Tidelands and submerged lands: sea level action plan.

Existing law grants to various local entities the right, title, and interest of the State of California in and to certain tidelands and submerged lands in trust generally for purposes of commerce, navigation, and fisheries, and for other public trust purposes. This bill would specify that the preparation of a sea level action plan for all of its legislatively granted public trust lands shall be among the management priorities of a local trustee of granted public lands, as defined. The bill would require a local trustee whose gross public trust revenues, as defined, exceed $250,000 to prepare a sea level action plan for those lands by July 1, 2013, but would specify that all other local trustees may, but are not required to, prepare a plan. The bill would require the plan to include, among other things, an assessment of the impact of a range of sea level rise on granted public trust lands, an estimate of the financial cost of this impact, and strategies to prevent or mitigate damage to development and infrastructure and to protect and enhance habitat. This bill would require the State Lands Commission to exempt a local trustee of granted public trust lands from the requirement to prepare a sea level action plan or grant a deadline extension if the revenues derived from its granted public trust lands and assets or funding to it from other sources are not sufficient to pay for the cost of developing the plan.