Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 156

Introduced by Senator Berryhill

(Principal coauthor: Senator Nielsen)

(Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Cooley)

(Coauthors: Senators Anderson, Bates, Gaines, Hall, Hertzberg, Leno, Monning, Nguyen, and Pavley)

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Gordon, Hadley, Kim, Mathis, and Olsen)

June 20, 2016

Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 156—Relative to the California Conservation Corps.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SCR 156, as introduced, Berryhill. California Conservation Corps: 40th Anniversary.

This measure would recognize the contributions of the California Conservation Corps on the 40th anniversary of its creation.

Fiscal committee: no.

WHEREAS, The California Conservation Corps (CCC) was
created through legislation signed by Governor Edmund G. Brown
Jr. on July 7, 1976, and has grown over 40 years from small
beginnings to the oldest and largest state conservation corps
program in the nation; and

WHEREAS, In the six years after its inception, the CCC opened
21 centers, coined the motto “hard work, low pay, and miserable
conditions,” and garnered national and international attention for
its work; and

WHEREAS, With the elimination of its “sunset clause” in 1983,
the CCC became a permanent state department and then
consolidated various centers, added several dozen nonresidential
satellite facilities, and created the California Conservation Corps
Foundation; and

WHEREAS, In 1992 the focus of the corps’ director was to
make the CCC “bigger and better” through an entrepreneurial
approach and to promote corpsmember development through
education, emergency response, and conservation work; and

WHEREAS, Throughout its history, the CCC has established
more than two dozen centers and sites throughout the state, in
urban, rural, and suburban locations, has hired approximately 3,000
people each year from all over the state to reflect the diversity of
California, and is now the only state program with year-round
residential centers; and

WHEREAS, As a cost-effective labor force working for more
than 250 local, state, and federal agencies, with crews tackling
more than 900 projects annually, the CCC has generated more than
$26,000,000; and

WHEREAS, The CCC has contributed 69 million hours to
natural resource work throughout the state by providing more than
9.6 million hours of emergency response on nearly every major
California natural disaster since 1976, installing water-saving
devices and water-efficient irrigation systems, removing turf in
favor of drought-tolerant plants, and devoting more than 500,000
hours to fighting wildfires in 2015 alone; and

WHEREAS, Since the program began, the CCC has also planted
more than 21 million trees throughout the state, built or maintained
more than 10,840 miles of backcountry trails in California parks
and forests, and completed more than 1.6 million hours of fish
habitat improvement work and more than 11 million hours of work
improving rural and urban parks and recreation areas; and

WHEREAS, In addition to natural resource work, the CCC has
focused on advancing education and fostering a service ethic and
has had more than 4,000 corpsmembers work to complete their
high school diplomas in the last three years with several hundred
young people earning scholarships to advance their education.
Corpsmembers provided more than 74,000 community volunteer
hours in 2015 alone; and

WHEREAS, The CCC has been honored with numerous awards,
including the United Nations Environmental Programme Medal
for leadership in engaging youth in environmental projects and
the Times-Mirror Chevron Conservation Award for exceptional
service to the cause of conservation, and has been recognized by
Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News as the “best and
longest-running program of its kind in the country”; and

WHEREAS, The CCC has significantly impacted corpsmember
lives, and will continue to improve California’s natural resources
and recreational opportunities for many years to come; now,
therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate of the State of California, the Assembly
thereof concurring, That the Legislature recognizes the
contributions of the California Conservation Corps on the 40th
anniversary of its creation, and all of its former and current
corpsmembers, and supports the continued and steadfast efforts
of current corpsmembers in the protection and restoration of
California’s environment and responding to disasters; and be it
further

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution.