The California Legislature on Wednesday night approved a massive budget plan that includes provisions that lawmakers made to waive a last-minute exemption from the state’s landmark environmental law.
Calling it a cost-saving measure, Democrats rushed through a bill exempting the $1.1 billion state Capitol renovation from the California Environmental Quality Act — a move they hoped would speed up the project. process, the project has become mired in litigation.
At issue is CEQA, a law passed more than 50 years ago to protect the state’s natural beauty and mitigate environmental hazards. But it has long been criticized as a tool that could easily be abused to stymie construction, and criticism of it has grown as the state faces a housing crisis.
Now, lawmakers seeking to renovate the wing of the Capitol that contains their offices are encountering the same setbacks many developers have faced before — except with their ability to quickly develop solutions.
Assemblyman James Gallagher (R-Yuba City) called it “problematic” and “hypocritical” for lawmakers to exclude themselves from environmental laws that often prevent developers from building in their own districts Housing is needed.
“I think when we talk about these things, we have a responsibility to take better action,” Gallagher said during parliamentary debate on the bill. “Or look, let’s have a blanket CEQA exemption instead of just a one-time exemption for our own state office buildings. That’s not the right look.
As part of the $297.7 billion spending plan the Legislature sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday, a bill enacted days earlier allocates $700 million to Capitol renovations and exempts the project from Environmental law constraints. Lawmakers passed the budget as Newsom arrived in Atlanta to attend the presidential debate as a surrogate for the Biden campaign. He is expected to return to Sacramento on Friday and must sign the budget before it takes effect Monday.
The project involves demolishing a 70-year-old portion of the building known as the “Annex” – which contains the governor’s office suite, committee hearing rooms and offices for dozens of lawmakers – and replacing it with a larger, more accessible Buildings take their place. The main part of the Capitol, originally built in the 1800s, including the Rotunda and the Assembly and Senate chambers, was restored in the 1980s and remains open to the public while the office building is under construction.
The then-Gov. Jerry Brown approved the project in 2018; although demolition has begun, construction has been hampered by lawsuits to protect Capitol Park’s impressive trees, historic buildings and access to the West Lawn, the site of many protests and press conferences. delayed.
Democrats seeking CEQA exemptions say it is necessary to save taxpayers money and avoid being locked in endless lawsuits that could further extend construction times and increase costs. But critics of the plan, including Dick Cowan, the former chairman of the Historic State Capitol Commission, said the move was “sneaky.”
“It’s absolutely horrific. We’ve spent years trying to make this program better,” Cowan said. “This is not good democracy. This is not good government. This shows that there are people who know how to play tricks at the last minute.
State officials supporting the plan say renovations are needed to keep up with safety standards, citing concerns about asbestos and accessibility.
In a lawsuit, a group called Save the Capitol and Save the Trees claimed the project did not meet CEQA requirements. The Sacramento Court of Appeals ruled in 2022 that the project violated the law and was not transparent enough to the public.
In a letter sent to leaders of the Legislative Budget Committee on Saturday, Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco (D-Downey) and Sen. John Laird (D-Santa Cruz) said the state is already working on the project Two environmental impact reports were filed, the size of the parking lot was reduced and plans for a visitor center were scrapped due to CEQA concerns.
Despite years of acquiescing to opponents, “meeting their key demands does not solve the problem,” the lawmakers wrote. The ongoing lawsuit could add as much as $5 million a month to the already expensive program if workers are forced to halt construction, the letter said.
“We have been working hard to address significant concerns about the project, and now this is the best option to protect California taxpayers,” said Laird and Pacheco, who represent them on the Rules Committee, which they oversee.
During a Senate Budget Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) dismissed “narratives” that paint lawmakers as self-serving and said the situation shows how CEQA is being used by special interests abused by the group.
“What’s happening here is actually one of the things that frustrates us all about CEQA — that CEQA is being used to block a project and increase costs to taxpayers for reasons that have nothing to do with the environment,” he said.
Assembly Budget Chairman Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) offered a similar defense.
“I think it’s important for people to understand that this bill is going to save millions of dollars, it’s millions of taxpayer dollars,” Gabriel said before the Legislature passed the legislation Wednesday night.
While many business interests and housing advocates have long called for an overhaul of environmental laws, the Capitol has never embraced broad reform. Instead, lawmakers allowed exemptions in certain circumstances, including new stadiums and student housing. Newsom approved changes to CEQA last year to speed up certain infrastructure projects.
“This is another example of what I call Swiss cheese CEQA,” said Bill Fulton, former director of Rice University’s Kinder Urban Institute and a leading expert on California land use. “The Legislature is not trying to take a logical approach. Every time they get upset about it, they punch a hole in it.
