Assembly Standing Committee on Judiciary

Good afternoon, everyone. I want to thank everyone for joining us this afternoon to focus on the Governor's CEQA streamlining proposal. This hearing is the last of several informational hearings held by Assembly policy Committees to evaluate various aspects of the numerous environment mental streamlining proposals the Governor suggested for inclusion in the budget just last month because these proposals were made public after the majority of the Budget Subcommittees concluded their work. And these proposals are slated to be considered by the Legislature outside of the traditional policy Committee process. We are here today to gain an understanding of several issues. First, we want to understand the scope of these proposals. Secondly, we want to understand the benefits and potential pitfalls. And finally, we want to understand why these proposals are as urgent so urgent as to require the Legislature to bypass its traditional policy process and act on these proposals with little more than a month to consider them because this process is not affording these committees the ability to amend bills as we normally would. It's my hope over the course of the three panels of witnesses today, any issues and ambiguities in these proposals can be identified and we can begin to decide how and if to move forward. I'm very fortunate to say we're doing this as a Joint Committee of the Judiciary Committee and the Natural Resources Committee and Assembly Chair Rivas also to co-chair this with you. So assemblywoman Rivas.

Thank you. Assemblymember Maienschein. The purpose of today's hearing is to provide an initial public review of two policy proposals that fall under the jurisdiction of the Natural Resources and Judiciary Committees two proposed Trailer bills regarding CEQA released by the Newsom Administration on May 19 as part of the Governor's infrastructure package. I want to emphasize how early in the process that this hearing is taking place. These proposals are not in print as bills and we are not amending or voting on them today. But if they were bills, we'd have to wait another 11 days to act on them. However, we want to provide a venue for the Newsom Administration to present these proposals, provide a preliminary analysis and questions, and offer an opportunity for the public to comment on them. We share the Governor's commitment to take bold action to address the climate crisis and further California's transition to a clean energy economy. In fact, the Natural Resources Committee in the Assembly has been involved in virtually every climate and CEQA Bill for decades. This Committee's work in this area preceded my tenure as chair, as well as this Governor's term by many years. We understand the urgency. Today we will hear and focus on only two of the proposals, the CEQUA proposals that are before us. As the background paper points out, these proposals, regardless of their policy merits, are not related to the budget. They are also not strictly focused on expediting projects that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions or otherwise have a climate benefit. These proposals raise a number of questions, from overall priorities to basic drafting issues, as well as the justification for pushing both of these bills and the eligible projects through an abbreviated public process. We hope to begin those conversations today and welcome the representatives of the Newsom Administration to present these proposals. With that, I'd like to invite Ms. Miller, the secretaries, and other Administration staff to open for 30 minutes, which will be followed by comments from the LAO. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Thank you so much, Assembly Members, and I really appreciate being here, and I should have said this every day this week, but huge gratitude to your teams and your staff. I was a longtime Committee consultant, and I know how much work went into preparing all of these. So thank you very much and for inviting us again to talk about these proposals and why this package is so important to the Governor and is part of the Governor's Budget that all of us are deliberating between now and July 1. I'm Gayle Miller and I'm a Chief Deputy at the Department of Finance and the Senior Counselor on Infrastructure. And I want to make sure that we are clear today that this is really a culmination of all the work you all have been doing for a long time in terms of implementing all of the infrastructure pieces and packages that we've passed that Governor Newsom has worked on for four years. And there's a few pieces I think that maybe are a little bit helpful. I know I've spoken with many of you over the last couple of days. One, I think, just a few corrections that we were very mindful in this package, that it protects all of the Mitigation and the public process of CEQA. So I think there's a little bit of misunderstanding about that. So every piece of the analysis and every opportunity to provide public comment remains a piece of every single one of these proposals. Second, in terms of the labor standards across the board, to be really clear, the protections that you all have put into place for decades remain. And the hard fought protections for public works, including prevailing wage, are also a super important part of this package. And nothing in this is affected. I do want a number of IBW Members are here today. And a lot of that the skilled and trained pieces that you'll hear about today are super important, are part of the energy pieces and the chips pieces, the semiconductor pieces. And then finally, I think the biggest question for all of us is why now? Why the urgency? I think if the Governor were here, he'd say this is too late, that we have the opportunity to invest $180,000,000,000, create 400,000 jobs, and there is no time to delay. There is no time to wait. So the first point on Maximizing Federal Dollars, I think there's a but for question here. So, of course, there's not going to be this direct line where the Federal Government guarantees us funding if these were to pass. But two examples, I think we need to look no further than what we have and have not received in terms of the Inflation Reduction Act funding and the competitive pots of money which exist in all of the acts the Federal Government has passed. And then two, I think it's really important that we don't take federal funding for granted. Yesterday, I used an example. I should have used it in Ms. Friedman's Committee, but of the incredible work that the Caltrans Department did as part of the debt ceiling negotiations. There was an attempt or there was a law change to claw back 295,000,000 of Unobligated federal funds. Luckily, Caltrans worked and managed to encumber those funds. They even took the responsibility of local governments in some ways. So we left 5 million on the table. But I think the idea that the federal funding will remain in place for the foreseeable future really may not be true. So it's not only a question of maximizing those funds, but also protecting them. And then, of course, we're implementing all these projects that meet all of these social economic goals that we've set forward. And when we talk about housing and roads and energy, we're not only talking about those specific projects, but taken globally, we're really talking about infrastructure writ large. So making sure that we can build the housing we need and build all the schools we need, each of which are contingent on having the water, the roads, the electricity. And finally, just a huge point, and I hope that Secretary Omishaken will speak to this as well in terms of how equity is embedded into everything we're doing here. Obviously, California hopes to exceed the justice 40 that the Federal Government put in place. And also, we have made huge efforts in terms of contracting the civil rights unit within CalSTA and all the ways in which we're really trying to encourage our workforce and our deliverables to be more diverse. I'll close by saying this is truly an all of government approach. You'll hear from many of us today. Secretary Tong is leading the digital dashboards that you'll see that will track our progress in terms of infrastructure. And we are sincerely committed to working with you, to answering as many questions as we can and to really move this package along. And again, incredibly grateful for the time, and especially to Secretary Crowfoot and Secretary Omishaken for being here and doing this amazing work. So truly grateful. Thank you very much for the time.

