Latest news with #AB130
Yahoo
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
She faced $500 daily HOA fines for an unapproved door in her home. A new state law saved her
Jinah Kim's HOA said she couldn't fix a doorway inside her condo. She did it anyway. She figured it was fine. After all, the doorway was completely inside her home, separating an office and dining room. But when the complex's manager peeked into her place through the open garage door one day in March and saw the renovation, she received a notice the next day. The privacy intrusion was shocking, but the cost of noncompliance was even worse: a single $100 fine at first, then up to $500 per day — $3,500 per week — starting July 10 until she changed the doorway back. But on July 1, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130 into law, her HOA nightmare vanished with the stroke of a pen, and her fee for defiance was capped at $100. "It's a game changer," Kim said. "For years, HOAs have been able to bend entire communities to their will on a whim. This stops that." Industry experts and HOA lobbyists were taken by surprise in June when Newsom pushed AB 130 through the state Legislature and signed it into law — not because it passed, but because it included a last-minute update redefining HOA law in California. The overall goal of the bill is to expedite housing by easing California Environmental Quality Act regulations for many projects, but it also amends the Davis-Stirling Act, the framework that governs homeowners associations. The biggest change? HOA fines are now capped at $100 per violation unless there are health or safety impacts. Want to paint your house neon green? $100. Erect a giant Halloween skeleton on your front lawn year-round? $100. The bill also bans interest and late fees on violations and prohibits HOAs from disciplining homeowners as long as they address violations before the hearing. It allows homeowners to request internal dispute resolution if they don't agree with the board's findings at hearings. It's a massive win for disgruntled homeowners, who have long claimed that California HOAs are too aggressive, stringent and overbearing. It's a startling blow for HOAs, which were left blindsided by the changes. Dyanne Peters, an attorney with Tinnelly Law Group who practices HOA law, said her firm was tracking the legislation, but in a different bill. The HOA language was originally part of Senate Bill 681, a housing bill authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward). Peters said HOA lobbyists were making headway negotiating the bill and coming to a mutual agreement, but on June 27, the HOA language from SB 681 was added into AB 130 and passed three days later, leaving the HOA industry reeling. "As an industry, this came as a shock," she said. "Everyone is scrambling to get a handle on the changes." Peters said no one likes paying fines, but noted that fines aren't a money-making tool for HOAs. Instead, they're used as deterrents for actions that disrupt communities. For example, if a neighborhood doesn't allow homes to be used as short-term rentals such as Airbnbs, but a homeowner shirking the rules only has to pay $100 one time, they'll probably just pay the fine and keep renting out their home. Or if a resident wants to build a huge fence but doesn't want to deal with the architectural approval process, they'll just eat the $100 and build whatever they want. "It's frustrating because these new rules are handcuffing homeowners associations," Peters said. "It takes away the ability for HOAs to govern their own communities. Clients are calling us asking, 'What's the point?'" However, the bill added a lifeline for HOAs by specifying that fines can be greater than $100 if they "result in an adverse health or safety impact on the common area or another association member's property." Peters said associations should go through their current rules and see which could be health or safety violations, and then adopt resolutions that specify in writing that certain actions, such as speeding or having aggressive pets, have health or safety impacts and therefore qualify for fines greater than $100. Luke Carlson, an attorney who represents homeowners in HOA disputes, called the bill a "long-overdue course correction." "AB 130 is more than a law — it's a signal that Sacramento is finally starting to hear the voices of homeowners who've suffered in silence for too long," said Carlson, who authored the book "Bad HOA: The Homeowner's Guide to Going to War and Reclaiming Your Power." Carlson said HOAs in Southern California are uniquely aggressive because of soaring home prices. Property values are high — and so are the stakes for maintaining a problem-free community that keeps those values high. But he said when an association is bad, it tends to feed off its own power, making arbitrary decisions or giving out preferential treatment until someone pushes back. "Everyone agrees bad HOAs are a bad thing, and it takes legislative reform to stop them," he said. HOA horror stories abound in California, the