BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
Senator Wieckowski, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: AB 2139
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Author: |Williams |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|-----------+-----------------------+-------------+----------------|
|Version: |6/20/2016 |Hearing |6/29/2016 |
| | |Date: | |
|-----------+-----------------------+-------------+----------------|
|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|Consultant:|Dan Brumbaugh |
| | |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
SUBJECT: Ocean Protection Council: ocean acidification.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1) Establishes the California Ocean Protection Council (OPC) and
the California Ocean Protection Trust Fund (OPTF) through SB
1319 (Burton, Alpert, Chapter 719, Statutes of 2004) to
coordinate, streamline, and improve the effectiveness of the
state's oversight of its ocean resources; designate ocean and
marine ecosystems as a public trust; and promote ocean
protection policies based on sound science. The OPC
administers the OPTF to carry out its duties, and to make
grants or loans to public agencies, non-profits or private
entities for projects that protect and enhance ocean
resources, as specified, including the development of
monitoring and scientific data to improve state efforts to
protect and conserve ocean resources. (Public Resources Code
§35600 et seq.)
This bill:
1) Makes findings and declarations regarding:
a) The West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Science
Panel and its recent findings and recommendations as
outlined in its Executive Summary.
b) The mission of the OPC, to ensure that the state
AB 2139 (Williams) Page 2
of ?
maintains healthy, resilient, and productive ocean and
coastal ecosystems for the benefit of current and future
generations, including addressing ocean acidification
(OA).
2) States that the OPC, subject to the availability of funding,
may develop an ocean acidification and hypoxia (OAH) science
task force.
3) Requires, subject to the availability of funding, that the
OPC take action to address OAH, including:
a) Implementing measures to facilitate climate change
adaptation in the ocean, as specified;
b) Developing, refining, and integrating predictive models
of OAH, as specified;
c) Working with other agencies to coordinate and ensure
that criteria and standards for coastal water health to
address OAH are developed and informed by the best
available science;
d) Developing a comprehensive inventory of OAH-vulnerable
areas in California;
e) Facilitating agreements with other national, regional,
and state governments and private entities to establish
and advance joint priorities for OAH research; and
f) Identifying and defining gaps, as specified, between OA
monitoring efforts and management needs and the actions
necessary to address these gaps.
4) Adopt recommendations annually, as specified, for further
actions that may be taken to address OA.
Background
1) Growth in concerns about ocean ecosystem health. A series of
reports over the last two decades have documented large-scale
declines in the health of the state's ocean and coastal
ecosystems. These include the 1997 Resources Agency report,
California's Ocean Resources: An Agenda for the Future, the
AB 2139 (Williams) Page 3
of ?
2003 Pew Oceans Commission report, America's Living Oceans:
Charting a Course for Sea Change, and the 2004 United States
Commission on Ocean Policy report, An Ocean Blueprint for the
21st Century. These earlier reports were wide-ranging,
synthetic, and influential in that they led to the creation
of the OPC within California.
2) Ocean Protection Council. OPC is tasked with 1) coordinating
activities of ocean-related state agencies to improve the
effectiveness of state efforts to protect ocean resources
within existing fiscal limitations, 2) establishing policies
to coordinate the collection and sharing of scientific data
related to coast and ocean resources between agencies, 3)
identifying and recommending to the Legislature changes in
law, and 4) identifying and recommending changes in federal
law and policy to the Governor and Legislature.
3) Ocean acidification and hypoxia. Scientific and policy
awareness of OA as a serious concern has grown since the
start of the 21st century. OA is caused by a series of
chemical reactions that occur as the surface waters of the
ocean absorb a portion (about a third) of the extra carbon
dioxide (CO2) produced by human activities and emitted into
the atmosphere. These reactions result in seawater that is
more corrosive, with a lower pH ("acidification") and a lower
concentration of dissolved carbonate ions that many marine
organisms on the sea bottom and in the plankton use to grow
their shells and skeletons.
West Coast oyster farms have faced economic losses from the
intake of especially corrosive waters and its impacts on
oyster spat, and have had to modify their operations to try
to cope with this threat. For example, some farms now monitor
ocean chemistry and avoid in-taking seawater during periods
when it is harmful to young shellfish. Others are now
chemically treating batches of seawater in their facilities
to make it more suited to the needs of shellfish, but such
treatments are currently only feasible at the scale of
smaller, closed-system operations.
The threats posed by increasing OA are further compounded by
other dimensions of climate change, such as the
intensification and expansion of low dissolved oxygen - or
hypoxic - zones in the ocean. The run-off of freshwater- and
AB 2139 (Williams) Page 4
of ?
land-based nutrients and organic carbon into the ocean can
spur the generation of these zones. When spread across large
enough areas, low levels of dissolved oxygen can result in
"dead zones" where mass die-offs of fish and shellfish occur.
In the coming decades, the impacts of OA and OAH, which are
already being felt across West Coast systems, are projected
to grow rapidly in intensity and extent.
4)West Coast Ocean Acidification and Hypoxia Science Panel. The
state of scientific knowledge about OAH has grown rapidly in
the last decade, although much remains to be understood. In
October 2013, the OPC asked the California Ocean Science
Trust, in collaboration with counterparts in Oregon, to
establish and coordinate the West Coast Ocean Acidification
and Hypoxia Science Panel. Including scientific experts from
California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, the
panel was charged with summarizing the current state of
knowledge and developing scientific consensus about available
management options. In January 2016, the Senate Natural
Resources and Water Committee convened an Informational
Hearing where OAH panel scientists discussed aspects of the
emerging science of OA. In April 2016, the panel released
documents describing the major findings, ongoing research
priorities, and recommended actions that can nevertheless be
taken by management now.
