On March 1, Governor Gavin Newsom proclaimed a wildfire-related state of emergency to reduce regulatory barriers for wildfire risk reduction and community protection projects.
In particular, the proclamation waives the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the Coastal Act for projects that are initiated in 2025, and which are first approved by the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency. The exemption applies to a wide variety of projects, including:
- Removal of hazardous, dead, and/or dying trees
- Removal of vegetation to create fuel breaks, for community defensible space, or to maintain previously-established fuel breaks or modification projects
- Removal of vegetation along roads, highways, and freeways
- Creation of safer ingress and egress routes
- Cultural burns and prescribed fire
The order also directs CalFire to update the California Vegetation Treatment Program (CalVTP) Environmental Impact Report to increase its efficiency and utilization.
Several legislators previously introduced legislative proposals to provide longer-lasting CEQA and permitting relief for wildfire risk reduction projects, including:
- AB 66 (Tangipa) exempts from CEQA egress route projects undertaken by a public agency to improve emergency access to and evacuation from a subdivision without a secondary egress route.
- AB 404 (Sanchez) extends an existing CEQA exemption for fuel reduction projects undertaken on federal lands that have been reviewed under the National Environmental Policy Act.
- AB 442 (Hadwick) exempts from CEQA fuel reduction projects undertaken within a community with a single ingress and egress evacuation route.
- AB 623 (Dixon) exempts from CEQA and the Coastal Act defensible space projects within 100’ of a building or structure.
- AB 687 (Patterson) authorizes projects funded (in whole or in part) with public funds to prepare a timber harvesting plan as an alternative to complying with CEQA.
- AB 846 (Connolly) establishes a voluntary, streamlined process for local agencies to submit wildfire preparedness programs to the Department of Fish and Wildlife to avoid, minimize, or mitigate the take of a protected species incidental to fuel management activities.
- AB 1226 (Essayli) seeks to reduce regulatory barriers for wildland vegetation management burning conducted by or under the supervisions of a public fire protection agency.
- AB 1227 (Essayli) exempts from CEQA a wildfire prevention projects, including installation and maintenance of fuel breaks, fuels reduction, roadside fuels reduction, forest thinning, prescribed fire, reforestation, timber harvesting, fuel treatments in the wildland-urban interface, and dead fuel removal.
- AB 1228 (Essayli) exempts from CEQA approval of an electrical utility’s distribution infrastructure undergrounding plan by the Public Utilities Commission.
- AB 1456 (Bryan) exempts from CEQA fuel management projects within five miles of a structure within a very high fire hazard severity zone, which is time restricted to protect listed species, and which removes vegetation that is: a nonnative species, 8” or less in diameter, invasive, dead, poorly maintained, or drought stressed, or that is a common species that meets specified requirements. Exempts from CEQA fuel management projects, as defined above, undertaken or funded by a public agency and adoption of an ordinance requiring implementation of fuel management projects.
- SB 252 (Valladares) exempts from CEQA projects to underground powerlines.
- SB 375 (Grove) exempts from CEQA and the Coastal Act projects to reduce fuels in moderate, high, and very high fire hazard severity zones and seeks to significantly improve Department of Fish and Wildlife permitting of those projects.
- SB 426 (Alvarado-Gil) exempts from CEQA projects undertaken or approved by a public agency to comply with or maintain defensible space requirements.
RCRC will take positions on and advocate for these measures in the coming weeks.
