CEQA

http://resources.ca.gov/ceqa/

SEE HIGH SPEED RAIL abundance book?

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2026 ELECTIION

OFFICIAL TOP FUNDERS. Valid only for January 2026 MODIFIES ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW FOR CERTAIN PROJECTS. INITIATIVE STATUTE. OFFICIAL TITLE AND SUMMARY (SAME AS ON PETITION) The Attorney General of California has prepared the following circulating title and summary of the chief purpose and points of the proposed measure: (25-0023A1.) MODIFIES ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW FOR CERTAIN PROJECTS. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Amends California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to expedite environmental review of specified project categories (including most housing, transportation, water, health, and clean energy projects). For these types of projects, this measure: • sets deadlines for public agencies to complete environmental review and take required actions for project; • allows expedited review of project’s environmental impacts, limiting public agencies’ current obligation to consider a range of feasible project alternatives to reduce environmental impacts; and • limits court review of project approvals by establishing deadlines for filing and resolving lawsuits and limiting evidence court may consider and relief it can order. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local governments: State and local government implementation costs in the tens of millions of dollars annually for the first several years. Over the long term, the annual net fiscal effects are uncertain, but state and local governments likely would experience net savings due to reduced administrative and legal workload. Net fiscal effects on state trial courts ranging from annual savings of up to the tens of millions of dollars to annual costs of up to the low tens of millions of dollars. (25-0023A1.) Petition circulation paid for by Committee to Build an Affordable California, Sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce Committee major funding from: Edison International & Affiliated Entities California Building Industry Association California Chamber of Commerce Latest Official Top Funders: https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/ballotmeasures/initiative-and-referendum-status/official-top-funders/

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https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-tried-and-failed-make-**electric-bus-**company-proterra-bidens-solyndra

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AN 9 25 GRIST

Seventeen years ago, Californians bet on a grand vision of the future. They narrowly approved a $10 billion bond issue to build a high-speed rail line that would zip between San Francisco and Los Angeles in under three hours. This technological marvel would slash emissions, revitalize the state’s Central Valley, and, with some financial help from the feds and private sector, provide the fast, efficient, and convenient travel Asia and Europe have long enjoyed.

State officials promised to deliver this transit utopia by 2020. Instead, costs have more thandoubled, little track has been laid, and service isn’t expected to begin before 2030 — and only between Bakersfield and Merced, two cities far from the line’s ultimate destinations.

It’s little wonder the project finds itself in a precarious financial position, fighting political headwinds, and deemed a boondoggle by everyone from federal Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy to Abundance authors Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. “In the time California has spent failing to complete its 500-mile high-speed rail system,” they wrote, “China has built more than 23,000 miles of high speed rail.”

The reasons for this vary with who’s being asked, but people with expertise often cite three fundamental missteps: creating a new agency to lead the effort, failing to secure adequate funding from the start, and choosing a route through California’s agricultural heartland. The state’s strict environmental review process hasn’t helped, either.

Such struggles are not unique to the Golden State, where support for the project remains strong. Although the private sector venture Brightline has seen some success, publicly funded high-speed rail efforts in Texas, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and beyond have stalled. Regulatory complexity, a political environment that favors cars and highways, and constant funding challenges stymie America’s aspirations even as other countries have spent big on tens of thousands of miles of track. Governor Gavin Newsom promises to see the nation’s most ambitious rail project through despite recently losing all federal support, but its troubled path underscores the systemic challenges of building big in America.

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California has always been a car-crazy place, and by the early 1990s, transportation studies made clear that its highways would not keep pace with the growth to come. Policymakers saw an answer in bullet trains. The Legislature established the California High-Speed Rail Authority in 1996 and gave it the tough job of planning, designing, building, and running the system.

Some consider that a mistake because the agency lacked experience managing so big a project and navigating complex bureaucracy. Even some rail supporters concede it would have been better to let the authority provide oversight and leave the heavy lifting to the state Department of Transportation, or CalTrans. “It’s building a lot of overpasses and right-of-way, which Caltrans does all the time,” said Ethan Elkind, director of the University of California, Berkeley climate program in its Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment.

Without that experience, the authority’s 10 employees relied heavily on consultants like engineering firm WSP, running up expenses. “We paid WSP and their predecessor more than $800 million in consulting fees,” said Lou Thompson. He chaired the High Speed Rail Peer Review Group, established in 2008 to provide project oversight, from 2012 until 2024. The authority has in recent years eased its reliance on consultants, who reportedly have gone from 70 percent of its workforce to 45 percent over the past seven years.

