20250AB__039996ENR INTRODUCED 2025-02-04 AMENDED_SENATE 2025-06-25 AMENDED_SENATE 2025-08-29 PASSED_ASSEMBLY 2025-09-08 PASSED_SENATE 2025-09-04 ENROLLED 2025-09-10 2025 AB ENR Introduced by Assembly Member Boerner (Coauthors: Assembly Members Bryan, Kalra, and Muratsuchi) LEAD_AUTHOR ASSEMBLY Boerner COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Bryan COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Kalra COAUTHOR ASSEMBLY Muratsuchi

An act to add Sections 30100.3 and to the Public Resources Code, relating to coastal resources. coastal resources Coastal resources: coastal development permits: blue carbon demonstration projects. 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.

MAJORITY NO YES NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (

a) California has set the targets to reduce carbon emissions percent below levels by and percent below levels by 2050. (

b) In 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed

Executive Order No. N-82-20, directing the Natural Resources Agency, in consultation with other state agencies, to develop a Natural and Working Lands Climate Smart Strategy that serves as a framework to advance the state’s carbon neutrality goal and build climate resilience. (

c) Executive Order No. N-82-20 also set the goal to conserve at least percent of state land and coastal waters by and a recent Natural Resources Agency report on implementation recognizes the need to restore degraded coastal habitats to capture carbon and mitigate climate change impacts. (

d) Blue carbon, which is carbon held and stored in coastal vegetation, such as seagrasses and wetlands, holds great potential to help the state meet its climate goals. Recent studies have found that coastal wetlands in some instances capture carbon at a greater rate than tropical forests and store three to five times more carbon per equivalent area than these forests. (

e) The State Air Resources Board’s draft scoping plan update does not specifically include blue carbon in the state’s natural and working lands inventory due, in part, to the limited availability of data and methodologies to inventory the stored carbon. (

f) Given the potential of blue carbon sequestration, blue carbon demonstration projects in California may help the state better understand how blue carbon could potentially contribute to the state achieving its carbon neutrality and climate resilience goals.

SEC.

Section 30100.3 is added to the Public Resources Code , to read: 30100.3. “Blue carbon demonstration project” means the restoration of coastal wetland, subtidal, intertidal, or marine habitats or ecosystems, including, but not limited to, wetlands and seagrasses, that can take up and sequester carbon. A blue carbon demonstration project is limited to all of the following: (

a) Ecologically appropriate locations where the habitat or ecosystem had historically occurred and subsequently become degraded or removed. (

b) The restoration of the habitat or ecosystem to its historical state to provide ecosystem services and habitat values, to the extent feasible. (

c) The use of diverse native species.

SEC. 3.

Section is added to the Public Resources Code , to read: 30237. (

a) The commission may authorize blue carbon demonstration projects 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. (

b) The commission may 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. (

c) The commission shall consult with the State Air Resources Board, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the State Coastal Conservancy, the State Lands Commission, and other public entities, and seek consultation with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in developing the blue carbon demonstration project program. (

d) Each blue carbon demonstration project shall be designed, monitored, and have sufficient data collected in order to demonstrate the carbon uptake and sequestration achieved. This shall include an evaluation of relevant factors affecting the permanence of the sequestration. The results shall be presented to the commission in a public hearing. (

e) This

section shall become operative only upon appropriation by the Legislature for its purposes.