Did you hear whoops of joy yesterday while walking the streets of Sacramento? If so, it might have been because yesterday morning, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed all components of the 2007 legislative flood package!
By signing these bills, the Governor and the Legislature have delivered the most significant flood legislation for California in over a generation. The flood package will help to protect lives and property, improve local land use planning, and safeguard the state and its taxpayers from increased exposure to liability for damages caused by flood.
“This package is clearly a win for public safety and the environment,” said Mindy McIntyre of the Planning and Conservation League. “Floodplains provide vital habitat for migrating birds and other native California wildlife. And by calling for the use of setback levees and flood bypasses as natural infrastructure for flood control, these measures also preserve wildlife habitat and agricultural lands.”
This historic moment was made possible through the joint efforts of the Senate, Assembly, and Governor’s office.
We applaud Governor Schwarzenegger, Assemblymember Lois Wolk, Senator Dean Florez, Senator Mike Machado, Senator Darrell Steinberg, Assemblymember Dave Jones, Assemblymember John Laird, and their staffs for their effective leadership in developing and delivering critically needed and long overdue flood policy for the State of California.
And a special thanks to all of you who made countless calls to get these measures signed into law!
Click on the links for more information on each bill in the flood package:
Gary Patton is the Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League, a statewide, nonprofit lobbying organization. For more than thirty years, PCL has fought to develop a body of environmental laws in California that is the best in the United States. PCL staff review virtually every environmental bill that comes before the California Legislature each year. It has testified in support or opposition of thousands of bills to strengthen California’s environmental laws and fight off rollbacks of environmental protections.
