As Trump tears apart decades of environmental progress, Governor Newsom restores nearly 300,000 acres of habitat and cuts average permitting time to 42 days

In FY 2024-25 alone, CDFW funded, permitted, or assisted with environmental review exemptions for 151 projects, resulting in the enhancement of 134,499 acres and 88 stream miles, saving an estimated $4,205,490 compared to traditional environmental permitting. During FY 2024-25, CDFW permit processing times averaged 42 days. Each of these projects delivers direct benefits for fish, wildlife, and clean water for California’s communities.

“Progress in cutting green tape happens every day with each project approval, and when we look back over the last year, those efforts clearly add up,” said Meghan Hertel, Director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Each administrative barrier we remove today makes it faster and easier to recover California’s rich biodiversity for the benefit of future generations.” 

Launched in 2021, the Cutting the Green Tape program creates new pathways to accelerate, scale, and improve the quality of beneficial habitat restoration projects. Instead of forcing good environmental work to get stuck in paperwork, CDFW’s efficient restoration permitting and environmental review pathways eliminate unnecessary barriers and help important biodiversity recovery projects get approved more quickly with lower costs. Tools like the Statutory Exemption for Restoration Projects, Restoration Consistency Determination, and the newly authorized Restoration Management Permit have collectively saved restoration projects more than $12 million to date.

To build on this progress, California Natural Resources Secretary Wade Crowfoot and California Environmental Protection Agency Secretary Yana Garcia issued a joint memo to department leadership calling on agencies to redouble their efforts to identify and eliminate unnecessary permitting delays. The memo makes clear that the Newsom administration’s commitment to cutting green tape is an ongoing promise​ to every Californian.

Some of the important projects supported by Cutting the Green Tape in FY 2024-25 include the following: 

Johnson Cosumnes Mitigation Bank Floodplain Restoration
This project is located on an approximately 218-acre property known as Johnson Ranch in Sacramento County. The project is expected to establish the Johnson Cosumnes Mitigation Bank in order to help restore native fish and support habitat for many common native wildlife and plant species. Project activities include: 

• Protecting 204 acres of wetland, riparian and riverine habitat under a conservation easement 

• Creating approximately 10 notches in the existing agricultural berms 

• Regrading and contouring existing agricultural fields as well as existing deep pockets 

• Planting native wetland and riparian plant species 

• Establishing a post-restoration monitoring and maintenance approach for long-term durability of the project.  

 The project is expected to benefit Swainson’s hawk, valley elderberry longhorn beetle, giant gartersnake, steelhead, tricolored blackbird, western red bat and western pond turtle.