House Criticized For Passing Anti-Parks, Anti-Environment Budget Bill
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Diverging Reports Breakdown
Last-minute CA budget includes sweeping environmental law rollbacks
California lawmakers today approved one of the most substantial rollbacks of the state’s signature environmental review law in decades. Changes to the California Environmental Quality Act were embedded in a last-minute budget bill that sailed through the Senate and the Assembly. The new law exempts nine types of projects from environmental reviews: child care centers, health clinics, food banks, farmworker housing, water infrastructure, public parks or trails and advanced manufacturing. The changes were met with vehement opposition from more than 100 environmental and community groups, which said industrial plants will be more easily built in low-income communities. “This bill is the worst anti-environmental bill in California in recent memory,” a coalition of opponents wrote in a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who signed the bill tonight, after it passed with overwhelming votes in the Assembly and Senate. The bill also restricts legal challenges under CEQA by narrowing which documents courts can consider. It also allows limited environmental reviews of projects that don’t have an array of impacts.
California lawmakers today approved one of the most substantial rollbacks of the state’s signature environmental review law in decades, including a controversial exemption that would allow high-tech manufacturing plants to be built in industrial zones with no environmental review.
The changes to the California Environmental Quality Act were embedded in a last-minute budget bill that sailed through the Senate and the Assembly. The new law exempts nine types of projects from environmental reviews: child care centers, health clinics, food banks, farmworker housing, broadband, wildfire prevention, water infrastructure, public parks or trails and, notably, advanced manufacturing.
Aiming to streamline and lower the cost of construction in California, the new law also restricts legal challenges under CEQA by narrowing which documents courts can consider. It also allows limited environmental reviews of projects that don’ t have an array of impacts.
The changes in the 54-year-old law were forced by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who told legislators last week that he would not approve the state’s $321 billion spending plan without them. A provision in the budget act approved last week stated the spending plan “shall be inoperative and repealed” if changes to the state’s environmental review process were not final by midnight tonight.
Newsom signed the bill tonight, after it passed with overwhelming votes in the Senate and Assembly.
For decades, business and building groups have railed against what they call “CEQA abuse,” saying the environmental reviews drag out projects for years. But supporters say the law requires developers and others to examine and take steps to correct an array of environmental impacts, including air pollution, traffic, noise, wildlife, energy use and water supplies.
Recently, with climate change front and center, some liberals have joined calls for overhauling the environmental law, arguing that California must build faster and at scale to decarbonize its electric grid and construct housing and transportation systems.
The new exemption for “advanced manufacturing” facilities in areas already zoned for industrial use — including plants that build semiconductors and nanotech — drew some of the fiercest criticism. State law defines the category as processes that improve or create new materials, products or technologies.
The changes were met with vehement opposition from more than 100 environmental and community groups, which said industrial plants will be more easily built in low-income communities. They also say the exemptions will advantage developers by limiting public oversight and could create legal confusion.
“This bill is the worst anti-environmental bill in California in recent memory,” a coalition of opponents, including the California Environmental Justice Alliance and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, wrote in a letter to Newsom and legislators.
“This law would not harm all California communities equally. This budget deal is an attack on lower-income communities of color that consistently get sited for harmful industrial projects.” ASHA SHARMA, LEADERSHIP COUNCIL FOR JUSTICE AND ACCOUNTABILITY
At the over three-hour hearing preceding the vote, dozens of members of the public spoke in opposition, with some holding signs saying “When CEQA is silenced, polluters speak louder.”
Asha Sharma, state policy manager with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, called the changes “a back-room, last-minute deal” that made the state budget “dependent on gutting environmental review for resource-intensive and polluting industrial projects.”
“This law would not harm all California communities equally,” Sharma said. “This budget deal is an attack on lower-income communities of color that consistently get sited for harmful industrial projects.”
The Assembly approved the bill with a 50 to 3 vote, and the Senate, 33 to 1.
