Forest and Fire Bills Await Decisions From Newsom

SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers have approved measures that would change how forest cleanup is financed, support community burning programs, help property owners pay for fire-resistant improvements, and strengthen protections after a wildfire. The proposals reach from forest-management work to insurance claims, with several already awaiting Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision.

Under the California Constitution, bills passed before September 1 and in the governor’s possession on or after September 1 become law unless he returns them by September 30. A signature alone would not put every proposed benefit into operation: several programs would still require funding, regulations, or both.

Finding uses for forest waste

Two bills already on the governor’s desk approach a practical problem for forest communities: what to do with material removed during fire-prevention and restoration work. One supports electricity generation, while the other seeks facilities that turn wood waste into products through noncombustion processes.

Assembly Bill 706, the FOREST and Wildfire Prevention Fund Act, would reimburse qualifying biomass power plants for eligible electricity generation beginning January 1, 2027. Sierra, Plumas, and Nevada are among 23 counties named as qualifying locations, although a plant would still have to meet the program’s other requirements.

At least 60 percent of its feedstock would have to come from designated high-hazard zones. Eligible material would be waste from sustainable forest management, excluding purpose-grown crops and waste from land subject to a clearcut harvesting prescription. Facilities would need state renewable-energy certification, and the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection would set payment rates and require a net reduction in short-lived climate pollutants.

The bill makes no appropriation and prohibits ratepayer money from funding the new FOREST fund. Its county list establishes an eligibility route, not a grant to each county or a commitment to reopen a particular plant.

Assembly Bill 1666, the Biomass Innovation Parks Act, would require the Natural Resources Agency to identify one or more parks by September 30, 2027. The parks would process California wood waste into products such as lumber from small-diameter trees, biomethane, and clean hydrogen.

Projects would have to use noncombustion technology, although supporting equipment such as systems providing manufacturing heat could be allowed. Existing facilities could propose expansions, mobile processing could qualify, and proposals developed by or with California Native American tribes would receive a preference. Parks would have to meet local air-quality rules and provide community benefits.

The measure establishes a grants and financing program without appropriating money or choosing a site. For local agencies or tribal partners, it would create a process for proposing a facility rather than an approved project.

A third measure, Assembly Bill 2494, would change the mission of California’s demonstration state forests. It replaces the emphasis on maximum sustained production of forest products with management for public benefits, including watershed health, biodiversity, carbon storage, recreation, and wildfire resilience.

Timber harvesting would remain permitted for specified research, demonstration, and management purposes. The Natural Resources Secretary would also have to make good-faith efforts to develop tribal comanagement agreements.

The proposal has drawn objections as well as support in the Legislature. In a September 1 memorandum, Lake County Supervisors Brad Rasmussen and Jessica Pyska recommended requesting a veto, arguing that unclear language could impede research and sustainable management at Boggs Mountain Demonstration State Forest.

Helping communities do prevention work

Assembly Bill 1891, also delivered to the governor, addresses the people and organizations needed to carry out beneficial fire. The term includes prescribed burning and cultural burning used to maintain landscapes and reduce fire hazards.

The bill would direct at least 10 percent of qualifying Department of Forestry and Fire Protection local-assistance and grant funding toward community-led beneficial-fire programs. At least a quarter of that allocation would go to California Native American tribes or tribally or Indigenous-led organizations. The minimums could be reduced if qualified applicants requested too little funding to meet them.

Resource conservation districts, volunteer fire districts, nonprofits, and educational institutions are among the eligible participants. CAL FIRE would be directed, where feasible, to simplify applications, allow longer awards, and judge success by measures such as people trained and new certified burn bosses. The measure allocates a share of qualifying funding; it does not itself appropriate new money.

Senate Bill 973 would give the Wildfire County Coordinator Program a permanent place in state law. CAL FIRE would develop guidance for county risk assessments and prevention priorities, while the California Fire Safe Council would administer the coordinator program under an agreement with the department.

The work would include evacuation planning, grant access, public education, home hardening, and defensible space. Coordinators could help organize bulk purchasing and develop a pool of contractors, making the program relevant to how communities arrange and pay for work around homes.

For individual property owners, Senate Bill 894 would establish a California Wildfire Resilience Loan Program. Once funded, it could lower private borrowing costs through interest-rate reductions or reserves that cover lenders’ losses.

Eligible improvements would include ignition-resistant building features, vegetation management, defensible space, and smoke-mitigation retrofits. Assistance could reach eligible owners statewide, could not be limited by hazard-zone classification, and could not take the form of a lien against the property. The bill creates a financing framework, with loans dependent on a later appropriation and program implementation.

Preparing utilities and speeding recovery

Two other bills already delivered to Newsom concern emergency response and rebuilding.

Senate Bill 742 would require the Public Utilities Commission to update its rules by January 1, 2028, to require removal of permanently abandoned transmission facilities. Utility wildfire plans would have to account for the facilities, explain when they would be removed, and describe safety measures in the meantime. The bill would also require covered utilities to establish emergency-coordination procedures and assign representatives to work with local emergency operations centers.