Once the High-Speed Rail Authority set up shop, work proceeded in fits and starts. Even as it considered routes and started the myriad bureaucratic tasks the project required, political interest waxed and waned with the state’s fiscal health. Skeptics lamented the cost and questioned whether bullet trains would attract enough riders to be worthwhile. But rail advocates, environmentalists, unions, and others kept pushing forward and in 2008 convinced voters to approve Proposition 1A, securing $10 billion to finance construction.

It was never going to be enough — at the time, the cost was pegged at $45 billion, a figure that did not account for inflation — and funding has been a challenge from the start.

Still, the Obama administration saw an opportunity to show that the economy was bouncing back from the Great Recession. The federal American Reinvestment Recovery Act provided $3.5 billion to help get things started. The authority, which had already mapped a route through the Central Valley, soon began grading land, moving utilities, and taking other steps toward construction of the first leg, a 119-mile stretch from Bakersfield to Madera.

Things chugged along until 2013, when a state judge blocked the use of Prop 1A funds, ruling that some of the work did not meet the rules for bond expenditures. With federal support contingent upon the state’s cash, the federal grants had to be renegotiated — before they expired in 2017. “We were literally sitting there saying, ‘Well, if we don’t start going, we could lose $700 or $800 million of the federal money,” said Dan Richard, who was the High-Speed Rail Authority’s board chair from 2011 until 2019. That prompted the agency to do something no one wanted to do: Move forward without having acquired all of the necessary land. So it did.

Then President Donald Trump took office. He seemed interested in what California was attempting to build, having lamented that China and Japan “have fast trains all over the place” while the U.S. relies upon “obsolete technology.” His opinion soured when Gavin Newsom became governor in 2019 and the two sparred over the president’s policies. Trump later canceled nearly $1 billion in federal funds for the rail project.

The Biden administration restored it and provided another $3.1 billion from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The infusion was to help build a station in Fresno and acquire trains for testing. Even with the windfall California remained at least $7 billion short of what it needed for the first short run through the Valley. The situation grew worse in July when Trump rescinded the entire amount after the Federal Railroad Administration said it saw no way of covering that shortfall and no path to completion by 2033.

Newsom said the move “reeks of politics” and the state is suing. But the impact goes beyond California by establishing a precedent to cancel projects at will. “How do you go to your voters and say, ‘Put up the money. We expect 50 percent federal share,’ without knowing that the next administration could turn around and say, ‘I don’t like that project,’” Richard said.

The High-Speed Rail Authority initially planned to rely upon state, federal, and private sector funding in equal measure, but California has provided 75 percent of the $14.6 billion spent so far. The authority wrote in a letter to the Railroad Administration that Newsom’s plan to allocate $1 billion, pulled from the state’s cap-and-trade program, toward the project each year for 20 years will be enough to finish the Central Valley segment. The governor also recently signed a bill requiring the authority to update its estimate on the funding gap for that leg of the journey.

With California seemingly on its own, Thompson said the project needs an income stream approaching $5 billion per year to build everything. That is one reason the authority in June asked the private sector and financial institutions to weigh in on the chance of public-private partnerships. Its CEO Ian Choudri private investors have shown “extreme interest.” VID]

Thompson isn’t buying it. “My opinion is that that is hot air,” he said. The way he sees it, no one’s going to invest until they can see that there is demand for the rail line.

One of the reasons Brightline is held up as an example of how to bring high-speed rail to the United States is its strategy includes building on public land. Part of its 235-mile line between Miami and Orlando stands on land owned by Florida East Coast Railway. The company’s planned run between Las Vegas and L.A. will largely follow Interstate 15.

California could have done the same and built along I-5, which bisects the Central Valley, but chose to go through major population centers 20 to 50 miles to the east. That pivotal decision increased the project’s cost and complexity. Following the freeway would have been straighter and flatter, without the elevated track, tunnels, and other infrastructure needed to traverse cities. The route also turned a state effort into a regional development project beset by local politics.

The High-Speed Rail Authority had good intentions, however. It hopes that bringing rail to places like Merced and Bakersfield might entice Silicon Valley and Los Angeles firms to open offices in the Central Valley, which would be a 90-minute ride from their headquarters. It also would boost local economies left behind by the state’s boom — and it has, to some extent. The project has added 11,000 construction jobs to the region. But that exacted its own toll.

