The California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) is once again under attack. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, in a letter to President-Elect Obama, has conditioned agreement to a budget reconciliation package on the suspension of CEQA compliance for 10 highway projects, ranging from carpool lanes on Routes 50 in Sacramento and 805 in San Diego, to road widenings in Fresno and San Joaquin, to a fourth bore in the Caldecott Tunnel in San Francisco. The Governor’s initiative is already under siege from myriad environmental organizations including the Sierra Club, the Planning and Conservation League and the National Resources Defense Council.
The Governor partially justifies his actions on the grounds that most of the projects would have to comply with the Federal equivalent of CEQA, the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”). The well hidden flaw in the Governor’s argument is that he has requested that President-Elect Obama provide funding for the projects under various Federal statutes, and simultaneously suspend Federal environmental compliance standards as well.
The Governor’s proposal has far reaching implications. First, and most obvious, are the potentially undocumented and unanalyzed, but nonetheless significant, noise and air quality implications of highway expansions. Second, the decision as to what projects to exempt from environmental review would be made by a commission of executive appointees who would be charged with picking and choosing, without legislative oversight. As we are all painfully aware, “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Finally, the Governor’s initiatives need not be limited to highways. If the development and/or expansion of airports are granted the same reprieve from environmental regulations as that currently envisioned for highway projects, on the pretext that it is necessary to ensure California’s financial integrity, the sky is literally the limit for environmental impacts around dozens of airports including Los Angeles International Airport, San Diego International Airport and San Francisco International Airport.
CEQA has successfully fought of such attacks in the past. It is critical, however, that those persons and entities that will be impacted by the proposed suspension of environmental regulations, either now or in the future, contact the Governor’s office at (916) 445-2841 or by sending him an e-mail, and/or their State Legislator, to register their firm opposition to such an opportunistic, but ultimately ineffective solution to California’s budget woes.