(Updated 8/23/12). One of my favorite movies is Groundhog Day, where Bill Murray’s weatherman character is trapped living the same day over and over again.
But one of my least-favorite real-life versions of Groundhog Day–where several interest groups try to push through major changes to California’s most important environmental law at the last minute–played out yet again in the state Capitol in the waning days of the legislative session.
The threat to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was so eminent that the Los Angeles Times warned: “Major change to one of California’s most important laws could happen literally in the dark of night.” In response, CLCV launched a campaign to Save CEQA, and along with groups including the Planning and Conservation League, Sierra Club California, and the Natural Resources Defense Council, successfully fought back against the attempt to gut the law.
For more than 40 years, CEQA has empowered Californians to safeguard the health and well-being of their families and neighborhoods, and protect their communities from environmental toxins and other dangers. CEQA holds developers and government agencies accountable for the environmental impacts of development projects and gives the public a real voice in analyzing the impacts of projects – from strip malls to power plants – on their communities.
CEQA is like an environmental bill of rights, but not everybody is a fan. And the end of the state’s legislative session is typically when its critics are loudest.
From a San Jose Mercury News opinion piece:
Californians may not think about CEQA often, but we’ve all shared its benefits. For four decades CEQA has delivered cleaner air and water, more plentiful fish and wildlife, less traffic congestion and smarter public services. But corporate lobbyists are working behind the scenes to gut this landmark law — and it’s being done with no public hearings and little public input.
A press conference held by several groups on August 21 confirmed the rumors circulating for weeks that the end of this legislative session would mirror the last several sessions, when a number of bills attacking CEQA and exempting big development projects were proposed. As reported by the Ventura County Star:
In what has become an annual late-summer ritual that coincides with the end of the California Legislature’s lawmaking session, a push to make changes in the state’s landmark environmental law appears to be picking up steam in the Capitol.
A coalition of business groups held a news conference Monday to lay out the principles for what it calls a “modernization” of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Jim Earp, executive director of a business-labor group called the California Alliance for Jobs, said the coalition wants to see those principles incorporated in legislation — “and if there’s an opening in these last two weeks of session, we’re going to take advantage of it.”
First, “modernization” is a euphemism for “gutting.” Next, Mr. Earp knew full well there was going to be an “opening” in the final days of the legislative session. A version of a proposal to gut CEQA authored by state Senator Michael Rubio surfaced soon after the press conference. Again, back to the LA Times:
A memo couched in legislative language has been circulating in the Capitol. The changes it calls for reportedly would severely undermine the law, rather than reforming it, by exempting from litigation development projects that meet city and county general plans. But many of those plans are weak or outdated, and fall short of modern environmental standards.
More problematic is that no one outside the Legislature appears to know the language or source of this document. No author is listed, but on Tuesday Sen. Michael Rubio (D-East Bakersfield) confirmed that he was gutting a bill about fisheries management and inserting language to amend CEQA, though its wording would be different from the memo. The new version of the bill will be introduced Wednesday or Thursday.
Ah yes, the old “gut and amend” trick, where lawmakers patch together a “Frankenlaw” without the proper review process and hope it doesn’t hurt anybody. This approach is seriously flawed and threatens both our environment and our democracy.
Fortunately, many of the environmental champions in the legislature asked Assembly Speaker John Pérez and Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg to reject this last-minute CEQA gutting. The letter to both leaders, written by Assemblymember Huffman and signed by 34 lawmakers says:
“Like many important laws, CEQA is not perfect and could probably be improved while retaining its many benefits – but only if such improvements are undertaken in a good faith process and are crafted very carefully. Unfortunately, the proposals we have seen and heard about reflect major changes that have not been vetted and are being advanced by special interests in an end-of-session power play.”
And finally, in the most recent twist, Senators Steinberg and Rubio held a joint press conference on August 23 where they announced that Rubio’s bill, SB 317, would NOT be introduced this legislative session. Steinberg said CEQA was “far too important to rewrite in the last days of the session” and pledged to “improve this law, a great law” and “take it on in a big way” in the next session. But Senator Rubio threw out another curveball by asking Governor Brown to call a special session on CEQA. It’s anyone’s guess if that will happen and when.
You can’t blame Assemblymember Huffman for saying he will “sleep with one eye open just to make sure” for the rest of the legislative session.
We’re not taking any chances either. Help put a stop to any and all end-of- session proposals to gut or severely weaken CEQA. Sign our open letter to the legislature and Governor Jerry Brown at SaveCEQA.com to make sure our elected officials know just how strongly we feel about preserving our environmental bill of rights.
And let’s hope that (like Bill Murray) we’ll be able to escape CEQA’s Groundhog Day.
