Coastal resources: marine spatial planning.

Existing law declares it is the policy of the state to assess the long-term values and benefits of the conservation and development of ocean resources and uses with the objective of restoring or maintaining the health of the ocean ecosystem and ensuring the proper management of renewable and nonrenewable resources. Existing law requires the Ocean Protection Council to coordinate activities of state agencies that are related to the protection and conservation of coastal waters and ocean ecosystems to improve the effectiveness of state efforts to protect ocean resources within existing fiscal limitations, to establish policies to coordinate the collection, evaluation, and sharing of scientific data related to coastal and ocean resources among agencies, and to identify and recommend to the Legislature changes in law needed to achieve these goals. This bill would, consistent with the above goals and subject to the availability of funding, require the Ocean Protection Council, to support state agencies' use and sharing of scientific and geospatial information for coastal- and ocean-relevant decisionmaking, including marine spatial planning, by taking specified actions, to assess the needs of California's public agencies with respect to their abilities to gather, manage, use, and share information and decision-support tools relevant to ecosystem-based management in the coastal and ocean environment. The bill would require each state agency, board, department, or commission with ocean or coastal management interests or regulatory authority to cooperate with the Ocean Protection Council to achieve all of the specified goals, subject to available funding and consistent with each entity's individual mandate. The bill would authorize the council to award grants, enter into interagency agreements, and provide assistance to public agencies and nonprofit organizations to support the achievement of these goals and would require the council to give preference to public agencies that are meeting these goals.