BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2125
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 12, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
Wesley Chesbro, Chair
AB 2125 (Ruskin) - As Amended: April 5, 2010
SUBJECT : Coastal resources: marine spatial planning.
SUMMARY : Requires the Ocean Protection Council (OPC) to support
the state's use and sharing of scientific and geospatial
information for coastal and ocean-relevant decision-making;
requires OPC to consider marine spatial planning (MSP) as a tool
for achieving comprehensive management of the state's ocean and
resources.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Enacts the California Ocean Protection Act of 2004 (SB 1319
(Burton), Chapter 719, Statutes of 2004), which creates the
OPC, consisting of the Secretary of the Natural Resources
Agency, the Secretary for Environmental Protection, and the
Chair of the State Lands Commission.
2)Requires OPC to, among other things, coordinate ocean
protection and conservation activities of state agencies; to
improve the effectiveness of state efforts to protect ocean
resources; and to establish policies to coordinate the
collection and sharing of scientific data related to coast and
ocean resources between agencies.
THIS BILL :
1)Subject to available funding, requires OPC to support state
agencies' use and sharing of scientific and geospatial
information for coastal- and ocean-relevant decision-making,
including MSP, by:
a) Assessing the needs of public agencies with respect to
their abilities to gather, manage, use, and share
information and decision-support tools relevant to
ecosystem-based management.
b) Increasing the amount of baseline scientific and
geospatial information that is available to public agencies
with respect to coastal and ocean ecosystems, climate
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change, cumulative impacts, existing and predicted human
activities, social, economic and cultural values.
c) Supporting public agencies' collaborative management and
use of scientific and geospatial information relevant to
ecosystem-based management.
d) Helping identify decision-support tools relevant to
ecosystem-based management, and, where appropriate, support
the adaptation of those tools or the creation of new tools
to serve the state's needs.
2)Subject to available funding, requires OPC to consider
ecosystem-based MSP as a tool for achieving effective and
comprehensive management of California's ocean resources and
develop recommendations that address all the issues in (b)
above.
3)To the extent funding is made available for their
participation, and consistent with their individual mandates,
requires each agency, board, department, or commission of the
state with ocean or coastal management interests or regulatory
authority to cooperate with OPC to achieve the goals of this
bill.
4)Authorizes OPC to award grants, enter into interagency
agreements, and provide assistance to public agencies and
nonprofit organizations to support this effort, including
grants to improve geospatial data collection, interagency data
sharing and collaboration, and tools for visualizing and
analyzing these data. Requires OPC to give preference to
public agencies that are meeting the goals of this bill.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS : According to the author's office:
Management and conservation of the world's oceans require
synthesis of spatial data on the distribution and intensity of
human activities as well as the overlap of those impacts on
marine ecosystems. Therefore, scientific and geospatial
information that is both relevant and accessible is critical
to advance the health of ocean and coastal ecosystems.
However, despite existing laws and efforts, ocean managers and
decision-makers often do not have access to the latest
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technology or scientific information that can support their
public trust responsibilities. This includes making
permitting decisions and conducting long-term ocean planning.
Increased coordination between agencies, geospatial data
sharing and new information technology for state planners and
managers with ocean and coastal-related jurisdiction is
required to enable these entities to best evaluate ecosystem
threats to our state's coastal and marine environments.
Without the [OPC] actively coordinating these functions,
permitting and long term planning will not be as effective as
is necessary.
1)Assessing geospatial data needs of coastal/ocean managers :
Geospatial data can be displayed in a format as a simple as a
street map or as complex as a geographic information system
(GIS) interface. In a marine context, the data types can
include bathymetry or topography of the ocean floor, coastal
aerial imagery, marine habitat, and jurisdictional boundaries
of a protected area. As part of their regulatory or planning
responsibilities, agencies such as the California Coastal
Commission, State Lands Commission, and Department of Fish and
Game (DFG) have been collecting these data in various formats
for decades. However, most of this data is not digitized,
standardized or centralized in a format easily accessible to
other agencies or the public, nor is some of it of high value
for broader planning purposes. (This applies to most data or
documentation produced in compliance with environmental laws
or regulations.)
According to the OPC, environmental regulators or resource
managers "are currently unable to access all pertinent
information [e.g., physical oceanography, species data,
fishing activity] when making permitting decisions or
conducting long-term planning. Even if information is
available, few agencies have been able to take advantage of a
new generation of mapping programs and techniques that allow
them to visualize and analyze data in a geospatial format." At
the same time, "all pertinent information" may not be
necessary or required in order to justify permitting
decisions. The key question is this: can data sharing or
centralization result in efficiencies or cost savings for an
applicant or an agency or enhanced environmental protection
sufficient to justify public investment in the information
management system necessary to support it?
