Environmental champion Jerry Hill to chair key committee

On Tuesday, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg announced the appointment of Senator Jerry Hill to chair the Senate Environmental Quality Committee. We congratulate Senator Hill and look forward to working with him in his new position!

Some of the most significant environmental legislation – good and bad – on air quality, land use, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and other important issues go through the Environmental Quality Committee, so we are grateful that Pro Tem Steinberg appointed an environmental champion to chair the committee. Senator Hill, who has earned a lifetime score of 97% on CLCV’s Environmental Scorecard, has been a tireless advocate for environmental protection and a champion of measures to improve public health during his twenty years of public service.

The Senate Environmental Quality Committee has always been important to the environmental community, and this year is no exception. Implementation of California’s preeminent climate law, AB 32, is under way and already facing attacks by the oil industry. Numerous efforts to weaken and reform CEQA, California’s environmental bill of rights, have also been initiated.  It is the Senate Environmental Quality Committee that serves as one of the main backstops to prevent damaging reforms or attacks on these critical laws, while also serving as a public forum for legislation to be reviewed and discussed. As you may remember, CEQA was under attack in the final days of session last year. With the help of thousands of CLCV members and dozens of allied organizations, and leadership from Senate Pro Tem Steinberg, we were able to stop the last minute attempt to gut this keystone law.  Though we were successful, we remain vigilant as the 2013-14 legislative session begins.  Statements from Governor Brown, several legislators, and many interest groups made it clear that a CEQA overhaul would be at the forefront of legislative action this year.

Though we expected there would be several bills introduced to change CEQA, it wasn’t until last Friday’s deadline for introducing bills that we could gain a sense of what they would look like. As bills very rarely go unaltered during the nine month legislative session, it is likely that what we see now will change considerably before the session ends September 13th. Many of the introduced bills propose broadly supported clarifications and updates to CEQA, including mandating the translation of notices and summaries and requiring electronic notices. Two bills (introduced by Assemblymember Dickinson and Senator Corbett) would establish separate special courts that would hear only CEQA and land use cases. As has become common in recent years, there are a few bills that propose special “one-off” CEQA exemptions for various projects. What many referred to last year as Senate Bill 317, Senator Rubio’s CEQA “reform” bill, has been officially introduced by Senator Tom Berryhill as SB 787. We will be monitoring this bill closely as it moves through policy committees this year.

All of these bills taken together are a mixed bag – some could improve and strengthen CEQA, while others could weaken it. We’ll be following all of these bills closely throughout the session.

The bill that’s gotten the most attention is SB 731, introduced by Senate Pro Tem Steinberg. Senator Steinberg had been working with former Senator Michael Rubio on a major CEQA bill, but on the day that Steinberg introduced his bill, Rubio resigned to take a job with Chevron. Despite this shakeup, Pro Tem Steinberg introduced the bill, which is a product of months of meetings with various stakeholders, including environmentalists and business representatives.

We greatly appreciate Senator Steinberg’s work on this important issue thus far, and the energy he’s put towards crafting a bill that would uphold the pillars of CEQA. His appointment of environmental champion Jerry Hill to chair the Senate’s leading committee on CEQA issues further demonstrates his commitment to maintaining the benefits of this critical environmental law.

It looks like it will be another busy year in the Capitol, and we look forward to working with Senator Steinberg, Environmental Quality Chair Senator Hill, and other environmental leaders on moving our environmental protections forward.