I think, Ms. Miller, if you don't mind, I can go.

Okay.

Yeah. Good afternoon, chairs and Committee Members. Toks Omishaken, secretary of Transportation for the State. Thanks for giving us the opportunity and accommodating us on this important and urgent matter to not only the Administration, but to the people of California before providing some more detailed context on these bills and what we're hoping to achieve for the state. I'd like to share a little bit more about what drives our work in transportation in California today. Transportation systems are about people, all people, and providing them an improved quality of life. Our work is driven by four priorities at transportation in the state today. We call them the core four; equity, safety, climate action and economic prosperity. Transportation policy, done right, creates well paying jobs, is a good steward of the environment, and powers our economy. The state has already made many steps in the right direction, beginning with the adoption of the Climate Action Plan for Transportation Infrastructure, also known as CAPTI. By adopting CAPTI, the state committed to investing billions of formula and discretionary transportation dollars annually to aggressively combat and adapt to climate change while supporting public health, safety and equity. Therefore, it is imperative we continue to make progress. The Governor's infrastructure package represents another ambitious effort and aims to maximize taxpayer dollars and deliver results while creating hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs and working towards achieving California's world leading climate goals. This package would expedite a number of transportation projects, from routine highway maintenance and safety projects to innovative and complex transportation improvements that take years to implement and require costly, time consuming permitting and mitigation. Accelerating projects will also allow Caltrans to obligate funds on more projects through earlier contracting opportunities and will avoid inflationary impacts of delay. Contracting out more quickly, accelerates projects, shows the state's readiness and makes us more competitive for federal grant funding through notices of funding opportunity from the Federal Government. There are at least a dozen federal grant opportunities available now and dozens more to come, creating hundreds of millions of dollars of opportunity for California infrastructure projects and potentially even billions. For example, billions are expected to be made available nationwide just this summer through the mega infra and rural surface transportation programs. In addition to federal programs to reconnect communities, create grade separations on our highway system, and rehabilitate aging bridges throughout our system, this package would make the state more competitive for these upcoming federal grant opportunities. Moving this package through the budget will also allow Caltrans to get out contracts in a more timely fashion that are at risk of potentially missing the construction season if we were to wait until later this summer or even at the end of the legislative year. So again, it's important that we try to do this as soon as we can not to miss those windows. These delays will increase project cost and delay the creation of good paying jobs. The proposals before you today are meant to help avoid lengthy delays related to CEQA related litigation. For example, with inflation currently around 5%, a one year delay to a 100 $1.0 million project adds $5 million. A two year delay of a 1 billion project at 3% inflation would add $61 million. Again, thanks to the Governor and your body, the Legislature the last two budgets made unprecedented investments in our state's infrastructure, including $12.8 billion in clean transportation, combined with funding from the IJA and the IRA. At the federal level, California will invest, as you heard from Ms. Miller, up to $180,000,000,000 over the next decade in clean infrastructure, which will create 400,000, or help sustain 400,000 good paying jobs while the state battles to meet its climate goals. These investments will help add to the continued revenue made by the historic Road Repair and Accountability Act of 2017 as well, also known as SB 1. In conclusion, these proposals will maximize taxpayer dollars and accelerate timelines of projects throughout the state and create certainty on the back end that we will be able to deliver on these projects, all while maintaining the state's robust nationleading environmental standards and ensuring appropriate environmental review. If we are all serious about our climate goals, the time is now. We have an opportunity to maximize taxpayer dollars and deliver results while creating hundreds of thousands of good paying jobs, tackle climate, and address the equity challenges of our state as well. Again, thank you, chairs and Members. I urge your support as we look to move this effort forward. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Secretary Omishaken. My name is Wade Crowfoot, and I serve as secretary of our natural resources agency. And thank you for the opportunity to provide our perspective on not only what is in these proposals, but why we're advancing these proposals and importantly, why now, we take the introductory remarks of both chairs seriously. So I'll spend just a couple of minutes in talking about the why of the proposals and the why now. Our agency includes the Department of Water Resources, which has primary responsibility for water infrastructure in the state, as well as the California Energy Commission, one of our energy agencies, as you know, delivering this clean energy transition across our state. And in the role I've had for the last four years, I've had a front seat at what is a climate crisis. I've spent 30 years of my career working on these issues, and we used to talk about it as a growing threat or a problem, but it's a crisis. Last October ended the driest three years in the state's history. Going into the winter, 6 million Californians were underwater. Rationing scores of rural communities had literally run out of water. Just a few weeks after those water rationing rules were continued, we experienced catastrophic flooding that had our National Guard deployed across the state that resulted in billions of dollars of destruction and loss of life, and a presidential emergency