On March 16th, I wrote the following: The L.A. Times is reporting that the five GOP Senators whose votes Gov. Brown has been courting in order to pass his budget proposal are making a new demand just hours before both houses of the Legislature are scheduled to vote. Their demand is to significantly weaken the landmark environmental law known as the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. The law requires development projects to go through stringent environmental reviews, and it has long been a target of Republican legislators. Seizing their moment of greatest leverage, these Republicans are now hoping the Governor and legislative Democrats will be desperate enough for a resolution to the budget ordeal that they will be willing to sacrifice CEQA.
Now today, March 24th, after a week of not hearing anything about changes to CEQA, suddenly it seems that is still a possibility.
In his press conference today, Gov. Brown mentioned possible areas of compromise with Republicans as “pension reform, regulatory reform, and government reform.” I would assume that “government reform” refers to a spending cap, and that would mean “regulatory reform” probably refers to weakening CEQA.
A quick Google search turns up absolutely zero articles about this from today, but evidently Sierra Club California heard the same thing that I heard, because they sent out a press release urging legislators and the Governor not to sacrifice CEQA in budget talks.
I spoke with Michael Endicott, Legislative Advocate for Sierra Club California, and he explained that since CEQA is a law that allows the public to participate in decisions related to development projects it would be a betrayal of the people for politicians to take away those rights in behind-closed-door negotiations. He said,
Any changes made to the California Environmental Quality Act by our elected representatives in Sacramento should be done in the open, and in policy committees, where the public has some ability to see the proposed changes, and weigh in on those changes, before Sacramento gags local voices on local projects that will affect the air they breathe, the water they drink and the quality of their life for decades to come.
He continued to state the importance of CEQA to the environmental community – and to all Californians – and was adamant that simply getting a vote on tax extensions would not be worth wounding this venerable environmental law:
Having listened to the Governor's Press conference at which he signed the bills that contained the cuts to our budget, it is apparent that the Governor is still in discussions with some Republicans about non-budget matters that the Republicans want as a condition to get a vote JUST to place the second half of the budget, tax extensions, before the voter. Sierra Club California urges the Governor and legislators not to fold non-budget demands into the closed door budget process.
This is a major issue and could potentially affect future generations of Californians if this law were to be significantly weakened as part of budget negotiations. Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that.
[If anyone can post a link to one of those "contact your representative" tools for CA legislators, I will put it in the diary!]
Crossposted at www.CapInsider.com