Governor Gavin Newsome required his State Assembly to pass two bills – AB 130 and SB 131 to address California’s housing crisis. He made their passage a condition for signing the state’s 2025-2026 budget act.
Environmental groups vehemently opposed the two bills, but it appears as though Newsome attempted to move to the political center to make a 2028 presidential run.
Fifty five years ago, in 1970, then Governor Ronald Reagan signed into law the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) forcing state and local agencies to provide analysis of impacts of proposed projects and adopt all feasible measures to mitigate those impacts. It is the equivalent of the Federal National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) that has strangled American ingenuity and prosperity.
Two years after signing the legislation, the California Supreme Court broadened the CEQA statute declaring that a “public” project being developed needed government approval. The CEQA then became the main reason for anyone, including environmental groups, to file lawsuits slowing building projects by years or killing them all together.
As a typical government program, by 2021, the CEQA guidelines explaining how reviews must be carried out, had grown from an initial 10-page checklist to over 500 pages contributing to California’s housing shortage.
The California housing crisis began when the Supreme Court made its ruling 55 years ago causing the nation’s highest homelessness rate with tens of thousands of citizens living on the streets. In fact, nine of the 10 least affordable cities in the nation are located in California and the state needs 3.5 million housing units, but only has 100,000 built each year.
Newsom and the use of California’s CEQA regulations have been one of the main reasons for their homelessness crisis.
The two bills:
- Streamline CEQA review to speed up housing projects including farmworker housing;
- Provide faster housing permitting and approvals that limits certain Coastal Commission housing appeals and other key housing acts;
- Freeze new residential building standards through 2031 (helping Newsome’s presidential run) and other key elements.
The Los Angeles Times reports on Newsom’s environmental turn here.
