Passed in 1970, CEQA requires state and local agencies to assess the environmental impact of projects and, if possible, mitigate these impacts. While some argue it merely protects the environment, CEQA has attracted critics from both sides of the political spectrum. It’s blamed for contributing to the state’s insufficient housing stock and some argue it has resulted in frivolous red tape and litigation that bogs down and deters development.

According to the study, however, CEQA doesn’t come into play unless approval of the development is at the discretion of the local government.  “As of right” development – projects that need only to meet zoning and planning regulations – do not generally trigger the CEQA process.

In the five cities studied – Oakland, Palo Alto, Redwood City, San Francisco and San Jose – only 23 of 287 projects required a full environmental impact report.

The crux of the problem is that all the cities studied required discretionary review for residential projects. Some of the cities maintained minor exemptions, such as for single family homes, while San Francisco had no exemptions. Combined with the inefficiencies resulting from the byzantine review processes of these cities, developers face significant hurdles when embarking on projects.

“A single project might need to obtain Design Review approval and a Minor Variance from the Director of the Planning Department and a rezoning from the City Council. This requires navigating multiple levels of local government where only one approval process would be sufficient to pull the project within the scope of local discretion.”

The result is that more land use/planning approvals were issued than the number of projects. Additionally, parceling up the land would lead to even more review processes.

Even when cities use the same regulatory tools, the outcomes can vary drastically. Both Oakland and San Francisco rely on Community Plan Exemptions to mitigate CEQA compliance obligations. Yet the process takes only 7 months in Oakland, as opposed to 23 months in San Francisco.

The authors concluded that “these five local governments are choosing to opt into CEQA through their choice to embed discretionary review into the entitlement process,” and “the problem (and potential costs) associated with environmental review do not appear to originate with state environmental regulation.”

The implications of the study are a bottom-up and local focus might do more to ameliorate the state’s affordable housing shortage than the more popular top-down, “reform CEQA” approach.

“This is much more than CEQA,” Eric Biber, one of the study’s authors, told the L.A. Times. “Really if you just went after CEQA, you’re not going to solve the problem.”

With just a few years left in his marathon return tour as California governor, Jerry Brown has promised not to back down on his climate policy in the face of what could be a powerful change in priorities from above in a Donald Trump administration.

Moving to reassure his party earlier in the election season, Gov. Brown had signaled critics of his approach to environmental policy that he’d organize opposition to their agenda if they increased their political power. “In August, Brown vowed to ‘vanquish’ climate change skeptics,” the Los Angeles Times recalled. “‘Bring it on,’ Brown said at the time. ‘We’ll have more battles, and more victories.'”

Now, in his first remarks after Donald Trump’s election to the presidency, Brown promised “to do his part to find common ground with the president-elect,” but “put Trump on notice that ‘as Californians, we will also stay true to our basic principles,” as the Bee also reported. “We will protect the precious rights of our people and continue to confront the existential threat of our time — devastating climate change.”

Competing interests

Although analysts have often hesitated to predict that a Trump administration will follow through on all the promises the candidate had made or qualified on the campaign trail, liberals and progressives have expressed special concern over what Trump might do on climate change, such as backing out of promises made at the recent landmark Paris talks — where a delegation of California Democrats played a high-profile role.

“Brown has repeatedly contrasted the intransigence gripping Washington with California’s progressive policy approaches, from joining other countries to address the threat of climate change to shielding the rights of unauthorized immigrants,” the Bee added. “In the statement, the fourth-term governor moved past his earlier criticism of Trump, and didn’t directly address the incoming president’s dismissal of climate change as a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese.”

California Democrats have braced for harder sledding ahead on the environment. Democratic strategist Steve Maviglio told the San Jose Mercury News, “Republicans now have a free hand to intervene in California’s battles over water, which often pit agribusiness against environmentalists and fisherman. Water allocations for imperiled species like Chinook salmon could be tightened. It’s one of many conflicts he foresees,” the paper noted. 

Increased anxiety

Party fears have arisen that without a supportive president, California could begin to change shape in Americans’ minds from a bellwether and vanguard state into a marginal outlier. “Trump’s stunning election threatens years of Democratic progress here and deprives the state’s ambitious social change agenda of a sure collaborator in Clinton,” as the Bee suggested. “From local concerns like affordable housing and homelessness, to statewide priorities such as climate change, health care, immigration reform, gun control and the protection of organized labor, nowhere is the nation’s embrace of Trump felt more acutely than in deep-blue California.”