state with the most HOAs (more than 50,000) and the most homes within HOAs (4.68 million) in the country — roughly a million more than Florida, the state with the second most. More than a third of Californians live in HOA communities, and nearly two-thirds of homeowners are a part of HOAs, according to the California Assn. of Homeowners Assns. In San Ramon in Contra Costa County, a woman was fined for replacing her lawn with drought-tolerant plants. In Oakland, HOAs are installing surveillance cameras to track cars and sharing the data with police. Last year, a Times investigation dove into allegations of grand theft and money laundering inside a Santa Monica co-op. Kim, a resident of Shadow Ridge in Oak Park in Ventura County, wanted to remove a blockage in the doorway between her office and dining room. The previous owner had filled the top of the entry with drywall to cover up plumbing pipes, but Kim grew tired of ducking to get under it. The HOA denied her initial request to fix it since the work required briefly shutting off shared water and rerouting pipes. But Kim had her contractor do it anyway. It was an hourlong fix. A few months later, the complex's general manager spotted the unauthorized renovation. The next day, she received four violation letters: one for the door, one for installing an EV charger in her garage, one for having her dog off-leash and one for an unpermitted rug on her balcony. "It's a door within my home that no one else sees and no one else is affected by," Kim said. "It felt like accidentally tapping someone in the hallway and getting the death penalty." She resolved the dog and rug violations and is appealing the EV charger one. But she refused to change the doorway back. On June 27, Kim received a letter saying that since the renovation rerouted shared plumbing lines, she'd have to pay to fill the doorway back in, plus pay $100. If she didn't resolve the issue by July 10, she'd get slapped with fines of up to $500 for every day it wasn't fixed. But after AB 130 went into law, the deadline came and went. She hasn't heard a peep from her HOA, which didn't respond to a request for comment. "It was a big relief. Having a daily $500 fine hanging over my head was a huge source of anxiety," Kim said. She acknowledged that the new blanket of rules will probably allow homeowners to get away with things they shouldn't. But for now, she's just happy to stop banging her head on drywall every time she walks through her dining room. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. Solve the daily Crossword
Los Angeles Times
01-08-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
She faced $500 daily HOA fines for an unapproved door in her home. A new state law saved her
Jinah Kim's HOA said she couldn't fix a doorway inside her condo. She did it anyway. She figured it was fine. After all, the doorway was completely inside her home, separating an office and dining room. But when the complex's manager peeked into her place through the open garage door one day in March and saw the renovation, she received a notice the next day. The privacy intrusion was shocking, but the cost of noncompliance was even worse: a single $100 fine at first, then up to $500 per day — $3,500 per week — starting July 10 until she changed the doorway back. But on July 1, when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130 into law, her HOA nightmare vanished with the stroke of a pen, and her fee for defiance was capped at $100. 'It's a game changer,' Kim said. 'For years, HOAs have been able to bend entire communities to their will on a whim. This stops that.' Industry experts and HOA lobbyists were taken by surprise in June when Newsom pushed AB 130 through the state Legislature and signed it into law — not because it passed, but because it included a last-minute update redefining HOA law in California. The overall goal of the bill is to expedite housing by easing California Environmental Quality Act regulations for many projects, but it also amends the Davis-Stirling Act, the framework that governs homeowners associations. The biggest change? HOA fines are now capped at $100 per violation unless there are health or safety impacts. Want to paint your house neon green? $100. Erect a giant Halloween skeleton on your front lawn year-round? $100. The bill also bans interest and late fees on violations and prohibits HOAs from disciplining homeowners as long as they address violations before the hearing. It allows homeowners to request internal dispute resolution if they don't agree with the board's findings at hearings. It's a massive win for disgruntled homeowners, who have long claimed that California HOAs are too aggressive, stringent and overbearing. It's a startling blow for HOAs, which were left blindsided by the changes. Dyanne Peters, an attorney with Tinnelly Law Group who practices HOA law, said her firm was tracking the legislation, but in a different bill. The HOA language was originally part of Senate Bill 681, a housing bill authored by state Sen. Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward). Peters said HOA lobbyists were making headway negotiating the bill and coming to a mutual agreement, but on June 27, the HOA language from SB 681 was added into AB 130 and passed three days later, leaving the HOA industry reeling. 'As an industry, this came as a shock,' she said. 'Everyone is scrambling to get a handle on the changes.' Peters said no one likes paying fines, but noted that fines aren't a money-making tool for HOAs. Instead, they're used as deterrents for actions that disrupt communities. For example, if a neighborhood doesn't allow homes to be used as short-term rentals such as Airbnbs, but a homeowner shirking the rules only has to pay $100 one time, they'll probably just pay the fine and keep renting out their home. Or if a resident wants to build a huge fence but doesn't want to deal with the architectural approval process, they'll just eat the $100 and build whatever they want. 'It's frustrating because these new rules are handcuffing homeowners associations,' Peters said. 'It takes away the ability for HOAs to govern their own communities. Clients are calling us asking, 'What's the point?'' However, the bill added a lifeline for HOAs by specifying that fines can be greater than $100 if they 'result in an adverse health or safety impact on the common area or another association member's property.' Peters said associations should go through their current rules and see which could be health or safety violations, and then adopt resolutions that specify in writing that certain actions, such as speeding or having aggressive pets, have health or safety impacts and therefore qualify for fines greater than $100. Luke Carlson, an attorney who represents homeowners in HOA disputes, called the bill a 'long-overdue course correction.' 'AB 130 is more than a law — it's a signal that Sacramento is finally starting to hear the voices of homeowners who've suffered in silence for too long,' said Carlson, who authored the book 'Bad HOA: The Homeowner's Guide to Going to War and Reclaiming Your Power.' Carlson said HOAs in Southern California are uniquely aggressive because of soaring home prices. Property values are high — and so are the stakes for maintaining a problem-free community that keeps those values high. But he said when an association is bad, it tends to feed off its own power, making arbitrary decisions or giving out preferential treatment until someone pushes back. 'Everyone agrees bad HOAs are a bad thing, and it takes legislative reform to stop them,' he said. HOA horror stories abound in California, the state with the most HOAs (more than 50,000) and the most homes within HOAs (4.68 million) in the country — roughly a million more than Florida, the state with the second most. More than a third of Californians live in HOA communities, and nearly two-thirds of homeowners are a part of HOAs, according to the California Assn. of Homeowners Assns. In San Ramon in Contra Costa County, a woman was fined for replacing her lawn with drought-tolerant plants. In Oakland, HOAs are installing surveillance cameras to track cars and sharing the data with police. Last year, a Times investigation dove into allegations of grand theft and money laundering inside a Santa Monica co-op. Kim, a resident of Shadow Ridge in Oak Park in Ventura County, wanted to remove a blockage in the doorway between her office and dining room. The previous owner had filled the top of the entry with drywall to cover up plumbing pipes, but Kim grew tired of ducking to get under it. The HOA denied her initial request to fix it since the work required briefly shutting off shared water and rerouting pipes. But Kim had her contractor do it anyway. It was an hourlong fix. A few months later, the complex's general manager spotted the unauthorized renovation. The next day, she received four violation letters: one for the door, one for installing an EV charger in her garage, one for having her dog off-leash and one for an unpermitted rug on her balcony. 'It's a door within my home that no one else sees and no one else is affected by,' Kim said. 'It felt like accidentally tapping someone in the hallway and getting the death penalty.' She resolved the dog and rug violations and is appealing the EV charger one. But she refused to change the doorway back. On June 27, Kim received a letter saying that since the renovation rerouted shared plumbing lines, she'd have to pay to fill the doorway back in, plus pay $100. If she didn't resolve the issue by July 10, she'd get slapped with fines of up to $500 for every day it wasn't fixed. But after AB 130 went into law, the deadline came and went. She hasn't heard a peep from her HOA, which didn't respond to a request for comment. 'It was a big relief. Having a daily $500 fine hanging over my head was a huge source of anxiety,' Kim said. She acknowledged that the new blanket of rules will probably allow homeowners to get away with things they shouldn't. But for now, she's just happy to stop banging her head on drywall every time she walks through her dining room.
