Environment: The Advance Infrastructure Mitigation Program Act.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project, as defined, that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment, as defined, or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. This bill would enact the Advance Infrastructure Mitigation Program Act, which would establish the Advance Infrastructure Mitigation Program, including defining terms for that purpose. The bill would authorize the Natural Resources Agency to administer and implement the program by taking certain actions. Those actions would include preparing, approving, and implementing regional advance mitigation plans, the contents of which the bill would specify, for planned infrastructure projects, as defined, identified by an infrastructure planning agency, as defined. The bill would specify that the purpose of a regional advance mitigation plan is to provide effective mitigation and conservation of natural resources and natural processes on a landscape, regional, or statewide scale, to expedite the environmental review of planned infrastructure projects, and to facilitate the implementation of measures to mitigate the impacts of those projects by identifying and implementing mitigation measures in advance of project approval. The bill also would authorize the agency to acquire, restore, manage, monitor, and preserve lands, waterways, aquatic resources, or fisheries, or fund those actions, in accordance with an approved regional advance mitigation plan or as otherwise specified, and to establish or fund the establishment of mitigation banks and conservation banks and purchase credits at those types of banks. The bill would authorize the agency to take other actions with respect to mitigation credits or values created or acquired under the program. The bill would authorize an infrastructure planning agency to identify planned infrastructure projects for the purposes of including the projects in a regional advance mitigation plan or for other advance mitigation under the program, and would authorize the agency to enter a memorandum of understanding or other agreement with an infrastructure planning agency for specified purposes of the program. The bill would establish the Advance Infrastructure Mitigation Fund in the State Treasury. Upon appropriation by the Legislature, the bill would require moneys in the fund to be used by the agency to administer and implement the program. The bill would specify that the program is intended to improve the efficiency and efficacy of mitigation only and is not intended to supplant the requirements of CEQA or any other environmental law.