declaration literally going from the driest to the wettest conditions in the state's 172 year history within a month. We are also now turning to our wildfire season that has consumed 7% of our state's land in the last three years. Our scientists tell us we'll lose 10% of our water supply as a result of hotter temperatures year over year not in the next century, in the next 15 years. I believe strongly that Californians not only recognize this as a crisis, but expect us collectively to move with the urgency that reflects the crisis. And that's really why we're here today. We need to move much more fast to address these impacts, impacts that scientists in some cases told us that would hit us in 2100, that are here now. And part of this is, of course, emergency response. And we are so thankful of your partnership, the governor's leadership in emergency proclamations, emergency actions we've taken in recent months and years. But we have to move with the recognition that this emergency is a sustained emergency. And we need urgency, but we need durable change. So the proposals that the Governor brings forward, we don't bring forward lightly into the budget process, but because we have to take action now, it is reasonable for us to expect that the more punishing drought is just around the corner or the more damaging flood or the more destructive wildfire. So from our perspective, this isn't the case of reforming our systems over years or months. The urgency we bring to this is weeks on water. We know what we have to do. We need to be in a dead sprint implementing what we call our water supply strategy for a hotter, drier future. What does that mean? It means diversifying our water supplies, expanding water recycling, capturing water when it comes, purifying sources that are currently undrinkable, modernizing our infrastructure and making it climate resilient, and restoring our environmental habitat. It all matters. It's an above all solution. And today, water agencies across your districts are implementing these projects. Hundreds of projects are undergoing planning and permitting that we want to put in place before the next drought, before the next flood. And the two proposals that we bring forward today address our ability to get those projects done. Projects like drilling community wells to get communities water, groundwater recharge projects, dam safety improvements, canal upgrades, recycled water facilities, floodplain restoration, and so much more. On energy. Last fall, thanks to the Legislature and the Governor, our state led the world in the ambition of our climate targets are to move to carbon neutrality, to move to 90% clean energy by 2035, to create a protective setback from oil production, all recognizing the crisis that we face. California meeting these ambitious targets is essential. We all know this, not only for ourselves, but the rest of the world. We're virtually the fourth largest economy in the world. And if we can demonstrate that we can move beyond fossil fuels to these clean energy targets, we will literally change the world. To meet these targets, our experts tell us we have to bring eight gigawatts of energy on on average every year over the next 20 years. Over the last 10 years, we've brought an average of 2.5 gigawatts. So we need to increase our clean energy development and our project completion at three times the rate of what we're currently able to do. Right now, across the state, across your districts, hundreds of projects solar, wind, geothermal, battery, storage are doing just that. As Secretary Omishaken and Ms. Miller pointed out, importantly, critical federal funding, more funding than we've had potentially in a generation, is available for these projects now. But if we're being honest, it's going to places where projects can get done quickly. The Biden Harris Administration has made very clear they want this funding to get to work right away, and they want to see results. And too often, California gets dismissed or deprioritized for the perceived slow pace of project completion. We know this. I've had conversations with federal officials on this. We need our projects to be in a position to effectively compete for this funding. But here's the tough part. And we can be totally honest. And this is why we come to you with an extraordinary proposal, with an extraordinary time frame. We are not positioned to meet these targets. We are not positioned to put the projects in place to protect Californians from this weather whiplash that we experienced this year. It's simply too lengthy and too difficult to get climate infrastructure we need to build. So delaying this conversation by six months, by one year, two years, matters. It matters for the drought that we could begin to experience next year. It matters for the catastrophic flooding that we could experience next winter. It matters for the federal funding that's available that will go elsewhere if we can't demonstrate our ability to get these projects done. The governor's package of reforms, two pieces of which you're hearing today, is meant to address this urgent need with urgency. And addressing the sometimes very lengthy timeline of CEQA lawsuits is part of this. I think very few people in California or observers around the country would disagree with the contention that CEQA lawsuits, often perhaps unintentionally, significantly slow down our ability to deliver infrastructure. And they create an uncertainty on the back end for hundreds of millions of dollars of investment, whether it's in water infrastructure, transportation, or clean energy. So in the broadest of terms, our focus is on reducing the litigation timeframe for CEQA. As Ms. Miller pointed out, we are not suggesting any changes to the fundamental CEQA processes of community and public input or environmental review. All that stands. Nor are we suggesting constraining the ability of anybody in California to bring a CEQA lawsuit that stands. We're simply trying to reduce the amount of time in which those lawsuits get decided, because at the end of the day, we have to move with urgency. So we very much thank you for your audience here today. We recognize the extraordinary time frame in which we make this request. And I'd like to introduce my colleague, our Senior Counsel at our agency, Chris Calfee, one of our foremost CEQA experts in the Administration, to walk us through the proposal today. Thank you.