5)Implications of ocean acidification for California. According
to the report, because of oceanographic circulation dynamics
in the North Pacific, California's coastal ecosystems are
particularly exposed to impacts of OA. And as with other
mitigation and adaptation aspects of carbon emissions, when it
comes to addressing OA, there is a cost to management
inaction. This is because OA impacts, and the difficulties of
addressing them, will only get worse in the foreseeable
future.
Although the changes to ocean carbonate chemistry that
California is experiencing are unavoidably linked to changes
in the concentration of atmospheric CO2 globally, there is a
lag of decades in the linkage between global atmospheric
conditions and our local coastal waters. This is because our
upwelled coastal waters originated as surface waters off of
Japan 30-50 years prior. As the water gets transported,
continuing biological respiration of organic particles
AB 2139 (Williams) Page 5
of ?
releases more CO2, making the water even lower in pH and
carbonate. This water then travels down the west coast of
North America, where, especially along certain parts of the
coastline and under certain seasonal wind conditions, it is
upwelled and spread across the continental shelf. Because of
this transport and enrichment process, the state of ocean
chemistry off of California's coast is 30-50 years behind the
state of the atmosphere. In other words, if rising atmospheric
carbon concentrations were to become instantaneously
stabilized, we would still be "locked into" increasing OA
impacts for another three or more decades.
Although research about possible impacts is still emerging,
there is evidence to suggest that more extreme ocean chemistry
will push ecosystems beyond certain biological thresholds,
such as pH levels and carbonate concentrations that small
young shelled organisms in the plankton and along shores need
to grow and survive.
Comments
1) Purpose of Bill.
According to the author, "many studies point to the harmful
effects of ocean acidification, but the state does not
currently have enough data at its disposal to evaluate the
scope of the problem or make educated policy decisions. Key
strategies to address this deficiency include generating an
inventory of ocean acidification 'hot spots,' developing
predictive models of ocean acidification, and defining gaps
between monitoring efforts and management needs. Up to this
point there has been very little focus on ocean acidification
at the state level, and this measure codifies ocean
acidification as a priority for the Legislature and the Ocean
Protection Council."
2) Current OPC authority and priorities. The OPC appears to have
existing authority to create a task force on ocean
acidification and hypoxia, but explicit statutory direction
may increase the OPC's ability to fund work in this area in
the future. The OPC played a significant role, for example,
in the development of the OAH Science Panel project. Notably,
AB 2139 does not provide highly specific guidance on the
focus of the task force, which appears to be in response to
AB 2139 (Williams) Page 6
of ?
OPC preference to more thoroughly think through the results
from the previous OAH Science Panel before deciding and
undertaking next steps.
The research and coordination OPC actions specified in AB
2139 are also generally in line with existing OPC interests
in the areas of OAH, including how to best fill key
scientific gaps and apply new knowledge to decision making
and resource management. The bill's legislative guidance,
therefore, will likely not substantially change OPC's program
of work but may enhance its ability to fund these actions.
3) Funding? AB 2139 does not appropriate any funds, so
implementing AB 2139 may require new, unspecified funding to
the Ocean Protection Trust Fund. One source of funds may be
those allocated to OPC through The Water Quality, Supply, and
Infrastructure Improvement Act of 2014 (Proposition 1), which
entails $30 million dollars for OPC for "multibenefit water
quality, water supply, and watershed protection and
restoration projects for the watersheds of the state." (PRC
§79731)
4) Technical fixes. A committee amendment is necessary to
clarify provision (b)(1)(F), which should read "In
coordination with relevant federal, state, and academic
entities, identify gaps between the monitoring of ocean
acidification and hypoxia and management needs, and take
actions necessary to address these gaps.
In addition, in provision (b)(2), for inclusivity and
consistency with other usage throughout the proposed code,
the phrase "and hypoxia" should be added to the mention of
"ocean acidification."
Related/Prior Legislation
SB 1363 (Monning) establishes the Ocean Acidification and
Hypoxia Reduction Program within OPC, which would include the
development of a number of demonstration projects, including the
experimental restoration of eelgrass to mitigate the effects of
ocean acidification. SB 1363 is currently in the Assembly
Natural Resources Committee.
Washington SB 5547 (Ranker) creates the Washington Marine
AB 2139 (Williams) Page 7
of ?
Resources Protection Council within the Office of the Governor
to 1) advise the governor on policies relating to the protection
and conservation of ocean resources; 2) coordinate the
implementation of measures to mitigate the impacts of ocean
acidification; and 3) advance the state's ocean and Puget Sound
resources policies in national, regional, and west coast
multistate forums. SB 5547 allows urban governmental services to
be extended for the reduction of acidifying runoff to marine
waters when recommended by the Department of Ecology in
consultation with the Washington Marine Resources Protection
Council as a measure necessary to address the localized impacts
to marine waters of ocean acidification.
DOUBLE REFERRAL:
This measure was heard in Senate Natural Resources and Water
Committee on
June 14, 2016, and passed out of committee with a vote of 7-2.
SOURCE: Author
SUPPORT:
California Coastkeeper Alliance
Center for Biological Diversity
Defenders of Wildlife
Monterey Bay Aquarium
Natural Resources Defense Council
Ocean Conservancy
Oceana
Sierra Club California
Surfrider Foundation
The Nature Conservancy
1 individual academic scientist
OPPOSITION:
None received
-- END --
AB 2139 (Williams) Page 8
of ?