California Environmental Quality Act reform remains ever elusive

Previously this year, Gov. Gavin Newsom said what needed to be stated about the California Environmental Quality Act. "California can not pay for to be held captive by NIMBYs who weaponize CEQA to obstruct student and cost effective housing," he said on Feb. 25, promising to work with the Legislature to see CEQA reform occur.

" There were some good ideas, but we just chose this wasn't the year to do it and there was more work to be done," Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, informed the Bee. "In terms of more fundamental reform, the politics are very, extremely hard."

It actually shouldn't be hard.

Lawmakers from both parties have actually long understood that the California Environmental Quality Act has actually been misused by special interest groups to stifle development in this state.

It is far too simple for claims to be submitted over real or envisioned offenses of environmental evaluation processes, which can cause long delays and escalating expenses for designers.

Services have misused the law to target the advancements of rivals. Unions have actually misused the law to use pressure on designers to work with union labor. Especially agitated neighbors have conjured up the environmental law to stop projects they just do not want for non-environmental reasons, consisting of homeless shelters, apartments and economical real estate jobs.

That's not how the law is expected to work. That is how it works and it's wrong. That's why, many years back, Gov. Jerry Brown called CEQA reform "the Lord's work." It's why this editorial board has long and repeatedly called for CEQA reform for several years.

But so far, Newsom has actually invested more time marketing for president in red states than campaigning for CEQA reform. Newsom should be front and center in promoting reforms to make it much harder for the law to be mistakenly invoked.

The ideas Sen. Wiener was supposedly preparing to put prior to the Legislature this session are good ones.

" Wiener considered enabling public companies to restrict environmental evaluation for particular infill real estate-- brand-new housing in existing communities or neighborhoods," the Bee reported. "He also wanted to empower state regulators to limit the scope of the law, according to draft changes detailed in the documents."

This is the sort of serious work that requires to be done to clear a longstanding barrier to needed development in our state. California's lawmakers require to show guts and management and do what requires to be done.