Sustainable Conservation Publishes Key Report on Accelerating Ecological Restoration in the Sacramento Valley and Beyond

Sustainable Conservation is proud to announce a new report, “Accelerating Restoration in the Sacramento Valley and Beyond: Progress and Next Steps to Cut Green Tape in California.”

Read the list of recommendations with agencies, partners, and timelines here.

Authors: Erika Lovejoy, Katie Haldeman, Stephanie Falzone, Shayan Kaveh

Background

California is at the threshold of a transformative era for landscape-level restoration, fueled by unprecedented funding opportunities from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the anticipated California Climate Bond (Proposition 4, 2024). This funding arrives at a critical time as the state confronts escalating and costly challenges posed by climate change. There is growing consensus that proactive strategies to address climate-related impacts and protect declining species populations are more effective and cost-efficient than reactive measures taken after damage occurs. Taking decisive action now is essential to tackle environmental challenges and enhance resilience for the future.

Restoration practitioners and coalitions are poised to implement landscape-scale restoration projects that reactivate floodplains, improve habitat for species, and bolster our resilience to a changing environment. With new funding and increasing restoration demands, agencies must be ready to manage a rising volume of permitting consultations. To seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity, California needs efficient and effective restoration permitting processes that align with its urgent habitat and climate goals.

While California has made substantial progress in developing accelerated permitting pathways for restoration, challenges remain. A deeper understanding and broader implementation of new permitting tools are essential, as are coordinated efforts to address persistent regulatory and organizational hurdles.

This white paper assesses the current regulatory landscape and provides actionable recommendations to maximize the benefits of existing accelerated permitting pathways, advance coordinated permitting efforts, expand successful programs, and fill the regulatory and institutional gaps to better serve the needs of our ecosystems and all those involved in restoring them.

Report Recommendation Categories

Facilitate proactive use of efficient restoration permitting pathways statewide
Create dedicated restoration teams within all regulatory agencies
Expand successful accelerated restoration permitting pathways
Create new restoration pathways or efficiencies where gaps exist
Advance solutions to ongoing restoration challenges

Key Findings

Our analysis, primarily focused on the Sacramento River Basin, was informed by interviews with 39 organizations and over 80 individuals across various sectors, including environmental consulting firms, nonprofits, regulators, California Tribes, private landowners, agriculture, and networks/associations. Several key themes emerged:

Accelerated Permitting Pathways are Considered Essential: Seventy-five percent (75%) of project proponents interviewed indicated that restoration-specific accelerated permitting pathways are essential for moving their projects forward, especially when coordinated across multiple agencies. This coordination simplifies processes, reduces administrative burdens, saves money, and speeds up project approvals. The Sacramento River Basin has seen increased interest in tools such as Programmatic General Permits, Restoration Management Permits, Programmatic Biological Opinions, and others.

Strategic Leadership Empowers Staff to Innovate: Agency staff look to their leadership to set a clear direction and empower them to embrace new and innovative approaches. A prime example of the impact of focused, goal-oriented leadership is the California Cutting Green Tape (CGT) Initiative, led by California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot. Through the CGT Initiative, Secretary Crowfoot guided agency staff to take specific actions to accelerate restoration efforts and clarified several policies to help both staff and applicants better understand and utilize various regulatory tools. Alongside other successful programs like the NOAA Restoration Center’s Community-based Restoration Program, the CGT Initiative showcases the transformative effect of proactive leadership in streamlining regulatory practices and enhancing restoration outcomes.

Restoration-Specific Regulatory Programs Improve Efficiency: The most effective regulatory programs blend a clear mission for restoration with the strategic use of accelerated permitting pathways. Restoration-dedicated teams like CGT and NOAA Restoration Center have received high satisfaction ratings from applicants for their efficiency, consistency, and collaboration – making the permitting process more predictable for applicants. Integrating funding, technical assistance, and permitting into a unified program is a model for accelerating restoration efforts and leveraging partnerships to get more done. Interviewees recommended expanding these types of proactive restoration programs to other agencies to help accomplish more restoration.

