by Roger Lin and Douglas Carstens : westsideobserver – excerpt
In October, The Housing Workshop released a landmark report about the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This report, called “CEQA: California’s Living Environmental Law: CEQA’s Role in Housing, Environmental Justice & Climate Change,” focuses on environmental justice and climate change as today’s most urgent environmental issues, including cases studies illustrating how CEQA addresses those problems. It has an in-depth analysis of CEQA’s role, over the last fifty years, in protecting California’s natural landscapes and communities, including some of California’s most iconic places. Coming at this time, the report is an antidote to the vitriol being generated in some quarters to discredit CEQA’s value to California in attempts to weaken it. A strong CEQA is needed now more than ever as California faces unprecedented challenges…
A sustained campaign against CEQA, led by polluting industries, real estate developers, and other special interests, has repeatedly and falsely claimed that … California’s preeminent environmental law is somehow fueling the state’s housing crisis.”…
Unfortunately, in recent months a Big Lie about CEQA has been popping up in California, and it has serious implications for public health and the environment. A Big Lie is a false narrative that is flatly contradicted by incontestable facts but repeated until it gains a life of its own and can no longer be easily refuted. A sustained campaign against CEQA, led by polluting industries, real estate developers, and other special interests, has repeatedly and falsely claimed that – despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary – California’s preeminent environmental law is somehow fueling the state’s housing crisis. Several unsuccessful candidates seized on this false narrative in their efforts to win votes in the recent gubernatorial recall election. (https://calmatters.org/politics/2021/09/newsom-recall-republicans-ceqa-housing/)…
Roger Lin is an attorney at the California Environmental Justice Alliance, a statewide, community-led alliance that works to achieve environmental justice…Douglas Carstens is a partner with Chatten-Brown, Carstens & Minteer, LLP, a law firm specializing in environmental, land use, municipal, and natural resource law based in Hermosa Beach and San Diego…(more)
If you need more arguments to fight fake facts, lies and seriously twisted claims from the government press corps, look not further than the reports in this article and then take the only action out there to reign in the stare bills that are corporatizing control of the land, water, and soon to the food production in what was once a freedom-loving laid back liberal state. The current state of affairs points to a bad ending unless the people speak up and empower themselves and their communities by passing a state constitutional amendment to take back control of California. Details here: https://ourneighborhoodvoices.com/