BILL ANALYSIS Ó
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
SB 1148 (Pavley) - Fish and Game Commission: Department of Fish
and Game
Amended: March 29, 2012 Policy Vote: NRW 5-3
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 24, 2012 Consultant: Marie Liu
SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED.
Bill Summary: SB 1148 would grant authorization for the
Department of Fish and Game (DFG) to administer a program for
conservation and mitigation banks, require the Fish and Game
Commission (FGC) to establish base fees for numerous licenses
which are currently set in statute, and explicitly require
trustee agencies to participate in the preparation of the State
Environmental Goals and Policy Report.
Fiscal Impact:
Ongoing costs of $75,000 from the Fish and Game
Preservation Account (special fund) to establish and
maintain conservation bank database from 2013 to 2015. These
costs are expected to be fully offset by fees.
One-time costs of at least $50,000 from the Fish and Game
Preservation Account (special fund) to develop and adopt
regulations for the collection of a fee from conservation
and mitigation bank applicants.
One-time costs of approximately $50,000 from the Fish and
Game Preservation Account (special fund) for outside
consulting needed by the FGC to establish base fees for
specified licenses and stamps.
Background: DFG and FGC both have statutory and constitutional
functions related to the management of the state's wildlife and
protection of habitat, some of which overlap.
For many years, DFG has been hampered by budgetary constraints
that have been driven both by widely variable General Fund
appropriations and an increase in statutory responsibilities.
These budgetary constraints have led to complaints from many of
DFG's stakeholder organizations- hunters, fishermen,
non-consumptive recreational users, conservation groups, and
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regulatory permit applicants.
In response to these complaints, the Legislature passed AB 2376
(Huffman) Chapter 424/2010, 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 the FGC. The final report of the
executive committee, titled the "California Fish and Wildlife
Strategic Vision," was recently released on April 23, 2012.
Proposed Law: This bill makes various changes to the
responsibilities of DFG and the FGC in three areas.
Specifically, this bill would:
1.Authorize DFG to approve conservation and mitigation banks
o Define a "conservation bank" as land that can provide
mitigation for species.
o Define a "mitigation bank" as lands that can be used to
mitigate wetland losses.
o Require DFG to create and maintain information about
mitigation and conservation banks on its website.
o Allow DFG to establish a fee on an entity applying to
DFG to establish a conservation or mitigation bank, in an
amount necessary to pay costs incurred by DFG in providing
program services including review, approval, establishment,
monitoring, and oversight. These fees would be deposited
into a separate unspecified dedicated account within the
Fish and Game Preservation Account.
1.Eliminate statutorily determined base fees for various hunting
and fishing licenses and enhancement stamps and instead direct
the FGC to establish the base fee in an amount sufficient to
recover all reasonable administrative and implementation costs
of the license. The FGC would be required to adjust fees for
any license, stamp, permit, tag, or other entitlement issued
by the FGC for inflation.
2.Explicitly require trustee agencies, as defined by the
California Environmental Quality Act (such as DFG) to be
included in the development of the Office of Planning and
Research's Environmental Goals and Policy Report.
Related Legislation: AB 2402 (Huffman) - intended to be a
companion vehicle to this bill to jointly address
recommendations of the California Fish and Wildlife Strategic
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Vision.
Staff Comments: According to the author, this bill is intended
to be a vehicle to address recommendations of the recently
released California Fish and Wildlife Strategic Vision. While
the three main parts of this bill are not explicitly mentioned
in the Vision, staff finds the bill consistent with the report's
general recommendations.
In regards to the bill's provisions on conservation and
mitigation banks: Conservation and mitigation banking has been
an ongoing activity at DFG for many years. However there is no
explicit statutory authority for DFG to be providing these
banking services. Moreover, DFG has been absorbing the costs of
the services rather than charging any fee, which has resulted in
DFG recently suspending approval of new banks because of funding
issues. This bill would address the authorization and fee issue
(in part) and would also create transparency by requiring
specific information on approved banks to be available on the
DFG website.
While the bill gives DFG explicit fee authority in order to
cover its costs in approving and monitoring banks, the fee only
may apply to new bank applications, which suggests that DFG's
costs for monitoring existing banks and establishing the on-line
database of banks will remain unfunded. Staff recommends that
DFG be allowed to charge a fee on existing banks, not just new
banks. DFG's costs to develop and adopt regulations for the
collection of a fee for conservation and mitigation banks would
also be unfunded as it would need to occur before fees are
collected. Staff estimates that regulation development is likely
to cost $50,000.
DFG has not yet determined the likely cost of developing and
maintaining bank information on its website, however DFG notes
that its current web infrastructure and content management are
antiquated and would require some modernization. Staff notes
that as a reference point, SB 1360 (Kehoe) Chapter 531/2006
required the Resources Agency to establish an easement registry
on its website. The staff of this committee estimated that
one-time costs of approximately $65,000 would be needed to
establish the registry and ongoing costs of $75,000 to maintain
the registry. Recognizing that the easement registry is not an
exact comparison to the database required by this bill, staff
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believes that the registry's costs are a reasonable indicator of
the likely necessary minimum costs. As DFG approves new banks,
fee revenues may cover most of the ongoing costs, however, it
may take several years to raise significant revenues.
Also, it is unclear whether this bill gives DFG flexibility on
how it may best collect fees to pay for the ongoing costs of
monitoring and providing oversight of the banks. DFG could
charge additional money at the time of application or require
that all banks pay an annual fee. Staff recommends that the bill
give DFG the authority to charge both one-time and annual fees.
In regards to the bill's provisions giving the FGC fee setting
authority for certain hunting and fishing licenses and stamps:
Staff finds these provisions consistent with various recent
legislative actions to generally give fee setting authority for
fishing and hunting licenses to the FGC. The FGC would set these
fees in a regulatory process under the Administrative Procedure
Act. While the FGC estimates that the costs for setting this fee
is mostly absorbable since the Commission is already scheduled
for monthly meetings, the FGC believes there is the potential
need to consult out for economic projections for which FGC
currently has no capacity, to ensure the fee is sufficient to
recover all administrative and implantation costs, as required
by the bill. Therefore, staff is estimating possible costs of at
least $50,000 for outside consulting needs.
In regards to the bill's provisions to explicitly require
trustee agency involvement in the preparation of the State
Environmental Goals and Policy Report: A trustee agency is
defined as a state agency with jurisdiction over natural
resources that might be affected by a project subject to
California Environmental Quality Act. The Office of Planning and
Research (OPR) is responsible for preparing and maintain this
report. Staff notes that current law requires "every officer,
agency, department, or instrumentality of state government" to
participate in this process, which already includes trustee
agencies. As such, this bill is not adding a new responsibility
for the trustee agencies, but only restating existing
responsibilities, thus there are no new costs associated with
this provision.
Proposed Author Amendments: Authorize DFG to charge existing
banks a fee for on-going monitoring and oversight.
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