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Fortify California’s Premier Environmental Law:
Stop Attempts to Roll Back CEQA
This year California’s cornerstone environmental protection law is celebrating 40 years of empowering Californians to protect and better their quality of life. The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) enables us to safeguard our urban environment, conserve our natural treasures and farmland, and more. CEQA does this by providing a critical framework for government accountability and public participation. CEQA inspires Californians to protect this great state and stand up to the powerful forces driving environmental devastation. But this year we are seeing numerous legislative attempts to weaken CEQA to the point of ineffectuality.
Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed allowing 25 projects per year for 5 years (125 total) that will be exempt from complying with CEQA. The criteria for choosing projects will ensure that the biggest, most complicated and environmentally risky projects will be chosen to be completely exempt from judicial review. The governor’s plan has been introduced in several similar bills in both houses.
The concept behind CEQA is simple. Careful, public consideration of the impact of a proposed project is necessary to protect our communities and the environment. If a fair argument can be made that a project may have a significant effect on the environment, CEQA requires the consideration of alternatives as well as mitigation of adverse effects to the extent feasible.
As noted by Bill Lockyer, former California Attorney General:
“CEQA’s purpose is its genius—to foster transparency and integrity in public decision making while forcing consideration of the full scope the impacts development activities have on our natural and human environments.”
CEQA is the tool that enables us to ensure that future generations inherit a California that is cleaner, healthier, and more vibrant. Victories and projects that were improved thanks to the processes put in place by CEQA are numerous. Some of these success stories in which ordinary citizens used CEQA include:
- Toppling a toxic waste incinerator in East Los Angeles
- Reducing pollution at the Port of Los Angeles
- Reducing particulate pollution at the ConocoPhillips oil refinery
- Ending the agricultural industry’s exemption from the Clean Air Act
- Reducing sewage overflows from San Francisco’s Mission Bay Project
- Protecting the Bay Area’s vanishing marshes
- Keeping the Santa Monica Mountains pristine
And the list goes on. For more examples and details about these victories and how CEQA works, see our joint report with the Planning and Conservation League: Everyday Heroes Protect the Air We Breathe, the Water We Drink, and the Natural Areas We Prize.
What You Can Do
Now is not the time to restrict our ability to protect California from careless industrial and development projects. Legislators need to hear why the public supports the protection of CEQA and will not put up with attempts from special interests to weaken it. Please contact your Assemblymember and State Senator, asking them to vote “no” on anti-CEQA legislation and to insist that CEQA does not become a bargaining chip in the budget negotiations.
Personalize our sample letter for your legislator(s).
| Your State Senator State Capitol Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: (916) 651-40_ _ |
Your Assemblymember State Capitol Sacramento, CA 95814 Phone: (916) 319-20_ _ |
(Fill in the last two digits of the phone numbers with your Assembly or Senate district number.)
