The Legislature hereby finds and declares as follows:
(a) California has recently experienced and will continue to experience in the foreseeable future damaging earthquakes of moderate to great magnitude. Efforts have been needed to increase the awareness of earthquake hazards through education so that future losses of life, injuries, loss of property, and social disruption will be minimized when those events occur.
(b) Because of a lack of any state or local earthquake safety education program, it has been necessary for the state to assume leadership through the policy and guidance of the Seismic Safety Commission to develop and test earthquake safety programs which provide informational material to schools and the general public for minimizing potential disruption and loss of life.
(c) Since the pilot earthquake safety education and preparedness programs developed under the California Earthquake Education Act of 1981 have been tested, their effectiveness analyzed, and they have been deemed successful by the Seismic Safety Commission, the Legislature believes that it is appropriate, as stated by the Earthquake Education Act of 1981, that those programs be distributed and implemented throughout the earthquake-prone areas of the state.
(d) It is necessary that funds be appropriated to the Seismic Safety Commission from the General Fund for the purpose of expanding the earthquake safety program for statewide implementation over the next three years which, when completed, will constitute for the first time in history, a comprehensive, statewide self-supporting earthquake safety education program.
(Added by Stats. 1984, Ch. 1558, Sec. 1.)