CEQA Legislative Updates – Flurry of Hearings on the Horizon

The first PCL-supported CEQA bill, AB 380 (Dickinson), passed out of its first committee hearing on April 1^st as well.  Thanks to all who signed on in support of this bill that will mandate electronic notice posting and ensure that the scoping process is public!  We are still gathering support as this bill will go to a second committee hearing on May 1^st; click here  to see the support letter and email aokrent@pcl.org to add your organization.

We are supporting several other positive CEQA bills that will be coming up for hearing soon.  To add your support for any of them, email aokrent@pcl.org.  PCL-sponsored AB 953  (Ammiano) would make environmental reviews take into account the effects of the physical environment (e.g., building in a floodplain, near a fault line, etc.) on the project in order to protect public safety; it will be heard in Assembly Natural Resources Committee on April 15^th, and you can view the support letter here.  AB 543 (Campos) will require that certain key notices be translated if a significant portion of the population affected by the project is limited English proficient; that’s set for hearing in Assembly Natural Resources on April 29, and the support letter is here.

A number of CEQA bills are coming up for hearing in the Senate Environmental Quality Committee on May 1^st, including PCL-supported SB 617 (Evans) and SB 754 (Evans); to view fact sheets on SB  617 click here.  Check back on our website for updates on SB 754 as the language gets introduced.

While good CEQA bills are garnering lots of support, there are still a few bad bills including a CEQA exemption for landfills (AB 794 (Gorell)) and two standards bills, AB 1302  (Hagman) and SB 787   (Berryhill).

For a summary of all 28 CEQA bills and PCL’s position on them, check out our full list on our website. Contact Abigail Okrent for more information or to add your organization to our various support and oppose letters.