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TABLE OF CONTENTS The Economic Localization Movement Arrives in the Eel River Basin The Untold Story of the Pikeminnow Sport Fishermen Can Save the Day for the SRA Getting from “Bleed it and they will come” to “You are Super(wo)man” Sonoma County Progress and Problems City Kids and the River: Global Warming Notes from the Environmental Defense Fund Fishery Advocates Seek Share of State Oil Revenue Windfall for Restoration The Right to Water is the Right to Life |
Fishery Advocates Seek Share of State Oil Revenue Windfall for Restoration By Jeff Shellito, CalTrout Government Affairs Manager, and Tom Weseloh, Northcoast Manager SB 1125 would annually allocate: “Chesbro’s bill needs to become law because of the important economic and intrinsic value of California’s remaining native runs of wild salmon and steelhead trout, many of which are listed as either ‘threatened’ or ‘endangered’ under the state and federal endangered species acts,” said Brian Stranko, CalTrout Executive Director. “We know that salmon and steelhead trout support recreational and commercial fisheries that provide thousands of jobs and are important to regional economies in California.” SB 1125 was introduced at the same time the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) was reporting to the Legislature that California will collect $343.7 million from tidelands oil revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006. Even after adjusting for a one-time payment of $96.6 million from the City of Long Beach, the $247.1 million is significantly higher than the revenues received each year since 1995-96 (See Figure 1). For fiscal 2006-07, the Governor’s Budget assumes that $218.7 million from tidelands oil revenues will be collected and deposited into the state’s General Fund. The LAO indicates that price assumptions shared by most forecasters expect that world oil prices will remain high next year, averaging the levels being experienced in 2005-06. SB 1125 comes at a time when funding to pay for resource conservation is in great demand, but short supply. There is insufficient funding for the Department of Fish and Game to meet its public trust responsibilities. There is close to a $1 billon backlog in state parks deferred maintenance. Commercial salmon fishermen are sitting at the docks with idle boats and no fish. Essential marine conservation work remains years overdue, and key wetlands restoration projects go undone due to a shortage of funds. Stranko added, “In other areas of the state budget, the improving California economy has allowed the Governor to seek modest but important increases in funding for infrastructure and education programs, such as a rollback in tuition hikes at the University of California and state college system. CalTrout believes that the Legislature and Governor should also invest a share of the windfall from state oil and gas lease revenues for programs and projects benefiting the natural resources and environment of the state. SB 1125 makes that possible.” CalTrout sponsored a similar bill in 2005, Senate Bill 1086 by State Senator Carole Migden (D-San Francisco), that was approved by the Legislature but vetoed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (See “Legislative Report Card,” from California Trout’s Streamkeepers Log, Fall 2005). Chesbro’s new bill seeks to extend and expand a law originally authored by former State Senator Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) nine years ago, Senate Bill 271. Before being elected to Congress in 1998, Thompson used his clout as Chair of the powerful Senate Budget Committee and authored SB 271 as a “trailer bill” to the Budget Act of 1997. It established the Salmon and Steelhead Trout Restoration Account and created a dedicated source of revenue for financing salmonid habitat restoration projects, requiring that $8 million from revenues collected by the State Lands Commission from tidelands oil and gas leases be annually allocated to this account through 2003. Funds deposited into the account are annually appropriated by the Legislature in the Budget Bill for expenditure by the Department of Fish and Game (DFG). SB 271 also established a citizen advisory committee, appointed by the DFG Director to provide oversight and make recommendations to the department on various grant and expenditure proposals for the $8 million. Tom Weseloh, CalTrout’s North Coast Manager, is a member of this advisory committee now known as the Peer Review Committee. As originally enacted, the 1997 legislation by Mike Thompson authorized unspecified amounts of tidelands oil revenue to be made annually available for other environmental and natural resource purposes: • DFG review and monitoring of projects subject to the California Environmental Quality Act. The Legislature subsequently extended and expanded the provisions of SB 271 to authorize $2.2 million from tidelands oil revenues to be made available to DFG for implementation of the Marine Life Management Act, plus $10 million to the State Department of Parks and Recreation for deferred maintenance projects. All of these provisions, including the $8 million for salmon and steelhead trout restoration projects, become inoperative on July 1, 2006, and are automatically repealed as of January 1, 2007. The use of tidelands oil revenue to pay for natural resource conservation is an appropriate policy for the state to continue. The Legislature embraced this concept when it enacted SB 271 in 1997. SB 271, which is embodied in Section 6217 of the Public Resources Code, set forth four areas of investment: salmon and steelhead restoration; marine conservation; maintenance of our parks; and a natural resources infrastructure fund for the Department of Fish and Game, water quality, and regional conservation planning. SB 1125 would repeal the sunset on Public Resources Code section 6217, making this provision permanent. Prior to 1997, most of the money collected from state tidelands oil leases was deposited as revenue in the state General Fund. In the 1996-97 fiscal year, the state was receiving slightly less than $100 million from this revenue source. Since then, tidelands oil revenues have historically fluctuated from less than $25 million to nearly $200 million. Due to the state’s deteriorating fiscal situation, in recent years the Department of Finance under the administrations of both Gov. Gray Davis and Arnold Schwarzenegger has requested that the Legislature suspend the operation of the SB 271 funding allocations and allow all tidelands oil revenue to be deposited into the General Fund. In the 2004 Budget Act, however, the Legislature agreed to again suspend SB 271, but decided to “cap” the transfer to the General Fund to $165 million because of an anticipated windfall in tidelands revenues caused by escalating world oil prices. As part of an agreement reached between the Governor and the Legislature, after $165 million had been deposited into the General Fund, the 2004 Budget Act appropriated the next $26.2 million for the following purposes in the specified order of priority: Due to litigation between the State of California and the City of Long Beach, however, there was insufficient tidelands revenue received prior to the end of fiscal 2004-05 to fund all the line-item appropriations made in the 2004 Budget Act. The allocation for salmon and steelhead trout restoration only received partial funding. In the 2005 Budget Bill, the Legislature provided $8 million from tidelands oil money for fisheries restoration work, but Governor Schwarzenegger used his “blue pencil” to reduce this amount to $4 million. In addition to CalTrout SB 1125 is currently supported by the following organizations: American Land Conservancy, Cal Coast, California Council of Land Trusts, California Parks Foundation, California Waterfowl Association, Defenders of Wildlife, NRDC, The Ocean Conservancy, Planning and Conservation, Sierra Club, Trust for Public Land. To view the latest updates with SB 1125 please visit the website listed below and enter SB 1125: http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/bilinfo.html |