The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report (EIR) on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA requires a lead agency, before releasing an environmental review document for a project, to begin consultation with a California Native American tribe that is traditionally and culturally affiliated with the geographic area of the proposed project, as provided. CEQA authorizes the parties, as a part of the consultation, to propose mitigation measures capable of avoiding or substantially lessening potential significant impacts to a tribal cultural resource or alternatives that would avoid significant impacts to a tribal cultural resource. CEQA defines a tribal cultural resource as including, among other things, a site, feature, place, cultural landscape, sacred place, or object with cultural value to a California Native American tribe that is included or determined to be eligible for inclusion in the California Register of Historical Resources or included in a local register of historical resources, as provided. This bill would modify the definition of tribal cultural resource to, among other things, include a site, feature, place, cultural landscape, sacred place, or object with cultural value to a California Native American tribe that is identified by the Native American Heritage Commission as a sacred place, as provided, or included in a local tribal register and provided to the lead agency by a consulting California Native American tribe. CEQA requires public agencies, when feasible, to avoid damaging effects to tribal cultural resources and specifies mitigation measures that may be considered to avoid or minimize significant adverse impacts to tribal cultural resources if the consultation process fails to result in agreed-upon mitigation measures. This bill would revise and recast those provisions to instead require a lead agency, when feasible, to adopt mitigation measures, as provided, to avoid or minimize the significant adverse impacts to tribal cultural resources. The bill would require avoidance and preservation of the resource in place to be considered when requested by the consulting California Native American tribe, and if avoidance and preservation are determined to not be feasible, the bill would require the lead agency to document the basis for that determination with substantial evidence and, when feasible, to incorporate other measures to avoid or minimize significant adverse impacts to the resource consistent with CEQA. The bill would authorize the consulting California Native American tribe to identify culturally appropriate mitigation measures, which the bill would require the lead agency to consider and incorporate, to the extent feasible, in developing mitigation and treatment measures. This bill would require the lead agency, if archaeological methods and standards are used in the identification of tribal cultural resources instead of tribal methods and standards or tribal traditional knowledge submitted by a California Native American tribe during tribal consultation, to explain its decision to use archaeological methods and standards. The bill would require the lead agency, if treatment and mitigation measures preferred and submitted by a California Native American tribe during tribal consultation are not recommended for adoption by the lead agency, to explain its decision. By imposing additional duties on local agencies in their implementation of CEQA, the 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 no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.
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Tribal Nations
Existing law establishes the sovereignty of the state. This bill would require the state government to support California Native Americans to maintain cultural and linguistic traditions, practice ecosystem stewardship, and engage in good faith government-to-government consultations with all California Native American tribes regarding policies that may affect tribal communities. Existing law establishes various state water policies, including the policy that the use of water for domestic purposes is the highest use of water and the human right to water. Existing law requires the State Water Resources Control Board to act upon all applications for a permit to appropriate water. This bill would declare that it is the established policy of the state to recognize and address the inequities, as described, inflicted upon all California Native American tribes through financial assistance, protection of tribal beneficial uses, consultation on water projects, plans, and policies, and incorporation of indigenous knowledge to restore and protect ecosystems. The bill would require specified state agencies, including the State Water Resources Control Board, regional water quality control boards, and the Natural Resources Agency, to incorporate this policy when revising, adopting, or establishing policies, regulations, permits, or grant criteria to address identified inequities. The bill would require those state entities to identify and offer financial assistance to the tribes consistent with existing legal and policy requirements for financial assistance programs. If there is a dispute between a California Native American tribe and one of those state agencies over the implementation of that policy, the bill would require that matter to be brought before the Governor's Office of Tribal Affairs for mediation before the state agency action is challenged in court and would specify procedures and timelines for mediation, as provided. Existing law authorizes the board to conduct investigations and to issue information orders in administering water rights, as provided. The bill would require the state board, in furtherance of an investigation and upon request, to consult with a tribe whose ancestral territory includes the water body or water bodies at issue for the claimed riparian or appropriative right.
