The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA exempts from its requirements certain projects.
This bill would, until January 1, 2030, exempt from CEQA critical fuels reduction projects conducted in communities located in high fire threat districts or very high fire hazard severity zones, as provided. Because a lead agency would be required to determine whether a project qualifies for this exemption, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
Existing law, the California Coastal Act of 1976, among other things, requires anyone wishing to perform or undertake any development in the coastal zone, except as specified, in addition to obtaining any other permit required by law from any local government or from any state, regional, or local agency, to obtain a coastal development permit from the California Coastal Commission or a local government, as provided. The act generally requires each local government lying in whole or in part within the coastal zone to prepare a local coastal program for that portion of the coastal zone within its jurisdiction and prescribes procedures for the preparation, approval, and certification of local coastal programs. The act generally prohibits, after certification of a local coastal program and all implementing actions within the affected area, the commission from exercising its coastal development permit review authority over any new development within the area to which the certified local coastal program, or any portion thereof, applies. Under the act, this prohibition does not apply to specified types of development including development proposed or undertaken on any tidelands, submerged lands, or on public trust lands.
The bill would add critical fuels reduction projects to the list of specified types of development that the above-described prohibition on the commission exercising its coastal development permit review authority does not apply to.
The act provides that a coastal development permit is not required for specified types of development in specified areas, including, among other types of development, repair or maintenance activities that do not result in an addition to, or an enlargement or expansion of, the object of those repair or maintenance activities, as provided.
This bill would remove the above-described requirement that the repair or maintenance activities do not result in an addition to, or enlargement or expansion, of the object of the activities. The bill would provide that, until January 1, 2030, a coastal development permit is not required for critical fuels reduction projects, as provided.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Statutes affected:
AB 2410: 30610 PRC
02/20/26 - Introduced: 30610 PRC
AB2410: 30610 PRC