Gov. Gavin Newsom plans to introduce a sweeping bill of laws and sign an executive order Friday to facilitate the construction of transportation, clean energy, water and other infrastructure across California. This step is intended to capitalize on a cash injection from the Biden government to promote climate-friendly construction projects.
The proposal aims to shorten the procurement process for bridge and water projects, limit environmental litigation deadlines, and simplify approval of complicated developments in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and elsewhere.
Overall, administration officials hope the package could accelerate project construction by more than three years and cut costs by hundreds of millions of dollars – efforts they say are needed to meet the state’s aggressive climate goals.
Newsom unveiled the proposal Thursday at an event in Sacramento, calling it “the most ambitious streamlining, licensing and judicial reform in our state in half a century.”
“This is a profound moment,” Newsom said.
Newsom is expected to formally release his 11-bill bill plan at a Friday morning news conference in Stanislaus County.
Administration officials said they want to integrate the package into the 2023-24 state budget, which has to be passed by both houses of the legislature by June 15. Lawmakers are currently negotiating the final details of the budget with Newsom’s office.
At the heart of Newsom’s plan is the California Environmental Quality Act — a polarizing 1970 statute that supposedly helps preserve the state’s natural beauty but is often criticized for putting needed housing, energy and transportation projects in litigation blocked.
The proposal makes no significant changes to the law, which requires officials, agencies and developers to fully consider and publicize a project’s impact on the existing environment. Rather, it seeks to limit the length of time that CEQA lawsuits can drag on in court.
The proposal aims to prevent lawsuits against certain projects in the water, transport, clean energy, semiconductor and microelectronics sectors from lasting more than nine months.
Eligible projects include the governor’s $16 billion plan to build a tunnel to transport water to southern California under the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, water recycling and desalination plants, solar arrays, offshore wind farms and power transmission, according to government officials .
The idea is similar to existing practices that have helped speed construction of NBA arenas in San Francisco and Sacramento, as well as other major projects across the state.
Additional CEQA changes in the plan would give government agencies more control over deciding what is needed in a project’s official administrative records, overturning a recent Court of Appeals decision that required the inclusion of internal emails in those records. The litigation over the e-mail issue related to a large residential and commercial development in San Diego County lasted almost two years after it was approved.
For decades there have been debates about speeding up the state’s sluggish process of building critical infrastructure. Major reforms often foundered in the thicket of environmental, development, local government, and labor interests influential in the Capitol. Newsom said Thursday his administration had made an organized effort to get advocacy groups on board.
Gayle Miller, deputy director for policy at the state Treasury Department, told The Times that the plan offers a “sound approach” to addressing CEQA.
“We are not trying to destroy our environmental protection in California. But we’re definitely trying to say enough is enough,” Miller said. “We must move forward and transition the state to its clean energy future.”
Newsom said it’s important to make changes now because there is a projected $180 billion in state and federal funding available for infrastructure in California over the next decade, an amount increased by allocations from the President Biden-signed Infrastructure and climate change legislation is increased.
“It’s one of the most significant investments in California history,” Newsom said. “The only thing standing in our way is the world we invent.”
To kick-start this process, Newsom is expected to sign an executive order directing various government agencies to work together and form an infrastructure attack team, which will theoretically take care of projects that need to be completed and make sure they get to their destination come line.
The newly available federal money also includes many clean energy grants and other competitive grants. For California to win, it must show the federal government it can deliver, the governor said.
Newsom, a Democrat, said those investments would be at risk if talks in Washington about raising the debt limit collapsed.
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) said Republicans would agree to raise the limit only if Biden agreed to roll back certain provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, which include ambitious climate plans and funding for infrastructure projects.
“If Kevin McCarthy has his way, that’s going to set us back,” Newsom said Thursday. “What he promotes would have a devastating effect on our progress.”
Other elements of the Newsom package would remove contractual barriers that government agencies encounter when starting and completing their projects.
Newsom wants to allow the State Department of Water Resources and the California Department of Transportation to use a more flexible contracting process for up to eight complex projects each, which could streamline construction and reduce logistical issues that cause delays. Another proposal would allow the transportation department to use a simpler contracting model that could shave months off a project’s schedule.
Departments could use these streamlining tactics to build bridges more quickly, upgrade dams, repair aqueducts, or maintain the state’s highway system. The package would also expedite three planned wildlife crossings along Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County.
The final part of Newsom’s plan would streamline Caltrans’ conservation efforts and approval of projects that affect endangered species or are in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
