Timber harvesting plans: exemptions.

The Z'berg-Nejedly Forest Practices Act of 1973 prohibits a person from conducting timber operations, as defined, unless a timber harvesting plan prepared by a registered professional forester has been submitted to the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The act authorizes the State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection to exempt from some or all of those provisions of the act a person engaging in specified forest management activities, including the cutting or removal of trees in compliance with existing law relating to defensible space. In this regard, the act authorizes, until 3 years after the effective date of regulations adopted by the board, the Forest Fire Prevention Pilot Project Exemption if specified conditions are met, including that only trees less than 24 inches in stump diameter, measured at 8 inches above ground level, shall be removed and the activities shall be conducted in those portions of 21 counties designated as the Sierra Nevada Region, as defined, in any part of 7 other counties, or in any combination of these areas. Existing law authorizes a registered professional forester in an emergency to file, on behalf of a timber owner or operator, a specified emergency notice with the department that allows for the immediate commencement of timber operations. This bill would require the department and the board to review and submit a report to the Legislature, on or before December 31, 2017, on the trends in the use of, compliance with, and effectiveness of, the above exemptions and emergency notice provisions and specified regulations. If the report is not submitted on or before that date, the bill would require specified legislative committees to hold a hearing to investigate why the report was not submitted. The bill would authorize the Forest Fire Prevention Pilot Project Exemption until January 1, 2021, and, on January 1, 2018, or upon the submission of the report, whichever occurs first, would expand the exemption to instead permit the removal of trees less than 26 inches in stump diameter, measured at 8 inches above ground level and apply to activities anywhere within those 28 counties, or in any combination of those areas, as prescribed.