Why CEQA reform is useful to California’s environment

By Nick Jost and Daniel Jost, special to Calmatters

This comment was originally published by CalmattersS Register about their ballots.

In 1947, decades before the Federal Air Act, the leaders of California began to regulate the causes of harmful air pollution. It was also our condition that in 2006, with governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, he passed perhaps the most aggressive law to reduce greenhouse gases in the world, creating a global race for climate.

The leadership of California in the environment has a well -deserved reputation.

So it is with great pride and a little sadness, a growing disadvantage of the California Environmental Law, one of the main legal mechanisms we use to protect clean air and water, now stored sensitive lands and habitats and cope with pollution, which causes climate change, is now a cause for concern.

CEQA, as a conversational known, embodies the suggestion that you must “look at before you jump” on issues that could have negative environmental or public health effects. The basic legal principle of the law claims that the persons who make decisions must know the consequences of the environment from their actions before they make them.

This goal remains worthy. Unfortunately, over time, CEQA has led to unhappy and inattentive effects-more special, it is usually used to block the so many necessary homes in California. But the law is not only harmful to its use: the very threat of CEQA’s lawsuit is sufficient to suffocate new housing developments, as such costumes can add considerable time, price and risk to builders who are already confronted Irritate construction costsS

Dilemma So how to maintain the useful nature of CEQA while dealing with the disadvantages. A bill in California’s legislation deals with this and deserves support.

Assembly Bill 609 Creates the release of CEQA for residential projects that meet local laws, not environmentally sensitive places. “Building” in urban places Reduces the pressure of development on open lands in outdoor areas. It also reduces travel time and Reduces pollutionS

As a father and son with a life of experience in environmental causes, we write with some ambivalence. Decades ago, one of us was responsible for the appearance of CEQA as a “super statute”, preparing the brief information of Amicus at the Supreme Court in California in Friends of Mammoth vs. Mono County – the case of the base in which the court ruled that CEQA has publicly expanded the “right of action” against private activity.

Some may consider any changes to CEQA as a “cape of a camel under the tent”, inevitably leads to his death. Our opinion is the opposite: like all laws, CEQA derives its social license from its bona fide application. But when the Environment Act is basically used to cause measurable environmental damage – for example, by displacing the residential developments of agricultural and open lands – this undermines political support for the law.

Thinking reforms such as the AB 609 can maintain the main focus of CEQA on environmental protection, while allowing housing to be built faster, cheap and sustainable.

For those who watch climate change As one of the key questions of our time, homes of filling is a critical solution. For those who want to see California’s environmental values, they shape the nation, without a cheaper dwelling, California will lose the population and electoral power for other countries.

After the 2030 census, Projections show The fact that California may lose four congresses (and four votes of the election college), while countries with more expensive housing such as Texas and Florida will win.

If the cost reduction for housing alone is not enough, for those who care for the environment and climate change, there is something to love in the growing impetus to legalize more homes in our cities.

This article was Originally Published on CalMatters and was reissued under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivatives License.