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi, a Democrat from Torrance who did not cast a vote, raised concerns on the Assembly floor about the bill’s exemption for advanced manufacturing plants, citing the environmental opposition, and urged the measure to be revisited. Republican Assemblymembers Carl DeMaio of San Diego and Kate Sanchez of Orange County’s Rancho Santa Margarita voted against it, along with Democrat Gregg Hart of Santa Barbara.
The lone senator to stand against it was Republican Roger Niello from the Sacramento-area city of Roseville. However, several who voiced concerns in the hearing today did not cast a vote, including Democratic state Sen. Catherine Blakespear from Encinitas in San Diego County and Sen. John Laird from Santa Cruz.
Newsom said his budget maneuver was necessary and thanked the leaders of the two houses of the Legislature.
“This was too important to play chance. It was too urgent, too important to allow the (legislative) process to unfold as it has for the last generation, invariably falling prey to all kinds of pratfall,” Newsom said.
The governor’s public comments were limited as the fierce debate broke out in recent days. But his press office account posted on social media last week that “the Legislature has a chance to deliver the most significant housing and infrastructure reforms in decades.”
“This is our moment to build the California Dream for a new generation,” his office said. “We’re done with the roadblocks and delays — let’s get this done.”
“This is a bill that, literally, will help us get more housing, more childcare centers, more health centers, more food banks, and bring clean advanced manufacturing to California.” STATE SEN. SCOTT WIENER
A major proponent of the exemptions, State Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco said in an interview with CalMatters today that criticisms by environmentalists were “extreme, unfounded, melodramatic statements.”
“This is a bill that, literally, will help us get more housing, more childcare centers, more health centers, more food banks, and bring clean advanced manufacturing to California,” Wiener said. “And to suggest that that kind of bill is bad for the environment — or the worst environmental bill in decades — or whatever it is they said, that’s just over the top.”
Wiener said the changes exempt manufacturing projects only on land that is already zoned as industrial. The goal is to make it easier for high-tech industries to build, with Wiener arguing that California risks losing out on major private-sector investment because it’s too costly and difficult to build in the state.
“The environmental movement needs to ask itself: Why is it that CEQA keeps getting used to stymie climate action, whether it’s transit-oriented development or bike lanes or public transportation or phasing out oil?” Wiener said.
Several housing advocacy and business groups voiced support for the law today.
Alex Torres, speaking on behalf of housing groups, the tech trade association Chamber of Progress, the Bay Area Council and others, said exempting advanced manufacturing from environmental review will help “the Bay Area’s competitiveness” and “shift some manufacturing opportunities to the Bay Area.”
Several other manufacturing groups declined to comment to CalMatters about the law changes or did not respond to inquiries.
‘Shortcutting’ legislative process
The debate today in the committee hearing included a testy exchange between senators about whether Newsom was forcing their hand.
“We have a situation here where the executive branch is telling the Legislative branch that if it doesn’t pass this trailer bill, that the budget itself will be null and void. I have to say, that profoundly disturbs and offends me,” Niello, a Republican, said at today’s hearing.
Wiener fired back that all aspects of the budget and trailer bills were a three-party agreement. “We don’t have a dictatorship,” he said.
“I wasn’t part of that three-party agreement,” Niello countered.
Environmental and community groups also questioned the use of the budget to shortcut the legislative process, limiting public and legislative input.
“If the only way you can change state law is to keep it out of the public eye as long as possible, and condition passage of the state budget on the proposed changes, does that not show that its backers know the public wouldn’t support it if they knew the truth?” the coalition of opponents wrote to Newsom and legislators.
California lawmakers enacted CEQA in 1970 amid a rising tide of environmental awareness. It had broad bipartisan support: Gov. Ronald Reagan signed it into law, and President Richard Nixon approved its federal counterpart the same year. At the time, environmental concerns were mostly local — unchecked development, polluted waterways, pesticide use and the loss of open space.
Two years ago, in another effort to use the state budget process as leverage, Newsom proposed a series of last-minute changes to the law. That move was rejected by lawmakers.
But after years of failed attempts to rewrite the law, Democrats have begun to rally around a new message: The political conversation among Democrats in Sacramento, and across the U.S., has shifted following last year’s presidential election, with growing consensus that removing regulatory barriers is a top priority.
