California Can Help Meet Its Climate Goals by Removing the SERP Expiration Date

By Molly Bruce, Dave Smith, Michael Kiparsky, Derek Hitchcock, Peter Van De Burgt, Sydney Chamberlin, Megan Cleveland

Many regulatory approvals, such as permits, are intended to guard against projects that harm the environment. However, permits can also undermine environmental restoration efforts. While restoration is designed to address environmental harm and improve resilience to climate change, permits can significantly increase project costs and slow or even hinder projects that benefit the environment. Striking an effective balance between an appropriate level of regulatory oversight and advancing environmental restoration will be critical to California’s climate efforts. Over the past five years, the state’s Statutory Exemption for Restoration Projects (SERP) pilot project has helped strike this balance very effectively. By waiving the SERP expiration date, California can support continued progress toward its conservation and restoration goals without introducing environmental risks that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) helps protect against.

Permits and permitting add time and expense to the rollout of restoration projects. To alleviate this concern, the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) launched its Cutting Green Tape initiative, a statewide effort to reduce costs and accelerate the pace and scale of conservation and restoration across the state. Executive Order N-82-20 prompted California to make a 30X30 commitment to conserve 30 percent of the state’s coastal lands and waters by 2030 and spurred the development of state strategies around nature-based solutions that also support critical habitat and climate resilience. Along with Senate Bill 155, these statewide initiatives prompted the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) to develop SERP to accelerate the pace and scale of restoration by exempting certain projects from CEQA. The SERP does not bypass rigorous environmental review and permitting; instead, it eases the path to compliance for eligible, environmentally beneficial restoration projects. Recently Enacted State Budget Delays SERP‘s end-of-life date until January 1, 2030. However, removing this end-of-life date altogether could further accelerate the pace and scale of restoration.

The SERP provides a CEQA exemption for eligible projects – “projects that conserve, restore, protect, or enhance and assist in the recovery of California native fish and wildlife and the habitat on which they depend or that restore or provide habitat for California native fish and wildlife.” Eligible projects must “result in long-term net benefits for climate resilience, biodiversity, and the recovery of sensitive species” and include ongoing management procedures. It is critical that projects that include a construction component are not eligible for the SERP unless the construction is solely related to habitat restoration. When a project’s CEQA lead agency determines that the project is eligible for the SERP, CDFW must provide approval for the exemption to be in effect.

The SERP highlights a tension that exists in the permitting landscape—a tension between the risks that permits protect against and the costs they impose. This tension is particularly pernicious for environmentally beneficial projects like restoration and climate change adaptation. While these projects address the same environmental and climate concerns that environmental permits seek to prevent, they nonetheless find themselves in the crosshairs of environmental permits. Moreover, “environmentally beneficial” is a fluid and debatable concept, with particular benefits often imposing other environmental costs. This produces divergent views about what constitutes “environmentally beneficial.” For example, some coastal restoration projects create short-term impacts on existing, often degraded, habitat, but create healthier, more resilient habitat in the long term.

For these and other reasons, SERP was implemented on an experimental basis to explore the potential for reducing CEQA constraints on restoration projects without weakening regulatory oversight or introducing the risk that projects would use SERP to circumvent environmental review. During this trial period, 53 projects used SERP to contribute more than 22,000 acres and 110 miles of waterways to the state’s 30X30 conservation commitment.

The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is playing an active role in 5 of these 53 projects, contributing to regional salmonid recovery, restoration of critical coastal habitat, public access for underserved communities, wetland restoration, greenhouse gas sequestration, and reduction of subsidence. In all five projects, SERP application significantly contributed to improving the efficiency of project implementation, saving time and money that can be reallocated to future efforts to achieve broader goals.

The first SERP approval, the Garcia River Estuary, restores and enhances habitat for juvenile coho, chinook and steelhead by reconnecting floodplains and creating artificial ice jams. In this view from Stometta Ranch, the Garcia River meets the Pacific Ocean.

Douglas Steakley

Staten Island is restoring nearly 750 acres of seasonal and semi-permanent wetlands in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to improve habitat for native wildlife, including waterfowl and sandhill cranes that depend on Staten Island’s rich agricultural lands.

Staten Island by Erika Nortemann — Erika Nordemann

Ormond Beach is restoring ecosystem and hydrologic function across 650 acres through plant replacement and groundwater recharge, benefiting wetlands, salt marshes, dunes and upland habitats.

Ormond Beach by Peter Dixon — Pierre Dixon

The Santa Clara River is repairing hydraulic function and improving habitat connectivity across 8,500 acres and more than 30 miles of streams through invasive plant removal, native plant revegetation and wetland enhancement.

Remediation project proponents have expressed reluctance to use the SERP for projects with long implementation timelines that could extend beyond the original January 1, 2025, expiration date. They have expressed concern that the exemption would expire while projects were still in the process of acquiring permits, financing, and other regulatory approvals implicitly contingent on CEQA compliance. Projects that must return to the CEQA drawing board would incur substantial expense and delays. Although the SERP expiration date has been delayed by five years, we expect similar concerns about the uncertainty and risk of the CEQA compliance vehicle as we approach 2030—concerns that CDFW does not address.

In addition, restoration promoters and agency managers need time to learn, become familiar with, and become comfortable with streamlining mechanisms, which means that these mechanisms take time to become more effective. Long-term stable application is an important factor in encouraging their use.

California’s 2024-25 budget, passed by the Legislature on June 26 and signed by the Governor on June 29, includes Senate Bill 174, a companion bill that extends the SERP expiration date to January 1, 2030. Extending the SERP expiration date represents an important first step toward recognizing the SERP’s important role in the complex permitting puzzle facing restoration developers. However, removing the SERP expiration date can increase its recognition as a trusted CEQA compliance tool, thereby advancing developers’ understanding of the SERP and contributing to its broader use. Removing the SERP expiration date can help further accelerate the pace and scale of restoration in California and support the state’s efforts to meet its 30X30 climate commitments.