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Senate committee votes on key bills on June 22 Urge YES on AB 2575 and AB 1504 and NO on AB 2163 Two outstanding
forest-conservation bills have made it to the home stretch
in Sacramento. To get the big win, they need a rousing outpouring
of support from the home team. At the same time, an opposition-team bill is maneuvering to score another boondoggle for the timber industry. That measure must be booed out of the ballpark! On June 22 the Senate’s Committee on Natural Resources and Water will vote on two measures strongly supported by Forests Forever: Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro’s (D-North Coast) watersheds-focused A.B. 2575, and Assemblymember Nancy Skinner’s (D-Berkeley) “Carbon Sink Act,” A.B. 1504. Both pieces of positive legislation offer significant advances in forest protection and watershed restoration. Your calls and emails to key committee members urging YES votes on both A.B. 2575 and A.B. 1504 could make big a big difference in the way California’s forests are managed and watersheds restored. But the bad timber-industry bill is also poised to score a win – unless we can block its path. Also on June 22 the natural resources committee will be voting on A.B. 2163, authored by Assemblymember Tony Mendoza (D-Norwalk). As a follow-up to last year’s passage of Mendoza’s A.B. 1066, A.B. 2163 offers an overbroad and one-sided approach to lengthening the active period of certain timber harvest plans (THPs) from three to five years. Please urge a NO vote on A.B. 2163!
As those who have been following its progress through the legislative process are well aware, Chesbro’s A.B. 2575 – the Forests Forever-sponsored “Comprehensive Forest Land Recovery and Restoration Act” – focuses on two proposed pilot projects to be conducted by the California Dept. of Forestry (CDF) to demonstrate sound techniques for assessing the effects of logging operations on soil, air, water, wildlife and climate, and to protect and repair salmon and steelhead habitat. The cumulative impacts over time of multiple development projects in close proximity are devastating watershed quality as well as critically endangered wildlife such as salmon. A.B. 2575 will begin the healing process by taking into account all of these impacts, creating a consistent, over-arching approach to protecting and restoring watersheds. A different but equally important approach to forest protection is embodied by Skinner’s A.B. 1504 which would, for the first time, require the CDF, in consultation with the state Air Resources Board (ARB), to determine to what extent existing forestry regulations and programs are meeting California’s greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction goals. California’s forests serve as a first-line defense against CO2 pollution and climate change. Assemblymember Skinner and Forests Forever want to recognize and codify that value so that forests are managed in a way that enhances their capacity to scrub the air clean. “We need to ensure that the CDF accurately monitors and assesses carbon sequestration scenarios,” said Forest Forever Legislative Advocate Luke Breit. “Otherwise we might even make a bad situation worse instead of better. We think A.B. 1504 will help achieve that goal.”
Contact Assemblymember Wesley Chesbro (D-North Coast) at 916-319-2001and congratulate him on the success so far of A.B. 2575. Let him know you support his effort to focus legislation on the cumulative impacts of multiple logging projects in fragile watersheds. Contact Assemblymember Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) at 916-319-2014 and thank her for authoring A.B. 1504, the “Carbon Sink Act,” and advancing it to the Senate. Contact Senators on the Committee on Natural Resources and Water and let them know you support both A.B. 2575 and A.B. 1504. Please ask them to vote YES on the bills when they come before the committee on June 22. Also ask the senators to vote NO on A.B. 2163, an unnecessary extension of THP timeframes.
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FORESTS FOREVER San
Francisco |