Fish and wildlife: safe harbor agreements.

Existing law, the California State Safe Harbor Agreement Program Act, establishes a program that encourages landowners to manage their lands voluntarily to benefit endangered, threatened, or candidate species, or declining or vulnerable species, and not be subject to additional regulatory restrictions as a result of their conservation efforts. The act requires the Department of Fish and Wildlife, to the maximum extent practicable, to prioritize the review of, and decision to approve, a safe harbor agreement if the property proposed to be enrolled in the agreement is encumbered by a conservation easement that requires a permanent commitment to protect, restore, and maintain habitat conditions, provided that the department finds that practices consistent with the conservation easement can reasonably be expected to provide a net conservation benefit to the species listed in the application. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation that would require safe harbor agreements authorized pursuant to the act to be reviewed and either approved and signed, or denied, by the department in a specified period of time upon receipt of all documents required by the act.