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USA Today
02-07-2025
- Business
- USA Today
Gov. Newsom signs housing legislation overhauling California's landmark environmental law
California lawmakers have approved two new bills that are expected to lead to a significant overhaul of the state's landmark environmental protection law and jump-start the stagnated housing market that has long stymied residents and would-be employers. The major changes to the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA, were attached to two bills in a larger $321 billion state budget bill that eventually passed with ease. California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the legislation on June 30, which received rare bipartisan support. "This is the most consequential housing reform in modern history in the state of California. Long overdue? Absolutely," Newsom said at a news conference as he signed the legislation. Supporters said the reforms to CEQA's strenuous review process will help improve the state's ongoing housing shortage and chronic homelessness crisis. Some environmental advocates call the move back-door dealmaking. Assembly Bill 130, created by California Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, exempts most urban housing projects from environmental review. Another bill, Senate Bill 131, by California state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, waives the environmental restrictions for other buildings, including health clinics, child care, and food banks. Newsom on legislation: 'Too urgent, too important' California has long been considered a national pioneer for environmental action, as changes to its signature impact review law come at a time that may change the landscape within the nation's most populous state. California is estimated to need 3.5 million more housing units than it has. The shortage is one reason people and businesses have fled as housing in popular cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles is unaffordable to the vast majority who want to live and work there. The changes are meant to jump-start housing construction, which has often been strangled by the use of the state's signature 1970 environmental law. Critics say the law is used by groups whose goal is more intent on stopping buildings than sparing the environment. The bills became law after Newsom threatened to reject the state budget passed last week unless there was an overhaul of CEQA, which requires strict reviews of any new development built and its impact on the environment. That process could take months to years, adding expense and uncertainty to projects. For years, these environmental impact studies have often been known to delay and even halt new development due to CEQA, regarded as among the strictest laws of its kind in the United States. During a news conference after signing the laws, Newsom said the matter was "too urgent, too important, to allow the process to unfold as it has for the last generation, invariably falling prey to all kinds of pratfall." Behind the bills Under the two new laws, nine types of projects are exempted from environmental impact reviews. They include child care centers, health clinics, food banks, as well as farmworker housing, broadband, wildfire prevention, water infrastructure, public parks or trails, and advanced manufacturing. "It's aligned with what I know about the history and the reform measures," Mark Baldassare, survey director for the Public Policy Institute of California, a nonpartisan research organization, told USA TODAY. "We'll see what takes place. Stay tuned." Possible changes have been under intense debate for at least a decade, Baldassare said. Newsom and other state legislators are now aware that voters nationwide during last year's elections blamed politicians, especially Democrats, for not curbing rising cost-of-living prices, Baldassare added. Baldassare said PPIC statewide polling of California voters in both 2023 and June 2025 revealed that the cost of living and affordable housing are their top two concerns, calling last year's election "a wake-up call." "The idea of reforming CEQA has been around for a long time," Baldassare said. "Our polling indicated that despite the state's strong environmental attributes, they were supportive of reforming CEQA across party lines, and that doesn't happen too often, especially given today's polarization." California budget breakdown: How it impacts your life, from Medi-Cal and education to fires California's environmental law The 54-year-old California statute, signed by then-governor Ronald Reagan, was intended to protect wildlife and natural resources of forests, mountains, and coastal spaces. The law requires state and local governments to study and publicize the likely environmental impact of any decisions they make, including the permitting of new housing, as California home values and rents are among the most expensive in the nation, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. The requirement is called an Environmental Impact Report, which can take up to a year to complete. Aiming to streamline and lower the cost of construction in California, the new laws also restrict legal challenges under CEQA by narrowing the documents courts can consider. It also allows limited environmental reviews of projects that are not considered to have a litany of impacts. California state Senator Scott Wiener, who wrote one of the two bills, told reporters on June 30 that the changes won't happen in the next year or three years, but in decades to come. He called the changes a bold step forward toward tackling the root causes of California's affordability crisis. "The high costs devastating our communities stem directly from our extreme shortage of housing, childcare, affordable healthcare, and so many of the other things families need to thrive," Wiener, a Democrat, said in a statement. "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." Weiner added that when the economic conditions are right, the state will be prepared "to build a ton of housing," and the structure is in place to facilitate it. 'Connect people to shelter, housing': California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveils homelessness plan to clear street camps 'Bills were passed in the most undemocratic way possible' Asha Sharma, a state policy manager with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, described the changes as a "back-room, last-minute deal" that left the state budget hanging in the balance and the opposition little time for public scrutiny. "The bills were passed in the most undemocratic way possible. It made the entire state budget contingent on it," Sharma told USA TODAY. "We really couldn't make our voices heard. There was very little public process with this." She wasn't alone. Raquel Mason, a senior legislative manager with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said her group opposes Weiner's bill. Sharma and Mason said there have been 23 Superfund sites in Santa Clara County, where tech-rich Silicon Valley is located. They say many of those sites are tied to semiconductor manufacturing. "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 to USA TODAY. "This bill will usher industrial development without any opportunity for our communities to advocate for needed mitigations to protect ourselves." Newsom forced California legislators' hands While Weiner wrote a bill to exempt several types of projects from environmental review, Newsom forced the changes to overhaul the state's environmental law. The governor told lawmakers that he wouldn't approve California's $321 billion budget without them. Last week, a provision in the approved budget act said the spending plan would be repealed if changes to the state's environmental review process were not finalized by June 30. On June 30, Newsom said on social media that he enacted "the most game-changing housing reforms" in recent California history. "We're urgently embracing an abundance agenda by tearing down the barriers that have delayed new affordable housing and infrastructure for decades," Newsom wrote. The governor later mentioned to reporters during a June 30 news conference that his administration's goal is to build 2.5 million homes by 2030. Newsom said it's up to leaders across the state to use this new tool to help make the goal a reality. "If we can't address this issue, we're going to lose trust, and that's just the truth," Newsom said. "And so this is so much bigger in many ways than the issue itself. It is about the reputation of not just Sacramento and the legislative leadership and executive leadership, but the reputation of the state of California." Contributing: Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
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.
