BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó





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          |                                                                 |
          |         SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER         |
          |                   Senator Fran Pavley, Chair                    |
          |                    2011-2012 Regular Session                    |
          |                                                                 |
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          BILL NO: SB 1148                   HEARING DATE: April 10, 2012  

          AUTHOR: Pavley                     URGENCY: No  
          VERSION: March 29, 2012            CONSULTANT: Bill Craven  
          DUAL REFERRAL: No                  FISCAL: Yes  
          SUBJECT: Fish and Game Commission: Department of Fish and Game.  

          
          BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW
          1. The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has numerous statutory 
          functions and the California Fish and Game Commission (FGC) has 
          both statutory and constitutional functions related to 
          management of the state's wildlife and protection of habitat. 
          These two units of government have specific and occasionally 
          overlapping roles. Key provisions relate to hunting and fishing 
          and to limiting catch or take of species, to protect wildlife 
          and its habitat, to conserve endangered and threatened species, 
          to operate hatcheries for various fisheries, to discourage the 
          importation or spread of invasive species, to protect streambeds 
          from harmful activities, and to provide access to lands managed 
          for hunting and fishing and public access, among many other 
          responsibilities. DFG also has a responsibility under CEQA to 
          provide comments on proposed actions that require permits from 
          other agencies that have been determined to affect any of the 
          statutory responsibilities assigned to DFG. 

          For many years, DFG has been hampered by budgetary constraints 
          which were driven both by widely variable General Fund 
          appropriations (in some years partially offset by bond funds) 
          but also by an increase in statutory responsibilities. For 
          example, DFG's General Fund appropriations in the past ten years 
          included 4 years when it received approximately $35 million, one 
          year when it received about $50 million, one year when it 
          received $115 million, and two years in the low $80 million 
          range. The last two years have seen General Fund appropriations 
          in the low to mid-$60 million range. 

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          For decades, various stakeholder organizations (who include 
          hunters, sport and commercial fishers, recreational users of DFG 
          lands, regulatory permit applicants, and conservation advocates) 
           have struggled with the appropriate funding  mix for the 
          department and the appropriate allocation of the workload to the 
          department. Hunting and fishing groups are concerned that their 
          license fees are not spent on providing greater access to fish 
          or prey. Conservation groups worry that not enough effort is 
          spent on scientific research, field work, or activities to 
          conserve important natural habitats. They are also concerned 
          that some decisions reflect political and not scientific 
          priorities. Permit applicants (such as developers, farmers and 
          ranchers, and renewable energy companies) are concerned that, in 
          their view, permit decisions are sometimes too slow or that the 
          required mitigation is sometimes too much. 

          These alleged shortcomings have been reviewed time and again by 
          various expert panels, blue ribbon commissions, task forces, 
          audits, reports from the Legislative Analyst, and others. From 
          time to time there is an infusion of money or an internal 
          reorganization of the department, but all would perhaps agree 
          that the right combination of reforms that would really help the 
          department with its mission has not yet occurred. 

          Last year, Assembly Member Huffman authored AB 2376 which 
          required the Natural Resources Agency to appoint an executive 
          committee, a blue ribbon commission and a broad-based 
          stakeholder group to consider improvements to DFG and FGC. That 
          effort took hundreds of hours of donated stakeholder time and 
          staff time and has resulted in several dozen recommendations 
          that are awaiting final approval. The final report of the 
          executive committee will be available later this year. SB 1148 
          and AB 2402 (Huffman) have been introduced to be the main 
          vehicles for considering many of the AB 2376 recommendations, 
          although many other legislators have introduced bills as well. 

          2. DFG is required to index for inflation many of the fees for 
          which it has responsibility, although FGC is not. 

          3. The Environmental Goals and Policy Report (EGPR) is 
          theoretically required every four years, although that never 
          happens. (Only two have been issued.) The EGPR is an overview of 
          state growth and development and a statement of approved state 
          environmental goals and objectives, including those directed to 
          land use, population growth and distribution, the conservation 
          of natural resources and air and water quality. It also 
          describes actions required to implement the state's 
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          environmental goals.

          4. DFG is authorized to participate in a wetlands mitigation 
          banking program in Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley. 

          PROPOSED LAW
          This bill would: 

          1. Require FGC to index for inflation the fees that it sets. 
          Like DFG, this would be required to occur at least every five 
          years. 

          2. The fees established in statute for lifetime sportsmen's 
          licenses would be deleted and the amount of such a fee would be 
          set by FGC and indexed for inflation thereafter. The amount of 
          the fee would be set by FGC to recover the reasonable 
          administrative and implementation costs of DFG and FGC. 

          3. The fees for hunting licenses now set in statute would be 
          deleted and set by the commission to recover the costs and 
          indexed for inflation. 

          4. The fees for sportfishing in the ocean where an ocean 
          enhancement stamp is required would be deleted from the statute 
          and established by the commission and indexed for inflation. 

          5. The fees for sportfishing licenses now set in statute would 
          be deleted and set by the commission to recover the costs and 
          indexed for inflation.

          6. Require that when the Office of Planning and Research 
          develops its Environmental Goals and Policy Report as required 
          by Section 65042 of the Government Code, that trustee agencies 
          with specific responsibilities to resource protection such as 
          DFG be included in that effort. 

          7. The bill would make several changes concerning conservation 
          and mitigation banks, entities established by private firms to 
          offer mitigation to project proponents for projects requiring 
          permits from DFG. Conservation banks are generally understood to 
          provide mitigation for species, while mitigation banks are 
          generally understood to provide mitigation for wetlands losses. 

          Although mitigation and conservation banking has been an ongoing 
          activity at DFG for many years, its policy was established by a 
          former Resources Agency secretary and not by the legislature. 
          This bill would define mitigation banks, authorize DFG to 
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          recover its costs, and require some accountability and 
          transparency by asking the department (or another website) to 
          provide information about the number of credits available from a 
          bank, the remaining credits available, and other similar 
          information. 

          Coincidentally, DFG has recently suspended approving new 
          mitigation banks because of funding issues. The new fee 
          provision in this bill may help rectify that situation. 

          ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT
          1. According to the author, deleting fees from statute and 
          allowing the commission to establish them will place fee-making 
          authority with an agency with the greatest expertise and 
          knowledge of appropriate fees for hunting and fishing 
          activities. Also, there is no reason for this fee-setting to be 
          done by the Legislature. 

          2. Directing specific involvement of DFG in the Environmental 
          Goals and Policy Report was a recommendation of the stakeholder 
          advisory group. It makes sense to include DFG in this report in 
          order to include the best information about resource protection 
          activities undertaken across the state. Of course, the author 
          acknowledges that this depends on an administration willing to 
          complete this report in a timely fashion. 

          3. The mitigation banking provisions are designed to ratify 
          DFG's existing practices and to add provisions for 
          accountability and transparency. 

          The Nature Conservancy supports the bill both because of the fee 
          provisions and because of the importance of mitigation banking 
          in the Delta and elsewhere. 

          Defenders of Wildlife is in support of the conservation and 
          mitigation banking provision. 

          ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION
          None received

          COMMENTS 
          The author may further amend the bill following the release of 
          the final recommendations of the executive committee established 
          in AB 2376 (Huffman) in 2010. The Committee reserves the right 
          to consider those amendments assuming the bill returns to the 
          Senate for concurrence. 

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          SUPPORT
          The Nature Conservancy
          Defenders of Wildlife 

          OPPOSITION
          None Received








































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