Surprise Attack on California's Environmental Laws--And What You Can Do About It

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Gary A. Patton
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League

We’ve just gotten news that a group of California business leaders have petitioned Governor Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders to break our best environmental laws. They’re demanding that the Legislature rip a hole in the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to give their businesses a free ride on global warming pollution.

The petition is an unofficial declaration of war against CEQA, and California’s new global warming program, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, signed by Governor Schwarzenegger just nine months ago.

Here’s what I wrote the Governor, California Senate leader Don Perata, and California Assembly leader Fabian Nunez:

"RE: Business Attack on the State’s Global Warming Prevention Efforts

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger, Senator Perata, and Speaker Núñez:

Each of you have recently received a letter dated June 21st from a list of California business organizations, claiming that “urgent legislative action is needed to prevent delays and interruptions to vital housing, commercial and public infrastructure projects …” Specifically, this letter claims that changes should be made to the California Environmental Quality Act.

Please be clear that the June 21st business letter is nothing less than a declaration of war against feasible efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the state of California.

The Governor, the Senate, and the Assembly have made Californians proud, because our state leaders have stepped up to the plate and recognized what the federal Administration has continued to deny – that global warming is real, and that it’s a threat to our environmental and economic future.

The June 21st business letter claims that the Attorney General and others are “premature” in their efforts to make certain that we begin immediately to address the global warming threat. Confronting global warming, and confronting it now, is an urgent requirement for California. There is nothing “premature” about getting to work on the problem. And, as everyone who knows anything about global warming recognizes, business as usual won’t work.

AB 32 was not a “stand pat” direction to do nothing on global warming, and to defer all action on global warming emissions until future rulemaking procedures have run their course. But that’s what the business leaders who signed the June 21st letter apparently want people to believe.