California Governor Gavin Newsom has taken these two actions:
ONE: Governor Newsom has signed Assembly Bill 100 of 2025(Gabriel) which allocates over $170 million in accelerated funding to conservancies for forest and vegetation management across California. The bill also allocates $10 million to support wildfire response and resiliency.
Funding to conservancies includes:
$30,904,000 to the Sierra Nevada Conservancy
$23,524,000 to the California Tahoe Conservancy
$31,349,000 to the Santa Monica Conservancy
$30,904,000 to the State Coastal Conservancy
$30,904,000 to the San Gabriel and Lower Los Angeles Rivers and Mountains Conservancy
$23,524,000 to the San Diego River Conservancy
AB 100 implements the “early action” 2025 budget package(in advance of the final budget to be signed for July 2025 implementation) to address items necessary to address in this fiscal year, which closes on June 30, 2025.
In addition, says an official press release, “Governor Newsom signed an executive order to ensure that the wildfire safety projects funded under AB 100
benefit from streamlining under a previous emergency proclamation issued in March. That emergency proclamation was issued to cut bureaucratic red tape -including suspending CEQA and the Coastal Act — that was slowing down critical forest management.”
TWO: From the Governor’s press release of April 17, 2025:
BEGIN: “A new online streamlining process cuts bureaucratic red tape and now makes it faster to get state approval to implement forest and vegetation management projects, which are critical to reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfires. This new process will shorten project approvals to as little as 30 days — saving a year or more of review and red tape for more complicated projects.
…”The new process to accelerate critical wildfire safety projects advances some of the essential actions identified in the Governor’s Wildfre and Forest Resilience Task Force’s ambitious 25 key deliverables for 2025, and builds on statewide efforts to move fast to prepare communities ahead of peak wildfire season by promoting key safety measures such as hardening homes and creating defensible space.”
Here is a link to the new streamlined process:
Requests to Suspend State Statutes and Regulations – California Wildfire & Forest Resilience
END
EDITOR’S NOTE: The distribution of wildfire prevention dollars to Southern California conservancies, as well as Northern California (mostly forested) conservancies no doubt reflects a need to respond to the tragic Los Angeles County wildfires of January 2025. However, not only will wildfire-related work be available to bid for ACL members and others in the Northern Califonria area, but we have learned that Northern California loggers have been sought out to work in the Los Angeles County area in the wake of the January wildfires — so some of this Southern California funding may well come available for loggers to bid on from all over California.