Sacramento lawmakers approved significant rollbacks to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in a last-minute effort to finalize negotiations with the Governor regarding the state budget. The policy exempts a long list of projects from CEQA, weakening California’s foundational and necessary environmental review process.  

At Keep Tahoe Blue, we’re concerned and wary about the consequences that such a move will have on forest management and development in and near the Lake Tahoe Basin. We rely on CEQA to protect the sensitive ecology of Lake Tahoe and to hold developers to account for their projects’ environmental impacts when necessary. 

While we actively support some permit streamlining to increase the pace and scale of forest management and restoration projects in the Basin, our concerns about the far-reaching impacts of new development near-basin are heightened because of this move out of Sacramento.  

The last-minute nature of this addition to the budget does not inspire confidence in the new law’s ability to thoughtfully streamline where necessary while retaining the strong bedrock of California’s environmental review process. AB/SB 131, the CEQA rollback legislation, wrongfully lays the blame for much of today’s problems in permitting and review on CEQA alone, and the new law will make it more difficult to hold developers accountable for environmental damages.  

Despite this setback to fundamental protections for the environment, we will continue to work with lawmakers at the state and local level to Keep Tahoe Blue.

Photo: James Salvas, FlickrCC