San Francisco Chronicle
02-07-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
California YIMBYs just won a major battle, but the war over CEQA isn't close to finished
When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed revisions to the California Environmental Quality Act into law on Monday to expedite new housing, he and the YIMBY movement reacted as if they had just won a major war. 'To the NIMBY movement that's now being replaced by the YIMBY movement: go YIMBYs,' the governor said at a press conference. But the CEQA war isn't over yet — and major battles over law's purpose and role still lie ahead. To be sure, for housing advocates, this week's reforms are extremely significant: It will be a lot easier for developers to get housing approved. Two budget trailer bills (AB130 and SB131) made significant changes to CEQA. One major reform was to exempt all 'infill' housing from environmental review — housing that is located in built-up areas. Another reform exempted certain types of projects, including childcare centers and some manufacturing facilities. But in a way, these reforms are just more examples of what's come to be known as 'Swiss-cheese CEQA': The state punches a hole in the law to favor certain types of projects, but doesn't take a comprehensive look at what the law is for or how it should be reformed. CEQA doesn't protect the environment directly. By requiring environmental analysis on projects that impact the built or natural environment, it identifies potential damage that new projects can create and forces changes to minimize that damage. But it can be a long, expensive and unpredictable process — and it often stimulates litigation from opponents who want to kill a development but don't really care about the environment. That's why an exemption for infill housing is such a big deal. But Monday's legislation provided exemptions only for infill housing and a few other types of projects. CEQA still looms large in almost every other California construction project, whether it's a public infrastructure like a reservoir, a private development that doesn't fit the state's definition of infill or the BART extension to downtown San Jose. (CEQA review of the project, which also included federal environmental review, is so voluminous it needs to be broken up into dozens of documents online.) Legal advocacy organizations like the Center for Biological Diversity are skilled at using CEQA to go after these large infrastructure and development projects. And they're not going away because of Monday's reforms. Now that infill housing is exempt from CEQA, the biggest question is what role 'greenfield' development — new development on raw land that has never been touched before — will play in attacking the housing crisis and how CEQA should deal with such situations. As Republicans pointed out during Monday's state Legislature debate, just last week, the Center for Biological Diversity won an appellate court case on a large greenfield project in Los Angeles County. The project called for 19,000 houses on 12,000 acres and setting aside 45% of the land for permanent open space. The court found that the environmental impact report prepared for the project under CEQA had not used the right greenhouse gas emissions reduction methodology. The revised report — written after a previous court ruling — is 2,300 pages. It has to be redone because the court in Los Angeles still found it lacking. Nothing in the budget deal from Monday changes anything about the environmental review of this kind of project. California state policy rightly favors infill development near transit. But privately, even most YIMBY leaders and other experts will say that you can't fix the state's housing problem with infill alone. You need at least some outward expansion into previously undeveloped areas as well. But environmental review can take years, cost millions of dollars and easily be dragged out by litigation. Ultimately, the question the Legislature has to ask is not, 'What projects should be exempt from CEQA,' but 'What purpose is CEQA supposed to serve?' In the Bay Area, the existential battle over CEQA is likely to manifest in the form of California Forever, the huge greenfield project proposed for Solano County. Whatever you think about more suburban expansion, the backers of California Forever are at least attempting to promise a more compact and walkable community than other large greenfield projects in the state — many of which are more prototypically suburban. Yet it's still going to have to go through round after round of CEQA review — and most likely expensive litigation as well. There's also likely to be a major battle over the new exemption for advanced manufacturing, which was included in Monday's reforms. Advanced manufacturing, including using precision tools and other modern processes to manufacture high-tech products, is a major state economic development goal because many of these products are designed in California but manufactured elsewhere. But the definition of advanced manufacturing in state law is pretty squishy, meaning advocates are almost certain to litigate these projects depending on where such companies wind up locating. So, while Monday's action is a big deal, it's not comprehensive CEQA reform. Comprehensive reform would not just punch more holes in a flawed law; it would revisit and clarify the whole purpose of CEQA. That existential battle still lies ahead.
