Renewable energy: Department of Fish and Game: expedited permitting.

(1) The California Endangered Species Act (CESA) requires the Fish and Game Commission to establish a list of endangered species and a list of threatened species, and requires the Department of Fish and Game to recommend, and the commission to adopt, criteria for determining if a species is endangered or threatened. CESA authorizes the department to authorize the take of threatened species, endangered species, or candidate species by permit if certain requirements are met. CESA authorizes the department, in consultation with the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission (Energy Commission) and, to the extent practicable, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the United States Bureau of Land Management, to design and implement actions to protect, restore, or enhance the habitat of plants and wildlife that can be used to fully mitigate the impacts of the take of endangered, threatened, or candidate species resulting from certain solar thermal and photovoltaic powerplants in the planning area of the Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan. Existing law requires the department to collect, and requires the owner or developer of certain solar thermal powerplants or photovoltaic powerplants to pay, a one-time permit application fee of $75,000. Existing law requires the department to utilize the permit application fee to pay for all or a portion of the department's cost of processing incidental take permit applications pursuant to CESA. This bill would require the department to take prescribed procedural steps regarding applications for certain eligible renewable energy projects, including determining whether the application is complete or incomplete, notifying the applicant of its determination, and approving or rejecting an incidental take permit application for an eligible project within specified timeframes. The bill would require the department to provide an accounting to the Legislature on incidental take permit applications for eligible renewable energy projects, and to report to the Legislature on the extent to which it arranges for entities other than itself to provide all or part of the environmental review of eligible renewable energy projects. (2) This bill would declare that it is to become operative only if AB 13 of the 2011–12 First Extraordinary Session is enacted. (3) The bill would also declare that it is to become operative on the effective date of AB 13 of the 2011–12 First Extraordinary Session. (4) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.