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This bill requires the OPC to assess the needs of state
agencies in gathering, managing, using, and sharing
information and decision-support tools for "coastal- and
ocean-relevant decision-making." This directive is an
outgrowth of workshop sponsored by OPC, and its federal and
scientific partners, to assess the needs and capabilities of
resource managers, including state and federal agency staff,
to manage and share geospatial data. Key recommendations from
this workshop include the adoption a geospatial information
policy for the state, augmentation of agencies' capacity to
manage and use geospatial data, and facilitating better
collaboration and data-sharing between agencies based on
common standards and data platforms. Implementation of these
recommendations could assist the state in the planning and
siting of marine renewable energy and aquaculture development.
The bill also requires OPC to increase the amount of baseline
scientific and geospatial information available to public
agencies with respect to six broad topics. Notwithstanding
the challenge of gathering or compiling information on
"ecosystem health, functioning, productivity, resilience, and
vulnerability to threats," for example, this directive appears
to occur unrelated to the need for such information, which OPC
is also required to determine. Instead, the committee and
author may wish to consider amending the bill to limit this
requirement to the information determined by the needs
assessment and to make this information available in a
publicly accessible, electronic, and geospatial format (see
suggested amendment (b) below).
A successful example of interagency data sharing that has
enhanced resource management decisions and recovery action
prioritization is Cal-FISH (calfish.org), a cooperative effort
among eight California state and federal agencies to
centralize anadromous fish and aquatic habitat data in one
Web-based location. CalFish serves the needs of these
agencies by functioning as both data publisher and
clearinghouse, providing access to original data (e.g.,
population, distribution, migration barriers, habitat
restoration, genetics) and links to sites with related habitat
information. Users are able to query the database directly or
geographically with an interactive on-line mapping system.
Data layers include species, habitat, management regime, and
location.
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2)Land-use planning for the ocean : Geospatial information and
data is integral to the second element of this bill, coastal
and marine spatial planning, defined by the federal
Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force in its December 2009
"Interim Framework for Effective [CMSP]" (Framework) as:
[A] comprehensive, adaptive, integrated, ecosystem-based,
and transparent spatial planning process, based on sound
science, for analyzing current and anticipated uses of
ocean, coastal, and Great Lakes areas. CMSP identifies
areas most suitable for various types or classes of
activities in order to reduce conflicts among uses, reduce
environmental impacts, facilitate compatible uses, and
preserve critical ecosystem services to meet economic,
environmental, security, and social objectives. In
practical terms, MSP provides a public policy process for
society to better determine how the ocean, coasts, and
Great Lakes are sustainably used and protected now and for
future generations.
The Framework appears to take the first step in applying land
use planning or zoning concepts to the ocean and Great Lakes,
citing increasing significant and often competing uses and
activities, including commercial, recreational, cultural,
energy, scientific, conservation, and homeland and national
security activities. Existing ocean and coastal management
generally takes place in resource-based silos (e.g.,
fisheries, oil and gas development, aquaculture, marine
protected areas) that, according to the Framework, "cannot
properly account for cumulative effects, sustain multiple
ecosystem services, and holistically and explicitly evaluate
the tradeoffs associated with proposed alternative human
uses." Ideally, MSP would accurately predict future competing
demands for a particular resource or area in order to provide
a more complete evaluation of cumulative environmental
effects.
The Framework divides the nation into regional governance
structures and proposes a planning process wherein regions
would adopt marine spatial plans (Plans) consistent with
national goals and objectives and subject to certification by
the National Ocean Council. California, Oregon, and
Washington constitute the West Coast region and would be
expected to develop region-specific objectives, an assessment
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of existing and future conditions and "ocean-uses,"
performance measures, compliance mechanisms in its Plan.
Plans are not intended to be regulatory documents, although
state and federal agencies are expected to incorporate its
policies into their planning and permitting processes, to the
extent consistent with existing laws and regulations.
Rather than apply another regulatory layer, MSP, as envisioned
in the Framework, is intended to complement existing laws and
regulations and lead to "sustainable economic growth in
coastal communities by providing transparency and
predictability for economic investments?" and improved
"ecosystem health and services by planning human uses in
concert with the conservation of important ecological areas."
However, state and federal agencies would be expected to
modify its programs or activities consistent with a Plan.
This highlights the importance of crafting a Plan that all
three states will support. The West Coast Governor's
Agreement is the likely forum to initiate development of this
Plan.
According to the Framework, "This ultimately is intended to
result in protection of areas that are essential for the
resiliency and maintenance of healthy ecosystem services and
biodiversity, and to maximize the ability of marine resources
to continue to support a wide variety of human uses." To
illustrate its benefits, the Framework cites a comprehensive
planning initiative that enabled the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Coast Guard, and other
stakeholders to determine shipping needs, deepwater liquefied
natural gas port locations, and endangered whale distribution
in order to reconfigure the Boston Traffic Separation Scheme.