Los Angeles Times
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Los Angeles Times
Environmental groups are outraged after Newsom overhauls CEQA
The Golden State's tug-of-war between environmental advocacy and a worsening housing crisis came to a head Monday evening when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law two bills that will overhaul the landmark California Environmental Quality Act in an effort to ease new construction in the state. The two pieces of legislation, Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131, were linchpins in the approval of a proposed $320-billion annual state budget deal; the governor's signature was conditional on their passage. Together they will exempt a broad array of housing development and infrastructure projects from CEQA — a law dating back to 1970 that requires government agencies to identify and mitigate the environmental impacts of their actions. Newsom said the bills will break down long-standing barriers to development, speeding up production, cutting costs and allowing the state to address its housing scarcity. 'Today's bill is a game changer, which will be felt for generations to come,' the governor said in a statement. Development experts agreed, saying it is among the most significant reforms to CEQA in its 55-year history. But its passage sparked fierce backlash from environmental justice groups who say it marks a sweeping reversal of essential protections for the state's most vulnerable landscapes, wildlife and communities. 'This bill is the worst anti-environmental bill in California in recent memory,' a coalition of more than 100 organizations wrote in a letter to the governor ahead of Monday's decision. 'It represents an unprecedented rollback to California's fundamental environmental and community protections at a time in which the people of California grapple with unprecedented federal attacks to their lives andlivelihoods.' CEQA was designed to provide greater transparency and public engagement in land-use decisions across California. Third-party experts have credited the bills with mandating that public agencies consider and address the environmental consequences of their projects, and with protecting ecosystems, preserving scenic vistas and waterways, and safeguarding community health throughout the state. But CEQA has also faced considerable criticism over the years, in part because its cumbersome environmental impact reports have delayed and even halted projects like housing and high-speed rail development. AB 130 and SB 131 will address some of those concerns. Specifically, the Assembly bill will exempt most urban infill housing from CEQA, meaning most housing projects built in already-developed areas will no longer be required to undergo environmental review. The Senate bill will exempt an even broader range of projects from CEQA review, including segments of the high-speed rail and projects geared toward wildfire mitigation, water infrastructure and electric vehicle production, according to Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who led the bill. 'These bills get red tape and major process hurdles out of the way, allowing us to finally start addressing these shortages and securing an affordable California and a brighter future,' Wiener said in a statement. Jakob Evans, senior policy strategist with the Sierra Club California, was among those opposed to the legislation. He noted that it comes as the federal government rolls back environmental protections including some aspects of NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act on which CEQA was modeled. 'This is California deregulating a strong transparency law in a completely opaque process at a time when we're also losing protections nationwide,' Evans said. Among opponents' chief concerns are exemptions for advanced manufacturing facilities, which could allow semiconductor plants, nuclear facilities, industrial factories and other entities that handle high-risk hazardous material to be permitted in vulnerable communities without any environmental review. Semiconductor facilities in particular have been associated with groundwater contamination from chemical solvents, with Silicon Valley's Santa Clara County home to 23 active Superfund sites — more than any other county in the country. The facilities are already exempt from NEPA, so exempting them from CEQA would mean they receive almost no environmental review, said opponents of AB 130 and SB 131. 