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Initiatives

California Water Resilience Portfolio
The California Natural Resources Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency and the California Department of Food and Agriculture will work to identify and assess a suite of complementary actions to ensure safe and resilient water supplies, flood protection and healthy waterways for the state’s communities, economy and environment. The portfolio will integrate and build on programs, policies and investments already in place to build a climate-resilient water system.

 

Community Wildfire Prevention and Mitigation
CAL FIRE has identified 35 priority projects that can be implemented immediately to help reduce public safety risk for over 200 of California’s most wildfire-vulnerable communities. Project examples include removal of hazardous dead trees, vegetation clearing, creation of fuel breaks and community defensible spaces, and creation of safer ingress and egress corridors.

 

Oroville Dam Citizens Advisory Commission
This Commission, housed within the Natural Resources Agency, was created in 2018 by Senate Bill 955, and establishes a new public forum for issues related to the Oroville Dam, its appurtenant structures, the Feather River Fish Hatchery, and the Oroville-Thermalito Complex. The Commission will act as a unified voice for the communities surrounding Oroville Dam to provide public feedback, advice, and best practices.

 

Blue Ribbon Committee for the Rehabilitation of Clear Lake
This 15-member Committee has been given the important charge of making recommendations for rehabilitating Clear Lake, which is critical to Lake County’s economy, ecosystem, and heritage.

 

Climate
The California Natural Resources Agency leads and coordinates both the administration’s climate adaptation policy and its natural resources climate policy.

 

California EcoRestore
California EcoRestore is an initiative to help coordinate and advance at least 30,000 acres of critical habitat restoration in the Sacramento – San Joaquin Delta over the next four years.

 

Voluntary Watershed Agreements
The administration of Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. is working on both regulatory and voluntary ways to improve stream conditions for the sake of native fish.

 

California Water Action plan
The Governor directed the California Natural Resources Agency, the California Environmental Protection Agency, and the California Department of Food and Agriculture to identify key actions for the next one to five years that address urgent needs and provide the foundation for the sustainable management of California’s water resources.

 

Salton Sea Management Program
The Salton Sea is California’s largest lake. Thirty-five miles long and 15 miles wide, the desert lake extends from the Coachella Valley into the Imperial Valley. The Salton Sea Management Program is coordinating multiple state, local and federal agencies to address air quality and habitat threatened by a shrinking sea.

 

SB 4 and SB 83 Oil and Gas Production Reform
Oil and Gas regulation in California has undergone extensive reform across multiple agencies to strengthen protections for fresh groundwater aquifers and public health and safety. The Natural Resources Agency has been given a statutory role in implementation of Senate Bill 4 (Pavley 2013) for well stimulation and Senate Bill 83 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review 2015) for underground injection programs. These activities are directed to strengthen the program’s reliance on best available science and provide public input into the regulatory programs at the Department of Conservation and The State Water Resources Control Board.

 

Delta Smelt Resiliency Strategy
Under a comprehensive strategy, state and federal agencies will work to rapidly improve conditions for endangered Delta smelt, which are close to extinction. The strategy represents a management shift for state and federal water and wildlife agencies, which are addressing multiple stressors on Delta smelt in a systematic way while studying the synergy of the actions.

 

Sacramento Valley Salmon Resiliency Strategy
The latest science shows potential extinction for many of California’s native salmon and steelhead species over the next several decades, if present trends continue. State agencies have committed to a suite of actions to improve survival rates, including restoring habitat, improving stream flow, removing stream barriers and reintroducing species to ideal habitat.

 

California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines
CEQA, or the California Environmental Quality Act, is a statute that requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts, if feasible. The CEQA Guidelines are the regulations that explain and interpret the law for both the public agencies required to administer CEQA and for the public generally. The Governor’s Office of Planning and Research prepares and develops proposed amendments to the CEQA Guidelines and transmits them to the Secretary for Resources. The Secretary for Resources is responsible for certification and adoption of the CEQA Guidelines and amendments thereto.