But not all leadership figures popular on the west coast have fueled anxiety. Brown has worked to steer clear of what has become sometimes frantic criticism of Trump from within his party, projecting a steely-yet-relaxed demeanor reminiscent of Bernie Sanders’ recent pledge to work with the incoming administration where possible and to oppose it elsewhere. At a dinner in Sacramento for labor organizers last week, Brown joked “that if Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump wins the presidency, California would build its own wall at the state’s border — an obvious reference to Trump’s ambition to build a wall between the United States and Mexico,” as the San Francisco Chronicle noted. “If Trump were ever elected, we’d have to build a wall around California to defend ourselves from the rest of this country,” said Brown, caught on video reported by the Sacramento Bee.

Trump splits Silicon Valley

Good morning. Let’s talk about Trump. Now that voters have chosen Donald Trump as president, the country is wondering what it will mean for things like climate change, immigration, politics, the Republican Party — the list goes on.

So far, Trump has divided the Republican Party, taken large numbers of voters away from Democrats, and infused some Americans with optimism but others with despair.

Now, he has also laid bare latent political fractures within Silicon Valley, often seen as a more monolithic culture than it is. 

While some leading tech figures have been supportive or tolerant of Trump and his movement, others have responded to his election by expressing the strongest possible opposition — including a call for secession.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• How will a Trump presidency affect CA’s climate-change efforts? “Experts say it’s about to become a country within a country, moving sharply in the opposite direction of the White House and Congress on climate change and environmental policy, as California sets its own agenda with sympathetic states and countries,” writes The San Jose Mercury News. 

• “Making California housing affordable again will require new laws, more avenues to build,” writes The San Jose Mercury News/The Orange County Register. 

• What will a Trump presidency mean for Mexican immigrants? The Orange County Register has more. 

Legislature:

• Gone till December. 

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @CelticsLife

Environmentalists won on Wednesday

Lawmakers on Wednesday sent a measure to Gov. Jerry Brown creating legislative oversight of the California Air Resources Board — a vital piece in the state’s climate agenda.

Assembly Bill 197’s companion legislation, SB32, which expands CARB’s authority to create and implement programs to meet reduced greenhouse gas emission targets, can only become law if the oversight bill is signed into law.

The oversight bill would create a joint legislative committee to oversee CARB and would add two legislators to CARB as non-voting members. 

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• “If the state’s revamped standardized tests are accurately measuring what they set out to measure, one thing is clear: California has miles to go before all of its students are on an equal footing to face an economy that increasingly demands a college degree and stronger workplace skills. The good news, if there is good news, is there’s improvement over last year,” writes the Los Angeles Times.

• “California lawmakers have sent a bill to the governor’s desk that would expand the legal definition of rape so it includes all forms of nonconsensual sexual assault,” writes the Los Angeles Times.

• “Welcome to the state Legislature’s annual civil war. Forget Democrats and Republicans – the divide most likely to make an impact on the outcome of this session is the perpetual rivalry between the Senate and Assembly. It’s a long-running tension, built naturally into the bicameral setup of the legislative process, that might wax and wane with differences in the relationships between house leaders and policy priorities. But it tends to flare up again at the end of every session as each house gets its hands on the other’s bills, holding some for ransom and enacting their revenge for slights, real or perceived,” writes The Sacramento Bee.

• Legislature sends bill curbing abuses by law enforcement of civil asset forfeiture to Gov. Jerry Brown, reports The Sacramento Bee.  

Assembly:

• In at 10 a.m.

Senate:

• In at 10 a.m.

Gov. Brown:

• No public events announced. 

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New follower: @charlescmarquez

What to watch for in Sacramento this month

Good morning, and welcome to August, which is sure to be a busy month in Sacramento as legislators fight to get their priorities passed before the legislative session ends on August 31. 

While a large number of bills will be debated, there are four major things to watch for: Environment, transportation, affordable housing and overtime for farmworkers.

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• The Los Angeles city attorney is warning three area (crisis pregnancy centers) that they’re breaking a new state reproductive disclosure law and could face fines of $500 if they don’t comply,” which represents the first time steps have been taken to enforce the seven-month-old Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act. Rewire has more. 

