SB 1148 Senate Bill - Bill Analysis

BILL ANALYSIS �

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| SENATE COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES AND WATER |
| Senator Fran Pavley, Chair |
| 2011-2012 Regular Session |
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BILL NO: SB 1148 HEARING DATE: April 10, 2012

AUTHOR: Pavley URGENCY: No
VERSION: March 29, 2012 CONSULTANT: Bill Craven
DUAL REFERRAL: No FISCAL: Yes
SUBJECT: Fish and Game Commission: Department of Fish and Game.

BACKGROUND AND EXISTING LAW
1. The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has numerous statutory
functions and the California Fish and Game Commission (FGC) has
both statutory and constitutional functions related to
management of the state's wildlife and protection of habitat.
These two units of government have specific and occasionally
overlapping roles. Key provisions relate to hunting and fishing
and to limiting catch or take of species, to protect wildlife
and its habitat, to conserve endangered and threatened species,
to operate hatcheries for various fisheries, to discourage the
importation or spread of invasive species, to protect streambeds
from harmful activities, and to provide access to lands managed
for hunting and fishing and public access, among many other
responsibilities. DFG also has a responsibility under CEQA to
provide comments on proposed actions that require permits from
other agencies that have been determined to affect any of the
statutory responsibilities assigned to DFG.

For many years, DFG has been hampered by budgetary constraints
which were driven both by widely variable General Fund
appropriations (in some years partially offset by bond funds)
but also by an increase in statutory responsibilities. For
example, DFG's General Fund appropriations in the past ten years
included 4 years when it received approximately $35 million, one
year when it received about $50 million, one year when it
received $115 million, and two years in the low $80 million
range. The last two years have seen General Fund appropriations
in the low to mid-$60 million range.

For decades, various stakeholder organizations (who include
hunters, sport and commercial fishers, recreational users of DFG
lands, regulatory permit applicants, and conservation advocates)
have struggled with the appropriate funding mix for the
department and the appropriate allocation of the workload to the
department. Hunting and fishing groups are concerned that their
license fees are not spent on providing greater access to fish
or prey. Conservation groups worry that not enough effort is
spent on scientific research, field work, or activities to
conserve important natural habitats. They are also concerned
that some decisions reflect political and not scientific
priorities. Permit applicants (such as developers, farmers and
ranchers, and renewable energy companies) are concerned that, in
their view, permit decisions are sometimes too slow or that the
required mitigation is sometimes too much.

These alleged shortcomings have been reviewed time and again by
various expert panels, blue ribbon commissions, task forces,
audits, reports from the Legislative Analyst, and others. From
time to time there is an infusion of money or an internal
reorganization of the department, but all would perhaps agree
that the right combination of reforms that would really help the
department with its mission has not yet occurred.

Last year, Assembly Member Huffman authored AB 2376 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 FGC. That
effort took hundreds of hours of donated stakeholder time and
staff time and has resulted in several dozen recommendations
that are awaiting final approval. The final report of the
executive committee will be available later this year. SB 1148
and AB 2402 (Huffman) have been introduced to be the main
vehicles for considering many of the AB 2376 recommendations,
although many other legislators have introduced bills as well.

2. DFG is required to index for inflation many of the fees for
which it has responsibility, although FGC is not.

3. The Environmental Goals and Policy Report (EGPR) is
theoretically required every four years, although that never
happens. (Only two have been issued.) The EGPR is an overview of
state growth and development and a statement of approved state
environmental goals and objectives, including those directed to
land use, population growth and distribution, the conservation
of natural resources and air and water quality. It also
describes actions required to implement the state's
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environmental goals.

4. DFG is authorized to participate in a wetlands mitigation
banking program in Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley.

PROPOSED LAW
This bill would:

1. Require FGC to index for inflation the fees that it sets.
Like DFG, this would be required to occur at least every five
years.

2. The fees established in statute for lifetime sportsmen's
licenses would be deleted and the amount of such a fee would be
set by FGC and indexed for inflation thereafter. The amount of
the fee would be set by FGC to recover the reasonable
administrative and implementation costs of DFG and FGC.

3. The fees for hunting licenses now set in statute would be
deleted and set by the commission to recover the costs and
indexed for inflation.

4. The fees for sportfishing in the ocean where an ocean
enhancement stamp is required would be deleted from the statute
and established by the commission and indexed for inflation.

5. The fees for sportfishing licenses now set in statute would
be deleted and set by the commission to recover the costs and
indexed for inflation.

6. Require that when the Office of Planning and Research
develops its Environmental Goals and Policy Report as required
by Section 65042 of the Government Code, that trustee agencies
with specific responsibilities to resource protection such as
DFG be included in that effort.

7. The bill would make several changes concerning conservation
and mitigation banks, entities established by private firms to
offer mitigation to project proponents for projects requiring
permits from DFG. Conservation banks are generally understood to
provide mitigation for species, while mitigation banks are
generally understood to provide mitigation for wetlands losses.

Although mitigation and conservation banking has been an ongoing
activity at DFG for many years, its policy was established by a
former Resources Agency secretary and not by the legislature.
This bill would define mitigation banks, authorize DFG to
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recover its costs, and require some accountability and
transparency by asking the department (or another website) to
provide information about the number of credits available from a
bank, the remaining credits available, and other similar
information.

Coincidentally, DFG has recently suspended approving new
mitigation banks because of funding issues. The new fee
provision in this bill may help rectify that situation.

ARGUMENTS IN SUPPORT
1. According to the author, deleting fees from statute and
allowing the commission to establish them will place fee-making
authority with an agency with the greatest expertise and
knowledge of appropriate fees for hunting and fishing
activities. Also, there is no reason for this fee-setting to be
done by the Legislature.

2. Directing specific involvement of DFG in the Environmental
Goals and Policy Report was a recommendation of the stakeholder
advisory group. It makes sense to include DFG in this report in
order to include the best information about resource protection
activities undertaken across the state. Of course, the author
acknowledges that this depends on an administration willing to
complete this report in a timely fashion.

3. The mitigation banking provisions are designed to ratify
DFG's existing practices and to add provisions for
accountability and transparency.

The Nature Conservancy supports the bill both because of the fee
provisions and because of the importance of mitigation banking
in the Delta and elsewhere.

Defenders of Wildlife is in support of the conservation and
mitigation banking provision.

ARGUMENTS IN OPPOSITION
None received

COMMENTS
The author may further amend the bill following the release of
the final recommendations of the executive committee established
in AB 2376 (Huffman) in 2010. The Committee reserves the right
to consider those amendments assuming the bill returns to the
Senate for concurrence.

SUPPORT
The Nature Conservancy
Defenders of Wildlife

OPPOSITION
None Received