“Those economic benefits have been really substantial, so that sort of worked, but it came at potentially the cost of not being able to build the system at all, because by starting it in the Central Valley they’ve basically blown all the money there,” said Elkind of the UC Berkeley Climate Program. Should the state once again ask voters for money, it would have had a stronger case if initial construction had occurred in major population centers, he said.

The route also created additional hurdles as the project navigated California’s environmental oversight rules. Going through several cities and all that farmland increased the number of stakeholders who had to be consulted, ballooning the environmental review process.

To be fair, the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, has long protected the state’s rich biodiversity. But some rail proponents argue it has been used to stymie progress. High-Speed Rail Authority data shows it has spent more than $765 million on environmental review. Lawsuits stemming from CEQA can be particularly expensive. “If you have a $100 billion project, and let’s say that interest rates are 3% a year, every year’s delay costs you $3 billion,” Thompson said. “A $50,000 lawsuit can delay you for a year, and so there’s an enormous pressure on you to try to bargain your way out of these kinds of situations.”

California recently loosened CEQA requirements for the rail system’s maintenance facilities and stations, a move Newsom cheered. “These are very targeted exemptions that will help cut red tape and deliver on California’s vision of high-speed rail without compromising environmental protections,” gubernatorial spokesperson Daniel Villaseñor wrote in an email.

Whether that reform has an impact remains to be seen, because most of the environmental review is already completed. And regulation was never the project’s biggest problem. “It just seems like the easy, obvious answer,” said Hana Creger, associate director of climate equity at The Greenlining Institute. “But I think these things are a lot more complex.”

Given all of this, it can be easy to lose sight of what progress has been made. The authority is quick to note that 463 miles of the 494-mile system has cleared the environmental review process and is “construction ready.” It also boasts of having laid 70 miles of guideway — meaning track, elevated structures, or other riding surface — and erected 57 structures. All told, the project has created more than 15,500 jobs since its inception.

Despite the challenges, Newsom remains steadfast in his determination to see Californians one day riding the trains they were promised so many years ago. ,” he said in May. “That’s our commitment.” That will surely resonate with his constituents; recent polling shows 62 percent of voters believe the state should continue financing the project, though opinions split sharply along partisan lines. Still, experts caution that support isn’t enough. Tangible progress and credible funding streams are essential to maintain momentum.

The High-Speed Rail Authority seems to understand this and is pressing ahead to connect Bakersfield to either Merced or Gilroy. There’s a lot to do before crews start laying track, but the goal is to finish that run by 2032 and the authority recently opened the bidding process to begin installing track next year. Looking further ahead, its latest plan, released late last month, calls for extending the line south to Palmdale by 2038, putting it within 80 miles of San Francisco and 40 miles of L.A. at a cost of $87 billion. “While challenges remain, so too does the potential to deliver a modern transportation system worthy of the state’s ambitions — one that reflects the scale, complexity, and promise of California itself,” Choudri wrote in the plan. “Let’s go build it.”

Assuming the project retains its $4 billion federal grants, the project has $29 billion available, with an additional $15 billion from Newsom’s proposal, according to the CHSRA. Thompson said the governor’s proposal, which would set aside $1 billion every year for the project, should keep it alive for the next four years. Beyond that, it will need an infusion of cash, likely from voters but possibly from a future presidential administration. “I think the path forward is that they could show some first segment success and then go back to the voters,” Elkind said. “You just got to get through this first era here, and get something built that they can show to the voters.”

Ultimately, California’s high-speed rail is more than a train line; it is a test of the nation’s ability to deliver transformative infrastructure. Its path forward remains uncertain, but every mile of track laid could lead to a turning point — not just for the state, but for the broader goal of building the kind of transportation network other countries take for granted.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/transportation/billions-spent-miles-to-go-the-story-of-californias-failure-to-build-high-speed-rail/.

Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future. Learn more at Grist.org

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2022 bankrupt ~ SLAPP

https://www.desmogblog.com/2017/04/03/youth-color-lawsuit-los-angeles-drilling-discrimination-oil-industry

After Los Angeles Youth Sued City for Discriminatory Drilling Practices, the Oil Industry Sued Back

By Ashley Braun • Monday, April 3, 2017

Boy playing basketball at Beverly Hills High School next to a covered oil derrick

Los Angeles is a city built on oil, and even today more than a thousand derricks still pump it from the shallow reserves beneath the city. While some oil wells are camouflaged behind colorfully painted towers or bland beige structures resembling office buildings, many of them draw up crude oil in the open, surprisingly close to homes, stores, restaurants, schools, and churches.

“Every time I go to school,” 18-year-old Brandon Molina told DeSmog, “I walk by these oil drilling sites. They’re around my school. So, it’s something that I see every day.”

