Senate Republican Budget Move to Gut the California Environmental Quality Act Raises Larger Questions

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Frank D. Russo

There is an overarching lesson to be learned from the attempt by Republican California State Senators to change California's basic environmental law and using the leverage of a state budget stalemate they are causing to do so.

On the surface, these Senators are trying to link it to the budget--California's laundry list appropriating money for the various activities of state government. They say that changes in a 1970 law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) are needed to spend bond money for construction of transportation projects and other items the voters approved money for in last year's bond measures. There is ample reason to dispute this contention, and we've had articles on these pages that refute this claim.

But, if you probe just a bit deeper, you see that there is a much larger picture: Large developers want to build massive housing projects and to be able to do these unfettered by complying with California law and to have the lawyer we have elected, Attorney General Jerry Brown, be able to enforce the law through the courts.

But this ploy goes even deeper and involves disrespect for the basic rule of law and our system of government. It goes beyond Jerry Brown and the particulars of the moment.

You've got a law here, CEQA, which has been on the books for many years and has been amended through the legislative process. Majority votes have been needed to both pass the law and in the consideration of the bills to change it. There have been hearings, witnesses have been called to testify, letters have been written, the language has been scrutinized, committees with some expertise (what's left after term limits and budgetary changes in Prop 140 caused many experienced staff to leave--but that's another story) have looked this over and vetted them in a deliberative process.

The same procedures were laboriously used in the enactment of AB 32, the landmark global warming bill passed last year--with majority votes of the legislature. Some folks didn't want it to pass. Some folks wanted it to be written differently. They have the same opportunity to change its provisions as the folks who have secured the passage of amendments to CEQA: Write a bill, present it to a committee, allow the public to express their views and to tell their elected representatives what they want done, and go through the process.