Existing law, the Farmer Equity Act of 2017, requires the Department of Food and Agriculture to ensure the inclusion of socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers, as defined, in the development, adoption, implementation, and enforcement of food and agriculture laws, regulations, and policies and programs, as specified. This bill would authorize the Secretary of Food and Agriculture to establish 2 advisory committees, known as the Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) Producer Advisory Committee and the Small-Scale Producer Advisory Committee, for the purpose of advising the secretary and the department with respect to their responsibilities under the Farmer Equity Act of 2017. The bill would authorize the advisory committees to advise the secretary and the department on programs, policies, education, outreach, technical assistance, and general needs for small-scale producers, medium-scale producers, and socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers in California. The bill would require the members of the advisory committees to be small-scale or medium-scale socially disadvantaged farmers or ranchers, as provided.
(1) The Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act establishes a statewide program for the control of the quality of all the waters in the state and makes certain legislative findings and declarations. Existing law defines the term "beneficial uses" for the purposes of water quality as certain waters of the state that may be protected against quality degradation, to include, among others, domestic, municipal, agricultural, and industrial supplies. This bill would add findings and declarations related to California tribal communities, as defined, and the importance of protecting tribal water use. The bill would add tribal water uses as waters of the state that may be protected against quality degradation for purposes of the defined term "beneficial uses." The bill would require any project or regulatory program subject to approval by the State Water Quality Control Board or a regional water quality control board, within a specified environmental review, and in any findings and declarations presented for state board or a regional board approval, to describe, with both quantitative and qualitative information, how the project or regulatory program will impact tribal water uses, and would require, on or before December 1, 2026, and every 2 years thereafter, the state board to publish a report on implementation of this provision on its internet website. (2) Existing law requires the state board to consult with and carefully evaluate the recommendations of concerned federal, state, and local agencies during the process of formulating or revising state policy for water quality control. This bill would additionally require the state board to consult and carefully evaluate the recommendations of concerned California tribal communities. (3) Existing law requires the state board to formulate and adopt state policy for water quality control. Existing law requires each regional board to formulate and adopt water quality control plans for all areas within the region and prohibits a water quality control plan, or a revision of the plan, adopted by a regional board from becoming effective unless it is approved by the state board. Existing law authorizes the state board to adopt certain water quality control plans. Existing law requires a regional board to establish water quality objectives in water quality control plans that in its judgment will ensure reasonable protection of beneficial uses and the prevention of nuisance and requires each regional board to consider specified factors in establishing water quality objectives. This bill would require, on or before January 1, 2027, the state board to propose, and solicit tribal consultation and public comment on, water quality standards to achieve reasonable protection of tribal water uses into the water quality control plan for the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta watershed. This bill would add consultations with California tribal communities and environmental justice considerations as factors for a regional board to consider in establishing water quality control objectives. The bill would exempt adoption of tribal water uses within water quality control plans from the California Environmental Quality Act, and would require, upon the next triennial review of a water quality control plan after January 1, 2026, each regional board to define tribal beneficial uses in its water quality control plan and, where applicable, adopt water quality standards to achieve reasonable protection of tribal water uses into water quality control plans. (4) Existing law requires the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Natural Resources Agency, on or before December 1, 2007, to enter into a memorandum of understanding for the purposes of establishing the California Water Quality Monitoring Council, which the state board is required to administer. Existing law requires the monitoring council to review existing water quality monitoring, assessment, and reporting efforts and to recommend specific actions and funding needs necessary to coordinate and enhance those efforts. Existing law requires the memorandum of understanding to describe the means by which the monitoring council shall formulate recommendations to reduce redundancies, inefficiencies, and inadequacies in existing water quality monitoring and data management programs and to ensure that water quality improvement projects financed by the state provide specific information necessary to track project effectiveness with regard to achieving clean water and healthy ecosystems. This bill would require, on or before December 1, 2026, the California Environmental Protection Agency and the Natural Resources Agency to amend the memorandum of understanding to incorporate participation from California tribal communities in the actions of the monitoring council, and would describe these potential methods of participation. The bill would require the memorandum of understating to include recommendations on how to achieve and maintain tribal water uses through state board and regional board regulatory actions and other programs, as specified. (5) Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.
