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CVP-Nick Jenson
Senator Wiener’s Latest Attempt to Eliminate CEQA - A Call to Action
Senate Bill 607 is the latest attempt to remove any and all environmental review and protections under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), by California Senators Scott Wiener and Buffy Wicks, two of the most anti-environmental legislators in the state’s history.
It will be considered at an upcoming hearing on May 19th. To read the current draft of Senate Bill 607 CLICK HERE.
The Planning and Conservation League (PCL) calls the proposed legislation,
“a monumental undermining of your environmental Bill of Rights broad rollback of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) protections that have existed for over 50 years.”
And that,
“The bill weakens environmental review requirements for nearly all private and government projects, including freeways, airports, dams, railyards, shopping centers, sports complexes, power plants, prisons, and mining operations. “
PCL argues further that
“The bill weakens the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for freeways, airports, railyards, shipping terminals, office buildings, shopping malls, sports complexes, dams, sewage plants, mining, incinerators, power plants, prisons, and massive mixed-use developments on farmland, sensitive habitat, or in high wildfire danger zones (there is a token exception for distribution centers and oil and gas infrastructure.) [Emphasis added]
“The (legislator’s) press release for SB 607 claims that the bill will speed review of “infill housing.” The actual bill, however, is not focused on streamlining housing development. In fact, infill housing in urban areas is already largely exempt from CEQA. Rather than advancing housing, SB 607 applies to new development across the board, and would result in less transparent environmental review, agency confusion, and more litigation.”
According to Community Venture Partners’ legal counsel,
“This is a truly terrible bill from an environmental standpoint, as it basically eliminates CEQA’s presumption that an EIR is required for where it may be fairly argued that a project may have a significant adverse impact on the environment.”
CLICK HERE to take action, now!
Wiener and Wicks claim that SB 607 is just a minor "technical fix" or “clarification” to existing California environmental protection laws. They disguise its intentions with claims of helping "focus reviews" and "aligning standards" and "streamlining record keeping." But it's all a rues. And, according to Digital Democracy, in the fine print, the bill even
"excludes Internal agency communications, including staff notes and emails not presented to the final decision-making body, from the record of proceedings." except for projects involving distribution centers or oil and gas infrastructure."
Read that as 'zero transparency or accountability.'
As PCL notes,
“While there are many concerns with SB 607, one extremely impactful concern centers around its rollback of Environmental Impact Reports (EIRs). EIRs are critical in ensuring a project’s significant impacts are disclosed and lessened. This in-depth environmental review doesn’t stop projects; it improves them. By discouraging EIRs, SB 607 makes it easier for agencies to ignore credible scientific evidence on air pollution, water contamination, and climate impacts—information that an EIR would include. EIRs also ensure government transparency and accountability in the land use arena. Without EIRs, community members receive much less information and are not informed through a public input process about proposed projects. Most importantly, without EIRs, members of the public have no right to have their comments answered, and public officials have less accountability. By reducing public participation in the decision-making process, SB 607 erodes the democratic process.”
PCL urges everyone to contact their state representatives, immediately, to stop this bill from advancing.
For more about what you can do, please CLICK HERE.
TO TAKE ACTION:
Click here to find your Senator. Then, enter your address and then click on the locate button. Follow the links on the form to your Senator's webpage and click on their contact tab. You can call their district office and/or use their online contact form.
Click this link to read a group letter signed by 127 environmental and environmental justice groups, detailing why they oppose SB 607.
Bob Silvestri is a long-time Mill Valley resident, the Editor of the Marin Post, and the founder and president of Community Venture Partners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization dedicated to bringing the community's voice to government decision-making and funded exclusively by individuals and nonprofit donors. Please consider donating now to support our work.