Bill Text: CA SB1036 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Introduced

NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft

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Bill Title: California Conservation Corps: California Ocean Corps Program.

Spectrum: Slight Partisan Bill (Democrat 10-5)

Status: (Vetoed) 2022-09-29 - In Senate. Consideration of Governor's veto pending. [SB1036 Detail]

Download: California-2021-SB1036-Introduced.html

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CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION

Senate Bill

No. 1036

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Introduced by Senator Newman
(Principal coauthor: Senator Min)
(Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Petrie-Norris)
(Coauthor: Senator Archuleta)
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Chen, Choi, and Davies)

February 15, 2022

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An act to add and repeal Chapter 4.2 (commencing with Section 14414) to Division 12 of the Public Resources Code, relating to conservation, and making an appropriation therefor.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SB 1036, as introduced, Newman. Orange County Conservation Corps: California Ocean Corps.

Existing law establishes in the Natural Resources Agency the California Conservation Corps and requires the corps to implement and administer the conservation corps program. Existing law requires the director of the corps to establish a forestry corps program to accomplish specified objectives related to forest health.

This bill would authorize the Orange County Conservation Corps to establish and implement the California Ocean Corps in order to organize and provide opportunities for young people to contribute to meaningful and technically skilled ocean conservation work, as provided, in the County of Orange. This bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2027. The bill would appropriate $12,000,000 to the Orange County Conservation Corps for these purposes.

This bill would make legislative findings and declarations as to the necessity of a special statute for the County of Orange.

Digest Key

Vote: 2/3   Appropriation: YES   Fiscal Committee: YES   Local Program: NO  

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Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) For nearly 30 years, California’s local conservation corps have provided California’s disenfranchised young adults a safety net and career pathway through alternative education and workforce development programs. These programs and services include hands-on paid work experience and training, leadership development, mentoring and life skills development, high school diploma completion, transitional services, and job readiness training.

(b) The Orange County Conservation Corps (OCCC) has established a track record of providing these services and pursuing its mission while meeting the highest standards for accountability and performance. Over the last 29 years, OCCC has serviced over 9,000 young adults throughout Orange County. In 2020 alone, OCCC corpsmembers worked over 87,205 paid on-the-job training hours and OCCC facilitated the successful transition of more than 150 corpsmembers into competitive employment or postsecondary education. On a yearly basis, OCCC works with 34 local public agencies to complete at least 25 conservation projects throughout the region that provide training opportunities for the corpsmembers.

(c) With 840 miles of shoreline, more residents than any other state in the union, and as the world’s fifth largest economy, California is inextricably linked to the Pacific Ocean and the world’s oceans in general.

(d) The reality and impacts of climate change on California are clear and constitute a crisis, including all of the following:

(1) Much of California’s coast has seen the rate of temperature change increase by 2.5–3.5 degrees per century.

(2) Sea levels have risen in the last two decades to nearly double that of the last century.

(3) Sea level around the City of San Francisco has risen by six inches just since 1950. Its speed of rise has accelerated over the last 10 years and is now rising by about one inch every 10 years. This effect is accelerating; it is projected that the City of San Francisco will repeat the six inches of sea level rise it experienced from 1977 to 2016, a span of 39 years, in just 2017 to 2033, a span of 16 years.

(4) The top 100 meters of ocean has warmed more than 0.6 degrees Fahrenheit since 1969.

(5) Ocean surface water acidity has increased by about 30 percent since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

(6) In total, climate change, and specifically its effect on the ocean, puts California’s residents and their way of life at significant hazard, including hazards related to built infrastructure, coastal erosion, tourism, coastal wetlands, beaches, and drinking water.

(e) An organization with the training, conservational, and organizational capacities of the OCCC could significantly advance California’s climate resiliency and ocean conservation goals by giving young people the opportunity to engage in structured and focused ocean conservation work, addressing in part the state’s needs in climate resilience, ocean conservation, workforce development, criminal justice, environmental justice, and the support of civic and volunteer service.

SEC. 2.

 Chapter 4.2 (commencing with Section 14414) is added to Division 12 of the Public Resources Code, to read:

CHAPTER  4.2. California Ocean Corps

14414.

 The Orange County Conservation Corps may establish and implement the California Ocean Corps, in order to organize and provide opportunities for young people, ages 16 to 30, inclusive, to contribute to meaningful and technically skilled ocean conservation work at various levels of engagement and training, spanning from casual volunteer opportunities to long-term, paid skill development programs in the County of Orange.

14414.1.

 The California Ocean Corps shall not be considered a local conservation corps program. It is the intent of the Legislature that the California Ocean Corps create and facilitate work and training opportunities to be as expansive and accessible as practicable outside the existing operating structure of the local conservation corps.

14414.2.

 This chapter shall remain in effect only until January 1, 2027, and as of that date is repealed.

SEC. 3.

 The sum of twelve million dollars ($12,000,000) is hereby appropriated from the General Fund to the Orange County Conservation Corps for purposes of establishing and implementing the California Ocean Corps pursuant to Chapter 4.2 (commencing with Section 14414) of Division 12 of the Public Resources Code. Notwithstanding any other law, these funds are available for encumbrance until January 1, 2027.

SEC. 4.

 The Legislature finds and declares that a special statute is necessary and that a general statute cannot be made applicable within the meaning of Section 16 of Article IV of the California Constitution because the recent oil spill off the coast of the County of Orange has created an urgent need of assistance in the recovery and conservation of the coast in that region.