California has long prided itself on being a national leader in both environmental protection and progressive policymaking. But today, some of the state’s own environmental regulations—particularly the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)—are at the center of an intensifying political divide on the left.
CEQA, once a cornerstone of the state’s environmental ethos, has increasingly become a target of criticism among liberal lawmakers, housing advocates, and infrastructure boosters who see it as a well-intended but increasingly misused law that obstructs essential progress.
At its core, CEQA was designed to ensure that new developments are environmentally responsible. It mandates that state and local agencies assess and disclose the potential environmental impacts of projects they oversee or approve. This kind of transparency and accountability remains vital in a state with such ecological diversity and environmental vulnerability.
But over time, the law has become vulnerable to exploitation. Rather than serving as a tool to safeguard the environment, CEQA is often used to delay, alter, or block projects for reasons unrelated to environmental protection—whether to extract labor concessions, fight neighborhood change, or obstruct development altogether.
Indeed, some of the loudest voices for CEQA reform today are liberal Democrats—legislators like Assemblymember Buffy Wicks and Senator Scott Wiener—who argue that the status quo is failing the very communities progressive policies claim to support.
Governor Gavin Newsom, in demanding that lawmakers reform CEQA as part of the 2025 budget negotiations, has bluntly said: “We’ve got to get out of our damn way. It’s code red for this state.”
CEQA reform proposals tied to the budget would exempt most urban apartment construction and a range of other public-interest projects, including farmworker housing and high-speed rail stations, from the state’s often years-long environmental review process.
What’s driving this change?
In short, CEQA’s application has far outgrown its original scope. As Ezra Klein has pointed out, the law doesn’t require that a project be beneficial or harmful to the environment—it only demands exhaustive documentation of any potential impacts, including ones as diffuse as noise or student enrollment growth. That’s how a CEQA lawsuit was used to delay UC Berkeley’s plan to build student housing, arguing that more students would mean more trash and disruption.
Similarly, Klein notes that CEQA treats clean energy installations with the same legal scrutiny as fossil fuel infrastructure, leading to delays in solar farms and transit-oriented development. When environmental law can be used to block climate solutions, the result is self-defeating.
These frustrations gave rise to what has been called the “Abundance” movement—an emerging school of thought among some progressives that challenges the way liberal policy, however well-meaning, has inadvertently created bottlenecks to public goods.
Spearheaded by Klein and journalist Derek Thompson, the movement argues that progressive ideals must be matched with functional governance—that is, the ability to actually build housing, infrastructure, and clean energy.
While the Abundance framework has attracted criticism for being overly technocratic or inattentive to marginalized communities, it speaks to a real political anxiety: that Democratic-run states and cities are struggling to deliver results in the face of overlapping crises in housing, climate, and affordability.
It’s no accident that the movement’s political roots are in California. This is the state where liberal governance faces its most serious stress test. California has both the nation’s most ambitious environmental laws and its most severe housing shortage. It has some of the most powerful labor unions and some of the highest construction costs. And it’s where environmental review can take longer than building the project itself.
As Klein told Governor Newsom on a recent podcast appearance, California’s cities “weren’t doing well” despite being governed by people with ostensibly the right values. “People were unhappy, people were leaving.”
The problem isn’t that CEQA is too strong in its environmental values. It’s that it lacks a balancing mechanism. It doesn’t distinguish between environmentally destructive projects and those that advance environmental goals. It doesn’t prioritize green energy over fossil fuel development, or affordable housing over luxury expansion. It creates no threshold for reasonableness—only for volume and thoroughness of impact studies.
As the Little Hoover Commission, a good-government watchdog, recently concluded: CEQA’s bias toward the status quo “can be used to block projects that would help improve the environment.”
The backlash to CEQA reform is also telling.
Unions, which often use CEQA lawsuits to negotiate labor agreements or secure higher wages, have historically opposed changes to the law—not necessarily out of environmental concern, but to protect a valuable bargaining chip. Environmental justice advocates, for their part, fear that CEQA reform could sideline community voices and allow harmful projects to slip through without adequate scrutiny.
Their concerns are not unfounded, especially given the long history of environmental racism and land use injustices in California. But too often, critiques of CEQA reform focus on how the law could be abused if weakened, while overlooking how it is already being abused under its current form.
Indeed, only a small fraction of CEQA lawsuits come from groups with a history of environmental advocacy. A study conducted over a decade ago found that only 13 percent of CEQA litigation was brought by such groups. The rest often come from individuals or organizations using CEQA as a procedural tool to halt projects for reasons that have little to do with air quality or ecosystems.
Whether it’s homeowners fighting apartments near transit, labor groups seeking concessions, or institutions blocking competitors, CEQA has become a flexible weapon for obstruction—especially in courtrooms, where delay is as good as denial.
That’s why reformers like Wicks are now pressing for targeted, conditional exemptions that would preserve CEQA’s essential protections while removing its most damaging excesses. Her bill, for instance, would require prevailing wages only on certain projects—such as tall buildings or fully affordable developments—while granting smaller-scale housing developers more flexibility. It’s an attempt at balance: to keep labor standards high where appropriate, but not make housing unaffordable by default.
None of this is to say CEQA should be scrapped or weakened beyond recognition. Environmental protections remain essential in a state vulnerable to drought, fire, pollution, and habitat loss. But California needs an environmental review process that is fast, fair, and fit for purpose in the 21st century. One that helps us achieve climate goals, not just document how we might fall short. One that enables housing for people who live and work in our cities, not one that drives them away.
The emergence of the Abundance agenda and the renewed push for CEQA reform are symptoms of a deeper reckoning: Can progressive governance deliver tangible results in a world of intersecting crises? Or will it remain paralyzed by its own procedural commitments and interest group politics?
Looks like the support for CEQA reform was overwhelming…
Ok, what the heck is Roger Niello doing?
“It doesn’t distinguish between environmentally destructive projects and those that advance environmental goals.”
What the heck does that mean?