Inconsistencies and Gaps Remain in Implementation and Permitting: Ongoing challenges include the inconsistent interpretation of regulatory requirements by agency staff for both traditional and efficient pathways, sometimes resulting in more stringent application of the law or increased and variable mitigation requirements. Interviews also revealed significant variability in the awareness and understanding of efficient permitting tools among both applicants and agency staff. There is a perception that some staff are reluctant to use efficient permitting tools and are uncertain of their scope or how to apply their protection measures. Project proponents seek more consistent and proactive use of existing restoration-specific permitting tools, expansion of successful pathways and programs, and creation of new pathways or efficiencies to fill gaps. Proponents also advocate for more regulatory certainty and the resolution of persistent policy and funding challenges to prevent delays, increased costs, and setbacks in achieving environmental benefits.

Need for Increased Agency Capacity and Project Proponent Engagement: Agency staff face significant capacity challenges due to limited staffing and turnover, sometimes leading to fewer resources for technical assistance with project implementers and delays in processing applications. As demands on agencies grow with new state plans and funding opportunities, expanding staff capacity and increasing training is essential. Agency staff emphasized that early and consistent engagement from applicants can also help streamline the permitting process, ensure compliance with regulatory requirements from the outset, and better align with funding opportunities.

Chinook Salmon on Lower Tuolumne River. Dan Cox / USFWS

Recommendations

Our Recommendations are grouped into five key strategies aimed at enhancing the restoration permitting process and increasing partnerships to accelerate restoration. The recommendations and detailed actions incorporate key interview findings, follow-up research, and Sustainable Conservation’s experience. Many of the recommendations call for collaboration among those who regulate, implement, or are affected by restoration efforts.

Facilitate Proactive Use of Efficient Restoration Permitting Pathways Statewide
Training and Guidance: Develop and deliver ongoing training and guidance resources for agency staff, applicants, and consultants to promote consistent use of efficient permitting pathways, including for multi-benefit projects. Agency leaders should provide strategic guidance and support that empowers staff to expand collaboration with project implementers and maximize the use of efficient restoration permitting processes.
Early Engagement: Promote early engagement from project proponents to foster collaborative project development, coordinated funding, and efficient permitting with regulatory and funding agencies.

Create Dedicated Restoration Teams Within All Regulatory Agencies
Dedicated Units: The most effective regulatory programs for advancing restoration are those that combine a clear mission for restoration with the strategic use of efficient permitting tools. Agencies can use successful models like the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (CDFW) Cutting Green Tape program and NOAA Restoration Center’s Community-based Restoration Program to create dedicated teams/units within all regulatory agencies. These units should house funding, efficient permitting tools, and technical assistance – enabling a fully coordinated approach focused on accelerating restoration.

Expand Successful Accelerated Restoration Permitting Pathways
Scale Proven Pathways: Expand successful accelerated restoration permitting regulatory pathways, which have demonstrated substantial time and resource savings, enabling more restoration projects to benefit from efficient permitting options.

Create New Restoration Pathways or Efficiencies Where Gaps Exist
Identify and Address Gaps: Create new restoration pathways or efficiencies to address gaps in the current regulatory framework, ensuring a comprehensive and streamlined permitting process that honors environmental mandates.

Advance Solutions to Ongoing Restoration Challenges
Collaborative Agency Efforts: Foster deliberate, focused dialogue and collaboration among agency leaders and project implementers to develop effective solutions to ongoing regulatory, funding, and organizational challenges, advancing shared restoration goals.

The list of recommendations, including involved agencies, partners, and timelines, can be found in Table 1. Recommendations by Agency and Implementation Timeline.

The Path Forward

This white paper is a collective call to action for restoration project proponents, agency officials, California Tribes, environmental organizations, and communities. The progress made so far is a testament to the power of collaborative efforts across these groups. To sustain the momentum, agency leadership should engage in the focused dialogue needed to overcome the remaining challenges to scale up restoration. These challenges include resolving policy, funding, and organizational hurdles; ensuring effective training and technical assistance; managing perceived risks associated with working in sensitive habitats; and shifting from reactive to proactive restoration strategies.

By building on recent successes, committing to innovation, and collaborating effectively, we can ensure that regulatory processes and programs enable ecological restoration at the pace and scale needed to fix existing problems and prepare for an uncertain climate future. Together, we can support the restoration of California’s ecosystems to benefit the environment and the communities that depend on them.