Governor Gavin Newsom of California looks like he is trying to set himself up for a presidential run. In a surprising move, Newsom has signed a law rolling back the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), according to the Wall Street Journal.
CEQA was signed into law in 1970 by then-Governor Ronald Reagan and requires state and local agencies to review the environmental impact of projects, including public infrastructure, housing developments, and commercial construction. The law, over time, developed into a weapon, wielded by government agencies to significantly delay the projects for years at a time. Most notably, it is responsible in part for exacerbating the California housing affordability crisis.
“We have seen this abuse over and over and over again,” the governor said. “We have fallen prey to a strategy of delay. As a result of that, we have too much demand chasing too little supply. This is not complicated, it is Econ 101.”
Until now, the governor has been a stranger to the lessons of "Econ 101."
From 2013-2015, up to 25 percent of CEQA lawsuits were against private sector housing, and 19 percent were targeted at plans to increase housing development or improve infrastructure. In 2020, nearly 50,000 new units were subjected to CEQA lawsuits, nearly 50 percent of California's new housing production that year. The percentage has since gone down, although it still remains a dominant category of lawsuits under CEQA. After this new rollback, it will drop to zero.
Governor Newsom has stated that improving housing affordability is a chief goal of his governorship, and so far, he has failed miserably. The rollback of CEQA appears to be a small step in the right direction.
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