California Rolls Back Its Landmark Environmental Law

The New York Times ^ | Laurel Rosenhall, Soumya Karlamangla and Adam Nagourney

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers scaled back a law that was vilified for its role in California’s housing shortage and homelessness crisis.

California leaders on Monday rolled back a landmark law that was a national symbol of environmental protection before it came to be vilified as a primary reason for the state’s severe housing shortage and homelessness crisis.

For more than half a century, the law, the California Environmental Quality Act, has allowed environmentalists to slow suburban growth as well as given neighbors and disaffected parties a powerful tool to stop projects they found objectionable.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two bills, which were written by Democrats but had rare bipartisan support in California’s divided State Capitol, that will allow many development projects to avoid rigorous environmental review and, potentially, the delaying and cost-inflating lawsuits that have discouraged construction in the state.

Democrats have long been reluctant to weaken the law, known as CEQA, which they considered an environmental bedrock in a state that has prided itself on reducing pollution and protecting waterways. And environmentalists took them to task for the vote.

But the majority party also recognized that California’s bureaucratic hurdles had made it almost impossible to build enough housing for nearly 40 million residents, resulting in soaring costs and persistent homelessness. In a collision between environmental values and everyday concerns, Democrats chose the latter on Monday.

“If we can’t address this issue, we’re going to lose trust, and that’s just the truth,” Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, said in a news conference. “And so this is so much bigger in many ways than the issue itself. It is about the reputation of not just Sacramento and the legislative leadership and executive leadership, but the reputation of the state of California.”

Discussions about changing the environmental law have repeatedly surfaced at...

[Da Coyote]

Gruesome Newsom for the Alligator Alcatraz.
Gruesome Newsom for the Alligator Alcatraz.
Gruesome Newsom for the Alligator Alcatraz.

[Lizavetta]

Oh, please. Only a fool can’t see he’s pretending to be a moderate. That the rabid Democrats who love CEQA are going along with this makes it even more obvious.

[ncfool]

When you’re running for president, you have to appear to be a moderate even though you pulled this crap on the population in the past hopefully people aren’t that stupid but then again you’ve got all these Democrats

[j.havenfarm]

“Divided Capitol,” my eye. The Democrats have supermajorities and can pass anything they want. This is good and it’s good they got GOP support, but the democrats don’t bother typically with the pretense of getting bipartisan support

[Karliner]

They have a democratic one party majority. There is barely ankle biting in Sacramento.

Look what they did to Larry Elder, Black face of white supremacy.