A MESSAGE FROM THE OFFICE OF CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR GAVIN NEWSOM:
A new online streamlining request process now makes it easier to get State approval to implement critical wildfire risk reduction projects.
Information on project eligibility, the Statewide Fuels Reduction Environmental Protection Plan, FAQs, and the request form are available on the Task Force website.
PROJECT STREAMLINING REQUESTS WEBPAGE
This follows Governor Newsom’s Emergency Proclamation on March 1, 2025, to confront the severe ongoing risk of catastrophic wildfires. The Proclamation authorizes the Secretaries of the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) and the California Environmental Protection Agency (CalEPA) to determine which projects are eligible for suspension of certain State-level statutory and regulatory requirements to expedite critical fuels reduction projects, while at the same time protecting public resources and the environment.
Faster Permitting Without Compromising Environmental Protections
A new Statewide Fuels Reduction Environmental Protection Plan (EPP) has been developed to enable critical wildfire safety projects to proceed expeditiously while protecting public health and the environment. The EPP requires applicants to comply with best management practices and measures to minimize impacts to environmental resources ensuring water and air quality, tribal cultural resources, and special-status species and their habitats are safeguarded.
Qualifying Projects and Suspended Regulations
Requests for streamlining need to be submitted in 2025, must be performed or supervised by responsible parties, and the projects need to have a primary objective for vegetation removal that includes at least one of the following:
• Hazardous, dead, and/or dying trees
• Creation of strategic fuel breaks
• Community defensible space
• Safer ingress/egress and/or to reduce roadside ignitions
• Cultural burning and/or prescribed fire treatments for fuels reduction
• Maintenance of previously established fuel breaks
Suspensions do not apply to commercial timber operations that do not have one of the six eligible objectives cited in the State of Emergency Proclamation as a primary project objective.
Some of the State statutes and regulations that may be suspended under the streamlining request process include the California Environmental Quality Act, the California Coastal Act, the California Endangered Species Act, and more.
Additional Information and Resources
On April 11, 2025, the CNRA and CalEPA hosted a webinar that provided an overview of the new streamlining request process and gave the public an opportunity to share feedback on expanding beneficial fire.
If you have questions regarding the streamlining request process, you can email FuelsReductionSOE@