In LA, the number of residents living less than a mile from an oil well is in the tens of thousands. But how close you live to a drilling site may depend on the color of your skin and socioeconomic status, placing communities of color disproportionately at risk, according to a lawsuit brought by three LA youth groups against the City of LA.

And while the City took steps to address the complaints by amending its drilling application process and ultimately settled with the youth groups in September 2016, both parties are currently facing a counter lawsuit.

This legal battle has been brought by a state-based oil and gas trade group, theCalifornia Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA), which argues that after a judge granted it permission to participate in the youth lawsuit settlement discussions, it was allegedly blocked from doing so.

Molina is a freshman attending community college in the LA neighborhood of Wilmington. He is a youth organizer with one of the groups filing the original lawsuit, Youth for Environmental Justice, a program of the California-focused nonprofitCommunities for a Better Environment.

These youth groups, which also include the South Central Youth Leadership Coalition and youth members of the Center for Biological Diversity, first filed suit against the City of LA in November 2015.

wiki

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a California statute passed in 1970,^[1] shortly after the United States federal government passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), to institute a statewide policy of environmental protection. CEQA does not directly regulate land uses, but instead requires state and local agencies within California to follow a protocol of analysis and public disclosure of environmental impacts of proposed projects and adopt all feasible measures to mitigate those impacts.^[2] CEQA makes environmental protection a mandatory part of every California state and local agency's decision making process. It has also become the basis for numerous lawsuits concerning public and private projects.

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Policy

The CEQA statute, California Public Resources Code § 21000 et seq., codifies a statewide policy of environmental protection. According to CEQA, all state and local agencies must give major consideration to environmental protection in regulating public and private activities, and should not approve projects for which there exist feasible and environmentally superior mitigation measures or alternatives.^[3]

CEQA process overview

CEQA mandates actions all state and local agencies must take to advance that policy. Specifically, for any project under CEQA's jurisdiction with potentially significant environmental impacts, agencies must identify mitigation measures and alternatives by preparing an Environmental Impact Report, and must approve projects with feasible mitigation measures and the environmentally superior alternative.^[4] The California Resources Agency promulgates the CEQA Guidelines, California Code of Regulations Title 14 § 15000 et seq., which detail the protocol by which state and local agencies comply with CEQA requirements. Appendix A of the CEQA Guidelines summarizes this protocol in flowchart form.^[5] CEQA originally applied to only public projects, but California Supreme Court interpretation of the statute, as well as later revisions to the wording, have expanded the CEQA's jurisdiction to nearly all projects within California, including those accomplished by private businesses and individuals. § 21002.1: "Each public agency shall mitigate or avoid the significant effects on the environment of projects that it carries out or approves whenever it is feasible to do so." For private projects, CEQA applies when a government permit or other entitlement for use is necessary.

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National Environmental Policy Act

NEPA, a United States federal statute passed the year before CEQA, is similar to CEQA in that both statutes set forth a policy of environmental protection, and a protocol by which all agencies in their respective jurisdictions make environmental protection part of their decision making process.

NEPA is narrower in scope than CEQA. NEPA applies only to projects receiving federal funding or approval by federal agencies, while CEQA applies to projects receiving any form of state or local approval, permit, or oversight. 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.

The environmental impact statement (EIS) required under NEPA and the EIR required under CEQA are similar documents, yet have some crucial differences. For example, under NEPA, an agency can list all reasonable alternatives and their impacts, then choose the worst one for the environment. Under CEQA, the lead agency can approve a project without mitigations or alternatives only if the agency adopts a Statement of Overriding Considerations, which details specific overriding economic, legal, social, technological, or other considerations that outweigh the project's significant, unmitigated impacts. If a major federal project, or project using federal funds is seeking approval in California, its lead agency must prepare both an EIS and an EIR, but both can be combined into one document (since the EIS and EIR have the same elements for the most part).

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/ceqa-727851-housing-report.html

holland & K

About Governor Wilson’s formation of a California EPA, in particular the movement of state authority on pesticides from Food and Agriculture to the new

EPA, Farm Bureau president Jay Schneider, “We are concerned that farm families will not understand why our governor … would … embrace the desires

of Tom Hayden.” Hayden praised the governor for his actions “in the face of extraordinary opposition from the agricultural chemical interests.”[[90]](http://americong.com/origins-green-energy-occupy-wall-street/#_ftn90)

CEQA

Contents

Policy

CEQA process overview

National Environmental Policy Act