Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to declare a state of emergency in California on Friday and waive environmental regulations to expedite nearly three dozen local forest management projects to protect communities from the deadly wildfires that have decimated communities up and down the state.
A preview of the governor’s order, obtained by The Times, shows that Newsom plans to suspend environmental laws and rules that would otherwise apply to the projects. He also would halt the state’s competitive bidding process for work and direct the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection to team up with the California National Guard to immediately begin reducing trees and shrubs in and around 200 cities and towns.
The governor’s action marks the latest effort by the state to offset the possibility of catastrophe after back-to-back years of fatal wildfires that killed more than 100 people and burned nearly 2 million acres in total. The projects will cost a total of $35 million, which will be paid with forest management funds in the 2018-19 budget.
“The increasing wildfire risks we face as a state means we simply can’t wait until a fire starts in order to start deploying emergency resources,” said Newsom, who was expected to make the announcement in Lake County on Friday morning. “California needs sustained focus and immediate action in order to better protect our communities.”
Critics voiced concern about the governor’s decision to suspend guidelines put in place to protect the environment and the precedent his executive order might set. Some argued that regulations do not pose a problem and the state should have prioritized the projects earlier.
“This is like deferred maintenance on a building,” said Char Miller, professor of environmental analysis at Pomona College. “We just kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off.”
California’s forests have become a hot-button political topic, with President Donald Trump fueling assertions that poor management practices and environmental laws have made wildfires worse.
Experts have refuted the notion that heavy timber fueled the state’s most destructive fires in urban areas and say much of the millions of dead and dying trees reside on lands controlled by the U.S. Forest Service. The Camp fire in Paradise, for example, burned through a region scorched and logged a decade earlier.
Ironically, Miller and others said, Newsom’s decision to walk back regulations co-opts the president’s message.
“Unfortunately, it’s a very Trumpian approach,” said Douglas Bevington, forest director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. “It’s the false notion that more logging paired with rolling back environmental protections is going to protect communities.”
Thom Porter, director of Cal Fire, disputed the comparison.
“This administration and Cal Fire has been committed to the protection of life, property and the environment well beyond President Trump even considering what that actually means,” he said.
Porter said his crews on the ground will continue to work with state agencies and experts to ensure that resources are protected.
“While we’re asking for an exemption from the paperwork process of doing the upfront deep analysis, we are not asking for an exemption from the need to protect the resources,” Porter said.
Newsom signed an executive order in his first week in office that directed Cal Fire to develop recommendations to prevent wildfires.
The agency published a report in late February that said forest management efforts by the state, federal government and private landowners were “inadequate to improve the health of millions of acres of forests and wildlands” that require maintenance. The agency reported that up to 15 million acres of California forest need some form of restoration.
The report recommended that the state waive and streamline regulatory requirements and direct Cal Fire to immediately begin 35 fuel reduction projects, such as the removal of dead trees, brush clearing and prescribed burns to create fuel breaks, defensible space and safe travel corridors on 90,000 acres of land around cities and towns vulnerable to wildfires.
Newsom’s new order does just that and waives laws that fall under the jurisdiction of the California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Natural Resources Agency and would typically apply to the projects. The laws include the California Environmental Quality Act, which requires state and local agencies to identify and mitigate the environmental impacts of their work.
According to the emergency declaration, Cal Fire must seek a confirmation from the state agencies that its activities fall under the order and will “take protection of the environment into account while ensuring timely implementation.”
More:
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-wildfire-20190322-story.html