Senate Bill 904, whose principal coauthor is Assemblywoman Heather Hadwick, would establish a process for identifying rebuilding obstacles after a qualifying wildfire emergency. A timely state determination that at least twenty-five residential or commercial structures were destroyed would trigger recommendations on permitting requirements and local procedures that could be revised or suspended. The proposal sets faster permitting as a goal, and, beginning January 1, 2028, agencies involved in wildfire recovery would also have to accept electronic submissions, subject to specified exceptions.

Additional measures that have cleared the Legislature

Assembly Bill 1699, the Good Fire Act, would indefinitely extend the Prescribed Fire Liability Pilot Program. Assemblyman Chris Rogers is the author, and Hadwick is the principal coauthor.

The claims fund would cover eligible burns on any land in California when led by parties other than CAL FIRE or the federal government. Its maximum payment would remain $2 million per burn event, with required permits and an approved burn plan submitted before ignition. The bill preserves the applicable legal standard of care.

Alongside that financial protection, the measure would expand routes to burn-boss certification, permit discretionary inspection waivers for qualified practitioners, and allow necessary overtime as a state-grant expense. Its environmental-review exemption is limited to CAL FIRE assistance on projects that do not otherwise require such review. As an urgency measure, it would take effect immediately upon enactment.

Where Assembly Bill 1891 emphasizes community burning programs, Assembly Bill 2513 addresses larger regional projects. It would authorize regional landscape grants through the Department of Conservation, CAL FIRE, and the Wildlife Conservation Board, expand eligible prevention work to include ignition prevention, and make advance-payment authority under the Regional Forest and Fire Capacity Program permanent.

For regional organizations, the change would provide additional ways to finance coordinated work across a landscape. It would not reserve money for a particular county or supply a new appropriation.

Senate Bill 1370 would consolidate state environmental and resource reviews for qualifying wildfire-mitigation projects. A decision would generally be due within sixty calendar days after an application was deemed complete, with extensions by mutual agreement.

An expedited authorization could replace or waive specified state requirements, while applicable local and federal requirements would remain. Projects would face size limits and deadlines for completion, and authority to issue the expedited approvals would end January 1, 2029. The bill also calls for a separate permitting program for vegetation management outside the timber-harvest rules.

Senate Bill 1079 would establish a Fire Innovation Unit within CAL FIRE, subject to an appropriation. It would coordinate research, testing, acquisition, and deployment of wildfire technology, including grants, contracts, and demonstration projects. The program would operate until January 1, 2033.

Two budget-related measures address existing money and tax treatment. Senate Bill 193 would remove the required percentage split between forest-health and prescribed-fire work within an existing $200 million allocation from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, giving CAL FIRE more flexibility between those uses. The allocation would remain subject to the fund’s spending priorities and reductions when proceeds were insufficient.

Senate Bill 195 would extend the state income-tax exclusion for qualifying wildfire-mitigation assistance through the 2030 tax year. It would also include qualifying assistance from Proposition 4’s wildfire mitigation grant program, rather than limiting the exclusion to the existing California Wildfire Mitigation Financial Assistance Program.

Senate Bill 1153 combines a narrower planning requirement with broader liability protections for water systems. Beginning January 1, 2028, urban retail suppliers serving at least 3,300 people and a high or very high fire-hazard zone would have to add wildfire-response procedures addressing infrastructure vulnerabilities, preparedness, communications, and recovery.

The bill would also state that public water systems have no duty to be designed, built, or maintained for wildfire suppression. Inability to maintain supply or pressure during a wildfire, or failure to follow the new procedures, could not be treated as a substantial cause of wildfire damage.

Insurance claims and smoke-damaged homes

Senate Bill 876 would require insurers to offer eligible homeowners extended replacement-cost coverage of at least 50 percent above their primary-dwelling limits. The bill would also strengthen temporary-living-expense protections, require a primary contact for residential claims arising from declared emergencies, and clarify building-code-upgrade payments when a policyholder rebuilds or buys elsewhere after a total loss. Many of its changes would become operative January 1, 2028.

Senate Bill 877 would clarify that policyholders requesting claim documents are entitled to preliminary as well as final loss-estimate calculations. The distinction gives homeowners access to how an insurer’s estimate developed, rather than only its final figure.

Senate Bill 878 would set payment requirements following a total loss, including a general thirty-day deadline for paying actual cash value after the property is determined to be a total loss, subject to exceptions. It would also require timely payment of undisputed replacement costs once the applicable conditions are met, with interest on specified overdue payments.

Assembly Bill 1680 would strengthen oversight of the FAIR Plan, which provides basic property insurance for people unable to obtain it through ordinary channels. It would require corrective action following examinations or operational reports and allow penalties of up to $20,000 for failing to complete required corrections within the agreed timeframe.

For homes left standing but contaminated, Assembly Bill 1795, the Smoke Damage Recovery Act, would create a rebuttable presumption connecting smoke damage to a wildfire when smoke, ash, soot, or related contamination is present within the defined impact zone. Insurers would be responsible for necessary sampling and testing, and covered additional living expenses could not end before restoration and clearance for occupancy, subject to policy limits.

Assembly Bill 1642 would supply statewide lead and asbestos testing and cleanup rules, with regulations due by December 31, 2028, and guidance on other contaminants due a year later. The measure would become operative only if Assembly Bill 1795 also becomes law and takes effect by January 1, 2027.