SACRAMENTO – Today, Assembly Republicans announced a series of bills to improve California’s wildfire prevention, response and recovery efforts. The Republican proposals will streamline badly needed wildfire prevention projects, encourage residents to harden their homes against fire, hold people accountable for arson, looting or flying drones near fires, and help communities and homeowners recover from disasters.
“California hasn’t done nearly enough to remove flammable vegetation and prevent devastating wildfires – if you don’t believe the science, believe your own damn eyes,” said Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher (East Nicolaus). “We know what needs to be done to stop these fires – it’s just a question of whether the Legislature has the political will to do it. Disaster prevention and response needs to be California’s highest priority. It’s time to act.”
Republicans’ policies are focused on three areas: preventing devastating wildfires through fuels reduction projects and home hardening, improving disaster response by cracking down on looting and irresponsible drone use, and helping communities recover by supporting local nonprofits and making it easier to rebuild.
Wildfire Prevention
ABX1 3 (Wallis) Provide Tax Relief for Home Hardening. Creates an income tax credit covering 40% of the costs for older homeowners in wildfire-prone areas to help them “harden” their homes.
ABX1 6 (Patterson) CEQA Exemption for Timberlands Fuels Reduction. Authorizes projects exclusively for noncommercial wildfire fuels reduction in timberland, paid for in part or in whole with public funds, to prepare a timber harvesting plan as an alternative to complying with CEQA, and would require these projects to be regulated as timber operations
ABX1 7 (Essayli) Exempt all Wildfire Prevention Projects from CEQA. Exempts all wildfire projects from CEQA requirements.
ABX1 8 (Essayli) Permitting Exemption for Controlled Burns. Requires air quality management districts (AQMDs) to process a permit for a smoke management plan within ten business days.
ABX1 9 (Essayli) Reduce Cost and Time for Undergrounding Power Lines. Exempts utility undergrounding projects from CEQA to cut down on permitting delays for projects intended to make our grid safer.
AB 267 (Macedo) Water Infrastructure and Wildfire Prevention. Redirects money from High-Speed Rail to pay for upgrades to water infrastructure and wildfire prevention.
AB 297 (Hadwick, Sanchez) Increase Penalties for Aggravated Arson. Creates a sentence enhancement for aggravated arson if a wildfire destroys more than 500 acres.
Maintain Funding for Wildfire Prevention (Hadwick). Prevents termination of the California Wildfire Mitigation Program (CWMP), which provides financial assistance for working families to fortify their homes against wildfires.
Reduce Red Tape for Coastal Fire Prevention (Dixon). Exempts fuel treatment projects from Coastal Commission permitting mandates.
Exempt Roadside Wildfire Prevention Projects from CEQA (Hadwick, Tangipa). Expands an existing CEQA exemption for prescribed fire, thinning or fuel reduction projects to protect communities with only one fire evacuation route.
Improve Fire Safety Egress (Tangipa). Creates a pilot program to exempt fire safety egress route projects from CEQA in high or very high fire hazard severity zones.
Tracking Greenhouse Gas Emissions (Gonzalez). Requires the California Air Resources Board to include greenhouse gas emissions from wildlands and forest fires in the Scoping Plan. Creates parity with all other emissions sources tracked and recorded by CARB in the Scoping Plan.
Wildfire Response
ABX1 11 (Macedo) Increase Penalties for Drones Near Fires. Makes it a felony to fly a drone that interferes with law enforcement, firefighters, emergency medical personnel or other first responders at the scene of an emergency.
AB 271 (Hoover) Increase Penalties for Looting. Makes it a felony to commit burglary or grand theft in an area where there has been a declared state of emergency, local emergency, or which is under an evacuation order. Increases the penalty from a misdemeanor to an alternate felony/misdemeanor (“wobbler”) for committing petty theft under those circumstances.
Wildfire Recovery
ABX1 10 (Macedo) Support Nonprofits Providing Essential Services. Improves nonprofits’ ability to provide services during emergencies. (Reintroduction of AB 619 (V. Fong, 2023))
AB 294 (Gallagher) Prioritize Aid to Vulnerable Communities. Allows the California Office of Emergency Services (Cal OES) to prioritize funding and assistance to communities heavily impacted by disasters/emergencies.
Increase Aid to Local Communities (Dixon). Creates a grant program to provide financial assistance for disaster costs when federal assistance is not available.
Suspend Solar Mandate when Rebuilding Damaged Homes (Tangipa). Permits the temporary suspension of solar requirements when rebuilding homes that were damaged or destroyed as a result of a natural disaster.
These bills will be introduced over the coming days in either the special session or regular session of the Assembly.
In addition to Assembly Republicans’ wildfire proposals, the U.S. House of Representatives recently passed the “Fix Our Forests Act” with a bipartisan vote, to streamline permitting for forest health and fuels reduction projects, help communities protect themselves from wildfires, prioritize the most urgent fire safety projects, modernize firefighting efforts and support wildland firefighters and their families.
Last week, at a roundtable discussion with President Trump to discuss the recovery process from the Southern California wildfires, Assembly Republican Leader James Gallagher highlighted the urgent need to remove the fuels that drive catastrophic wildfires. President Trump and other officials agreed, pledging to support efforts to encourage those wildfire prevention projects.
In contrast, Assembly Democrats last week rejected an effort to provide an additional $1 billion for wildfire prevention, doubling down on a $143.9 million cut to fire prevention and forest health projects contained in last year’s state budget.
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