Push to accelerate wildfire projects draws ire from conservationists

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Welcome back to Capitol Confidential! It’s the last one of this month. I’ll be back in your inboxes next week bringing you the latest from the Legislature as the building is once again packed with harried staff and lawmakers, all working through an avalanche of bills that need final committee hearings and floor votes before heading to the governor. 

Two of those bills in particular are raising alarm among environmental groups, as legislators weigh how far they’re willing to go to fast-track vegetation management to help mitigate wildfire risk.

Two bills are moving through the Legislature tackling one of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s top wildfire priorities: vegetation management. 

One is AB2410 by Assembly Member Stan Ellis, R-Bakersfield. The other is SB1370, by Sens. Henry Stern, D-Malibu, and Josh Becker, D-Menlo Park. 

The bills propose extending, to various degrees, Newsom’s 2025 emergency executive order in response to the deadly Eaton and Palisades fires. Newsom’s order streamlined permitting for certain wildfire mitigation projects connected to the disaster response. That included permitting and review processes under the California Environmental Quality Act and the California Coastal Act.

Now, legislators on both sides of the aisle want those streamlined procedures extended, opening the door for eligible projects to go forward with more limited environmental review. That has led several environmental conservation groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club, to raise alarm bells. 

Asha Sharma, deputy director at Sierra Club California, said her group is firmly opposed to both bills.

“In our view, these are very drastic, and definitely a step too far,” Sharma said.

Others have raised concerns about the bills’ potential to fast-track the use of herbicides to tackle vegetation overgrowth – specifically glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup.

Ellis’ AB2410 creates a CEQA exemption for vegetation management projects that address extremely flammable species in areas with a high fire risk. 

Ellis said he picked up the bill from its original author, former Assembly Member Bill Essayli, now the assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles. Ellis, co-chair of the Assembly Committee on Natural Resources, called the bill a “pragmatic” fix to the issue of managing overgrowth. 

“They have some valid points generally, and they want good environmental regulations and I respect that,” Ellis said of the two groups and their opposition to the bill. “But they've gone too far. When it comes right down to it, these environmental justice groups and CEQA made our fire situation worse.”

The Assembly bill has a three-year sunset provision, Ellis said. The Senate bill, SB1370, would run through 2030.

Whereas Ellis’ bill has been in the pipeline for months, including its unsuccessful run last session when Essayli carried it, SB1370 is a newer, more expansive Senate iteration. Sharma called the Democrat-led bill broader than Ellis’, and said it would waive roughly 20 different environmental laws under not only CEQA, but also regulations that pertain to water quality and smoke management. 

It’s also a gut-and-amend bill, a process by which failed bills can be replaced late in the session, and was reintroduced last month.

Between the two bills, Sharma pointed to SB1370 as her chief concern. 

It would consolidate state permitting and environmental review for covered wildfire mitigation projects into one expedited authorization process, instituting a 60-day decision timeline. Projects would still need to comply with the State Environmental Protection Plan and best management practices, as well as local and federal law, and places restrictions on project sizes and completion timelines.

Along with the Sierra Club and the Center for Biological Diversity, more than a dozen other conservation and environmental advocacy organizations oppose the bill. Its supporters include the Nature Conservancy, the California Chamber of Commerce, the California State Association of Counties and PG&E. 

Stern, who has been personally affected by wildfires, said he hopes the bill strikes a balance between environmental concerns and the need to double down on mitigation projects. 

“These projects aren't easy, and we know that some of those who are pushing for these projects might like to, in an ideal world, cut more corners than we'd be comfortable with,” Stern said in a committee hearing. “I think this bill doesn't allow for that, but it also doesn't give total veto power on projects that just have to happen.”

The governor’s California Wildfire & Forest Resilience Task Force has called the state’s wildfire crisis a result of interplaying factors; a “perfect storm of climatic and human-caused conditions.” 

The task force points to rising temperatures and drought, population increases and land use changes that bring thousands closer to wildfire-prone regions, plus the legacy of inadequate forest management as primary drivers behind recent catastrophic wildfires. Recent scientific studies, cited by the task force’s Science Advisory Panel in its June report, project the impacts of wildfires in the state are likely to increase as climate change and risky land development practices continue. 

In the task force’s revamped five-year action plan extending to 2031, tackling wildfire-prone landscapes with thinning and prescribed burns is among its top priorities. Perhaps one of the most ambitious elements is bumping up the state annual vegetation treatment goal, from roughly 750,000 acres to 1 million acres.

For reference, that’s larger than the entire state of Rhode Island. 

“We’re all for things like home hardening, cultural burning, prescribed burning as ways to reduce wildfire risk, but we want to make sure it’s balanced with public health questions for the environment, which are also really key values for a lot of Californians,” Sharma said. 

Is Newsom a fan of California Forever? It’s still not clear what his position is on the controversial billionaire-investor-backed developer seeking to build a new city in rural Solano County, But we may be getting a step closer to finding out after years of the governor remaining tight-lipped.

The administration’s top economic development office this week issued what appears to be its strongest public statement yet in support of California Forever’s potential industrial projects, declaring that the proposed Solano Shipyard and Solano Foundry are “projects of statewide significance” that California “should fight for and win,” as the Chronicle’s Laura Waxmann reported. 

The memo gives Newsom an avenue to champion the job creation and manufacturing ambitions of the two shipyard and foundry projects – without taking a position on the organization’s far more contentious proposal to transform thousands of acres of farmland into a brand new city. 

The memo, though in contrast to Newsom’s own public posture on the proposed city, could also add fuel to legislation California Forever has been lobbying for in Sacramento, Waxmann reported.

The memo argues that California should provide a “clear, predictable” approval process for projects that deliver exceptional economic benefits, language that closely aligns with legislation the company has pushed for to streamline permitting for major industrial developments. 

Waxmann reported representatives of the developer have argued that California risks losing major industrial investments to states like Texas unless it can offer companies more certainty and faster approvals – a common refrain among groups pushing for faster development. 

Former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg and former state Senate leader Bob Hertzberg, who are advising California Forever on the proposed legislation, said the effort is not intended to create a special exemption for the developer, but to make California more competitive for major manufacturers.

“The opportunity is to simply expedite timelines and have a better chance of winning the next competition to the benefit of an entire region and an entire state,” Steinberg said.

If any legislation is coming down the pipeline, California Forever will have to wait until next session, and contend with a new governor. 

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