What matters to me today is an incoming infestation of protected species.
California shortly will likely be infested with an unprecedented swarm of protected species. Overriding constitutionally required public notice and hearing provisions and substituting the judgment of staff over appointed and accountable Commission members, AB 1319, signed by Governor Newsom this weekend, fast tracks blanket protections for any species for which existing federal protections are determined by staff to be “decreased.”
Concerned that federal protections will weaken under the current Administration, staff at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife must, upon specified criteria, make an across-the-board, non-species-specific determination when, in their sole judgment and without public notice, a federal law or rule results in a decrease in protection of a federally listed species. At that point, any federally listed species in California not yet protected under the California Endangered Species Act (CESA), is eligible for full CESA protection.
The Constitution normally requires public notice and comment for such regulatory enactments, but AB 1319 sets aside those protections. Additionally, the law calls for but makes no provision for the funding and staffing necessary to handle the incoming onslaught of “provisional candidate species” listings. Proposed federal rulemakings have already been publicly noticed that observers opine would empower staff to make the requisite findings to trigger protection.
How many species would be subject to expedited protections is not immediately clear, but the law applies throughout the state to any species currently listed federally but not yet protected under CESA.
That’s what matters to me today in 250 words or less. What matters to you? I’d really like to know.