Bill of the Week: Senate Bill 1404 (Stern) – California Environmental Quality Act and Oak Woodlands

RCRC has voiced opposition to Senate Bill 1404, authored by Senator Henry Stern (D-Los Angeles), which establishes a statewide threshold of significance for the removal of oak trees under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).  The bill also eliminates an important safe harbor provision which insulates projects that include specified mitigation measures from legal challenges relating to the project’s impact on oak woodlands.   

SB 1404’s prescriptive mandate and increased litigation exposure is unworkable given the extent and diversity of California’s oak woodlands. 

Under existing law, counties are required to determine whether a project will have a significant effect on oak woodlands. Despite the fact that California has over 800 million oak trees, SB 1404 declares that removal of just three oak trees over 5” in diameter at breast height constitutes a significant effect on the environment under CEQA. The same threshold applies for projects involving 1/10 of an acre and for projects involving hundreds of acres. Unfortunately, SB 1404 ignores the fact that oak trees and woodlands are common and diverse in many areas of the state; usurps local control; and inhibits the ability for local agencies to balance the biological, sociological, and economic interests of private landowners, public agencies, and the environment. 

In establishing an arbitrary statewide threshold, SB 1404 also subjects many additional projects to CEQA where the local agency would have legitimately determined there was not a significant impact on the environment.   

Perhaps even more troubling, SB 1404 also increases CEQA litigation risk by eliminating a safe harbor that currently applies for projects that incorporate specified mitigation measures.  This provision opens the door to CEQA litigation challenging local determinations about the project’s impacts and adequacy of mitigation measures. It also opens the door even wider for “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) groups to oppose projects that impact as few as three oak trees. 

SB 1404 passed the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on April 20 despite vigorous discussions about the overly-broad and arbitrary nature of the bill.  The bill will be heard in the author’s Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee on April 27. RCRC’s letter is available here.   

For more information, please contact RCRC Policy Advocate, John Kennedy.