October 27, 2026
By Santa Cruz Sentinel Editorial Board
The California Environmental Quality Act has been used in such an abusive way for more than 50 years that then-Gov. Jerry Brown’s 2012 description of CEQA reform as “the Lord’s work” has gone from being seen as a good one-liner from an unusually witty politician to a profound observation about life in the Golden State.
There is a reason the Legislature has had to pass so many CEQA exemptions: Many major, valuable projects would never have been built without this protection. The 1970 state law makes it too easy for third parties to block or stall proposals that they don’t like or want to be paid to support. This led directly to a 2017 analysis that documents CEQA’s central role in the state’s decades-old shortage of housing, massively driving up the cost of all types of shelter and impoverishing millions of residents.
But when you see the range of organizations that have vowed support for Proposition 45 — a modest CEQA reform on the November ballot sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce — it’s eye-opening.
The California Hospital Association, the California Farm Bureau, the California Senior Alliance and more than a half-dozen clean energy groups are among a vast list of institutions seeking relief from the migraines they face because of the broadly written, vague law.
The Sentinel Editorial Board has long advocated a comprehensive CEQA fix, because the 1970 law not only adds costs to most local projects but allows any “stakeholder” to file a lawsuit to slow projects or gain costly concessions.
We wrote a year ago that Gov. Gavin Newsom held up the state budget until he secured the passage of laws that would expand certain CEQA exemptions. But, legislators refused to simply reform CEQA to apply to all projects and so Newsom’s piecemeal approach of granting exemptions didn’t spark a building boom.
Prop. 45 is a step in the right direction. It would impose a 365-day limit on official environmental reviews for projects ranging from broadband construction to building roads, homes and schools to wildfire mitigation. Courts would be given a maximum of 270 days to rule on CEQA suits after they are filed. That’s it.
Opponents claim the measure is financially supported by Big Oil, utilities, and tech, all of whom would benefit if CEQA is weakened.
The No on 45 camp says that if approved, Prop. 45 would lead to less local control over data center developers because while the measure streamlines environmental review it limits legal challenges for what the initiative deems “essential” projects, including broadband internet infrastructure defined to cover any facilities “that are incidental to and enable” internet services. The measure’s authors wrote a list of projects excluded 45’s benefits – including nuclear energy, high-speed rail and jails – and data centers aren’t on it.
But contrary to claims that the changes would gut “the state’s strongest-in-the-nation environmental laws,” local governments would still have considerable authority in the approval process. Activists wouldn’t be muzzled.
This proposition doesn’t get rid of CEQA, it just minimizes it so it can’t cause high-impact developments to languish indefinitely.
This is reflected in the analysis of Prop. 45 from the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office. The LAO’s biggest concern had to do with potentially substantial implementation costs for state and local governments, not weakened green regulations. And the analysis also noted the benefit to governments of new revenue from ventures no longer blocked by CEQA — and from having their own projects cost less.
It’s true that other factors, even without CEQA and state mandates, have limited housing development: High labor costs, interest rates, tariffs and aggressive immigration enforcement. The high cost of housing in this county also is the byproduct of local permitting policies plus the many tacked-on fees new developments have faced.
Tempering environmental litigation under CEQA should no longer be on the “not in my backyard” list of ways to stop housing development.
Prop. 45 won’t transform the state’s regulatory maze overnight. But it would make California’s planning approval process fairer, less expensive and more predictable.
A majority of Editorial Board members agree: Vote Yes on 45.