After suffering the largest wildfire season in recent history with over 4.2 million acres burned, California legislators are introducing several bills to tackle fuel loads and assist agriculture producers.
Kirk Wilbur, vice president of government affairs for California Cattlemen’s Association (CCA), told WLJ in an email he thinks the state is “getting serious about taking preventative steps to control wildfires in the future.”
“The Governor’s [Gavin Newsom] proposed budget includes significant spending—$1 billion—for wildfire resilience. And the legislature has dozens of bills this year related to wildfire resilience,” Wilbur said. “We’ll see how the legislative session ultimately shakes out, but there are certainly some promising indications early in the session that our state leaders are eager to prevent another catastrophic wildfire season like those that engulfed the state in 2018 and 2020.”
The CCA is sponsoring three bills introduced in this year’s legislative session, which seek to improve the state’s fire resilience and response “benefitting all Californians.”
AB 434
Introduced by Assemblymember Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), Assembly Bill (AB) 434 would give land managers on state-owned lands managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, State Lands Commission and the California Department of Parks and Recreation greater flexibility to lease lands for livestock grazing. On any excess vegetation on lands managed by these agencies, grazing leases for wildfire mitigation would be issued unless the agency determines the use would be incompatible with the use of the property. The leases would be for a period of no less than five years or no more than 20 years.
According to Wilbur, “While AB 434 could benefit cattle ranchers—or sheep or goat grazers—it is again primarily intended as a fire-fuels reduction bill. Prescribed fire, for instance, may not make sense on state lands that are in the wildland-urban interface, but grazing could diminish fine fuels to the benefit of adjacent towns and landowners.”
The bill was referred to the Committee on Water, Parks and Wildlife on Feb. 12.
SB 332
Senate Bill 332, introduced by state Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa), would establish a gross negligence liability standard for state-certified burn bosses performing prescribed fires. The bill would amend the Civil Code, so persons are not liable for any damage or injury to property or persons caused by a prescribed burn unless the burn was conducted in a “grossly negligent manner.”
“While SB 332 would certainly benefit ranchers, who own or manage significant acreage and who live in the rural areas of the state most often devastated by wildfire, the increased application of prescribed fire under the bill would benefit all Californians, including those in the wildland-urban interface at threat of wildfire damage and those in cities like Sacramento and San Francisco who were choked by hazardous air quality as 4.2 million acres of the state burned last year,” said Wilbur.
The bill was introduced to the Committee on Judiciary on Feb. 17.
AB 1103
Assembly Bill 1103 is geared towards wildfire response rather than prevention. The bill introduced by Assemblymember Megan Dahle (R-Bieber) would authorize the county agricultural commissioner, or other designated agency, to establish an Agricultural Pass (Ag Pass) program granting any qualifying agricultural producer or employee access to their property during a natural disaster, including wildfire. The bill would require the state fire marshal to develop a curriculum for agricultural producers eligible for this Agricultural Pass program.
According to the CCA, the bill is modeled on a program developed by the University of California Cooperative Extension and CCA members. They have worked to implement the Ag Pass program in Ventura, Santa Barbara and other counties. The bill seeks to standardize some aspects of Ag Pass programs statewide and simplify and facilitate a county’s process for developing an Ag Pass program.
“In recent years, ranchers have reported challenges accessing their livestock during wildfires in order to provide feed or water, doctor the animals, or evacuate them,” Wilbur said. “One issue is that there is often no single agency charged with determining whether to grant access—a rancher may contact the county sheriff, California Highway Patrol, the county ag commissioner, and Cal Fire all in hopes of accessing their ranch, and there is often no definitive response from a given agency. Unfortunately, in recent years we’ve seen numerous animals needlessly and painfully perish during wildfire incidents.”
The bill is not currently assigned to a committee and will not be heard until later in March. However, according to Wilbur, the state Senate voted to suspend Rule 55 on all bills, which usually requires a 30-day waiting period before bills can be heard or acted on by a committee.
More than 2,300 bills were introduced by legislators this session before the bill introduction deadline. Among them are two other wildfire bills to watch. Senate Bill 12 was introduced by Mike McGuire (D-Santa Rosa), a comprehensive wildfire prevention and zoning bill. And Senate Bill 55 was introduced by Henry Stern (D-Calabasas), which bans new development in high wildfires areas.
Wilbur points out that wildfire prevention in the state is “one part of the puzzle” and also requires cooperation with the federal government “to similarly step up their wildfire resilience efforts.” — Charles Wallace, WLJ editor