Still, just hours before their vote, lawmakers were grappling with how exactly the bill would affect communities on the frontlines of manufacturing, with Wiener fielding most of the questions.
State Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a Democrat from Van Nuys, asked about the definition of “advanced manufacturing.” Laird, a Democrat from Santa Cruz, asked whether it included nuclear materials. Wiener said it did not.
“It is a horrible day when a senator even has to ask if an exemption from environmental review includes nuclear manufacturing,” said Sharma, of the justice and accountability organization.
At the earlier committee hearing, State Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Democrat from Los Angeles, cited the massive cleanup of lead-contaminated soil around the battery recycling facility Exide Technologies in Vernon as a warning of the risk.
“I don’t believe anyone here thinks that we use CEQA in any way other than to protect ourselves. The toxins…can leach into neighborhoods and devastate full communities.” RAQUEL MASON, CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE ALLIANCE
Raquel Mason, senior legislative manager with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, told senators that there have been 23 Superfund sites in Santa Clara County — in the heart of Silicon Valley, and several are related to semiconductor manufacturing.
“I don’t believe anyone here thinks that we use CEQA in any way other than to protect ourselves,” Mason said. “The toxins don’t just stay in the industrial zone facility. They can leach into neighborhoods and devastate full communities.”
Major labor group opposed to the CEQA changes
Samuel Appel, policy director at the United Auto Workers in the Western United States, which represents 100,000 workers in California, said the exemption for advanced manufacturing was especially alarming because of California’s position as a leader in the tech industry.
“We’re concerned not only about toxic work sites that our members will be working at and organizing in. We’re concerned about the toxic communities that we’d be living in,” Appel said. “We are organizing and work in these facilities every day — at Tesla, in semiconductor facilities and in lithium and the lithium extraction industry and in aerospace. This is a giveaway for corporations, and city and local control is not enough to protect us or our communities.”
A new law signed by President Joe Biden in 2022 offers $280 billion in federal initiative aimed at boosting U.S. innovation and manufacturing in strategic technologies, especially semiconductors. The law allocates ubsidies and tax credits to incentivize companies to manufacture chips in the United States, rather than overseas.
Semiconductors are the tiny processors that power everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to fighter jets and satellites — and demand for them is growing. The pandemic exposed major vulnerabilities in global supply chains, spurring bipartisan momentum to reinvigorate chip production.
Arizona, Texas and Ohio have landed many new chip fabrication plants, in part because of lower costs and fewer regulatory hurdles. That’s why some lawmakers, including Wiener say environmental streamlining is needed if California wants to attract a significant share of manufacturing dollars.
“These are jobs of the future, there’s going to be more and more of these jobs, and I want them to be in California,” Wiener told CalMatters. “We do so much of the innovation here and the creation of this technology. I want us to benefit from the technology in terms of growth and job creation here and so, you know, I think this is a reasonable bill.
The measures lets certain projects skip a full environmental review if they just barely miss qualifying for an exemption — for example, if they meet every requirement except one. In those cases, the review would only look at the environmental impact of that one issue, instead of analyzing the whole project. Critics say it’s confusing and could weaken protections by letting potentially harmful projects avoid deeper scrutiny.
“We find the near-miss provisions to be extremely legally confusing,” said Matthew Baker, policy director at the Planning and Conservation League. “It would take a lot, probably, for the courts to sort out. We simply don’t really understand how it would work.”
Under CEQA, lawsuits challenging a project require the agency to provide a full record — including internal emails and staff notes — but the changes exclude those internal communications from the record, except for projects involving distribution centers or oil and gas infrastructure. Critics said that will make it harder to challenge potentially harmful projects.
The Trump Administration Rolled Back More Than 100 Environmental Rules. Here’s the Full List.