This effort reportedly resulted in lower whale mortality from
collisions with ships in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine
Sanctuary, decreased vessel transit times, and enhanced
maritime safety.
3)Initial OPC and federal marine spatial planning efforts : Last
September, the OPC adopted the following resolution:
The [OPC] resolves to support interagency collaboration and
management of geospatial information that will help to
identify priority uses and address current and future user
conflicts in the ocean environment. The OPC further
directs staff to analyze and develop recommendations on
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marine spatial planning, including planning principles and
objectives, for future approval by the council.
This bill essentially codifies the resolution. In its staff
report, OPC staff committed to compiling and assessing
existing and future ocean uses and conditions to "help
agencies evaluate tradeoffs and measure cumulative impacts of
human uses?to resolve user conflicts, and to ultimately
undertake comprehensive, long-term planning?." It also
proposed to research legal or regulatory constraints to MSP in
California and develop recommendations on MSP, including
planning principles and objectives. The OPC expects to
consider these recommendations by the end of this year, though
it is unclear exactly what these recommendations will
encompass.
However, before laying the foundation on what appears to be a
fundamental shift in coastal and ocean regulation and
management, and given the implications of proposed federal MSP
policies, the committee and author may wish to consider
whether it is more appropriate for the OPC to report to the
Legislature as described in suggested amendment (c) below.
The committee should note that the on-going development of
marine protected areas (MPA) pursuant to the Marine Life
Protection Act by the DFG is essentially one element of MSP.
The Fish and Game Commission has approved MPAs for the central
coast portion of the state and is working on the north and
south coasts. Varying restrictions on fishing and other
harvesting activities will be imposed on certain MPAs
depending on the sensitivity of the resource and other
factors.
4)Suggested amendments :
a) The bill does not define MSP. The committee and author
may wish to consider including the following definition in
the bill's findings: As defined by the federal Interagency
Ocean Policy Task Force, marine spatial planning is "a
comprehensive, adaptive, integrated, ecosystem-based, and
transparent spatial planning process, based on sound
science, for analyzing current and anticipated uses of the
ocean or coastal environment. Marine spatial planning
identifies areas most suitable for various types or classes
of activities in order to reduce conflicts among uses,
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reduce environmental impacts, facilitate compatible uses,
and preserve critical ecosystem services to meet economic,
environmental, security, and social objectives."
b) On page 4, lines 8-14 should be amended to read:
(1) Assess the needs of California's public
agencies with respect to their abilities to gather,
manage, use and share information and decision-support
tools relevant to ecosystem-based management in the
coastal and ocean environment.
(2) Subject to a determination of need in
paragraph (1) and in consultation with the relevant
coastal or ocean management agency, increase the
amount of baseline scientific and geospatial
information that is available to public agencies in a
publicly accessible, electronic, and geospatial format
with respect to the following aspects of coastal and
ocean ecosystems:
c) On page 4, strike lines 36-39 and on page 5 strike lines
1-15 and insert:
Subject to the availability of funding, but no later than
12 months following the receipt of sufficient funding, the
council shall report to the Legislature on:
i) The advantages and disadvantages of marine spatial
planning with respect to coastal and ocean management
including consideration of the possible role of marine
spatial planning in:
(1) Improving ecosystem health, functioning,
productivity, resilience, and vulnerability to
threats;
(2) Addressing the effects of climate change;
(3) Evaluating and mitigating the cumulative
effects of human-caused and natural sources of stress;
(4) Assessing existing and predicted patterns of
human activities, including activities that present
conflicting or compatible demands on coastal and ocean
ecosystems;
(5) Understanding social, economic, and cultural
values, including the value of coastal and ocean
ecosystems for providing ecosystem services; and
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(6) Evaluating other physical, biological,
economic, social, and cultural issues that the council
determines are relevant.
ii) Whether marine spatial planning is expected to
enhance coastal and ocean resource planning, management,
or regulation and lead to greater efficiencies or cost
savings for the state or regulated community;
iii) Whether marine spatial planning is expected to
enhance the sustainability, conservation or protection of
coastal and ocean resources;
iv) The implications of federal marine spatial planning
policies and their impact on state or local coastal and
ocean management;
v) Recommendations to the Legislature to facilitate
marine spatial planning and;
vi) Other matters deemed relevant by the council.
d) On page 5, lines 16-21 should be amended to read:
(c) To the extent funding is made available for their
participation , Subject to available funding , and consistent
with their individual mandates, each agency, board,
department, or commission of the state with ocean or
coastal management interests or regulatory authority shall
cooperate with the council to achieve all of the goals
described in subdivisions (a) and (b).
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Ocean Conservancy (sponsor)
Opposition
None on file
Analysis Prepared by : Dan Chia / NAT. RES. / (916) 319-2092