'SB 131 will undo decades of environmental protections in the name of expediting industrial development at tremendous cost to public health and the environment,' read a statement from Asha Sharma, state policy manager at the Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability. 'It's not a question of if, it's a question of when a public health disaster will occur.' Opponents were also concerned about provisions in the legislation that would allow agencies to exclude some staff notes and internal agency communications from public records requests, which they said could make it easier for government employees to 'cherry pick' what information is made public, and obscure concerns or risks around projects. What's more, they noted, the legislation contains no protections for sensitive and endangered species, which could expose hundreds of thousands of acres of forests, chaparral, deserts and coastal areas to relatively unchecked construction. 'Exempting a broad swath of development with no consideration of habitat for imperiled species will decimate the state's natural heritage and unique biodiversity,' said Frances Tinney, an attorney with the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity. Raquel Mason, senior legislative manager with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said it's not only threatened species that could potentially suffer under the new rules, but also low-income communities, communities of color and other groups who have historically been disproportionately burdened by pollution and other environmental harms. 'By advancing this bill, the Legislature sent a clear message: our health, our safety, and our right to participate in decisions that impact our lives are disposable,' Mason said in a statement. 'This bill will usher [in] industrial development without any opportunity for our communities to advocate for needed mitigations to protect ourselves. And all this was done behind closed doors without public input.' Indeed, several opponents were concerned with the bills' provenance. The legislation was hasty — SB 131 was introduced Friday and then passed on Monday, with little time for input or amendments. What's more, the governor's strategy to hinge the state budget deal on the bills was rare. The move — a political tactic sometimes referred to as a 'poison pill' — would have invalidated the entire spending plan had the Senate bill not been approved, allowing Newsom to advance his priority of accelerating development. At a press conference Monday evening where he signed the bills, Newsom said he hoped to not have to tie the fate of the state budget to legislation again. 'I'm not trying to create any precedent here,' Newsom said. 'I just think we have an unprecedented crisis of affordability in the state, and it's just growing.' The governor was supported by housing advocates who championed the bills as essential reforms to address the state's housing crisis. 'AB 130 and SB 131 ensures that the state's environmental review process works better — not just for housing, but for climate action and equity,' said Corey Smith, executive director of the Housing Action Coalition, in a statement. 'California's current CEQA framework is too often misused to block exactly the kinds of infill, affordable, and sustainable housing our communities desperately need.' Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who led AB 130, said in a statement that 'this is what we've all been waiting for — a long-overdue step to stop CEQA from being weaponized against housing.' 'With AB 130, we're taking a major step toward building desperately-needed homes faster, fairer, and with more certainty. This is what our working class families deserve and how we move California's housing goals from promise to reality,' Wicks said. However, environmental groups said they're not done fighting. They urged legislators to enact 'clean-up legislation'— or follow-up laws to clarify, correct and address their myriad concerns — in the weeks ahead. Times staff writers Taryn Luna and Liam Dillon contributed to this report.