Thank you, Secretary Crowfoot. Thank you, chairs and Members, for the opportunity to be here today. As you heard from Secretaries Crowfoot and Omishaken, you've heard the why of the proposal. So I'd like to spend just a few minutes talking through the what of the proposal. So there are two proposals in front of you specifically addressing CEQA and CEQA litigation. The first proposal would condense litigation timelines for certain Low carbon transportation, clean energy semiconductor manufacturing, and climate resilient water infrastructure. This proposal is modeled on prior legislation, including AB 900 and SB 7, that reduced litigation timelines for several stadiums, mixed use development projects, and others. While prior legislation primarily benefited large private projects, this proposal would also include public projects that are needed to respond to climate change, including and I'll list the eligible projects. First, energy infrastructure, including solar, wind and energy storage second, semiconductor manufacturing that is funded under the Federal Chips and Science Act Third, transportation projects that are consistent with the climate Action Plan for Transportation Investments. And fourth, water infrastructure identified in the state's water supply strategy for a hotter, drier future. Most projects in the proposal are designated as either public works projects, which require payment of prevailing wage, or otherwise require use of skilled and trained labor. Projects opting to use this condensed litigation process would prepare the administrative record before adoption of the project and would pay for the costs of litigation. If there is litigation over one of the certified projects, the proposal is that that litigation, including all appeals, would be resolved within 270 days if feasible. The second proposal is not limited to those categories, but instead would apply across the board and would address economywide infrastructure. This second proposal would clarify certain aspects of the administrative record. In CEQA litigation, the administrative record is what a court will review to decide whether an agency has complied with CEQA in evaluating a project. The record typically includes all project materials, environmental documents, technical studies, public comments, staff reports, hearing transcripts, and the agency's written findings on a project. Depending on the project, it is not uncommon for a record to span many, many volumes and typically thousands of different documents. Disputes regarding the contents of the record can take many months, even before a court reaches the merits of a project. So this proposal addresses those issues in several ways. First, it clarifies who is entitled to prepare the administrative record. Currently, project opponents have the ability to elect to prepare the record. This proposal would allow the lead agency to assume that responsibility if the petitioners have not prepared the record in a timely manner, or if, at the outset of litigation, the lead agency agrees to pay for all costs related to the record. Second, this proposal clarifies what documents must be part of the record. Specifically, this Bill would exclude internal staff emails that were never put in front of decision makers. We expect that this change could significantly reduce both the volume and the cost of preparing administrative records. Notably, this proposal would not alter any of Sequa's existing requirements for public accountability, such as public review of draft documents, responses to comments and written findings. That's a brief overview of what's contained in the proposals. I'm happy to entertain any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Shall I go next, Madam Chair?

