CSAC Bulletin Article

CSAC Legislative Conference—Agriculture, Environment and Natural Resources Committee

The AENR Committee was pleased to have Senator Bill Dodd kick off our AENR Committee meeting. Senator Dodd has been active in the wildfire, insurance and regional planning areas for the past several years. The Senator focused his presentation on his work to establish voluntary regional funding mechanisms to support climate adaptation work and dedicating a funding stream to provide insurance for prescribed and cultural fire preservation.=

In December of last year, the AENR Committee met to discuss coordinated efforts statewide on fire prevention. One issue that keeps returning as a high priority is the use of prescribed and cultural fire as a prevention tool. Our committee heard from the two experts—Chris Anthony who has worked with CalFIRE’s Cooperative Fire Protection programs and was one of the key CalFIRE leads working on the recent Caldor Fire in El Dorado, Amador and Alpine Counties. Mr. Anthony walked the committee through the fire, and impacts that previous fire breaks had on the fire.  Following his presentation, Lenya Quinn-Davidson with UC Extension joined the panel to discuss statewide efforts for prescribed fire-including the challenge of funding liability for fire managers and burn bosses. She focused on her work with counties and local governments as they increase “good fire” on the ground to prevent catastrophic wildfires.

The CSAC closed the meeting with a presentation on Legislative and state Regulatory front with an emphasis on the recent Drought Executive Order, water and flood infrastructure budget asks, and continued work on wildfire and fire prevention.

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