of California eliminated future environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act for thousands of new wells in Kern County.

What needs to be clarified is that the approvals of a notice of intent to drill are not merely administrative actions, but require consideration of issues such as compliance with setbacks from sensitive receptors, geologic safety, and other environmental impacts. Automatic approvals can can improperly rush this important review process and limit Cal James' discretion over permit decisions, creating risks to public health, safety, and the environment.

We oppose, AB 2711 because its passage would mean that our disadvantaged and pollution burden communities will continue to avert the financial and health cost of the oil and gas industries industry's record profits. In conclusion, it is my it is important to protect Call GM's ability to appropriately review notice of intents in line with its statutory directive to manage oil and gas development so as to prevent, as far as possible, damage to life and health.

Thank you very much. Go ahead.

Good morning, Marie Lu, on behalf of the Central California Environmental Justice Network. We're opposed to to this bill, unfortunately, because we think it's inconsistent with CalGEM's mission, which is to regulate California's oil, gas, and geothermal industries with a focus on public health, safety, and environmental protection. In comparison, we believe this bill is emphasizing SWEED. Even if we believe that, you know, we're trying to focus on timeliness, we're concerned that this bill actually doesn't achieve the doesn't fix the problem, stated.

For example, in Kern County, where we have, where we have had historically problems with delays on environmental review, since the passage of two thirty seven last year, just this year, there has been three hundred three hundred and thirty nine permits NOIs requested in in in Kern County.

95% of them are being approved within thirty days. This is not, Kern County is not unique. As stated in the committee's analysis, last year, there were, a mere 26 n o NOIs, requested. 25 of them were approved. So we're concerned that this bill, even if it's, even if it if this bill passes, it's not actually improving time, for a vast majority of permits.