Yes, go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairs and Members. I'm Helen Kirsten with the Legislative Analyst Office. Thank you so much for inviting me today to participate in this hearing on some really important bills that are before you this year. So I've been asked to provide some broad comments on these bills. They apply both to the two specific bills that you're hearing as well as to the other ones that your sister committees have heard over the last couple of days.

First off, I want to acknowledge, I think, one of the important points here that no one disagrees with, or at least few probably, is that these proposals are really attempting to address some important issues. So I think there's broad recognition that there are delays and barriers to projects and that those are very problematic and can be very problematic for meeting some of the state goals that we have. We have ambitious climate goals. We want water reliability, energy reliability.

We want to make sure that we're preparing for climate change. I think we all want to do those things as a state. And so we think it's very good that, of course, the Governor is trying to tackle these issues. But there are some specific things that we just wanted to point out for the Committee's consideration. First, we'd note that the proposals really span a wide range of types of issues. Some are pretty narrow.

Some of the other committees have heard some pretty narrow portions of this package. Some of these are pretty broad, and as you just heard, would apply to all CEQA cases potentially, and are pretty substantial changes to the way the process works. Now, we'd also note that the proposed changes present some really important trade-offs. So while, as was noted, some of these proposals may potentially expedite some projects that could potentially come at the expense of other things. And that could be environmental protection.

It could be legislative oversight or transparency. But there are a whole host of goals that you as a legislative body have set out to try to move forward, and they're probably trade-offs in these measures. And another kind of trade-off that I think is apparent here, and you heard a little bit about it, I think, from the previous panelists, is on costs.

So certainly there's some potential that to the extent that these proposals move projects forward more quickly, they could potentially reduce costs to some degree for some projects. There could also be some additional costs associated with some of these proposals. So, for example, I think, as you may hear later on from the judicial branch, to the extent that these cases move more quickly through the court system, there could be some workload or other implications for the courts. We'd note that some of these are pretty complex proposals.

I know our office, we're still analyzing them and still trying to figure out what these trade-offs are, because they are not easy. And so it's challenging, certainly as staff, to advise you with full information at this point, given the limited amount of time. And that, I think, brings me to my next point that really the governor's proposed time frame doesn't give you very much time. So these proposals were just recently released. You're being asked to make decisions on them before July 1.

