Opinion: Quietly, legislators chip away at environmental integrity

By State Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, of the 27th District
Sacramento Bee

With a pair of votes in the predawn hours, state legislators last week took historic steps to dismantle California's premier environmental protection act, making it easier than at any time in the past 40 years for big developers to ride roughshod over "the little guy." A majority of lawmakers had joined a bizarre alliance of big business, labor unions and one of the state's preeminent clean-air agencies to undermine California's landmark Environmental Quality Act.

California's Environmental Quality Act, known by its acronym CEQA, has, ever since Gov. Ronald Reagan signed it into law, served as an impregnable bulwark against reckless development and rampant pollution.

CEQA's complex process of meetings and reports delivered a stunningly simple result: It put every citizen, neighborhood or town on an even footing with the most powerful forces in our society. It was born with powerful enemies. It made it harder to bulldoze a forest or put a factory next to a school. It protected our rivers and mountains, our beaches and wetlands.

While some hailed it as hope for the future, others saw it as a hindrance to business. Despite all that, it withstood every effort to dismantle it. Californians, it turned out, had come to depend on its protections, even if they didn't fully understand them. And why not? CEQA worked.

Since its adoption, California's population more than doubled. But our air quality improved. Our economy grew threefold, but our impact on the environment actually softened. The poorest neighborhoods have a tool to protect themselves.

CEQA has helped a coalition of community groups to achieve a historic settlement with the Port of Los Angeles to reduce air pollution in surrounding neighborhoods. It empowered the Mothers of East L.A. to defeat a toxic waste incinerator to be built within 7,500 feet of homes, schools, churches and hospitals. It forced the developers of the massive Mission Bay project in San Francisco to reduce sewage outflow and to restore critical wetlands.

All of that seemed to count for nothing at the end of this year's legislative session. Legislators' resolve to protect the act had weakened, their commitment to the CEQA process melted like ice in the oven of the great recession. Nervous and unpopular, the Legislature fell prey to the canard that the only way to create jobs was to abandon the strictures of CEQA. The Assembly forgot it had never impeded the economy before, as they chucked it aside in a favor of a new football stadium in eastern Los Angeles County coveted by labor groups and a well-connected billionaire developer.

Meanwhile, in a more bizarre chapter, the South Coast Air Quality Management District turned its considerable stable of lobbyists (it had spent more than $240,000 on lobbying in the first six months of this year alone) loose to overturn a lawsuit it lost in state court, and in doing so put CEQA in grave peril.

In that lawsuit the judge admonished the SCAQMD for failure to produce an environmental impact report on a new air credit system required under the Federal Clean Air Act.

Instead of going back to the drawing board and creating a rule that worked, SCAQMD decided to push through a bill that would allow them to do legislatively what they have been unwilling to do through the regulatory, rule making process. It is hard to understate the significance of this development.

For the first time in recent memory, the legislature passed Senate Bill 827 that for all intents and purposes, overturns an active court case and opens the flood gates to any business that chooses to not abide by the law. SCAQMD has lost three suits on this same issue and has been stalling for more than a year to develop a rule that works.

For the past 39 years, the Legislature has been successful in repelling many attacks on CEQA. First defended staunchly by past legislators such as Sen. Byron Sher and more recently by current senators, such as Joe Simitian and Fran Pavley, the Senate has stood pat on challenges to the act. Unfortunately, that all changed at the end of this legislative session.

The night before, the Assembly passed legislation that would have given a CEQA exemption to the City of Industry to build the stadium in Southern California. Assembly members, speaking against that bill on the floor, warned this would open the door to every business interest in the state to come to the Legislature when they can't get what they want by following the law.

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