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Bills

AB 442: Z’berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973: working forest management plans: harvest area.

  • Session Year: 2025-2026
  • House: Assembly
  • Latest Version Date: 2025-04-21

Current Status:

In Progress

(2026-01-29: In Senate. Read first time. To Com. on RLS. for assignment.)

Introduced

In Committee

First Chamber

In Committee

Second Chamber

Enacted

Version:

Under the Zberg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973, the Legislature finds and declares the policy of the state to encourage prudent and responsible forest management of nonindustrial timberlands by approving working forest management plans in advance. Existing law requires the harvest area of a working forest management plan to be contained within a single hydrological area, as defined.

This bill would delete the requirement that the harvest area of a working forest management plan be contained within a single hydrological area.

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 prescribed fire, reforestation, habitat restoration, thinning, or fuel reduction projects, and certain related activities, undertaken in whole or in part on federal lands to reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire, if those projects and activities meet certain requirements.This bill would exempt from CEQA prescribed fire, thinning, or fuel reduction projects undertaken within a community with a single ingress and egress evacuation route.Because the bill would require the lead agency to determine whether the exemption is applicable to a project, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.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.

Discussed in Hearing

Assembly Floor1MIN
Jan 29, 2026

Assembly Floor

Assembly Standing Committee on Natural Resources4MIN
Jan 12, 2026

Assembly Standing Committee on Natural Resources

View Older Hearings

News Coverage:

AB 442: Z’berg-Nejedly Forest Practice Act of 1973: working forest management plans: harvest area. | Digital Democracy