BILL ANALYSIS
SB 1350
Page 1
Date of Hearing: June 30, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 1350 (Kehoe) - As Amended: April 19, 2010
Policy Committee: Natural
ResourcesVote:7-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill exempts the State Lands Commission (SLC) from the
requirement to report information on the state's real property,
including potentially surplus property, to the Department of
General Services (DGS). The bill further requires SLC to
provide certain information regarding non-public trust lands and
school trust lands to DGS. Finally, the bill makes findings and
declarations regarding SLC's absolute authority over public
trust lands.
FISCAL EFFECT
Minor savings to SLC resulting from its exemption from the
requirement to report information on the state's real property
to DGS.
COMMENTS
1)Rationale . According to the author, SLC manages millions of
acres of public trust lands, much of which is remote,
hazardous, and subject to change from erosion, tidal movement
and other natural occurrences and that, legally, cannot be
declared surplus. The author contends it is inappropriate and
wasteful to require SLC to provide detailed information on
such land to DGS. This bill removes the requirement that SLC
do so, but requires SLC to report appropriately limited
information on the non-public trust land it manages. In
addition, the author contends public trust land granted by SLC
to local governments for administration in keeping with the
public trust are governed by several common law practices
which are not in statute. The author intends the findings and
SB 1350
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declarations included in this bill to codify those common law
practices.
2)Public Trust Lands, School Lands and Surplus Property . SLC
has jurisdiction over two types of Californian public lands
received by the state from the United States. The first type
of lands are "sovereign" lands, generally tide and submerged
lands and the beds of lakes, streams, and other navigable
waterways held in trust by the state for the benefit of the
people of California. SLC is to manage these public trust
lands to promote the public's interest in water or
water-dependent activities such as commerce, navigation,
fishing, environmental preservation and recreation. The
Legislature may grant administrative authority to manage tide
and submerged lands to local entities, such as cities and
ports. However, the lands remain subject to the public trust
and to the oversight authority of the state through the SLC.
The second type of lands under SLC jurisdiction are "school
lands," which Congress granted to the state upon its entrance
into the union in order to provide support to public
education. Most of the school land has been sold. The land
that remains is remote and isolated. Some of these lands
produce revenue from activities such as mining, with all
proceeds supporting the California State Teacher's Retirement
System.
ABX4 22 (Evans), Chapter 20, Statutes of 2009, required that
certain state agencies report detailed information annually to
DGS about the state's real property. This information
includes the current use and projected future uses of the
property in order to identify potential surplus property that
could be sold. ABX4 22 excluded the Legislature, the
University of California, and the Department of Transportation
from the reporting requirement. SLC notes it already reports
certain information to DGS for nonpublic trust lands including
location, date of acquisition, a description of the
structures, and the location of school lands.
Analysis Prepared by : Jay Dickenson / APPR. / (916) 319-2081