AB 53 (Ramos) - Del Norte County Farm Bureau Shout Out
Published Friday, July 24, 2026
California Farm Bureau is closely tracking Assembly Bill 53 by James Ramos, D-San Bernadino, a bill affecting how conservation lands can be managed and transferred involving federally recognized tribes. Del Norte County Farm Bureau has been closely engaged on this issue and has been a valuable resource in raising awareness of its potential impacts.
AB 53 started the session as an unrelated military tax exemption bill. On June 11, it was gutted and amended in the state Senate into a new subject matter entirely: tribal eligibility for state wildlife conservation programs and management of conservation lands. As amended, the bill added tribes as eligible recipients of state grants and loans for riparian and wetland habitat programs (Fish & Game Code §§1390, 1416) and added an exemption allowing conservation lands to be sold or transferred to a tribe outside the standard restrictions that normally govern disposal of conservation lands (Public Resources Code §5096.516(c)(3)).
On June 23, California Farm Bureau sent a Letter of Concern to the Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee. Our concern was narrow but significant: The land-transfer exemption could allow conservation land under an active agricultural lease, including rice and cattle operations, to be transferred to a tribe with no requirement to honor the existing lease or compensate the lessee for unrecovered capital investment in the land (levees, water delivery infrastructure, land preparation). We raised the risk of a legal “taking” under the state's just compensation clause and pointed to Assembly Bill 2356 by Ramos, which sought the transfer of Tolowa Dunes State Park to the Tolowa Dee-ni' Nation as a precedent we did not want repeated for leased farmland.
Amendments taken ahead of the July 2 Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee hearing addressed Farm Bureau’s concerns by removing the land-transfer exemption from the bill entirely. The bill no longer touches Public Resources Code §5096.516, and there is currently no mechanism in AB 53 for transferring leased agricultural land to a tribe. The amendments did add nonoperative language stating the Legislature's intent to pursue future legislation creating “a faster public process” for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife to return qualifying lands to tribes.
The July 2 amendments resolved Farm Bureau's immediate concern. But the new intent language tells us the underlying policy goal hasn't disappeared, as we know from the author’s continued efforts on this bill. At a minimum, it's likely to resurface in a future bill. Farm Bureau continues to monitor AB 53 and is engaging with the committee, which has the heaviest influence on anything that would still happen to the policies stated in AB 53. The bill is now in the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Staff contact: Peter Ansel, pansel@cfbf.com.
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