Bill Text: CA AB2649 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Amended
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
Bill Title: Natural Carbon Sequestration and Resilience Act of 2022.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 5-0)
Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2022-08-11 - In committee: Held under submission. [AB2649 Detail]
Download: California-2021-AB2649-Amended.html
An act to amend Section 39000 of the Health and Safety Code, relating to air pollution. An act to add Section 38592.3 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to greenhouse gases.
NOYES
Local Program:
NO
SECTION 1. Section 39000 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read: 39000.
Bill Title: Natural Carbon Sequestration and Resilience Act of 2022.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 5-0)
Status: (Engrossed - Dead) 2022-08-11 - In committee: Held under submission. [AB2649 Detail]
Download: California-2021-AB2649-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Assembly
March 21, 2022 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly Bill
No. 2649
| Introduced by Assembly (Principal coauthor: Senator Becker) |
February 18, 2022 |
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 2649, as amended, Cristina Garcia.
Air pollution. Natural Carbon Sequestration and Resilience Act of 2022.
Existing law establishes the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting greenhouse gases. Existing law, the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, requires the state board to ensure that statewide greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 40% below the 1990 level by 2030. The act requires the state board to prepare and approve a scoping plan for achieving the maximum technologically feasible and cost-effective reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.
Existing law establishes the Department of Food and Agriculture to, among other duties and authorities, promote and protect the agricultural industry of the state. Existing law provides funds to the department, as specified, for grants to
promote practices on farms and ranches that improve agricultural and open-space soil health, carbon soil sequestration, erosion control, water quality, and water retention.
This bill would declare the policy of the state to achieve a goal of removing at least 60,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually on or before December 31, 2030, and 75,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually on or before December 31, 2035, through the implementation of natural carbon sequestration programs on natural, working, and urban lands. The bill would require the state board to include this natural carbon removal goal in its scoping plan. The bill would require, no later than July 1, 2023, the Natural Resources Agency, in coordination with the California Environmental Protection Agency, the state board, and the department, to establish natural carbon sequestration pathways to guide specified agencies in the implementation of sequestration programs to
help the state achieve this goal. The bill would also require those and other designated agencies to expand existing and to develop new nature-based carbon dioxide equivalent sequestration programs, as specified.
Existing law makes various legislative findings and declarations relating to air pollution.
This bill would make nonsubstantive changes to these legislative findings and declarations.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee:Bill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
This act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Natural Carbon Sequestration and Resilience Act of 2022.SEC. 2.
(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(1) The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2018 report, “Global Warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius,” concluded that securing a safer, more stable climate globally requires cutting greenhouse gas emissions by one-half by 2030 from 2010 levels and also the removal of up to 1,000,000,000,000 metric tons of warming compounds already put
into the atmosphere from human activity to achieve net zero by 2050.
(2) The IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report, released in 2021, found that anthropogenic impacts have caused unprecedented and irreversible changes to earth’s climate, that human-induced climate change is driving costly and deadly extreme events across the globe, and that immediate emissions cuts can significantly reduce future global warming.
(3) In 2022, the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report Working Group II reported that climate impacts are outpacing adaptation, immediate climate action is essential, and the restoration of ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural settings are critical to building resilience to climate impacts. The report found that agroecological principles and practices that support food security, nutrition, health, well-being, livelihoods, biodiversity, sustainability, and ecosystem services are critical
for effective adaptation. In 2022, scientists concluded that California and the west are in the most extreme multidecade drought in the past 1,200 years and that there is a high likelihood that it will continue until at least 2030. This was reinforced by findings from the Working Group II report, which also highlighted that climate impacts will diminish water availability for agriculture and human communities.
(4) In 2015, drought made more severe by climate change cost the state 21,000 jobs and $2,700,000,000 in one year alone, threatening California’s vital agricultural sector.
(5) In 2018, Governor Brown issued Executive Order B-55-18, creating a state goal to reach greenhouse gas neutrality by no later than 2045 and to maintain net negative greenhouse gas emissions thereafter and directing the State Air Resources Board to work with relevant state agencies to develop a
framework for implementation and accounting that tracks progress toward these goals.
(6) In 2019, Governor Newsom issued Executive Order N-19-19, directing that every aspect of state government redouble its efforts to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and mitigate the impacts of climate change while building a sustainable, inclusive economy.
(7) In 2020, Governor Newsom signed Executive Order N-82-20, providing that, to combat the biodiversity and climate crises, it is the goal of the state to conserve at least 30 percent of California’s land and coastal waters by 2030, including by managing natural and working lands to build climate resilience, reduce risk from extreme climate events, and contribute to the state’s effort to combat climate change; and to identify and
implement near- and long-term actions to accelerate natural removal of carbon and build climate resilience in our forests, wetlands, urban greenspaces, agricultural soils, and land conservation activities in ways that serve all communities and in particular low-income, disadvantaged, and vulnerable communities.
