Pettit has filed plenty of lawsuits under the California Environmental Quality Act, and he thought the courts would ignore Newsom’s attempt to speed up their rulings. “It’s the judges who determine if it’s feasible or not,” he told me. And he seemed offended by Newsom’s effort to short-circuit the process. “Wouldn’t it be better to bring everybody to the table and go through the Legislature?” he asked. “Get the environmental justice groups, the tribes, hash out what this means? It could be done in regular session by the end of year.”
There’s merit to the argument that Newsom is trying to rush his package through the Legislature. But it’s also clear that the groups opposing his package don’t want to use a slower, broader process as an opportunity to strengthen the package’s provisions. They want to use it as an opportunity to weaken or block Newsom’s package.
The coalition’s letter worries that Newsom’s package “reduces application of environmental review,” that it “would undermine the California Endangered Species Act” and so on. The California Environmental Justice Alliance sent me a statement that said, in bold type, “Requiring a court to resolve an action within 270 days to the extent feasible is harmful to low-income and EJ” — which stands for environmental justice — “communities.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.
Here’s the hard part: All of these concerns are justified, at least some of the time. Laws like the California Environmental Quality Act have been used to block countless harmful projects. A faster, more streamlined process could make it easier to build solar farms and rail systems, but it could also make it easier to build infrastructure that communities have reason to oppose.
“I come at this trying to take care of and represent my clients who live next door to a proposed development and want a species protected and don’t want more highways jammed through,” Pettit told me.
The claim Newsom is making is not that all development is good but that development has become too easy to stop or at least delay. Is he right? You can say it depends on the project in question. But policymakers have to set broad rules. The harder development is to stop, the likelier it is that bad projects will be built. The easier development is to stop, the likelier it is that good projects will be blocked. And even that oversimplifies it. Often, the question isn’t whether a project is good or bad, but who it helps and who bears its costs. A wind farm may be good for the state but a genuine annoyance to its neighbors.
I’m a little skeptical that Newsom’s package is consequential enough to merit the controversy it has created. But the fight isn’t just about this package. Everyone involved believes there are many permitting reforms yet to come, as the world warms, and the clock ticks down on California’s goals, and the federal government begins to apply more pressure.