Two executive orders signed Oct. 27 set a Dec. 15 deadline for a plan to protect Highway 1 and let local agencies seek waivers of the state’s environmental review and wildlife laws for flood and erosion projects through Jan. 31.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two executive orders on Oct. 27 aimed at the same problem: a winter that state forecasters expect to bring a strong El Niño, with the flooding, landslides and coastal erosion that tend to follow.
The first, Executive Order N-13-26, creates a Highway 1 Task Force and gives it until Dec. 15 to tell the governor’s office what it would take to keep the coast highway open. The second, Executive Order N-14-26, goes further. It allows public agencies to set aside the California Environmental Quality Act, the state Endangered Species Act and a list of other environmental laws for levee repairs, channel clearing and similar flood-control work, provided the state’s natural resources secretary signs off on each request.
Mr. Newsom signed the orders at Crystal Cove State Park in Orange County, his office said.
The Highway 1 task force
The highway order is a planning document. It directs the California State Transportation Agency and the California Natural Resources Agency to convene a task force that includes Caltrans, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, the Coastal Commission, State Parks and other agencies. The group must identify the stretches of the 656-mile highway under the most immediate threat from El Niño storms and report back by Dec. 15 with prioritized actions, funding needs and ways to speed up the work, “including potential emergency suspensions and orders.”
The order also asks for an advance-approval process for preventive projects in Big Sur, including sites on the coast for disposing of landslide debris, and for a longer-term adaptation strategy through the Big Sur Coast Highway Management Plan. Caltrans is told to monitor landslide risk and burn scars and to request federal Emergency Relief funding when damage warrants it.
The order makes the economic case in its preamble: California’s coast generates about $51 billion in annual economic activity and supports 600,000 jobs, it says, and emergency spending on the Big Sur corridor alone came to about $312 million from 2020 through 2026. Regent’s Slide, which closed 6.8 miles of the highway in Monterey County in February 2024, is cited as an example.
What the El Niño order suspends
N-14-26 builds on the statewide emergency Mr. Newsom proclaimed on Sept. 21. Under its first paragraph, statutes and regulations administered by boards, departments and offices within the Natural Resources Agency are suspended “to the extent necessary to expedite or otherwise support action by a public agency” to prevent or reduce flooding, landslides, debris flows or erosion. The order names CEQA; the California Endangered Species Act; the Fish and Game Code’s lake and streambed alteration rules, fully protected species provisions and bird-nest protections; the Native Plant Protection Act; and the Delta Reform Act.
The suspensions are not automatic. An agency must first ask the natural resources secretary, Wade Crowfoot, or his designee to find that its project qualifies. The Natural Resources Agency has posted a request form and is required to keep a public list of every approved suspension.
The order also sets conditions. Channel clearing may not cut new low-flow channels, block fish passage or remove more than 30 percent of native vegetation per mile, and work in streambeds is limited to dry portions of the channel. Repaired levees must be rebuilt as they were or set back to widen the channel; dam work may not raise a dam above its authorized height. Sediment may not be dumped into state waters, and the Delta Reform Act suspension may not be applied to the Delta Conveyance Project, the proposed tunnel. All suspensions expire Jan. 31, 2027, unless extended.
A separate paragraph suspends three more requirements outright. It waives certain local flood-planning prerequisites in the Water Code so agencies can divert floodwaters, defers some Central Valley Flood Protection Board fees and timelines so the board can move El Niño permits first, and lifts the Coastal Act’s permit requirement for placing sand berms and sandbags in the coastal zone.
Who asked for it, and who is wary
The California State Association of Counties said its coalition had pressed for the relief for weeks and called the order “a significant step toward removing regulatory obstacles before disaster strikes.” The association noted that it did not include additional Water Code permit exemptions the coalition had requested.
Environmental groups had urged caution before the order was signed. In an Oct. 14 letter to Mr. Crowfoot and CalEPA Secretary Yana Garcia, the Surfrider Foundation argued that this El Niño “has been anticipated” and “should not be used to justify ’emergency’ permitting processes as a way to circumvent Coastal Act permits.” The group asked the state to favor temporary measures like sand berms over seawalls and rock, warning that “emergency armoring tends to become permanent.” The order’s explicit Coastal Act waiver covers only sandbags and berms. The first paragraph, though, reaches laws administered by any body within the Natural Resources Agency, which includes the Coastal Commission, and the agency’s public list will show whether the secretary approves broader Coastal Act suspensions.
The administration’s case
State officials say speed is the point. “Thanks to the Governor’s action, we’re moving faster than ever to prepare,” Mr. Crowfoot said in a statement, citing work “from reinforcing key portions of our Pacific Coast Highway to speeding approvals for priority flood and storm safety projects.” He said a marine heat wave had “already raised sea levels by a full foot.” Caltrans Director Dina El-Tawansy said the highway order “reinforces Caltrans’ commitment to prepare for the El Niño season while also building a more resilient transportation system.”
Caltrans District 5, which covers Big Sur, acknowledged an Inquirer inquiry but had not provided comment by publication.
What’s next
The task force report is due Dec. 15. Until then, the practical test of the El Niño order will be the list of approved suspensions on the Natural Resources Agency’s website, which will show which projects are moving forward without the usual reviews, and where.
Graham Ostrowski covers the governor, the Legislature, state agencies and the state budget for the Sacramento Report. More from Graham Ostrowski
