This week, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 2142 (Chesbro) into law. AB 2142 is an expansion of AB 744 from last session, authored by Assembly Members Dahle and Gordon. AB 744 created a pilot program to broaden the reach of the existing Forest Fire Protection Act THP exemption. The original law created a system by which work could be done on forested lands without obtaining a THP, avoiding the lengthy and costly process and improving the odds that fire prevention projects could move forward. However, the exemption was very limited due to the political environment and was used on a disappointingly small number of projects.
AB 744 was intended to show in a pilot program setting, that easing some of those restrictions, including raising the diameter limit of the trees eligible for removal from a stand, could result in more forest management work without unduly harmful consequences on the environment. However, in the final days of the last year’s legislative session, only certain less controversial counties were included in the pilot program. AB 2142 extends the reach of this pilot program into additional coastal counties previously omitted in AB 744. RCRC supported each of these measures, and advocated strongly last year to include the coastal forested counties in AB 744. The provisions of AB 2142 will become law January 1, 2015.
AB 1867 (Patterson), another THP exemption measure dealing with defensible space work, still awaits action by the Governor. The Governor has until midnight on September 30, 2014 to sign or veto all the measures received by him at the end of session.