BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 2001 Page 1 CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS AB 2001 (Mathis) As Amended August 2, 2016 Majority vote -------------------------------------------------------------------- |ASSEMBLY: |76-0 |(April 28, |SENATE: |38-0 |(August 16, | | | |2016) | | |2016) | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -------------------------------------------------------------------- Original Committee Reference: W., P., & W. SUMMARY: Authorizes the Department of Fish and Wildlife (DFW) to permit the taking of the Owens pupfish, a fully protected fish, in the Owens River and Mojave River watersheds if the take is authorized under a safe harbor agreement. The Senate amendments: 1)Delete provisions in the Assembly version which would have amended the statute governing fully protected fish species to clarify that the DFW may authorize the taking of a fully protected fish for purpose of efforts to recover the species, whether or not those efforts are part of a scientific research project. 2)Add a new section authorizing the DFW to authorize the taking AB 2001 Page 2 of the Owens pupfish in the Owens River and Mojave River watersheds if the take is authorized under a safe harbor agreement. 3)Add technical amendments to avoid chaptering out problems with AB 1845 (Dahle) and AB 2488 (Dababneh) of the current legislative session. 4)Make other technical corrections. EXISTING LAW: 1)Prohibits the taking or possession of a fully protected fish except as specified. The species that are classified as fully protected fish include but are not limited to the Owens River pupfish. 2)Permits the DFW to authorize the taking of a fully protected fish for scientific research, including efforts to recover fully protected, threatened, or endangered species. Requires the DFW before authorizing the take of a fully protected fish to make an effort to notify all affected and interested parties, to publish the notice in the California Regulatory Notice Register, and to provide 30 days after publication for submittal of comments. 3)Authorizes the DFW to authorize the taking of a fully protected fish species whose conservation and management is provided for in a natural community conservation plan (NCCP) approved by the DFW. 4)Authorizes the DFW to authorize incidental take of the fully protected unarmored threespine stickleback fish, and the fully protected limestone salamander, under certain limited circumstances, provided specified criteria and standards are AB 2001 Page 3 met for minimization, mitigation and conservation. 5)Provides for the listing of species as threatened or endangered under federal and state endangered species acts. The DFW may issue permits for incidental take of listed species, if specified conditions are met, including mitigation, minimization, and adaptive management requirements. FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible if any state costs. COMMENTS: This bill as amended in the Senate accomplishes the author's stated purpose of allowing the take of Owens pupfish for purposes of assisting in recovery of the species, but through a narrower means than proposed in the Assembly version. The Bishop Paiute Tribe has been working for several years to obtain permits to relocate some of the endangered Owens pupfish to conservation ponds built on the reservation's Native Fish Refuge. In 2014 the United States (U.S.) Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to grant the tribe a permit under a safe harbor agreement to relocate fish from Fish Slough to the ponds as part of the tribe's efforts to contribute toward recovery of the species. A safe harbor agreement is a voluntary agreement whereby the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in exchange for actions that contribute to the recovery of a listed species on non-federal lands, provides assurances that if the parties to the agreement fulfill the conditions of the agreement, additional management activities will not be required. At the end of the agreement period, participants may also return the property to baseline conditions. The safe harbor agreement, however, was put on hold due to concerns raised by neighboring landowners that they might face liability under California's fully protected species statute. AB 2001 Page 4 California also has a safe harbor statute (Fish and Game Code Section 2089.2). However, while the DFW under current law may enter into safe harbor agreements and issue incidental take permits for species protected under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA), subject to the mitigation and other requirements of CESA, the Fully Protected Species statutes do not allow for issuance of incidental take permits, except for scientific purposes. The Assembly version of this bill would have amended the fully protected species statute to allow for take permits to be issued for take of fully protected fish species for a project, the purpose of which is to recover the species. While the author introduced this bill to assist Owens pupfish recovery efforts of the Bishop Piaute Tribe, the Assembly version of this bill was not limited to tribal activities, or to the Owens pupfish. It was, however, limited to recovery projects and did not include actions taken as part of mitigation for a project. This bill as amended by the Senate now provides a more narrow exception allowing for authorization of take of the Owens pupfish in the Owens River and Mohave River watersheds if the take is authorized under a safe harbor agreement. Analysis Prepared by: Diane Colborn / W., P., & W. / (916) 319-2096 FN: 0003754