(a)
The Secretary of the Resources Agency may enter into an agreement with an existing nonprofit corporation with broad experience as the trustee of public funds, court-ordered mitigation funds, or other funds used to assist public agencies in carrying out their responsibilities to establish a nongovernmental trust, to be known as the California Ocean Trust.
(b)
The purposes of the trust shall be all of the following:
(1)
To seek funds for California ocean resource science projects, emphasizing the development of new funding sources.
(2)
To fund California ocean resource science projects that help fulfill the missions of the state’s ocean resource management agencies.
(3)
To encourage coordinated, multiagency, multiinstitution approaches to ocean resource science.
(4)
To encourage graduate education programs in management-oriented ocean resource science in public and private universities and colleges in California.
(5)
To encourage new technologies that reduce the cost, increase the amount, or improve the quality of ocean resource management information.
(6)
To promote more effective coordination of California ocean resource science useful to management agencies.