Bill Text: CA AB2649 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Amended

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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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

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Amended  IN  Assembly  April 20, 2022

Amended  IN  Assembly  March 21, 2022

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION

Assembly Bill

No. 2649

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Introduced by Assembly Members Cristina Garcia and Stone
(Principal coauthor: Senator Becker)

February 18, 2022

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An act to add Section 38592.3 to the Health and Safety Code, relating to greenhouse gases.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 2649, as amended, Cristina Garcia. 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 actions and 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 The bill would require, on or before July 1, 2023, the Natural Resources Agency, in coordination with the California Environmental Protection Agency, its departments, the state board, and the department, to establish refine existing and establish new natural carbon sequestration pathways and strategies to guide specified agencies in the implementation of sequestration developing and implementing 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 establish new natural carbon sequestration programs, as specified.

Digest Key

Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

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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 additional 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 stakeholders, to share their traditional ecological knowledge, to the greatest extent feasible, 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.

SEC. 3.

 Section 38592.3 is added to the Health and Safety Code, to read:

38592.3.

 (a) For the purposes of this section, the following terms have the following meanings:

(1) “Natural carbon sequestration” is defined as the removal and long-term storage of atmospheric carbon dioxide equivalents by vegetation and soils on natural, working, and urban lands, including submerged lands.

(2) “Natural lands” and “working lands” have the same definition as found in Section 9001.5 of the Public Resources Code.

(3) “Low-income communities” has the same meaning as paragraph (2) of subdivision (d) of Section 39713.

(4) “Disadvantaged farmer“ has the same meaning as a “socially disadvantaged farmer“ as defined for purposes of the Farmer Equity Act of 2017, as set forth in (Article 6 (commencing with Section 510) of Chapter 3 of Part 1 of Division 1 of the Food and Agricultural Code).

(b) It is the policy of the state to sequester the maximum feasible additional amount of carbon dioxide equivalent from the atmosphere through the implementation of natural carbon sequestration actions and programs on natural, working, and urban lands, in ways that enhance ecological function, 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) (1) On or before July 1, 2023, the Natural Resources Agency, in coordination with its departments, the state board, and the Department of Food and Agriculture, shall refine existing and establish new, where appropriate, natural carbon sequestration pathways and strategies, as outlined in the Scoping Plan Update, Climate Smart Land Strategy, 30x30 Plan, and other relevant state planning processes to guide the agencies specified in subdivision (f) in developing and implementing programs to help the state achieve the goal set forth in subdivision (b).

(2) The Natural Resources Agency shall include, but not be limited to, the following strategies pursuant to the establishment of the natural carbon sequestration pathways specified in paragraph (1):

(A) Workforce development, staffing, and training to support strategies, programs, and projects to achieve the goal established in subdivision (b).

(B) Enhanced infrastructure to support natural carbon sequestration programs and projects, such as, but not limited to, plant nurseries and compost facilities.

(C) Advancing the use of organic alternatives to synthetic fertilizers, including compost.

(D) Increased support for the natural and working lands mitigation and adaptation planning at the city, county, and regional scale where projects are undertaken to achieve the natural carbon sequestration goal specified in subdivision (b).

(d) (1) The Natural Resources Agency, in coordination with the state board and the Department of Food and Agriculture, shall evaluate and update the pathways, strategies, and actions to achieve the goal established pursuant to subdivision (b) on an annual basis beginning in 2024, concurrently with the scoping plan prepared pursuant to Section 38561, with annual reporting on progress.

(2) The carbon dioxide equivalent removal goal specified in subdivision (b) shall be in addition to, and therefore, not calculated toward the emission goals established pursuant to Section 38566.

(e) Achievement of the carbon dioxide equivalent removal goal shall enhance community health and resilience and shall not be accomplished in a manner that increases detrimental 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 needs to 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, and other departments and offices within these agencies, and the State Department of Education shall expand existing and establish 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 need to maximize cobenefits, such as enhanced biodiversity and climate resilience, prioritize avoided conversion of natural and working lands, and facilitate practices such as compost application, cover crops, hedgerows, planned grazing, urban forestry, riparian restoration, restoration of tidal flows to wetlands, and other forms of wetland restoration, among other relevant practices, and need to 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 with ready access to technical expertise and assistance. The programs shall be implemented in a manner that builds climate resilience and promotes native biodiversity in the state’s forests, soils, croplands, rangelands, coastal areas, wetlands, parklands, schoolyards, urban greenspaces and brownfields, waterways, and nearshore habitats, with an emphasis on protection and ecological restoration on natural lands, conservation practices on agricultural lands, and increased urban greening.

(h) (1) 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 ensure benefits to low-income communities, disadvantaged communities, farmers of small- and medium-sized farms, disadvantaged farmers, and tribes.

(2) Thirty percent of the resources of a program described in paragraph (1) shall be directed to the provision of extension, planning, technical and financial assistance, monitoring and reporting, and other necessary services to landowners, producers, and land managers, including those that are disadvantaged and underserved, to implement natural carbon sequestration projects and practices as integral to implementation of the pathways, strategies, and programs identified in subdivision (c).

(3) Services described in paragraph (2) may be provided by resource conservation districts, the University of California Cooperative Extension, the California Conservation Corps, urban parks departments, and other qualified nonprofit organizations.