The E.P.A. proposed changes to standards for carbon dioxide emissions from new, modified and reconstructed coal power plants. Proposed a rule limiting the ability of individuals and communities to challenge pollution permits before a panel of agency judges. Formally withdrew the United States from the international plan to avert climate change. The U.S. also made significant cuts to the borders of two national monuments and recommended border and resource-management changes to Utah and several other states. The Environmental Protection Agency also lifted a summertime ban on the use of E15, a gasoline blend made of 15 percent ethanol. The EPA also reversed Obama-era guidance meant to reduce emissions during power plant start-ups, shutdowns and malfunctions. The Obama administration declined to defend the Clean Air Act, making it harder to issue new public health and public health protections under the Clean Water Act. The administration also withdrew an legal justification for justification for justifying climate change by nearly 200 counties adopted by nearly 100,000 people in 2012. The White House said the decision to withdraw the legal justification was a “precautionary measure”
29. Proposed revisions to standards for carbon dioxide emissions from new, modified and reconstructed coal power plants , eliminating Obama-era restrictions that, in effect, required them to capture and store carbon dioxide emissions.
28. Relaxed some Obama-era requirements for companies to, including exempting certain low-production wells – a significant source of methane emissions – from the requirements altogether. (Other leak regulations were eliminated.)
26. Threw out most of a proposed policy that would have tightened pollution standards for offshore oil and gas operations and required them to use improved pollution controls.
24. Changed rules to allow states and the E.P.A. to take longer to develop and approve plans aimed at cutting methane emissions from existing landfills .
23. Lifted a summertime ban on the use of E15, a gasoline blend made of 15 percent ethanol . (Burning gasoline with a higher concentration of ethanol in hot conditions increases smog.)
22. Repealed a requirement that state and regional authorities track tailpipe emissions from vehicles on federal highways.
21. Revoked an Obama executive order that set a goal of cutting the federal government’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent over 10 years.
20. Withdrew guidance directing federal agencies to include greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews . But several district courts have ruled that emissions must be included in such reviews.
19. Released new guidance that allows upwind states to contribute more ozone pollution to downwind states than during the Obama-era. (The E.P.A. under Mr. Trump also rejected petitions from a handful of states over failure to address upwind states’ pollution.)
18. Directed agencies to stop using an Obama-era calculation of the social cost of carbon , which rulemakers used to estimate the long-term economic benefits of reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
leaking and venting of powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons
17. Repealed rules meant to reduce leaking and venting of powerful greenhouse gases known as hydrofluorocarbons from large refrigeration and air conditioning systems.
air pollution regulations for a handful of plants that burn waste coal for electricity
16. Relaxed air pollution regulations for a handful of plants that burn waste coal for electricity .
15. Established a minimum pollution threshold at which the E.P.A. can regulate greenhouse gas emissions from stationary sources : 3 percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. (Power plants meet this threshold, but oil and gas production facilities fall just below it.)
14. Weakened oversight of some state plans for reducing air pollution in national parks .
13. Weakened an Obama-era rule meant to reduce air pollution in national parks and wilderness areas .
12. Overturned Obama-era guidance meant to reduce emissions during power plant start-ups, shutdowns and malfunctions . As part of the process, the E.P.A. also reversed a requirement that Texas follow emissions rules during certain malfunction events.
safeguard communities from increases in pollution from new power plants
10. Revised a program designed to safeguard communities from increases in pollution from new power plants to make it easier for facilities to avoid emissions regulations.
9. Withdrew a Clinton-era rule designed to limit toxic emissions from major industrial polluters , and later proposed codifying the looser standards.
8. Eliminated Obama-era methane emissions standards for oil and gas facilities and narrowed standards limiting the release of other polluting chemicals known as “volatile organic compounds” to only certain facilities.
7. Revised and partially repealed an Obama-era rule limiting methane emissions on public lands , including intentional venting and flaring from drilling operations. A federal court struck down the revision in July 2020, calling the Trump administration’s reasoning “wholly inadequate” and mandating enforcement of the original rule. However, the Obama-era rule was later partially struck down in a separate court case, during which the Trump administration declined to defend it.
5. Changed the way cost-benefit analyses are conducted under the Clean Air Act , potentially making it harder to issue new public health and climate protections.
4. Formally withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement , an international plan to avert catastrophic climate change adopted by nearly 200 counties.
