Both houses of the legislature have now passed emergency drought
legislation (AB 91 and AB 92) that authorizes about $1.1
billion in spending to help California weather the fourth year of
extremely dry weather. The Assembly passed two bills Thursday
night, sending them to the Governor’s desk for his signature.
Governor Brown and the legislative leaders from both houses and
both parties announced the legislation just a week ago.
This week two significant actions were taken by the
Administration and Legislative leaders in response to
California’s on-going and devastating drought. On Tuesday, the
State Water Resources Control Board (Water Board) adopted an
expanded emergency regulation to safeguard the state’s remaining
water supplies. And on Thursday, Governor Brown and legislative
leadership announced $1.1 billion in emergency funding for flood
protection and drought relief.
Next week, the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Resources and
Environmental Protection will hold on oversight hearing on the
state’s cap and trade expenditure plan. As you may recall, the
Governor proposes in his FY 15-16 budget to appropriate $1
billion in Cap and Trade revenues to a variety of different GHG
reducing programs. This represents an approximate $130m increase
from the FY 14-15 expenditure plan.
At their regularly scheduled meeting on March 4, 2015, the Board
of Forestry and Fire Protection held a hearing regarding an
additional 15 Day Notice for the 1270 SRA Fire Safe Regulations.
The Board adopted the regulations with several changes. Changes
made pertained to driveways, ensuring the adequate space
necessary for traffic lane and emergency vehicle clearance. The
Board also adopted an implementation date of January 1,
2016 for this set of rules.
It’s not easy to think about how to deal with flooding when most
of California is focused on managing a drought that appears to be
extending into a fourth year.
If you are interested in obtaining some grant money for water
projects in your area, some new information has just been made
available this week. The California Natural Resources Agency
released a draft schedule of the benchmarks for the first year of
the ten year spending period for Proposition 1, the Water
Quality, Supply, and Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014
(Water Bond).
DWR has released the Final
Guidelines for the Urban Flood Risk Reduction (UFRR)
Program authorized under the Disaster Preparedness and Flood
Prevention Bond Act of 2006 (Proposition 1E). These documents
will guide the selection and funding of UFRR Program projects.
Program funding in the amount of $150 million is available for
this solicitation from the current appropriation of Proposition
1E.
This week a batch of new bills for the 2015 legislative session
were introduced after the swearing-in of State Legislators for
the biennial session. The following is a small sample of the
natural resources/environmental and medical marijuana bills that
were recently introduced and will continue to be monitored by
CSAC as the session gets under way next year. Many more bills
will be introduced up until the Legislature’s bill introduction
deadline of Friday, February 27.
The CSAC Agriculture, Environment & Natural Resources Policy
Committee will meet on November 18th from 9-11am for the
CSAC AENR Policy Committee, which will take place at the
Disneyland Hotel during the CSAC Annual Conference.
Agenda highlights include presentations and discussion on the
following:
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) has announced the formal
release of the final Update 2013 California Water Plan. This
Water Plan is the result of over four years of work and is
available to download on the DWR website. According
to DWR, the 2013 update is designed to work in tandem, and help
implement, the Governor’s Water Action Plan.
CSAC Submits Comments on Waters of the U.S. Proposed Rulemaking
As many counties are aware, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and Army Corps of Engineers (Corp) in April released
a proposed rule regarding the definition of the “waters of the
United States” under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The proposal
would define which waterways are subject to federal regulation by
the two agencies (the Corps, along with State governments,
process permits for work that is performed in the nation’s
waterways, while EPA enforces the nation’s pollution laws).