So that's a matter of weeks. The Administration has had a long time to develop these. In fact, the Governor indicated in his press conference introducing these measures that the Administration has been working for over a year to put them together. And they are complex, so it takes some time to put together.

But it's just challenging for you as a legislative body to fully vet them, to talk to all the stakeholders to understand what these trade offs and implications are in this really compressed time frame that the Administration is asking you to act on. And the Administration's argument for asking you to really take this extraordinary time frame, as was indicated, is that they indicate that it's absolutely urgent for these proposals to happen.

Right now, I think we as an office don't believe the Administration has provided really compelling evidence that that's the case. Certainly, there's this broad argument that overall it could provide some additional assistance to the State, as we're trying to compete for some of the federal funds that are out there. And in some cases, federal grants may require, for example, some kind of narrative description of how the state is going to undertake these projects quickly.

But it's unclear to us what specific money that the state would potentially lose out on and really how in practice these specific proposals would allow us to get that funding in a way we wouldn't get before. So we think it's not clear necessarily that the Legislature has to act in the time frame that the Administration is indicating. I would also note that there's no strong rationale in our minds for treating all the proposals the same way.

So, as I indicated before, there's a wide range of proposals. Some of them are pretty narrow and maybe more simple or maybe less controversial. Some of them are broader. They may have more implications. So the Administration is asking for you to look at them all as a package and kind of up or down. Right. Approve all of them? Well, hopefully, I think in their minds, probably hopefully approve all of them.

But I think in our minds, as your staff, we think it's important for you to look at each individual one. And if there are ones that maybe there are ones that you're more comfortable with and you can move on a faster time frame, and maybe there are ones that maybe need more work, and maybe that could help sort of address some of these issues and still leave more time for you to address some of the challenges or the trade-offs.

The final point I wanted to make is that we think that there are several proposals that do delegate significant authority to the Administration. I want to point one out that you're hearing specifically today, which is related to the expedited judicial review.

It does give the authority, the discretion, to choose some of the projects, for example, to choose the transportation projects that would qualify for the special process and the expedited review that's in contrast to the existing AB 900 process that you heard about, which was reauthorized by SB 7. Under that process, there's a JLBC, a Joint Legislative Budget Committee process, and there's also some criteria that are required to try to ensure that those projects meet sort of in a higher environmental standard.

So that's a little bit different. So I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. Again, we're still looking at this as an office, so I may not have a lot of detailed responses, but always happy to answer anything I can. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you to all of you for being here to present to us today. I keep hearing a recurring theme in all of your statements that there is an urgency right, for all of the proposals.

And however, as legislators, we're elected to ensure that we don't rush through policy considerations that could create unintended consequences for our communities. And I know that that's not what the Administration wants either. But today I hope that we focus less on the concept that we need to be convinced on the importance to respond to the threats of the climate crisis, and that we focus on the details of these two proposals.

That's what we're here. I want to use this time to focus on answering our questions regarding the details of these two CEQA proposals. With that, I would open it up to questions from Members related to these two proposals. Any questions? Assembly Members Zbur, and then I have Wood just please let me know. Please, go ahead.

So, thank you all for being here. I was mentioning to one of my colleagues that I've barely had a nanosecond to start getting my arms around this. And of course, I'm already hearing from folks that have significant concerns and some folks that actually are supporting elements of this. It would be helpful to me. I know we've got two of the proposals here, and I think I understand that a bit.

Could you help us understand how these two proposals fit in with the other proposals that are going before the other committees, just so we have a sense of the breadth of the proposals that are out there?

Yeah, thanks. It's a great question. As I recall, there are different ways to categorize the proposals, but there are arguably about 11 different proposals that have been split across committees of jurisdiction. And I'll share with you a little bit about the process to generate these proposals. And so the Governor asked his cabinet, of which Secretary Omishaken and I sit on, this question, which is what is preventing us, slowing us down, making it more difficult to get the climate infrastructure we need in place?