• A bill in Sacramento looks to cap environmental lawsuits against large development projects at nine months, which supporters see as a big boost for development around the state, reports the Los Angeles Times.

• Why experts say drone education isn’t working, reports the San Bernardino County Sun.  

• Oops: “A half century after building the largest water-delivery system in America, California officials say they now realize they put their giant straws to capture Delta water in the wrong place.” The San Jose Mercury News has more. 

Assembly:

• In at 1 p.m.

Senate: 

• In at 2 p.m.

Gov. Brown: 

• No public events announced.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @LABJnews

California regulators have made preparations to close Diablo Canyon, the state’s last remaining nuclear power plant, in a move quickly characterized as a turning point in the nation’s approach to energy production and use.

“Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announced Tuesday it will close California’s last nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, in 2025, ending atomic energy’s more than a half-century history in the state,” noted the San Francisco Chronicle. “The move will shutter a plant whose construction on a seaside cliff surrounded by earthquake faults helped create the antinuclear movement. And yet, some conservationists have fought to keep Diablo Canyon open, arguing California needed its output of greenhouse gas-free electricity to not exacerbate global warming.”

In fact, nuclear power has staked a claim to greater efficiencies than other forms of energy such as wind, driving critics of prevailing environmentalist policies to cast Diablo Canyon as a relatively smarter way to meet anti-carbon objectives hard to dislodge from Sacramento. “Nuclear energy is a huge source of clean power that doesn’t release the greenhouse gases that are changing the climate,” according to the U-T San Diego editorial board. “And unlike the San Onofre plant in San Diego County that closed in 2012 because of severe problems with steam generators and more, the Diablo Canyon plant appeared to be functioning well.”

Key players in the state’s environmentalist movement, however, determined that nuclear power represented more of an obstacle to their agenda than a source of potential allies. The proposal to shut down Diablo Canyon, “part of an agreement with environmental and labor groups, is intended to help meet California’s aggressive clean energy goals, which have already transformed the power mix with a large and growing renewable energy fleet at a time of slowing electric demand,” the New York Times reported. “It also comes after years of public pressure to close the plant, near San Luis Obispo, because of safety concerns over its location, near several fault lines, and its use of ocean water for cooling.”

Final approval for the change must come through the California Public Utilities Commission. “The agreement calls for PG&E to withdraw its pending application to extend the licenses for another 20 years, and to replace the plant’s 2,240-megawatt capacity with a combination of efficiency improvements and renewable sources,” as the Los Angeles Times’ Michael Hitzlik noted. “Among the deal’s unique features are provisions for $350 million in retention, severance and retraining payments to existing workers and $49.5 million in payments to San Luis Obispo County as compensation for the loss of a major source of employment and taxes.”

As legacy players in the public and private sector have haggled over the costs and benefits of nuclear power production, innovators have pushed the conversation in a different direction. Although advances in the efficiency of solar power production and retention have become something of a political football in recent years, with Democrats at the state and federal level bent on subsidizing businesses geared toward solar and other nontraditional power sources, alternate-energy entrepreneur Elon Musk has forged ahead with what appear to be plans for a dramatic new play in the space. 

With his Tesla company’s bid to acquire SolarCity, as Fortune suggested, “a fully vertically integrated energy company—from energy generation to installation to storage to application—could create a massive Elon Musk Energy Empire. It would be a company that generates power from the sun, stores energy in batteries, and uses those batteries to power cars and buildings.”

“And it would all be provided by a brand that consumers increasingly know and are excited about. Tesla’s brand is starting to be so powerful that it’s as if Apple decided it wanted to be a full-fledged power company (oh wait, it’s kind of doing that). But never before has the energy industry had such a player that so was so attractive to consumers and also so willing to act disruptively.”

Brown has long pursued environmental policies — like an executive order last year to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or entering a global pact to curb the rate at which the globe is warming — but by working with other states, Brown said California can benefit from a regional energy grid, can make bulk purchases of energy-efficient state vehicles, and can lobby for federal research and development funding that could fund the grid, fuel and storage.

Four of the 17 states have Republican governors, which Brown attributed to the accord’s narrow focus on energy efficiency, avoiding more contentious topics like climate change.

“It takes not too much research to notice there’s a very sharp cleavage in the United States on this issue of climate change, and it has a lot of partisan coloration,” Brown said. “So we want to move forward. We want to get done important stuff without getting bogged down in the larger controversy.”

