On April 27, RCRC testified before the state’s Little Hoover Commission on the Effects of CEQA.  This was the Commission’s third hearing on the benefits and challenges posed by California’s landmark environmental disclosure and mitigation law.   

RCRC Policy Advocate, John Kennedy, and General Counsel, Arthur Wylene, spoke of CEQA’s commendable underlying goals of better informing stakeholders/decisionmakers and mitigating a project’s significant impacts on the environment; however, they also noted that CEQA has expanded into a complex regulatory obligation with serious consequences resulting from procedural or substantive missteps.  As a result, CEQA is often maligned as a litigation trap that can be exploited by those seeking competitive gain or to stop projects altogether.   

RCRC spoke to: 

  • Ways in which CEQA is exploited by various interest groups to chill competition, extract concessions from project developers, or kill projects altogether. 

  • Challenges with CEQA reforms either focusing only on arenas and mega-projects or being riddled with exceptions that make many exemptions unworkable. 

  • CEQA’s failure to take into consideration the extensive environmental laws and safeguards that have arisen since CEQA’s enactment in 1970. 

  • How one-size-fits-all approaches to CEQA evaluation and mitigation, like the shift to reliance on Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) are simply unworkable in rural areas. 

RCRC’s written comments to the Little Hoover Commission can be found here.   

For more information, please contact RCRC Policy Advocate, John Kennedy, or RCRC General Counsel, Arthur Wylene.