3. Withdrew the legal justification for an Obama-era rule that limited mercury emissions from coal power plants .
Drilling and extraction
Completed
31. Made significant cuts to the borders of two national monuments in Utah and recommended border and resource-management changes to several more. Presidential Proclamation; Interior Department | Read more »
32. Lifted an Obama-era freeze on new coal leases on public lands . In April 2019, a judge ruled that the Interior Department could not begin selling new leases without completing an environmental review. In February 2020, the agency published an assessment that concluded restarting federal coal leasing would have little environmental impact. Executive Order; Interior Department | Read more »
33. Finalized a plan to allow oil and gas development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, a move that overturns six decades of protections for the largest remaining stretch of wilderness in the United States. The Trump administration held last-minute lease sales in December, but failed to attract major interest from fossil fuel companies. Congress; Interior Department | Read more »
34. Opened more than 18 million acres of land for drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska, a vast swath of public land on the Arctic Ocean. The Obama administration had designated about half of the reserve as a conservation area. Interior Department | Read more »
35. Lifted a Clinton-era ban on logging and road construction in Tongass National Forest, Alaska , one of the largest intact temperate rain forests in the world. (The Clinton-era rule applied to much of the national forest system.) Interior Department | Read more »
36. Approved construction of the Dakota Access pipeline , less than a mile from the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation. The Obama administration had halted the project, with the Army Corps of Engineers saying it would explore alternative routes. In 2020, a federal court reversed the Trump administration’s decision to allow the pipeline to run along its current path, but it was allowed to continue operating. Executive Order; Army | Read more »
37. Rescinded water pollution regulations for fracking on federal and Indian lands . Interior Department | Read more »
38. Withdrew a requirement that Gulf oil rig owners prove they can cover the costs of removing rigs once they stop producing. Interior Department | Read more »
39. Moved the permitting process for certain projects that cross international borders , such as oil pipelines, to the office of the president from the State Department, exempting them from environmental review. Executive Order | Read more »
40. Changed how the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission considers the indirect effects of greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews of pipelines . Federal Energy Regulatory Commission | Read more »
41. Revoked an Obama-era executive order designed to preserve ocean, coastal and Great Lakes waters in favor of a policy focused on energy production and economic growth. Executive Order | Read more »
42. Loosened offshore drilling safety regulations implemented by the Obama after following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, including reduced testing requirements for blowout prevention systems. Interior Department | Read more »
In progress
43. Proposed opening most of America’s coastal waters to offshore oil and gas drilling , but delayed the plan after a federal judge in 2019 ruled that reversing a ban on drilling in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans was unlawful. Ahead of the 2020 election, Mr. Trump announced he would exempt from drilling coastal areas around Florida, a crucial battleground state, Georgia and South Carolina. Interior Department | Read more »
44. Approved the Keystone XL pipeline rejected by President Barack Obama, but a federal judge blocked the project from going forward without an adequate environmental review process. The Supreme Court in July 2020 upheld that ruling, further delaying construction of the pipeline. Executive Order; State Department | Read more »
45. Withdrew proposed restrictions on mining in Bristol Bay, Alaska , despite concerns over environmental impacts on salmon habitat, including a prominent fishery. In late 2020, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied a permit for one proposed project, known as the Pebble Mine, noting it would “result in significant degradation of the aquatic ecosystem.” E.P.A.; Army | Read more »
safety regulations for exploratory offshore oil and gas drilling in the Arctic that were developed after a 46. Proposed easingthat were developed after a 2013 accident Executive Order; Interior Department | Read more »
47. Proposed weakening a rule that increased royalty payments for oil and gas leases on public lands , bringing them in line with market value. The Obama-era policy updated a 1980s rule that critics said allowed companies to underpay the federal government. An earlier attempt by the Trump administration to reverse the Obama rule was struck down in court, but a separate court ruling exempted the coal industry from the updated pricing policy. Interior Department | Read more »
48. Proposed easing the approval process for oil and gas drilling in national forests by curbing the power of the Forest Service to review and approve leases, among other changes. Agriculture Department; Interior Department | Read more »