The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 designates the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources of emissions of greenhouse gases that cause global warming in order to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. The act requires all state agencies to consider and implement strategies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. This bill would additionally require state agencies to prioritize strategies to reduce methane emissions, including emissions from imported petroleum and natural gas, where feasible and cost effective. The bill would require the state board to encourage natural gas procurement on behalf of the state to shift to certified natural gas producing low methane emissions. The bill would also authorize the state board, the Public Utilities Commission, and other relevant agencies to apply approved protocols that measure, monitor, report, and verify methane emissions to existing programs to reduce methane emissions, including emissions from imported petroleum and natural gas procured by utilities and other large gas users, as provided. The bill would also authorize the state board, the Public Utilities Commission, and other relevant agencies to use all relevant sources and standards, including, but not limited to, emissions data, models, or protocols from existing or new regulations.
Senate Resolution 50 designates October 8, 2025, as "California Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Day" to recognize the state's leadership in hydrogen and fuel cell technologies. The resolution highlights California's advancements in clean energy, environmental sustainability, and innovation in these fields, including applications in transportation, power generation, and industrial decarbonization. It does not create new laws or regulations but serves as a symbolic acknowledgment of the state's role in advancing clean hydrogen solutions.
This measure would express the Legislature's commitment to advancing innovative solutions that reduce enteric methane emissions while preserving the economic sustainability of the cattle industries. The measure would urge the United States Congress to explore advancing innovative solutions in enteric methane emission reduction while preserving the economic sustainability of the cattle industries.
Existing law, the Cannella Environmental Farming Act of 1995, requires the Department of Food and Agriculture to establish and oversee an environmental farming program to provide incentives to farmers whose practices promote the well-being of ecosystems, air quality, and wildlife and their habitat. Existing law establishes the Climate Smart Agriculture Account, the moneys in which are continuously appropriated for purposes of the act. This bill would instead require the department to establish and oversee a sustainable agriculture program to provide research, technical assistance, and incentive grants to promote agricultural practices that support climate resilience for farms and ranches and the well-being of ecosystems, air quality, and biodiversity. By expanding the purposes for which moneys in a continuously appropriated fund may be used, the bill would make an appropriation. The act requires the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to convene a 9-member Scientific Advisory Panel on Environmental Farming, as prescribed, for the purpose of providing advice to the secretary on the implementation of the Healthy Soils Program and the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program and assistance to federal, state, and local government agencies on issues relating to the impact of agricultural practices on air, water, and wildlife habitat, as specified. Existing law requires members of the panel to be highly qualified and professionally active or engaged in the conduct of scientific research and provides for their appointment for terms of 3 years. This bill would rename the Scientific Advisory Panel on Environmental Farming the Scientific Advisory Panel on Resilient and Sustainable Agriculture for the purpose of providing advice to the secretary on the implementation of research, incentive, and technical assistance grant programs for sustainable agriculture. The bill would expand the panel from 9 members to 11 members, would require the panel to consist of members of the public that represent scientific expertise in sustainable agriculture and members of state agencies that represent expertise in programs and policies related to agriculture, and would limit the members of the panel to 2 terms. The act establishes the Climate Smart Agriculture Technical Assistance Grant Program to provide funds to technical assistance providers to provide technical assistance, as defined, to applicants of the Healthy Soils Program, the Alternative Manure Management Program, and the State Water Efficiency and Enhancement Program. Existing law requires the secretary to make available not less than 5% of the funds appropriated to the department for those programs, but not more than 20%, for providing technical assistance, as specified, and for supporting annual information sharing among technical assistance providers, the department, and other relevant stakeholders, as specified. This bill would expand the definition of "technical assistance" to include, among other things, training, conservation, agricultural planning, and grant writing. The bill would delete the provision establishing the Climate Smart Agriculture Technical Assistance Grant Program and would instead require the secretary to make available not less than 5%, but not more than 20%, of the funds appropriated to the department for the above-described programs, for providing technical assistance directly through a technical assistance grant program, or indirectly through a block grant program that includes funding for technical assistance. The bill would require the department to provide funds to technical assistance providers to: (1) support farmers and ranchers in the application process for grants from those programs and the implementation of funded projects; (2) provide general planning and training for climate-smart and sustainable agriculture; and (3) lease, purchase, or repair farming, ranching, and food processing equipment that can be centrally housed with the technical assistance provider and shared regionally with producers. This bill would require the department to authorize a percentage of funding to support training and capacity building within technical assistance provider organizations and coordination between organizations to improve assistance, as provided, and would require the department to support information sharing among technical assistance providers, the department, and other relevant stakeholders, as specified. The bill would require the department to allow equipment sharing costs funded as part of the grant awards to include developing and expanding equipment sharing programs, as specified.
Existing law, the California Coastal Act of 1976, among other things, requires anyone wishing to perform or undertake any development in the coastal zone, except as specified, in addition to obtaining any other permit required by law from any local government or from any state, regional, or local agency, to obtain a coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission or local government, as provided. This bill, upon appropriation, would authorize the commission to authorize blue carbon demonstration projects, as defined, in order to demonstrate and quantify the carbon sequestration potential of these projects to help inform the state's natural and working lands and climate resilience strategies. The bill, upon appropriation, would, among other things, authorize the commission to require an applicant with a nonresidential project that impacts coastal wetland, subtidal, intertidal, or marine habitats or ecosystems to build or contribute to a blue carbon demonstration project as mitigation for those impacts.
