Environment Loopholes Galore

Environmentalists are in a rage over the Wilson administration’s proposed new guidelines for implementing the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), branding them a backdoor attempt to weaken the state’s basic environmental law. Resources Secretary Douglas Wheeler rejects the allegations as alarmist. Clearly the environment remains an emotional issue.

In this dispute, reality falls between the extremes. But a careful reading of the 63 pages of guidelines, and of several legal analyses, does indicate that some proposed rules could become significant loopholes in the application of California’s environmental laws. Wheeler should seriously reconsider before making them final.

CEQA (pronounced see-kwah) was adopted by the Legislature in 1970 and signed into law by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. The law requires an environmental impact study on all major public or private projects, such as construction of a building, a highway or a shopping mall. If a project could cause a major impact on the environment, the impact study must propose a means for mitigating it.

Over the years, the process has allowed activists to challenge a broad array of projects and government actions. Businesses, sometimes joined by labor unions, complained that the legal tie-ups discouraged development and harmed the California economy. But CEQA provisions also put a stop to a lot of bad projects or forced major alterations in them.

In 1993, the Legislature overhauled CEQA to streamline it and reduce the opportunity for obstructive, frivolous lawsuits. The change also required some new administrative guidelines for implementing the law, which the state is now completing. The rules are complex. One proposed guideline would allow an agency to declare that a proposed new project is so small it would not create a significant cumulative impact when combined with the effects of previous projects in the same area. The result could be to understate the real impact of some projects. An analysis by opponents argues that the proposal is in conflict with CEQA itself.

Wheeler has promised to revise any proposed rule that conflicts with state law. His environmentalist critics claim there are 21 such sections out of the 57 proposed new guidelines. Wheeler should make the same sort of examination himself and strike questionable items. Rule-making ought only to facilitate enforcement of the law, not remake it.