By Reina Tello : capitolweekly – excerpt

OPINION – Last week, AB 1633 passed the State Senate by a single vote despite a strong campaign by environmental justice advocates to stop the bill. Unless vetoed by the Governor, this bill will tip the scales in favor of powerful development and industry interests and against everyday Californians and vulnerable communities.

AB 1633 undermines the core purposes of CEQA in fundamental ways. First, it allows developers to sue a city if they disagree with the city’s decisions about environmental review for housing projects—and to recover their attorneys’ fees if they prevail in the suit. For example, a developer could sue a city for requiring an Environmental Impact Report when the developer claims the project is exempt from CEQA. Critically, such lawsuits can be filed before the city acts to approve or deny the project, and even before the public has had a meaningful opportunity to comment on its effect. Worse yet, the mere threat of these lawsuits is likely to cause cities to forego necessary environmental analysis, even for projects proposed in communities suffering from long-term pollution…

Second, the bill effectively bars community groups from recovering their attorneys’ fees in CEQA suits challenging housing even when meeting the stringent requirements for private attorneys general after a court rules in their favor on the merits. This new rule means that only monied interests can sue to enforce CEQA; environmental justice groups, who depend on attorneys taking cases on a contingent basis, cannot. This change is unprecedented and will rob vulnerable communities of their most effective tool for safeguarding the public health and safety.…(more)

We need to call the Governor’s office on AB 1633. Any bill that barely passed in the Senate must have a lot of public opposition. We need to magnify that opposition by shaming the Sacramento politicians who are engaged in reducing our rights to question every aspect of state decisions. There is nothing more dangerous to our society than a government that silences its people. California officials can hardly make a case against oppressive behavior in other states when our state government is taking repressive actions against us. They are playing a dangerous game with our country and putting the Democratic Party at risk of losing more votes in the House and Senate as more California voters shift their alliance to a non-party status. Some links to reps: https://discoveryink.wordpress.com/ca-legislative-process/

We need to contact our representatives in Washington to convince them to make the case for us as well. Start with the candidates for the Senate seat. We need their support to stop this slide into autocracy if they want to continue to control the Senate and take back the House. All this is not happening in a vacuum. The nation is watching. In California: Find your Senator / Find your House Representative