The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) The destructive impact of invasive and noxious weeds is profound, affecting California’s cropland, rangeland, forests, parks, waterways, and wildlands.
(b) These pests cause enormous losses of private, state, and federal resources through decreased land productivity, decreased water supply, degradation of wildlife habitat, and outright destruction of crops, livestock range, wetlands, waterways, watersheds, and recreational areas.
(c) The estimated annual lost crop and pasture productivity caused by noxious weeds is twenty-five billion dollars ($25,000,000,000) nationwide, a large proportion of which is attributable to California. Nationally, the direct and indirect costs of controlling noxious weeds is estimated to be at least nine billion six hundred million dollars ($9,600,000,000) annually.
(d) Local programs conducted under this article since 2000 have successfully eradicated over 2,000 populations of high priority weed infestations, while engaging hundreds of collaborating organizations and leveraging three dollars ($3) of additional support for every state dollar spent.
(Amended by Stats. 2014, Ch. 271, Sec. 1. (AB 2402) Effective January 1, 2015.)