California Environmental Quality Act
CEQA has even been used to block or delay projects that have positive environmental impacts, such as solar plants, wind turbines, bike lanes on pre-existing roads, and denser housing.[8]: 1 [9][10][11][12] CEQA was signed into law in 1970 by governor Ronald Reagan, in a time of increasing public concern for the environment, caused by events such as the 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire.Thus, development projects in California funded only by private sources and not requiring approval by a federal agency would be exempt from NEPA, but would likely be subject to CEQA.Under CEQA, the lead agency is required to mitigate all "significant" adverse environmental impacts to "the maximum extent feasible" and can approve a project only if the agency adopts a Statement of Overriding Considerations detailing the specific overriding economic, legal, social, technological, or other considerations that outweigh the project's significant, unavoidable impacts.Resource factors (in alphabetical order): Greenhouse gas emissions were not required to be analyzed as an impact to the environment when CEQA was originally adopted.[22] The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report[23] in 2007 stating that human activities are responsible for increased global temperatures.As a result of these assessments, the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 that mandated greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020.[24] This assembly of legislation and evidence of environmental impact led to California enacting requirements for lead agencies to consider greenhouse gas emissions in their CEQA reviews."[27] The lead agency is charged with making a good-faith effort to "describe, calculate, or estimate the amount of greenhouse gas emissions resulting from a project".[29] If any portion of the analysis is considered speculative by the lead agency and not supported by defensible and quantifiable scientific evidence, the impact must be eliminated pursuant to CEQA Guidelines 15145.These decisions cannot be denied and provides the governmental body with no judgement as long as the proponent meets the specifications detailed in the permit or license requirements.[34] One such abrogation occurred in October 2009, with the passage of a union-backed law exempting the proposed construction of Los Angeles Stadium from CEQA's requirements.[35] State officials said the abrogation ended an abuse of CEQA by individuals seeking to obstruct the project; at the signing ceremony, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said he would "terminate the frivolous lawsuit.[37]" An environmental lawyer said that the slow economy would probably encourage developers to seek more abrogations, as legislators become more eager to stimulate job growth.Plaintiffs also sometimes accuse developers of a practice called piece-mealing, by which projects are analyzed incrementally by parts to make the environmental impacts appear smaller to the overseeing agency.[55]: 1 [56]: 1 Carol Galante, a professor of Affordable Housing and Urban Policy at the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, who served in the Obama Administration as the Assistant Secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD),[57]: 1 stated that "It (CEQA) has been abused in this state for 30 years by people who use it when it has nothing to do with an environmental reason, ... NIMBY-ism is connected to the fact that for everyone who owns their little piece of the dream, there's no reason to want development next door to them, CEQA gives them a tool to effectuate their interest ... We need to fundamentally rethink how the CEQA process works in this state."[58]: 1 [55]: 1 CEQA has been used by residents in San Francisco and Los Angeles to attempt to block homeless shelters and affordable housing projects from being located in their neighborhoods.(such as the Sierra Club)[63]: 1 [62]: 24 While environmental groups largely agree that building dense housing in urban areas (infill development) is better for the environment than converting open space to new homes, 4 out of 5 CEQA lawsuits target infill development projects; only 20% of CEQA lawsuits target greenfield projects that would convert open space to housing.[63]: 1 A report by the California Legislative Analyst's Office found that in the state's 10 largest cities, CEQA appeals delayed projects by an average of two and a half years.[66]: 1 [67]: 1 [68]: 1 In one case, anti-abortion activists filed a CEQA lawsuit to try to block a new tenant (Planned Parenthood) from using an already constructed office building in South San Francisco.[69]: 1 [70]: 1 [71]: 1 In 2022, the potential impact of a larger incoming undergraduate class, based on hypothetical noise produced by students, combined with lack of timely environmental review, resulted in a successful lawsuit and court injunction against UC Berkeley.The university said it might have to rescind admission to about a third of its incoming students, but in the end successfully lobbied the state legislature to modify the law to give it more time to perform the required review."[9] Governor Jerry Brown, in an interview with UCLA's Blueprint magazine, commented on the use of CEQA for other than environmental reasons: "But it's easier to build in Texas."[10] [11]: 1 In 2023, after an appeals court blocked construction of additional student housing at UC Berkeley stating that it would have environmental impacts which require mitigation, Governor Gavin Newsom stated: Our CEQA process is clearly broken when a few wealthy Berkeley homeowners can block desperately needed student housing...California cannot afford to be held hostage by NIMBYs.
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