Senate Bill No. 1184

Introduced by Senator Hancock

February 20, 2014

An act to add Section 66649 to the Government Code, relating to the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

SB 1184, as introduced, Hancock. San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission: sea level rise: regional resilience strategy.

Existing law, the McAteer-Petris Act, establishes the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and requires the commission to regulate fill and development within a specified area in and along the shoreline of the San Francisco Bay area, and to implement comprehensive plans for the preservation and protection of the San Francisco Bay and the Suisun Marsh. Existing law authorizes the commission to develop regional strategies for addressing the impacts of, and adapting to, the effects of sea level rise and other impacts of global climate change on the San Francisco Bay and affected shoreline areas.

This bill would require the commission, in collaboration with various other state, regional, and local government agencies, to take action to protect San Francisco Bay area residents from potential innundation and flooding resulting from sea level rise by preparing a regional resilience strategy for adapting to rising sea levels in the San Francisco Bay, containing specified components. The bill would require the commission, no later than December 31, 2015, to complete the strategy and submit to the Legislature its recommendations for future actions to be taken regarding sea level rise.

Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.  

The Legislature finds and declares all of the
following:

(a) The San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development
Commission is a state agency with responsibility for
comprehensively managing the conservation and development of
the San Francisco Bay and its shoreline, and the protection and
preservation of the Suisun Marsh. The commission carries out this
responsibility under the provisions of the McAteer-Petris Act (Title
7.2 (commencing with Section 66600) of the Government Code)
(MPA), the policies of the San Francisco Bay Plan (Bay Plan), the
Suisun Marsh Preservation Act of 1977 (Division 19 (commencing
with Section 29000) of the Public Resources Code) (SMPA), and
policies of the Suisun Marsh Protection Plan (Marsh Plan).

(b) The commission is composed of 27 members, appointed by
a variety of authorities, including the Governor, the Speaker of the
Assembly, the Senate Committee on Rules, the boards of
supervisors of each of the nine San Francisco Bay area counties,
the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Transportation
Agency, the Department of Finance, the State Lands Commission,
the Natural Resources Agency, the San Francisco Bay Regional
Water Quality Control Board, the United States Army Corps of
Engineers, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

(c) The commission’s large and diverse membership, which
includes representatives from diverse interests in the San Francisco
Bay area, allows the commission to serve as a coordinator for
affected agencies and the public, where the public and those
agencies can collaborate and communicate their interests and
perspectives, and reach consensus on how to address critical issues
affecting the San Francisco Bay.

(d) The Legislature has directed the commission to keep the
Bay Plan up to date so that it reflects the latest scientific research
on the San Francisco Bay and addresses emerging issues that could
impact the bay in the future. To accomplish this, the Legislature
has empowered the commission to amend the Bay Plan if
two-thirds or 18 of the 27 members of the commission vote for
the amendment, after providing for public review and a public
hearing. Section 66652 of the Government Code authorizes the
commission to amend, or repeal and adopt a new form of all or
any part of, the Bay Plan, but requires that those changes be
consistent with the findings and declarations of the policy contained
in the MPA. Section 29202 of the Public Resources Code further
authorizes the commission to amend provisions of the SMPA.

(e) When the MPA, SMPA, Bay Plan, and Marsh Plan were
written, the commission was unaware of the dynamic forces driving
changes to the San Francisco Bay and the Suisun Marsh. In the
1960s and 1970s, the San Francisco Bay and the Suisun Marsh
were perceived as having static water levels that moved within
predictable, stable tidal ranges. In 1989, the commission first
recognized the potential effects of climate change and rising sea
level on the San Francisco Bay, and amended the Bay Plan to
incorporate changes to its safety of fills policies to ensure rising
sea level was integrated into the San Francisco Bay fill project
designs. However, a lack of scientific consensus and public
acknowledgment of the problem made implementation of these
policies difficult. By the mid-2000s, a scientific consensus had
emerged that global climate was changing due to anthropogenic
forces, and that these changes would lead to, among other things,
significant sea level rise over time.

(f) Pursuant to Section 66646.2 of the Government Code, the
commission has general authority to plan for sea level rise. The
commission’s 2011 study of sea level rise found that potential
impacts could have profound effects on the bay’s waterfront
communities, economic sustainability, and ecology. The
commission’s regional assessment of the potential impacts to the
bay shoreline, entitled “Living with a Rising Bay: Vulnerability
and Adaptation in San Francisco Bay and on its Shoreline,”
identified the threat of global climate change and sea level rise on
the bay’s shoreline communities and ecology and found that over
280 square miles of shoreline land and over 250,000 residents are
at risk of flooding at just moderate levels of sea level rise. The
assessment also estimated that approximately $62,000,000,000
would be needed to replace flooded business and residential
structures as a result of sea level rise.

(g) When the commission amended the Bay Plan in 2011 to
address climate change and sea level rise, it included a policy
exhorting the region to formulate a regional sea level rise
adaptation strategy for protecting critical developed shoreline areas
and natural ecosystems, enhancing the resilience of the bay and
shoreline systems and increasing their adaptive capacity, and
specifying that the strategy should be prepared by the commission
in collaboration with the Bay Area Joint Policy Committee, other
regional, state, and federal agencies, local governments, and the
general public. The policy recommends, in part, that the strategy
incorporate an adaptive management approach and be consistent
with the goals of Chapter 728 of the Statutes of 2008 (SB 375),
and that the principles of the strategy be updated regularly to reflect
changing conditions and scientific information and include maps
of shoreline areas that are vulnerable to flooding based on
projections of future sea level rise and shoreline flooding, with
particular attention given to identifying and encouraging the
development of long-term regional flood protection strategies. In
addition, the policy states that, ideally, the regional strategy will
determine where and how existing development should be protected
and infill development encouraged, where new development should
be permitted, and where existing development should eventually
be removed to allow the bay to migrate inland.

