Enrolled  August 25, 2022
Passed  IN  Senate  August 23, 2022
Passed  IN  Assembly  August 18, 2022
Amended  IN  Assembly  June 06, 2022
Amended  IN  Senate  May 19, 2022
Amended  IN  Senate  March 23, 2022
Amended  IN  Senate  March 14, 2022

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill
No. 1036

Introduced by Senator Newman
(Principal coauthor: Senator Min)
(Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Petrie-Norris)
(Coauthors: Senators Archuleta, Bates, Gonzalez, Stern, and Umberg)
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Chen, Choi, Daly, Davies, Levine, Nguyen, and Quirk-Silva)

February 15, 2022

An act to add and repeal Chapter 4.2 (commencing with Section 14414) of Division 12 of the Public Resources Code, relating to conservation.


LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


SB 1036, Newman. California Conservation Corps: California Ocean Corps Program.
Existing law establishes in the Natural Resources Agency the California Conservation Corps and requires the corps to implement and administer the conservation corps program. Existing law requires the director of the corps to establish a forestry corps program to accomplish specified objectives related to forest health.
This bill would require the director to establish and administer the California Ocean Corps Program to provide competitive grants to certified local conservation corps located in coastal counties in order to provide opportunities for young people to complete workforce preparation, training, and education programs, and, ultimately, to obtain employment, or continue education, in ocean and coastal conservation or related fields, as provided. The bill would require the director to develop and adopt program guidelines before awarding any grants, as provided. The bill would require the director to develop performance measures and accountability controls to track progress and outcomes of all grants. The bill would require the director, on or before January 1, 2026, to report these outcomes to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature. The bill would make these provisions contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or another statute. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2027.
Vote: MAJORITY   Appropriation: NO   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

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


SECTION 1.

 (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) For nearly 30 years, California’s local conservation corps have provided California’s disenfranchised young adults a safety net and career pathway through alternative education and workforce development programs. These programs and services include hands-on paid work experience and training, leadership development, mentoring and life skills development, high school diploma completion, transitional services, and job readiness training.
(2) The local conservation corps have established a track record of providing these services and pursuing their mission while meeting the highest standards for accountability and performance. Since their inception, local conservation corps have serviced over 102,000 young adults throughout the state. In 2020 alone, corpsmembers worked over 1,300,000 paid, on-the-job training hours and local conservation corps facilitated the successful transition of more than 850 corpsmembers into competitive employment or postsecondary education.
(3) With 840 miles of shoreline, more residents than any other state in the union, and as the world’s fifth largest economy, California is inextricably linked to the Pacific Ocean and the world’s oceans in general.
(4) The reality and impacts of climate change on California are clear and constitute a crisis, including all of the following:
(A) Much of California’s coastal waters have seen the rate of temperature change increase by 2.5–3.5 degrees Fahrenheit per century.
(B) Sea levels have risen in the last two decades to nearly double that of the last century.
(C) Sea level around the City of San Francisco has risen by six inches just since 1950. Its speed of rise has accelerated over the last 10 years and is now rising by about one inch every 10 years. This effect is accelerating; it is projected that the City of San Francisco will repeat the six inches of sea level rise it experienced from 1977 to 2016, a span of 39 years, in just 2017 to 2033, a span of 16 years.
(D) The top 100 meters of the Pacific Ocean has warmed more than 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969.
(E) The Pacific Ocean surface water acidity has increased by about 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
(F) In total, climate change, and specifically its effect on the ocean, puts California’s residents and their way of life at significant risk, including from hazards to built infrastructure, coastal erosion, tourism, coastal wetlands, beaches, and drinking water.
(5) An organization with the training, conservational, and organizational capacities of California’s certified local conservation corps could significantly advance California’s climate resiliency and ocean conservation goals by giving young people the opportunity to engage in structured and focused ocean conservation work, addressing in part the state’s needs in climate resilience, ocean conservation, workforce development, criminal justice, environmental justice, and the support of civic and volunteer service.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature that the California Ocean Corps, established pursuant to Section 14414 of the Public Resources Code, create and facilitate work and training opportunities to be as expansive and accessible as practicable.

SEC. 2.

 Chapter 4.2 (commencing with Section 14414) is added to Division 12 of the Public Resources Code, to read:
CHAPTER  4.2. California Ocean Corps Program

14414.
 (a) The director shall establish and administer the California Ocean Corps Program to provide competitive grants to certified local conservation corps located in coastal counties in order to provide opportunities for young people 16 to 30 years of age, inclusive, to complete workforce preparation, training, and education programs, and, ultimately, to obtain employment, or continue education, in ocean and coastal conservation or related fields. As part of the California Ocean Corps Program, the director shall provide grants to certified local conservation corps located in coastal counties to offer casual volunteer opportunities, paid internships, or long-term, paid skill development programs.
(b) The director shall prioritize grants to certified local conservation corps located in counties impacted by the Huntington Beach oil spill that started in early October 2021, including the County of Orange.
(c) The grant program shall fund programs or projects that provide both of the following:
(1) Address the impacts, and potential impacts, of climate change on ocean, coastal, and bay resources, including sea level rise, storm surge, beach and bluff erosion, salt water intrusion, and flooding, restore and enhance coastal watersheds and habitat, provide public access to the coast, or address extreme weather events or other natural and manmade hazards that threaten coastal communities, infrastructure, and natural resources.
(2) Provide workforce development opportunities, including education, training, certifications, or placement services for jobs and careers in ocean and coastal conservation and related fields.
(d) (1) The director shall prioritize projects that use natural infrastructure in coastal communities to help adapt to climate change and that provide multiple public benefits.
(2) The director shall give consideration to projects in a variety of ecosystems along the state’s coastline.
(e) (1) Before awarding grants pursuant to this section, the director shall develop and adopt program guidelines. Before the adoption of the program guidelines, the director shall seek input from the State Coastal Conservancy, California Coastal Commission, Ocean Protection Council, and certified local conservation corps on the draft guidelines.
(2) Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code shall not apply to the development and adoption of program guidelines adopted pursuant to this section.
(3) If the director awards grants to projects that undertake activities related to oil spill response, cleanup, restoration, and mitigation, the Natural Resources Agency shall take actions to recover the funds expended from a responsible party pursuant to Chapter 7.4 (commencing with Section 8670.1) of Division 1 of Title 2 of the Government Code, or any other applicable law.
(f) (1) In order to ensure accountability of work being completed through the California Ocean Corps, the director shall develop performance measures and accountability controls to track progress and outcomes of all grants.
(2) On or before January 1, 2026, the director shall report the outcomes described in paragraph (1) to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the Legislature.

14414.1.
 Implementation of this chapter is contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature in the annual Budget Act or another statute for its purposes.

14414.2.
 This chapter shall remain in effect only until January 1, 2027, and as of that date is repealed.