Critics Call New California CEQA Bill a ‘Backroom Deal’ That Harms Communities

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SACRAMENTO, CA – Environmental justice groups and conservation advocates are sounding the alarm over a controversial budget trailer bill that they say amounts to the most sweeping rollback of environmental protections in California in decades. The legislation, Senate Bill and Assembly Bill 131, is being fast-tracked through the Legislature as part of a broader budget deal and would weaken the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s premier environmental law.

In a press conference Friday organized by the CEQA Works coalition, advocates condemned the trailer bill as a “backroom deal” negotiated without public input, expert testimony, or transparency. The proposal would exempt certain large-scale industrial developments from environmental review, allow public agencies to withhold critical decision-making documents from the public, and weaken legal protections for endangered species, air and water quality, and community health.

“This is literally the largest rollback of environmental protections being proposed in at least the last 25 years—if not longer—in the state of California,” said Severn Williams, a representative of CEQA Works. “It’s being rushed through the legislative process, tied to the state budget, and being sold as progress. In truth, it’s a disgrace.”

Asha Sharma, state policy manager with the Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, called the bill “a backroom, last-minute deal” that conditions funding for healthcare, education, and other public services on gutting the state’s most important environmental review process.

“If the only way this change can be made is by keeping it out of the public eye and conditioning it on the passage of the entire state budget, then it stands to reason that the people of California do not want this change,” Sharma said. “This is not just bad policy. It is fundamentally undemocratic and morally indefensible.”

Sharma emphasized that the burden of the bill would fall disproportionately on lower-income communities of color already overwhelmed by industrial pollution. “This budget deal is an attack on the communities that consistently get cited for harmful industrial projects,” she said. “These communities won’t even get the bare minimum transparency and review of environmental harms. It is absolutely abhorrent.”

Francis Tinney, staff attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the bill would fast-track the destruction of habitats critical to the survival of threatened species like the California tiger salamander, the kit fox, and red-legged frogs. “It’s an incredibly sad day for wildlife in California,” Tinney said. “The new bill will make it easier for developers and polluters to advance projects without any effort to mitigate impacts to wildlife. We’re in the middle of an extinction crisis because of human activity. This will only accelerate it.”

Tinney warned that, under the proposed changes, developers would no longer be required to conduct science-based reviews or implement mitigation measures. “There will be no analysis, no mediation, no awareness,” she said. “Developers will build polluting projects and the law won’t even ask them to look and see what species they’re destroying.”

She also raised concerns about the administrative record provisions in the bill, which limit what information becomes part of the public and legal record during CEQA litigation. “Even for projects that are not exempt, this bill gives developers an advantage by letting agencies exclude important documents from the record. It’s a thumb on the scale in favor of polluters,” she said.

Raquel Mason, senior legislative manager with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said the legislation amounts to an “all-out attack” on communities that have long borne the brunt of California’s industrial pollution. “Fighting for environmental justice in California’s most disadvantaged communities has always been a major uphill battle,” Mason said. “Today, the Legislature is proposing to erect a mountain in front of us that we might never be able to scale.

“If this bill passes, it will allow toxic projects to be built right next to communities with no concern for people’s well-being and no way to stop it,” she said. “This is not just a betrayal. It’s an assault.”

Mason also denounced the process by which the legislation was crafted. “It was drafted behind closed doors with no public input, no hearings, and no time to push back,” she said. “Why is our Democratic supermajority behaving like the Trump administration? Why are they putting forth the biggest attack on environmental law in decades and tying it to the budget?”

Matthew Baker, policy director for the Planning and Conservation League, said the bill’s impacts are far broader than legislators are claiming. “This is not a housing bill, as many have been led to believe,” he said. “This bill allows for toxic industrial activity, weakens tribal rights, sidelines science, increases wildfire risk, and does all of that without public review.”

Baker criticized the inclusion of an exemption for “advanced manufacturing facilities,” a category he said is so vaguely defined it could apply to facilities producing everything from semiconductors to nuclear materials. “There are no safeguards, no setbacks, and no process to prevent these from being built near people’s homes,” he said. “It’s a blank check for pollution.”

He also expressed concern about the so-called “near miss” provision, which allows projects that narrowly fail to qualify for CEQA exemptions to undergo a weakened form of environmental review. “It’s legally confusing, it’s not workable, and it will lead to years of litigation,” Baker said. “We already have mitigated negative declarations for limited reviews—this just muddies the water.”

Asked for examples of why full CEQA review is necessary, advocates pointed to past disasters. Tinney cited the Guenoc Valley development in Lake County, where an environmental impact report revealed inadequate wildfire evacuation plans. “That EIR was reviewed by the attorney general, who ended up suing and forcing improvements,” she said. “Without that review, people would have been trapped.”

Sharma mentioned a proposed hydrogen facility in Pixley, located just 300 feet from people’s homes. “The county tried to skip CEQA entirely,” she said. “That project involved highly explosive materials. If this bill passes, there won’t be anything to stop that from happening.”

As for the process, speakers repeatedly emphasized that the bill was crafted in secret and is being jammed through without scrutiny. “This is the way you do bad things,” said Baker. “This is the way you get things passed that the public would never accept.”

Opponents called on lawmakers to vote down the trailer bill, approve the budget separately, and revisit CEQA changes through a proper legislative process. “There is no reason this bill needs to pass now,” said Sharma. “If the Legislature does vote this rushed deal into law, I fear they’ll look back on this moment with deep regret.”

Speakers urged constituents to contact their representatives before Monday’s scheduled vote. “CEQA is what gives our communities a voice,” said Mason. “Once it’s gone, we won’t get it back.”

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