AB 2494 is up for its final vote!

Hi Forest Friends,

We did it! AB 2494 made it out of its final Legislative Committee (Senate Appropriations) and is now up for a final floor vote at both the Assembly and Senate level, which will occur by August 31st. Once the bill passes both houses, it will move to the Governor’s Office for signature or veto. Last week, the Legislature made its final amendments to the bill. The key changes are summarized below:

• AB 706 Alignment: AB 706 (Aguiar Curry) creates the Forest Organic Residue Energy and Safety Transformation (FOREST) Fund and makes that Fund available to the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA). EPIC opposes AB 706 because it seeks to expand biomass power generation in the state through appropriation of state funds, and could lead to increased logging across the state as opposed to prioritizing carbon storage and sequestration in forests. Because AB 706 would also create a new Fund within the Timber Regulation and Forest Restoration Fund (TRFRF), amendments are necessary to AB 2494 to set up the new uses of TRFRF.

  • Section numbers: 4629.6 (f) and (g); 4629.8 (b)

  • What changed? Nothing changes for Demonstration State Forests (DSF) and TRFRF. Even if AB 706 is enacted, these amendments do not change the priority in which Demonstration State Forests are funded by TRFRF because the FOREST Fund replaces an existing fund within TRFRF. This change is cosmetic. It simply updates the language to match this other proposed change to State law.

• Removed reporting updates related to forest and timberland regulation: Unfortunately, Assemblymember Rogers was forced to remove the improvements to the AB 1492 reports provided to the Legislature on timber harvesting and other forestry projects in the state. These reports were established by the legislature in 2012. The reason for removing these amendments is that California Water Boards stated that these amendments would cost them $13 million dollars to update their IT system in the most recent legislative analysis. That additional cost could have made the bill less likely to pass out of the appropriations committee and so we removed the requirement. Asm. Rogers may pursue them in the future under a different bill. 

  • Section numbers: 4629.9 (a) (1)-(8)

  • What changed? All amendments related to this reporting have been removed.

• Created consistency with the new management definition throughout the bill

  • Section number: 4631 (a)

  • What changed? Instead of listing the incomplete public benefits described in the new definition of management, this section now references the new definition and calls out the need for multibenefit forest management. 

• Added accountability measures for CNRA in developing co-management agreements

  • Section number: 4631.5 (a)

  • What changed? Language added to require CNRA to make good faith efforts to collaboratively develop co-management agreements with tribes.

• Required multi-benefit projects

  • Section numbers: 4631.5 (f)(1)-(2)

  • What changed? Subdivisions added that require research and timber harvest plans to balance and accomplish as many public benefits as possible. This is important because it ensures that CAL FIRE cannot choose to focus on just one of the public benefits listed in 4639 (b), it must consider all of them as coequal benefits. 

• Made revisions to DSF progress reports provided to Board of Forestry

  • Section numbers: 4631.5 (g)(1);(g)(2)(D)

  • What changed? Language was revised to broaden the scope of progress reports given to the Board of Forestry regarding DSFs. Language was also clarified to specify that potential metrics in progress reports should focus on climate change and biodiversity. 

• Explicitly allowed beneficial and cultural fire use 

  • Section number: 4639 (c) 

  • What changed? Subdivision added to the definition of management to specify that use of beneficial and cultural fire are allowed.

• Added new information requirements for land purchases

  • Section number: 4647

  • What changed? Updated the types of information CAL FIRE must provide to the Board of Forestry when considering new lands to purchase for Demonstration State Forests

• Updates to Soquel DSF Statute

  • Section numbers: 4660 (a)-(b); 4661; 4663

  • What changed? Technical updates were made to the statute specific to Soquel DSF, which was established with specific legislative purposes including forestry education and outdoor recreation. The amendments ensure that Soquel DSF must comply with the new mandates of AB 2494.

Overall, these amendments strengthen and clarify the bill’s intent towards updating management priorities for California’s forests. While we were forced to remove updates to AB 1492, the bill’s primary purpose of revising the management priorities for Demonstration State Forests and allowing these lands to count towards 30x30 has not changed. AB 2494 prioritizes public benefits including biodiversity conservation and durable onsite carbon storage and sequestration, and removes the requirement to demonstrate commercial logging. The bill also still allows CAL FIRE to draw from the TRFRF which disincentivizes CAL FIRE from overlogging to fund operation costs.  

Please sign our petition in support of the bill if you haven’t already, and stay tuned for more ways to support. Thank you to all of the support we have received this far - we are so close to the finish line!