Sponsors (2)
Introduced December 17, 2025 by Alejandro Padilla · Last progress December 17, 2025
The bill secures large swaths of California public lands and rivers—reducing wildfire risk, restoring habitat, expanding recreation, and increasing tribal input—while imposing significant restrictions on extractive and some infrastructure uses and creating new federal management costs that can constrain local economic and utility activities.
Residents of California rural and nearby communities will face lower wildfire risk because the bill requires shaded fuel breaks, prescribed fire, targeted insect/disease control, and interagency fire-response procedures across designated lands.
Visitors, downstream users, and local communities gain long-term protections and restored habitat and water quality from new wilderness, wild & scenic river designations and required restoration activities.
Recreation opportunities and local tourism are expanded—new trails (including a nonmotorized connector) and protected landscapes improve access, scenery, and cultural/wildlife resources.
Residents, workers, and businesses in affected areas may lose mineral, geothermal, timber, and other extractive development opportunities because large acreage is withdrawn or restricted, reducing local jobs and revenues.
Federal agencies will incur new management, study, restoration, and administrative obligations that could raise costs for taxpayers or require reallocation of existing agency resources.
New wilderness, river, and scenic designations and related limits on motorized use may restrict some recreational and commercial vehicle access, constrain certain infrastructure projects, and complicate permits for nearby development.
Based on analysis of 14 sections of legislative text.
Creates a large California restoration area, designates new wilderness and Wild & Scenic river segments, mandates restoration/fire plans and a Bigfoot trail study, and limits roads/timber in special areas.
Creates a large federal restoration area (about 871,414 acres) in northern California, directs the Agriculture and Interior Departments to prepare restoration and updated fire-management plans, and sets up a partnership to remediate lands harmed by illegal marijuana cultivation. It also designates multiple new wilderness areas and additions, adds numerous river segments to the National Wild and Scenic Rivers System, limits motorized use in new special management areas, and requires a feasibility study (and possible designation) for a nonmotorized Bigfoot National Recreation Trail. The law includes rules on timber, grazing, road use, tribal cooperation, land withdrawals, maps and legal descriptions, and specific protections and limits related to certain utility rights-of-way.