By Executive Order No. N-82-20, Governor Gavin Newsom directed the Natural Resources Agency to combat the biodiversity and climate crises by, among other things, establishing the California Biodiversity Collaborative and conserving at least 30% of the state's lands and coastal waters by 2030. Existing law provides that it is the goal of the state to conserve at least 30% of California's lands and coastal waters by 2030, known as the 30x30 goal. On April 22, 2022, the Natural Resources Agency issued the "Pathways to 30x30 California: Accelerating Conservation of California's Nature" report and existing law requires the Secretary of Natural Resources Agency to prepare and submit an annual report to the Legislature on progress made toward achieving the 30x30 goal, as provided. This bill would, to further specified findings of the Pathways to 30x30 Report, require the agency to develop strategies to reduce barriers and increase support for stewardship of conserved lands. The bill would require the agency to collaborate with stakeholders, California Native American tribes, and relevant state agencies to prepare a section on stewardship as part of the 2027 annual report on progress made toward achieving the 30x30 goal, which the bill would require to include, among other things, recommendations to increase and improve stewardship of 30x30 lands, including innovative ways to reduce barriers and increase federal, state, and local support for stewardship, as specified. The bill would require the update to be posted on the agency's internet website.
Existing law requires the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, in accordance with policies established by the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, to assist local governments in preventing future high-intensity wildland fires and instituting appropriate fuels management by making its wildland fire prevention and vegetation management expertise available to local governments, as provided. This bill would define an environmentally sensitive vegetation management project to mean vegetation management that reduces catastrophic wildfire risk over the long term while supporting native wildlife and biodiversity. The bill would require a state public entity to consider incorporating specified criteria into its funding guidelines for a grant program that funds environmentally sensitive vegetation management projects.
Existing provisions of the California Constitution make the Attorney General, subject to the powers and duties of the Governor, the chief law officer of the state. Under existing law, the Attorney General may maintain an action for equitable relief in the name of the people of the State of California against any person for the protection of the natural resources of the state from pollution, impairment, or destruction. This bill would continue in existence in the Department of Justice a Bureau of Environmental Justice. Existing law requires the State Air Resources Board to prepare, in consultation with specified entities, a monitoring plan regarding the availability and effectiveness of toxic air contaminant and criteria air pollutant advanced sensing monitoring technologies and existing community air monitoring systems, as specified, and based on the findings and recommendations of that plan, select, in consultation with the air pollution control districts and air quality management districts, the highest priority locations around the state to deploy community air monitoring systems, as provided. This bill would require monitoring in a location selected by the state board to remain active for no fewer than 5 years, with an option for the air district and the state board to agree to extend active monitoring for additional 5-year periods, as necessary. The bill would require the state board to update the above-described monitoring plan by July 1, 2026, and every 5 years thereafter. The bill would require the update to be considered and approved by the state board before it is implemented. The bill would subject these requirement to available funding. The bill would require, by March 1, 2027, and annually thereafter, the state board, in consultation with the air districts, to report to specified committees of the Legislature about the progress the state board and the air districts have made in implementing these and other provisions, as specified. The bill would require the chair of the state board and the executive directors or air pollution control officers of the relevant air districts to appear before the relevant policy committees of the Legislature to present on the progress in implementing those requirements. By imposing additional requirements on air districts, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
The California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 establishes the State Air Resources Board as the state agency responsible for monitoring and regulating sources emitting greenhouse gases and requires the state board to ensure that statewide greenhouse gas emissions are reduced to at least 40% below the 1990 level by 2030. Existing law requires the state board, in consultation with the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, to develop a standardized system for quantifying the direct carbon emissions and decay from fuel reduction activities for purposes of meeting the accounting requirements for Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund expenditures, as specified. This bill would require the state board, on or before January 1, 2028, to publish on its internet website an assessment of the life-cycle emissions from alternative uses of forest and agricultural biomass residues, as specified. The bill would require the state board, on or before January 1, 2029, to publish on its internet website a strategy to support beneficial carbon removal products, including, but not limited to, biochar, that are generated from agricultural or forest biomass resources. The bill would require the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to require, to the extent feasible, all state-funded forest health projects to include an appropriate forest biomass resource disposal component that includes a scientifically based, verifiable method to determine the amount of biomass to be physically removed and the amount to be burned by prescribed burn. The bill would require the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to include the value proposition of using agricultural and forest biomass resources for low- and negative-carbon liquid and gaseous fuels, including hydrogen, from noncombustion conversion technology methods and other emerging and innovative approaches in relevant reports and other agency-sponsored documentation.
Senate Resolution 61 expresses the California Senate's support for improving building resiliency to reduce risks from wildfires and other climate-related hazards. It encourages the adoption of noncombustible materials and resilient construction practices in high-risk areas, particularly in Wildland-Urban Interface zones. The resolution urges state agencies like the Building Standards Commission and Department of Insurance to review and update building codes and policies to enhance safety and reduce economic losses from disasters. As a non-binding resolution, it does not create new laws but formally declares legislative support for these measures.