The Hill
01-07-2025
- Business
- The Hill
Newsom signs sweeping rollbacks of key California environmental review law
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) on Monday signed legislation paring down the state's landmark environmental review laws in a bid to cut red tape and make housing more accessible. As part of his 2025-2026 state budget, the governor gave his stamp of approval to two bills — AB 130 and SB 131 — his office described as 'the most significant overhaul of California's housing and environmental review laws in decades.' 'Today's bill is a game changer, which will be felt for generations to come,' Newsom said in a statement. The two 'budget trailer bills' — measures that essentially serve as revisions to the state budget — include a streamlining package that remove certain development barriers, update review procedures for critical housing and infrastructure and create new tools for accelerating production. Garnering bipartisan support, the legislation involves implementing major reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This pivotal statute, signed into law in 1970 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan (R), required state and local agencies to disclose the potential environmental effects of all their decisions, including on housing-related initiatives. 'I just enacted the most game-changing housing reforms in recent California history,' Newsom wrote in a post on X late Monday. 'We're urgently embracing an abundance agenda by tearing down the barriers that have delayed new affordable housing and infrastructure for decades,' the governor added, calling upon Californians to 'get building.' Among the reforms included in the new bills are measures to speed up housing and infrastructure projects by streamlining their environmental review. Some such projects are infill housing — residences built in unused urban lots, high-speed rail, utilities, broadband — community centers, farmworker housing and wildfire prevention structures. Although the new rules maintain protections for natural and sensitive lands, they exempt local government rezoning procedures from CEQA requirements. The legislation also expands the Permit Streamlining Act, by restricting certain Coastal Commission housing appeals and accelerating permitting in coastal areas. Also within the bills are measures to freeze new residential building standards through 2031, with exceptions granted to emergency, fire and conservation-related updates. Sustainable financing tools, such as a revolving fund to reinvest equity from stabilized affordable housing into new developments, will also be made available through the laws. The approved actions also entail strengthening oversight of local homeless shelters via annual city and county inspections and authorizing the withholding of state funding if agencies fail to comply. The legislation also more than doubles the existing Renters Tax Credit by increasing credit to support renters up to $500 for qualified filers. State Sen. Scott Wiener (D), whose previous bill proposals provided the foundation for much of the new legislation, described the CEQA reforms in a Monday statement as 'a bold step forward toward tackling the root causes of California's affordability crisis.' He touted the CEQA exemptions for streamlining approvals for housing, childcare centers, clean water infrastructure, climate adaptation projects and advanced manufacturing: processes that improve or create entirely new materials and products. 'These bills get red tape and major process hurdles out of the way, allowing us to finally start addressing these shortages and securing an affordable California and a brighter future,' Wiener said. Despite earning support from both sides of the aisle, the bills have gotten pushback from environmental groups. A day before the legislation became law, Miguel Miguel, director of Sierra Club California, accused the state legislature of 'using backroom deals to undermine' California's 'bedrock environmental law.' 'Leaders are abusing the budget process to push these anti-environmental policies, slipping language that was formerly in AB 306 and SB 607, two bills that faced massive opposition from environmental groups, into trailer bills to bypass public input and subvert democratic accountability,' Miguel wrote in a last-ditch call for opposition to the bills. Meanwhile, as late as Monday morning, labor unions were appealing to Newsom and state legislators to reconsider a CEQA exemption on advanced manufacturing included in the bills. 'We know that exempting 'advanced manufacturing' industries from CEQA would expose us, our members, and colleagues to grave harm in our workplaces and communities,' the unions wrote in a collective letter. Among their specific concerns cited was the semiconductor industry's extensive use of toxic 'forever chemicals,' also known as PFAS, in their production processes. Citing previous usages of other contaminants from the 1960 to the 1990s, the writers stressed that pollutants harmed not only workers, but also neighboring communities. The unions also warned that the legislation 'would give carte blanche to companies like Tesla to expand without any environmental oversight.' But other groups celebrated the CEQA reforms as critical to solving California's looming housing and infrastructure crises. 'No longer will CEQA be leveraged to stall critical county wildfire, water and housing projects,' Jeff Griffiths, president of the California State Association of Counties, said in a statement. 'This legislation will make California more affordable for families by helping to alleviate our housing crisis and, in turn, reducing homelessness,' Griffiths added. Chris Elmendorf, a property law expert at University of California Davis, marveled in a post-signing analysis on X just how quickly Newsom's 'triumph over CEQA…went down' and the remarkable shift in the politics of reform that has taken foot in the past few years. He noted that just since the two trailer bills went public over the past week, one of the most powerful opponents — the California Building Trades Council — went from rejecting the legislation to expressing neutrality. 'The law that untold numbers of project opponents have leveraged for year after year after year of delays went from untouchable to demolished almost overnight,' Elmendorf stated.
