CEQA Reform and Transit Planning
www.cahsrblog.com/2013/01/ceqa-reform-and-transit-planning/
Jan 13th, 2013 | Posted by Robert Cruickshank
Yesterday the Planning and Conservation League held
a daylong symposium on the California Environmental Quality Act.
Coming amidst a concerted effort to reform the 43-year old law, the PCL
wanted to use the day as an opportunity to rally progressives and
environmentalists to defend the status quo and oppose any changes to
CEQA. However, the day’s discussions revealed a series of divisions
among the ostensible allies regarding CEQA’s future. While the PCL wants
to frame the debate as one of heroic environmental and community
advocates resisting evil oil companies and sprawlmongers who want to
destroy environmental protections, the reality is far more complex.
The
PCL Twitter account provided a good overview of the day’s discussion, as did
Coast Law Group,
the San Diego law firm that is doing great work by taking on the flawed
SANDAG transportation plan. Both feeds provide a good sense of the
conversation; I’ve also had participants email me their impressions of
the event.
One of the more revealing moments of the day came when Stuart
Flashman, a longtime opponent of the California high speed rail project,
attacked the California High Speed Rail Authority for rejecting the
Interstate 5 alignment through the San Joaquin Valley before beginning
CEQA review. Some participants nodded their heads and agreed with
Flashman’s contention that this was an example of the CHSRA abusing and
evading CEQA.
But that’s not an accurate charge. The route for the California high
speed rail project was selected after 10 years of public hearings and
discussion. It was ratified by the state legislature and then by voters
at the November 2008 election. The route was selected based on sound
transit planning principles – one of which is “send the trains where the
people are.” If HSR followed Interstate 5 through the Valley, it would
bypass over 2 million potential riders. Serving those riders helps
reduce carbon emissions and other aerial pollutants in the Valley, where
transportation is a leading cause of severe air pollution.
I don’t see how it makes sense to force the transit planning process
into a CEQA framework. Proposed rail routes, for example, should be
planned based on how well they will serve the city or region or state
transportation need. Once a route is chosen, that route alone should be
submitted for environmental review. If it passes review, great, build!
If it doesn’t pass review, then things can be fixed. CEQA was never
intended to provide a process for evaluation of different routes. But if
that’s what Flashman wants, well, he too is arguing for CEQA reform.
That’s just one example of how CEQA has become a de facto state
planning law when it was never designed or intended to play that role.
CEQA is designed to ensure that new projects have to publicize how they
conform to different environmental standards. It wasn’t designed to pick
winners and losers. It wasn’t designed to shape transportation systems
or regional land use plans. If people want a law that does so, then they
are looking to reform CEQA, whether they’re aware of it or not.
Since CEQA passed in 1970, California’s carbon emissions have soared
and tens of thousands of square miles of new sprawl has been built.
Clearly, CEQA hasn’t achieved the goal of building a more sustainable
state or protecting its environment. California’s neighbors to the
north, Oregon and Washington, have less sprawl and stronger land use
planning laws than does the Golden State. Those who want to reduce
carbon emissions as well as those who don’t want to reduce them both see
CEQA as a tool to serve their own ends. Even those who came to defend
CEQA wound up making the case for change, even if unintentionally.
Yesterday’s event clarified that there are three distinct groups when
it comes to CEQA reform, and while their positions may at times
overlap, they are not the same:
1. Businesses and developers. These stakeholders are tired of
the expense and delays caused by the CEQA process. We should not
universalize this group, as their positions and intentions are not all
the same. Some of them do not have good environmental intentions, such
as oil refinery operators, sprawl builders, and toxic polluters. But
some of them have very good environmental intentions, such as those
promoting infill development and those wanting to build large-scale
solar or wind projects. Their preferred CEQA reforms would probably not
be ones that work for progressives or environmentalists, as they’d come
with too many loopholes. Yet they are also able to play the long game
with increasing success, winning legislative support for specific CEQA
exemptions as even Democrats have a harder time justifying a broken CEQA
process. Currently they’re driving the CEQA reform process.
2. Sustainability and transit advocates. These stakeholders
are increasingly angry at watching CEQA used by NIMBYs to slow down,
make more expensive, or even stop entirely those projects that are
indisputably good for the environment. California cannot address climate
change, stop sprawl, or provide for sustainable and broadly shared
prosperity without building more solar panels, wind turbines, dense
urban developments, or mass transit routes. They are aware that the
status quo has failed California and that change is needed immediately
to avert catastrophe and provide environmental and social justice. So on
that level they have a lot of sympathy with the well-intentioned folks
in group #1. At the same time, they do not want to see CEQA gutted and
projects that are bad for the environment or that increase carbon
emissions, like the freeway-heavy SANDAG transportation plan, become
permissible under a reformed CEQA. That gives them sympathy with the
folks in group #3.
3. NIMBYs. Some may object at my use of that term to describe
this group of stakeholders, but it remains the most accurate. Groups
like PCL and the numerous small groups that pop up to oppose specific
developments and projects regardless of their environmental impact are
not acting out of concern for the climate, but out of their own
self-determined notion of what counts as environmental protection. They
like CEQA as it stands, because it gives them a way to attack infill
development and mass transit projects that are very good for the
environment but otherwise offend their individual sensibilities.
Sometimes they do use CEQA to attack truly bad projects, but
increasingly they are using it to undermine environmentally friendly
projects. Peninsula anti-HSR activists, Beverly Hills anti-subway
forces, even the guy who stopped the San Francisco bike plan in court
for four years under CEQA because he claimed it would cause traffic
delays are all classic examples of this group. They don’t take climate
change very seriously, they hate density, and they are not much
interested in social or environmental justice. They just want to protect
their own privileges. But they also know that they can sway a lot of
people in group #2 to their side by rallying against the more egregious
members of group #1. That was clearly PCL’s goal with yesterday’s event.
I consider myself part of group #2, and I have been urging members of
that group to take the lead in charting a new and better course for
CEQA, rather than leaving it in the hands of group #1. Several of us in
group #2 have been
sketching out what a better CEQA law looks like,
one that improves public participation, provides better incentives for
good urban planning, and helps reduce carbon emissions without
empowering people who oppose those values and goals.
On the other hand, the members of group #3 may well succeed in
framing the debate instead as one of defending CEQA against the bad
actors in group #1. I think that would be a huge mistake, not just in
terms of politics (it could make more likely a moderate Democratic and
Republican alliance to do bad things to CEQA), but also in terms of a
missed opportunity. CEQA can be better. Land use planning in California
can be better. Carbon emissions can be lower and sprawl can be reduced.
We know that CEQA as it stands today won’t achieve those goals. Why not
seize the moment and build something better?
Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg walked a fine line at
yesterday’s event, acknowledging legitimate concerns while vowing that
the essence of CEQA must remain unchanged and reminding the audience
that the law has a LOT of defenders in the Capitol. I consider him a
part of group #2, and I believe he is one who can help drive a good
reform through the Legislature – and one who would help kill a bad
reform. But a good reform can only happen if environmentalists, transit
advocates, those who want environmental and social justice, labor
unions, and others interested in building a 21st century economy step up
and start driving the conversation.
The
suggestions laid out by SPUR in 2006 remain a good starting point. Let’s hope those start to drive the discussion over CEQA’s future.
