Comment Log Display

Thank you for this opportunity to provide comments on the Draft
Second Investment Plan for Cap and Trade Auction proceeds.  These
comments are intended to serve in addition to those comments
provided at the workshop in Fresno, CA on November 4, 2015.
I would like to encourage the utilization of Resource Conservation
Districts (RCDs) to connect with disadvantaged communities and
create partnerships with other organizations at a local level. 
RCDs function is coordinate and provide land owners and residents
of their district with resources including but not limited to
resource conservation, education, and training.  RCDs have a board
of directors appointed by the board of supervisors from landowners
in the district, and are uniquely positioned to understand and
address the concerns of their district.  Additionally, as a
quasi-governmental agency, we are able to form interagency
agreements and partnerships, as well as qualify for grants normally
closed to state or federal entities. Sierra Resource Conservation
District currently partners with NRCS on outreach to Hmong and
Punjabi communities.  We also have developed interagency agreements
with Sierra Nevada Conservancy to accomplish unique tasks outside
the scope of typical contract agreements.  Other RCDs perform
monitoring activities for other agencies.  RCDs are uniquely
situated to assist with your goals of engaging disadvantaged and
rural communities, and meeting resource conservation management
objectives.

I would also like to applaud you for your inclusion of forest
biomass in your investment plan.  Forest biomass is a real answer
for rural foothill communities – not only does it reduce woodsmoke,
generate renewable energy, and provide jobs, but it also addresses
public safety concerns due to the unprecedented tree mortality
event in the Sierra Nevada.  I encourage you to continue to fund
projects that support large scale forest restoration activities,
which provides a sustainable source of forest biomass to keep rural
facilities operation and available to communities for disposal of
their private forest biomass.  Additionally, utilization of forest
waste biomass is important, but make sure your terminology is
consistent with USFS Region 5 definitions, as the forest service
would use the term submercantile biomass instead of waste.  Biomass
is not considered waste by the forest service, and it will further
enable cooperation if your terminology is consistent with the
largest manager of forest lands in the state.

The ability to pair multiple funding sources for one project is a
great idea, but we do want to encourage the utilization of the same
administrative process for these funding sources.  It will maximize
the use of funds if there isn’t a separate administrative burden
for each grant, that they instead complement each other and work
off of the same process.  I understand that different agencies may
have different reporting protocols internally as well as necessary
tracking items, but there are grant management tooks like FAAST and
ZoomGrants that have been working to streamline grant processes.

Lastly, I would encourage you to give equal weight to the benefits
of fire mitigation as carbon sequestration.  Many forest
restoration projects may seem less competitive under GGRF carbon
emission reduction guidelines, as they remove trees and hence
decrease carbon sequestration.  The potential mitigation of high
severity fire due to fuel reduction is difficult to analyze and
therefore not well studied.  That being said, those few studies,
like the Mokolumne Cost-Avoidance Analysis study developed by
Sierra Nevada Conservancy, which have been done shows huge fire
mitigation benefits to fuel reduction.

Thank you again, this looks like an excellent investment plan for
CA.