BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2125
Page 1
CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB 2125 (Ruskin)
As Amended August 17, 2010
Majority vote
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|ASSEMBLY: |51-24|(June 2, 2010) |SENATE: |22-11|(August 23, |
| | | | | |2010) |
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Original Committee Reference: NAT. RES.
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.
The Senate amendments remove the reporting requirements of OPC
to the Legislature. The amendments also require OPC to consider
ecological characteristics such as habitat heterogeneity,
species abundance, and biodiversity when formulating marine
spatial planning strategies.
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.
AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY , this bill:
1)Required, subject to available funding, OPC to support state
agencies' use and sharing of scientific and geospatial
information for coastal- and ocean-relevant decision-making,
AB 2125
Page 2
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 in the coastal and ocean
environment;
b) Subject to the determination of need and in consultation
with the relevant ocean or coastal management agency,
increasing 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 coastal and ocean ecosystems, climate 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; and,
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)Required, subject to available funding, but no later than 12
months following the receipt of sufficient funding, OPC to
report to Legislature on:
a) The advantages and disadvantages of MSP with respect to
coastal and ocean management, including, but not limited
to, consideration of the possible role of MSP in improving
ecosystem health and other factors, addressing the effects
of climate change, evaluating and mitigating the cumulative
effects of human-caused and natural sources of stress,
assessing existing and predicted patterns of human
activities, understanding social, economic, and cultural
values, and other issues as determined by OPC;
b) Whether MSP is expected to enhance coastal and ocean
resource planning, management, or regulation and leads to
greater efficiencies or cost savings for the state or
regulated community;
AB 2125
Page 3
c) Whether MSP is expected to enhance the sustainability,
conservation, or protection of coastal and ocean resources;
d) The implications of federal MSP policies and their
impact on state or local coastal and ocean management; and,
e) Recommendations to the Legislature to facilitate MSP,
and other matters deemed relevant by the council.
3)Required, subject to available funding and consistent with
their individual mandates, each state agency, board,
department, or commission with ocean or coastal management
interests or regulatory authority to cooperate with OPC to
achieve the goals of this bill.
4)Authorized 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 : According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, the cost of this bill is unknown, but potentially
would cost up to millions of dollars of Proposition 84 funds for
additional grants.
COMMENTS : 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
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]
AB 2125
Page 4
actively coordinating these functions, permitting and long term
planning will not be as effective as is necessary.
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?
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
AB 2125
Page 5
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, subject to a needs assessment, to
increase the amount of baseline scientific and geospatial
information available to public agencies with respect to six
seemingly overbroad and undefined topics, such ecosystem health,
coastal and ocean ecosystems, climate change, cumulative
impacts, existing and predicted human activities, social,
economic and cultural values.
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.
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
AB 2125
Page 6
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 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.
AB 2125
Page 7
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.
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 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.
Analysis Prepared by : Jessica Westbrook / NAT. RES. / (916)
319-2092
FN: 0006281