(h) Currently, the state is dedicating resources to statewide sea
level rise adaptation planning in a manner that benefits the San
Francisco Bay through the California Environmental Protection
Agency’s Office of Planning and Research, the Natural Resources
Agency’s Ocean Protection Council, the State Coastal
Conservancy, and the State Lands Commission. The efforts of
these programs will provide valuable resources to help support the
San Francisco Bay area’s regional efforts to prepare a regional
strategy to adapt to sea level rise.

SEC. 2.  

It is the intent of the Legislature that, in light of the
findings and declarations in Section 1, the commission shall prepare
a regional strategy to address sea level rise, in collaboration with
affected regional and local governments and appropriate state and
federal agencies.

SEC. 3.  

Section 66649 is added to the Government Code, to
read:

66649.  

(a) The commission shall, in collaboration with state,
regional, and local government agencies, take action to protect
San Francisco Bay area residents from potential inundation and
flooding resulting from sea level rise by preparing a regional
resilience strategy for adapting to rising sea levels in the San
Francisco Bay. The main goal of this resilience strategy shall be
to increase San Francisco Bay area preparedness and resilience to
climate change impacts by reducing the flood risk to valuable
shoreline development and protecting wetlands, transitional
habitats, and bay-related wildlife.

(b) The commission shall work with federal, state, regional, and
local partners to conduct shoreline adaptation planning, using
tested planning processes and tools, to formulate a regional
resilience strategy for the San Francisco Bay and surrounding areas
that are at risk that addresses flooding from rising sea level and
storms, and shall assist local governments to craft local strategies
to address the effects of sea level rise. The strategy shall include
two integrated components:

(1) Community or agency-based planning efforts undertaken
with local governments and special districts to increase the
resilience of specific shoreline areas and assets.

(2) A regional assessment of shoreline vulnerabilities and a
planning process to identify and develop adaptation options
necessary at the regional scale. Models, processes, and tools that
address communication, community engagement, and
decisionmaking will be used in collaboration with local partners
and existing regional and community efforts.

(c) Formulation of the regional resilience strategy shall, to the
extent possible, address all of the following goals and objectives:

(1) Advance regional public safety and economic prosperity by
protecting all of the following:

(A) Existing development that provides regionally significant
benefits.

(B) New shoreline development that is consistent with the San
Francisco Bay Plan and other applicable state policies.

(C) Infrastructure that is crucial to public health or the region’s
economy, such as airports, ports, regional transportation,
wastewater treatment facilities, major parks, recreational areas,
and trails.

(2) Enhance the San Francisco Bay ecosystem by identifying
areas where tidal wetlands and tidal flats can migrate landward;
assuring adequate volumes of sediment for marsh accretion;
identifying conservation areas that should be considered for
acquisition, preservation, or enhancement; developing and planning
for flood protection; and maintaining sufficient transitional habitat
and upland buffer areas around tidal wetlands.

(3)  Integrate the protection of existing and future shoreline
development and infrastructure with the enhancement of the San
Francisco Bay ecosystem, such as by using feasible shoreline
protection measures that incorporate natural bay habitat for flood
control and erosion prevention.

(4) Encourage innovative approaches to sea level rise adaptation,
particularly multiobjective adaptation strategies.

(5) Identify a framework for integrating the adaptation responses
of multiple government agencies.

(6)  Integrate regional mitigation measures designed to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions with regional adaptation measures
designed to address the unavoidable impacts of climate change.

(7)  Address environmental justice and social equity issues.

(8) Integrate hazard mitigation and emergency preparedness
planning with adaptation planning by developing techniques for
reducing contamination releases, structural damage, and toxic mold
growth associated with the flooding of buildings, and establishing
emergency assistance centers in neighborhoods at risk from
flooding and other mitigation measures.

(9)  Advance regional sustainability, encourage infill
development and job creation, provide diverse housing served by
transit, and protect historical and cultural resources.

(10)  Encourage the remediation of shoreline areas with existing
environmental degradation and contamination in order to reduce
risks to the San Francisco Bay’s water quality in the event of
flooding.

(11)  Identify and pursue research that supports adaptive
management of the strategy and that provides information useful
for planning and policy development on the impacts of climate
change on the San Francisco Bay, particularly those related to
shoreline flooding.

(12) Identify actions to prepare and implement the strategy,
including any needed changes in the law and policy.

(13) Identify mechanisms to provide information, tools, and
financial resources to enable local governments to integrate
regional climate change adaptation planning into local community
planning processes.

(d) The commission shall prepare the strategy in close
coordination with the Bay Area Joint Policy Committee, the State
Coastal Conservancy, the Ocean Protection Council, and the Office
of Planning and Research, and in such a way that the strategy may
be adopted as the shoreline resiliency component of the San
Francisco Bay area’s sustainable communities strategy pursuant
to Section 65080.

(e) The commission shall, no later than December 31, 2015,
complete the regional resilience strategy and shall submit to the
Legislature its recommendations for future actions to be taken
regarding sea level rise.