(a) The Legislature hereby finds and declares all of the following:

(1) The Pacific Ocean and its rich marine living resources are of great environmental, economic, aesthetic, recreational, educational, scientific, social, cultural, and historic importance to the people of California.

(2) California’s marine living resources depend on a healthy marine environment, which comprises open coastal waters as well as coastal estuaries, wetlands, rivers and streams, and lands within the coastal zone.

(3) Overfishing, coastal pollution, and other unsustainable marine activities have damaged marine fisheries, habitats, and ecosystems. Programs are needed to conserve, protect, restore, and enhance the marine resources of the state and to improve the environmental sustainability of marine-related activities and encourage those activities that are environmentally sustainable. These programs should be focused on, and coordinated with, efforts to reduce overfishing and coastal pollution and to support sustainable marine activities and improve the sustainability of all marine activities.

(4) The State of California recognizes the need to formulate its coastal and ocean resource management policies based on the best readily available scientific information and should utilize the University of California, the California State University, other institutions of higher learning, and marine science research institutions to the extent feasible to assist it in achieving that goal.

(5) The California Ocean Resources Management Act of 1990 is designed to ensure that the state’s ocean resources are managed, conserved, and enhanced in a comprehensive and coordinated manner. The California Ocean Protection Act furthered that mission by establishing the Ocean Protection Council, whose duties include coordination of state activities to protect coastal waters and ocean ecosystems, establishment of a science advisory team of distinguished scientists from a range of disciplines related to coastal and ocean resources, and contracting with the California Ocean Science Trust and other academic and nonprofit organizations to carry out scientific and educational activities consistent with that act.

(6) The ability of the state to carry out the mission of the California Ocean Protection Act is constrained by the availability of funds appropriated in the state budget.

(7) It is in the interest of the people of the state to establish an endowment, which would be independent of the state’s budget process and would impose no cost on the General Fund of the state, to provide a stable and ongoing source of funding in perpetuity to conserve, protect, restore, and enhance the marine resources of the state in a manner that is consistent with the California Ocean Protection Act.

(Added by Stats. 2010, Ch. 687, Sec. 2. (AB 2503) Effective January 1, 2011. Note: Section 71275 is located in Division 34, Part 3.8, which follows Section 71155. Sections 71300 through 71424 are located in Division 34, Parts 4 through 6.)