(8) In 2021, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 27 (Chapter 237 of the Statutes of 2021), which directs the State Air Resources Board to establish a carbon dioxide removal target for 2030 and beyond, and to do so in consideration of the state’s Natural and Working Lands Climate Smart Strategy.
(9) In 2016, Governor Brown signed Senate Bill 1383 (Chapter 395 of the Statutes of 2016), the state’s short-lived climate pollutant strategy, which establishes reduction targets for organic waste disposal and thereby creates a potential feedstock supply for compost, which can play a
substantial role in nature-based carbon sequestration.
(10) In 2018, California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment found that increasing soil organic matter by 3 percent across the state’s working lands would increase soil water storage by 4.7 million acre-feet, or 1.53 trillion gallons of water, the equivalent of the state’s largest dam, Shasta, at full capacity.
(11) State habitat, forest, vegetation, wetland, urban park and soils management and restoration, monitoring, and reporting efforts to increase greenhouse gas sequestration on state working and natural lands as well as in state waters should stimulate innovation and competition, enable consumer options in equipment and services, attract private capital investments, and create high-quality jobs for Californians.
(12) To meet the carbon dioxide equivalent natural sequestration goal established in this act, it is likely that the state will need to sequester greenhouse gases on at least 20 percent of the state’s natural, working, and urban lands and waters.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature that:
(1) Because California Native Americans have stewarded, managed, and lived interdependently with the lands that now make up the state, they should be included as stakeholders in the design of programs established pursuant to this act and their communities and the land they manage should benefit from programs established pursuant to this act, as negotiated between their sovereign bodies and the relevant agencies of the state.
(2) All programs and projects established
pursuant to this act should operate in a manner as to enhance natural and working lands and waters, as well as the wildlife dependent on them, in the face of growing climate extremes.
SEC. 3.
Section 38592.3 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read:38592.3.
(a) For the purposes of this section, “natural carbon sequestration” is defined as the removal and storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalents by vegetation and soils on natural, working, and urban lands.(b) It is the policy of the state to sequester the maximum feasible amount of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere through the implementation of natural carbon sequestration programs on natural, working, and urban lands, but at least 60,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually on or before December 31, 2030, and 75,000,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent annually on or before December 31, 2035.
(c) On or before July 1, 2023, the
Natural Resources Agency, in coordination with the California Environmental Protection Agency, the state board, and the Department of Food and Agriculture, shall establish natural carbon sequestration pathways to guide the agencies specified in subdivision (f) in implementing programs to help the state achieve the goal set forth in subdivision (b).
(d) The state board shall include the carbon dioxide equivalent removal goal specified in subdivision (b) annually beginning in 2030 as part of its scoping plan prepared pursuant to Section 38561, with biannual reporting on progress.
(e) Achievement of the carbon dioxide equivalent removal goal shall not be accomplished in a manner that increases detrimental local air quality or water quality impacts on disadvantaged communities, black, indigenous, and people of color communities, or lower income communities, and achievement of the goal
should prioritize investments and projects in communities that have historically been overburdened by pollution or faced other environmental justice hurdles.
(f) In furtherance of the goal established pursuant to subdivision (b), the Natural Resources Agency, the Department of Food and Agriculture, the California Environmental Protection Agency, the Office of Planning and Research, the Department of Parks and Recreation, and the State Department of Education shall expand existing and develop new natural carbon sequestration programs in consultation with a full range of stakeholders, including public and private land owners and managers, federal agencies, resource conservation districts, businesses, local governments, land trusts and other nongovernmental organizations, community organizations and leaders, and labor organizations. The programs should facilitate practices such as compost application, riparian restoration, cover crops, hedgerows,
and planned grazing, among other relevant practices, and should do so with attention to the monitoring and technical assistance that facilitates these goals.
(g) State agencies described in subdivision (f) shall implement the programs described in that subdivision in every region of the state, rural and urban, with special emphasis on rural areas that have historically faced the biggest shortages of technical expertise to implement natural carbon sequestration to engage private and public natural resource managers and accelerate the natural removal of carbon dioxide equivalents from the atmosphere, fully and rapidly. The programs shall be implemented in a manner that builds climate resilience in the state’s forests, soils, croplands, rangelands, wetlands, parklands, schoolyards, urban greenspaces and brownspaces, waterways, and nearshore habitats, with an emphasis on ecological restoration on natural lands and conservation practices on
agricultural lands.
(h) Each state agency described in subdivision (f) that implements a program pursuant to that subdivision shall ensure that at least 50 percent of the resources of the program are directed to low-income and disadvantaged communities.
The Legislature finds and declares that the people of California have a primary interest in the quality of the physical environment in which they live, and that this physical environment is being degraded by the waste and refuse of civilization polluting the atmosphere, thereby creating a situation that is detrimental to the health, safety, welfare, and sense of well-being of the people of California.
