In the evening, The New York Times nudged down its long lingering headline of "White House Presses for Trump’s Big Bill as Senators Trudge Through Votes" and placed a new headline — with a little red "breaking" — at the top of the page: "Democrats Agree to Roll Back Landmark Environmental Law"

Gov. Gavin Newsom had demanded changes to address the state's housing crisis, a philosophical shift for Democratic leaders.

The SF Chronicle led with "JUST IN: ‘Holy Grail reform’: California passes major overhaul of CEQA" and even included a mention of Alameda:

[S]upporters of the bills say CEQA needs to be reined in. Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, pointed to lawsuits against a food bank in Alameda and a housing development in San Francisco that were both blocked because people sued under CEQA to preserve parking lots. He said the bills passed Monday will make it “easier and faster to build new housing.”

The governor's office issued a press release framing the passage of SB 131 and AB 130 — which remove CEQA review requirements from many in-fill housing and transit projects — "as part of California’s Abundance Agenda."

CEQA for whomst?

These major CEQA reforms come at the same time that Alameda City Council will be meeting in closed session this evening to consider initiating a CEQA lawsuit.

This blog previously touched on the topic: the Oakland Harbor Turning Basins Widening Project. A project to carve out a circular portion of Alameda Island and transport all that dirt away via thousands of truck trips:

CEQA gives cities like Alameda opportunities to try to extract improvements and concessions from massive projects like this port expansion — or like the recently proposed expansion of OAK airport. (City of Alameda was a party initiating and then settling a CEQA lawsuit against the airport expansion.)

Whether CEQA is a useful check or an unfair delay depends very much on one's perspective. What Alameda may see as a fair negotiation might look to some East Oakland residents like an unequal shifting of burdens — or to the Port of Oakland, like an economic threat. Some environmental nonprofits have opposed these changes to CEQA in Sacramento, citing risks to natural resources—and to their own ability to litigate and fundraise.

A question worth asking regularly: Whose abundance are we streamlining?

California's elected leaders are negotiating fraught compromises. That's why leaders in Sacramento would only previously carve out exceptions to CEQA on a project-by-project basis: such as a way for one Sacramento professional sports team to build a new stadium when they threatened to leave, a way for UC Berkeley to overcome neighbors suing under CEQA to cap the university's entire enrollment, and so on The reason why these headlines are headlines is that now the legislature and governor are finally agreeing to topic-wide CEQA reform.

While SB 131 and AB 130 are primarily about transit and housing, there's also a clause of extreme relevance in SB 131 to Alameda Point:

This bill would exempt from CEQA, except when located on natural and protected lands, as defined, a project that consists exclusively of a day care center, as specified, a project that consists exclusively of a federally qualified health center or a rural health clinic, as specified, a project that consists exclusively of a nonprofit food bank or food pantry, as specified, and a project that consists exclusively of a facility for advanced manufacturing, as specified.

This is effectively a list of all of the projects around Alameda that the two local litigants have targeted or threatened with CEQA lawsuits: the Alameda Food Bank, a hydroelectric R&D manufacturing business at Alameda, and a daycare center. (It could potentially also apply to the future Veterans Affairs facility at Alameda Point.)

I've only skimmed SB 131 and will claim little expertise in this topic besides knowing how to press Ctrl-F, but I assume this legislation still leaves in place current CEQA review processes for major legacy infrastructure projects such as ports and airports.

This feels like an appropriate step forward: removing some of the legal brakes that have held back housing development; empowered NIMBYs to block daycare centers, hospitals, and other visible urban services; and added years of costly environmental review to new transit projects such as California High-Speed Rail — while leaving CEQA in place, at least for now, as it applies to ports, airports, highways, water, and energy.

Onward as we defend our current residents and build toward 60 million — or more — Californians!