And so these proposals have come up through our agency. So the CEQA proposals that you are reviewing today are actually generated by experts within our government around how to do CEQA reform in a way that preserves community input and environmental review. And so these aren't suggestions that have been imported from the outside. So it's really about how do we think our processes can work more functionally? As the Chair noted, there are a range of proposals because that does reflect that they came up from separate agencies.

We spoke yesterday to one of your sister committees and that was on everything from advancing environmental mitigation that helps transportation projects move more quickly, to simplifying the process of our Delta Stewardship Council so we can get flood improvements and habitat restoration done more quickly. So it is really a collection. I will say that these CEQA reform proposals we think are pretty fundamental.

I would say for most observers of California, I think a lot of us recognize how critically important CEQA is, but its many unintended consequences to move with the urgency we need to combat the climate crisis. I share this with you, Assembly Member, as a fellow environmental leader.

Bill McKibben, who's one of the most outright spoken environmentalists, just wrote in a magazine article this month that we need to shift our perspective as environmentalists to recognize that the status quo is potentially as damaging, more damaging to our environmental future than finding ways to actually get these projects on board. And he actually called out CEQA as a critically unintended consequence of some of that work that got done 30 years ago that's inhibiting our progress. So hopefully that provides a little context.

And if I may Madam Chair just super broadly. There are three categories in addition to the Secretary's comments. They all had to save time or save money. And the other organizing principle to the Secretary's point was maintaining CEQA in the public process. So there are these I think it's Wednesday, right, alternative delivery methods that we heard in the Transportation Committee on Monday and everything you're hearing today about expediting environmental review. And then the third category broadly is permit streamlining.

So when we took a look at everything that is adding time and costs to these projects, that's everything before you hear. So I hope that those were the organizing principles and some of the specifics. Obviously happy to provide any more detail on any one of the proposals as well.

Assembly Member Wood.

Thank you. Thank you very much for being here. I think all of us want projects to move more efficiently. I do believe there is an urgency around being able to do this for the sake of the climate change and what we're experiencing. I'm looking at one of these proposals, which is about obviously about the judicial streamlining. So that's the back end of these projects. So it takes a long time to get to the back end sometimes.

And we heard in our Utilities. I don't sit on Utilities, but I got the opportunity a week or two ago. We talk about how we're going to get through energization transmission, interconnection, and all the focus there is, when you hear from people trying to move projects, it's the permitting. It's the seven to 10 years before we can get more transmission up.

I guess I'm missing something here because it's great to get to that point and be able to say, okay, there will be streamlining and adjudication of this at the other end. But how do we get to the meat of this, which is without bypassing, but being more efficient, being more collaborative. Instead of stacking these working together so they're all coming together at the same time. So what am I missing here? Because I don't see that.

Thanks. And it's a fair question and I'm glad you raised it because in the Governor's executive order that he issued with the release of this package was a critical component of our work. And it's just to your question, it's helping our permit approvals happen more efficiently and more effectively. Simply put, permitting is too confusing, too decentralized, and too uncoordinated across our state historically.

So the Governor's executive order actually established an infrastructure strike team on which secretaries sit and we have bottom-line responsibility for helping deliver projects through the permitting process as quickly as possible. And that includes six areas of infrastructure, including transportation, energy, water, interestingly, environmental restoration as well. And so the focus here, Assembly Member, is actually reducing the time frame for permitting through improved coordination between state and federal agencies.

For example, concurrent reviews, early consultation with project applicants, best practices that will actually help our permitting happen more quickly. The Governor is very clear he wants us to be held accountable for this. And so we're establishing dashboards with projects to identify how quickly they're moving through the processes and where they're at in the processes. So I think your point is well taken, which is the permit processes have to be improved. We don't think it's an or permit processes or CEQA litigation streamlining.

We think it's an and we need to do both.

So when you're talking about clean energy projects and things, obviously we've got potential for offshore wind. We're going to need port rehabilitations. They're not just in Northern California but in Southern California. These are massive, massive projects. When you're talking about the potential for permit efficiency, I use more efficiency. I think some people get a little freaked out when you say streamlining because I see it as efficiency. It's like why shouldn't everybody be working together at the same time instead of waiting for one agency to react?

