What’s the most polarizing four-letter word in California politics?

That wasn’t always the case. When then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed the California Environmental Quality Act into law in 1970, the need could not have been more obvious. Californians were fed up with planners bulldozing low-income neighborhoods and communities of color for miles of polluting freeways. They were horrified by the ecological damage and habitat destruction caused by suburban sprawl. They were tired of top-down infrastructure projects that left communities feeling disempowered and voiceless. 

CEQA laid out a basic protective framework: Before approving a project, government officials needed to evaluate potential negative environmental impacts and identify ways to mitigate or avoid them while providing ample opportunity for public review and input.              

Article continues below this ad

But it didn’t take long for the law to be easily manipulated for ends that had little or nothing to do with the environment.  

NIMBYs used the process to delay new infill housing — driving up costs and reducing the likelihood projects get built. Unions leveraged CEQA to extort favorable labor terms on projects. Courts showed a predisposition for allowing just about anything to become grounds for a CEQA challenge — which is how we ended up with a 2022 lawsuit against a UC Berkeley housing project that effectively branded students as a form of pollution.

This editorial board has repeatedly decried CEQA abuses and has urged politicians to take decisive action. 

In recent years, they have, to a degree.

Article continues below this ad

State lawmakers passed, and Gov. Gavin Newsom signed, bills to, among other things, permit more units on many single-family-home lots, streamline the development of dense housing near transit, exempt almost all infill housing from CEQA and speed up permitting timelines for large clean-energy projects.

But it’s still far too easy to........

© San Francisco Chronicle