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California has many problems, but CEQA really is uniquely bad. If I was Californian Emperor, I'd look at the 49 other states that get by without CEQA, and just
by BurningFrog 4y ago
California has many problems, but CEQA really is uniquely bad.
If I was Californian Emperor, I'd look at the 49 other states that get by without CEQA, and just copy the legislation from some state with a good track record on these issues.
- epistasis 4y agoStrong agree, this needs to be reevaluated. In particular, Washington State has fantastic environmental protection laws that don't get in the way of good environments improvements. CEQA is a bad first draft of an environmental law, the definitions are bad, the logic is bad. And CEQA even protected things like level of service of traffic until recently, which greatly increased car traffic and pollution. For the era when it was passed, CEQA was probably good, and it has accomplished lots of good, but today it's causing as many problems as it seems to solve.
- enahs-sf 4y agoI wonder though, if the ballot initiative to repeal and replace it came up, would it stand a snowball’s chance in hell? Prop 13 gets put to the chopping block every few years and seems to always come out unscathed. Wouldn’t the same folks vote to maintain CEQA?
- epistasis 4y agoCEQA could be done legislatively. I think that the recent UC Berkeley outrages have created plenty of support for a fix, in the legislature, where discussion is far less ideological and far more pragmatic than during ballot measures. Which isn't to say it's pragmatic and not ideological, it's just far better than what goes on for ballot measures with millions to billions spent on PR campaigns.