by Katy Grimes, Senior Media Fellow and California Globe Editor
As appearing in the California Globe
The bill would expedite CEQA litigation, when used to delay or slay a project
A bill by Sen. Anna Caballero (D-Salinas) to expedite California Environmental Quality Act provisions and judicial reviews on many types of developments, exposed a divide in the State Senate Thursday.
The idea behind SB 25 is to expedite CEQA litigation, when used to delay or slay a project. “SB 25 is a modest attempt to join forces with a federal tax credit designed to funnel an estimated $6 trillion from capital gains earnings into America’s poorest neighborhoods to create jobs and housing,” Caballero said. “SB 25 creates an incentive for green, sustainable development for critical housing statewide, and for economic development in the 879 Opportunity Zones, which includes California’s poorest census tracts.”
“If the Legislature can deliver CEQA litigation streamlining for billionaire sports team owners, then we can do it for all Californians,” Caballero said in bill analysis. “Many of the recently enacted sports stadium legislation language stems from SB 743 (Steinberg, Chapter 386, Statutes of 2013), which laid out special procedures for expedited judicial and administrative review of an EIR for the Sacramento Kings arena. SB 25 goes further, also applying the expedited judicial review procedures to challenges to NDs and MNDs and to a determination that the project is exempt from CEQA.”