The Republican governors are: Terry Branstad of Iowa, Rick Snyder of Michigan, Brian Sandoval of Nevada and Charlie Baker of Massachusetts.

The Democratic governors joining Brown are: Jack Markell of Delaware, Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, Peter Shumlin of Vermont, Jay Inslee of Washington, Dannel P. Malloy of Connecticut, David Y. Ige of Hawaii, Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Kate Brown of Oregon, Gina M. Raimondo of Rhode Island and Terry McAuliffe of Virginia.

“The whole genius of this accord is that we’re bringing together parties, governors of different philosophies,” said Brown. “We are talking about clean energy, renewable energy, the grid efficiency, all very powerful, very important.”

The accord can be found here.

Looking at the results of the California Business Roundtable/California Manufacturing & Technology Association poll on Senate Bill 350, the new climate change policy being considered in the CA Legislature, you can almost see how campaign arguments would be formulated if the hotly debated bill were on a ballot for voters to decide.

The poll conducted by M4 Mobile Research clearly showed that the public at large supports the goals of reducing greenhouse gases. While 82 percent of those polled consider climate change a serious or moderate threat to the state, when the components of the bill are tested the support remains strong.

Cutting petroleum use by half in cars and trucks by 2030, requiring 50 percent of the state’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources and doubling energy efficiency in buildings over the next 15 years enjoyed overwhelming support, all three items tested in the 70^th percentile. Overall, SB350 was favored 66 percent to 27 percent.

However, the overall number turned around when the potential cost was addressed by the pollster.

After testing a wide range of specific arguments from positive to negative on the measure — i.e.: California must lead on climate change issues; implementing this legislation will lead to positive innovation; price of gasoline could increase 13 to 50 cents a gallon; electricity rates could jump 30 to 70 percent; disadvantaged citizens will be particularly hard hit by the change – the respondents were again asked if they supported or opposed SB350.

Support dropped from 66 percent to 44 percent, opposition increased from 27 percent to 48 percent.

Rob Lapsley, head of the California Business Roundtable summed up the poll succinctly when he said, “costs matter … details matter.”

The details of how to achieve the goals expressed in the bill are not contained in the measure.

Dorothy Rothrock said manufacturers in her association are feeling the pinch from electricity costs associated with climate change laws already on the books and can see incredible increases in the future if this bill passes in its current form.

Which leads to speculation, will this fight spill out of the capitol building and on to the ballot?

If the bill is passed and signed by the governor, will a referendum effort be mounted to ask the voters to decide – those voters who embrace the idea of a clean environment and climate change legislation but are leery of what the costs would mean for the economy, jobs and low income citizens?

The poll indicates that the arguments are lined up to produce quite a donnybrook if the voters are consulted.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

A strong majority of Californians say they support tougher limits on greenhouse gas emissions and more ambitious renewable energy goals to combat climate change, according to a statewide poll released late Wednesday.

Meanwhile, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said global warming is contributing to California’s ongoing drought. About half said global warming is a “very serious” threat to the state’s future, according to the poll, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, a San Francisco-based nonpartisan research center.

“At a time when many Californians are making a connection between the current drought and climate change, there is strong support for expanding the state’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said Mark Baldassare, the institute’s president, in a news release.

Results of the survey — titled Californians & the environment — are based on phone interviews with 1,702 California adult residents from in July.

Of those who took part, 44 percent said they were registered Democrats; 28 percent were Republicans; and 24 percent independents or decline-to-state voters, according to the institute.

Sixty-four percent of respondents said they believe there’s a connection between the drought and global warming, while 28 percent said they saw no link.

Spray irrigation on a field in the Imperial Valley in southern California. This type of irrigation is more efficient than flood irrigation that is popular in this region. Still, in the high temperatures of this desert region a lot of the water evaporates, leaving the salts, that are dissolved in the Colorado River water that is used, on the soil.

The institute has not asked that question in the past, said PPIC spokeswoman Linda Strean.

California is mired in its fourth straight year of severe drought. While not going so far as to say climate change has caused the drought, recent scientific studies have said global warming exacerbates the extreme high pressure systems that block rainfall in the Western United States.

