The following represents the steps of the CESA process from receipt of a petition to the effective date of the listing/uplisting/downlisting/delisting of the species as rare, threatened, or endangered.
Step 1: The petition to list, uplist, downlist or delist a species is received in the Commission office and is reviewed by Commission staff for the presence or absence of the required information.
Step 2: An incomplete petition will be returned to the petitioner within 10 days with an explanation as to why it is being returned. An accepted petition will be referred to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (Department) within 10 days.
Step 3: For an accepted petition, Commission staff will draft a notice of receipt of the to be published in the California Regulatory Notice Register (Notice Register) and mailed to interested and affected parties. Publication in the Notice Register may take 2 to 4 weeks after receipt of the petition.
Step 4: The Department will evaluate the petition according to the criteria listed subsection 670.1(d)(1), Title 14, CCR, and will provide its evaluation report to the Commission within 90 days of receiving the petition from Commission staff; the Department may request a 30-day extension.
Step 5: The Commission will take action on the petition at its next available meeting after the Department's evaluation report has been available to the public for at least 30 days. At the meeting, the Commission will make a finding on whether the petition contains sufficient scientific information to indicate that the petitioned action may be warranted. If the Commission finds there is not sufficient scientific information to indicate that the petitioned action may be warranted, the process ends.
If the Commission finds there is sufficient scientific information to indicate that the petitioned action may be warranted, the Commission will designate the species as a candidate species (Section 2068, Fish and Game Code). CESA and case law interpreting it make clear that the Commission must accept a petition when the petition contains sufficient information to lead a reasonable person to conclude there is a substantial possibility the requested listing could occur; the requesting listing is tied to the species' status, that is, whether the species' continued existence is in serious danger or is threatened by a number of factors, and in no way relates to economic consequences that might result from listing.
Step 6: A notice of the Commission's findings will be published in the Notice Register and mailed to interested and affected parties. For species designated as candidates, this is also referred to as the “candidacy” notice. Publication and mailing of the notice may take 2 to 3 weeks for publication after the Commission has or has not designated the species as a candidate.
Step 7: For species designated as candidates, within 12 months of the date of publication of the "candidacy" notice, the Department will prepare and submit a status review report to the Commission. The Department may request a 6-month extension of the due date for the status review report.
Step 8: The Commission will receive the Department's status review report at a regularly-scheduled Commission meeting.
Step 9: Final consideration of the petition will be scheduled for the next regularly-scheduled Commission meeting after the Department’s status review report has been available to the public for at least 30 days. The Commission will make a finding of whether the petitioned action is warranted.
A species shall be listed as endangered or threatened if the Commission determines that its continued existence is in serious danger or is threatened by any one or any combination of the following factors:
- Present or threatened modification or destruction of its habitat;
- Overexploitation;
- Predation;
- Competition;
- Disease; or
- Other natural occurrences
Adoption of the Commission's findings will be scheduled for a future meeting.
Step 10: Drafting the findings can take several months. If the Commission finds that the petitioned action is not warranted, the Commission shall enter its findings in the public records and the species will be removed from the list of candidate species. If the Commission finds that the petitioned action is warranted, the species will be added to the list of threatened and endangered species in Section 670.2 (plants) or Section 670.5 (animals) through a regulation change.
Step 11: The notice of findings will be mailed to interested and affected parties and the regulation change filed with the California Office of Administrative Law (OAL), which has up to 30 business days to review the regulation change.
Step 12: Regulation filed with the OAL for review. If approved, OAL will file the regulation with the Secretary of State and becomes effective upon filing.