PPIC’s past surveys have found strong support for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, including majorities across party lines a decade ago who favored California’s landmark emissions reduction law, AB32. That law requires the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

It was signed into law in 2006 by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

“A strong partisan divide has opened up since then,” the institute observed in its release.

Now, 79 percent of Democrats and 74 percent of independents favor the law compared with 46 percent of Republicans, the institute said.

The poll also found that large majorities of Californians favor new, more aggressive goals for combating climate change.

Eighty-two percent of those polled said they support a proposal to require half of California’s electricity come from renewable sources by 2030. And 73 percent favor cutting petroleum use in vehicles by 50 percent.

Those are key pieces of Senate Bill 350, a bill introduced earlier this year by Senate leader Kevin de Léon.

Other findings from the PPIC survey include:

• 88 percent of adults favor building more solar power stations in California.
• 78 percent want to boost tax credits and other incentives for rooftop solar panels.
• 49 percent favor building the Keystone XL pipeline, while 38 percent are opposed.
• 56 percent oppose increased use of fracking to extract oil and natural gas. It’s the highest level of opposition since PPIC started asking about it in 2013.
• 53 percent approve of Gov. Jerry Brown’s job performance, while 47 percent approve of the way he handles environmental issues.
• 39 percent approve of the California Legislature’s job performance.
• 57 percent approve of President Barack Obama’s job performance.
• 29 percent approve of Congress’ performance.

Contact reporter Chris Nichols at chris@calwatchdog.com or on Twitter @ChrisTheJourno

David Prasad / flickr

Last week, House Republicans introduced legislation to revise water policies in California and the rest of the West Coast, improving water reliability and making environmental laws more flexible.

H.R. 2898, authored by California Congressman David Valadao, is backed by the entire California Republican delegation. Titled the “Western Water and American Food Security Act of 2015,” the bill, according to Rep. Valadao’s website, “aims to make more water available to families, farmers, and communities in California and bordering Western states.” The legislation also makes it easier for federal regulators to authorize projects that will increase water capture during periods of greater precipitation, and begin projects that have already been authorized for more than a decade.

“California’s drought has devastated communities throughout the Central Valley and now the consequences are extending throughout the country. Inaction will result in the collapse of our domestic food supply,” Rep. Valadao said in a prepared statement. “Congress cannot make it rain but we can enact policies that expand our water infrastructure, allow for more water conveyance, and utilize legitimate science to ensure a reliable water supply for farmers and families.”

Water agencies throughout the Central Valley also voiced their support for H.R. 2898. Michael Stearns, chairman at the San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority, said he was “heartened by the introduction” of the bill, as it would “provide much needed relief for the people, businesses, and communities” serviced by water agencies.

“Our people are desperate,” said Eric Borba, chair at the Friant Water Authority. “We need solutions that will provide real water for our area, and we need them now.” Many of the Central Valley water agencies considered the bill to be a vital first step in finding solutions and enacting legislation to aid impacted communities in California.

Despite widespread support for the bill, House Republicans are still expecting much backlash from both the Senate and Obama Administration.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a release that, for years, he had offered and supported many solutions that passed the House but were not enacted into law. “This action is unacceptable,” he said, and deemed it imperative to sign into law a water bill “that rebalances the priorities between fish and people and delivers water that our communities have contracted and paid for.”

Text in the bill authorizes “operational flexibility in times of drought” as well as “flexibility for export/inflow ratio.” The legislation also includes mandates for “new science” to be used in the management of endangered fish, such as the Delta smelt.

But these very allocations are drawing resistance from House Democrats and their Senate colleagues. San Rafael Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman summed up the proposal as a “blame the fish” initiative backed by agri-business. According to the Press Democrat, H.R. 2898 would weaken environmental protection by diverting more water from the Delta into Central Valley aqueducts and scrap restoration plans for the San Joaquin River.

Rep. Huffman has drafted an alternative to Valadao’s legislation, which includes $1.4 billion in emergency funding to deploy efficient irrigation technology, drill new wells and build new pipelines. The plan also allocated money for “water recycling, reclamation and storm water capture projects, cleanup of contaminated groundwater, watershed protection, efforts to limit evaporation from reservoirs and canals, a Justice Department crackdown on water theft for marijuana cultivation and an expanded X-prize to promote development of new desalination technologies.”

The proposal has not yet been introduced in the House. H.R. 2898 has since been referred to the committees on Natural Resources and Agriculture.