And then you've got to stack them essentially instead of working together? Is there a goal for how much time this is going to save as a percentage of where we are? Because right now, if somehow we were to have the, we're facing massive challenges right now with transmission and interconnection as we move more and more towards electrification. And we're told it's seven to 10 years just to start day one. So what are the goals?

I asked the CPUC that I asked the CEC that the other day, what are we looking at to give us and I didn't get an answer. Nobody could really give me an answer. And so that concerns me when we're going to work to make this more efficient. But there's no goal. So is there a goal? Is there a percentage, is there a number? Because the other agencies couldn't provide that the other day.

Yeah. Thank you. Dr. Wood. So, a few things. One, this builds on everything we've already done, which includes AB 205 on transmission. So I think you're asking sort of four separate questions. One, there's this whole federal process at FERC on the FERC tariffs, which has set up this priority queuing for bulk transmission.

So we have our Independent System Operator working on bulk transmission through their transmission plan, which sets up the goal Secretary Crowfoot spoke to, which is 7-10,000MW per year, and this is all listed in the Governor's energy plan as well. So FERC, we do need some reforms there so that we can have priorities. And that's some of what you're talking about, which is how to get folks connected.

The second thing we did, in addition to AB 205, which is a CEQA exemption for specific types of energy transmission projects, where you can bypass the local process entirely and go up to the California Energy Commission. In addition to that, we set up a three-party memorandum of understanding that we've never had, which is between the CEC, the Independent System Operator, and the Public Utilities Commission. And what needs to happen there is so first you have this question of bulk transmission.

Then you have your question of distribution, which is, so how are you getting it from where it is to the people that need to be connected? Affordable housing, energy projects, broadband. And so the way we're doing that is through a procurement process, which is two parts. One is the procurement that the PUC can already do, and then there's procurement that will happen at the Department of Water Resources that will allow us to go more broadly throughout California. So taken in concert, so there's those three pieces.

So bulk distribution at the federal level that we need to work with, with guidance from the White House and U. S. Department of Energy, which Secretary Granholm is here tomorrow. We talk to her about that all the time. Two is the process by which we actually can collaborate and communicate, which has never happened before, refigure out how to make sure that our priorities in terms of connection and distribution are clear. And then the fourth piece really is this back-end piece.

So now we know kind of what we need, how to get connected, how to work with utilities and others, how to make sure that our utilities are not only focused on wildfire damage, but actually focused on getting folks connected. And once we understand that, then when private developers come into the state and are making kind of a go no go decision, which Mr. Eckerley from GoBiz can talk about, then it's clear to them who their off-takers are.

So they have these off-taker agreements that can actually make sure to close the deal and provide energy, whether it's to NextEra, not to use specific names or to the investor-owned utilities. Then these clean energy producers are guaranteed that what they're producing or storing, that it can actually be sold and used for specific projects around the state.

So I hope that does answer kind of the general goal and specificity, because to your question, how do we get down into distribution to make sure folks are connected? It has to start at the way in which our investor-owned utilities are prioritizing, which goes all the way back up to that federal bulk system. So it is indeed a complicated question, but it is something that we've spent two and a half years working on.

And this is the piece that we think we need in order to ensure that these private developers are willing to make the commitment to develop storage and wind and solar in the state. So I hope that is helpful in terms of piecing it together.

It is, and I thank you. And I will say this because I am sometimes a little bit like a dog with a bone. When I look at planning and things and I'm trying to be more efficient about things, I have a goal as to what that might look like. And I may not achieve it, but I have a goal. I'm looking for a percentage of time. And that's why I keep pushing you on that. Because time, as Mr. Shucking pointed out, is money.

And each delay costs more and more money, as was illustrated, if you're delayed by X number of months at 3%, it costs X number of dollars. And so that happens with the state, obviously, but that happens with the private sector as well. Do we have an overall I know maybe it's very simplistic, but.

Assembly Member Wood, Dr. Wood, if I could let me take a stab at a question that I think is a very important question that you're asking, but the answer is complicated. Like you heard from Ms. Miller and Secretary Crowfoot already. So there are five main phases when you're looking to deliver a transportation project, and it sounds like you know about this already because you're mentioning some of them already. You have planning, the environmental phase, design, right of way, purchasing, and then ultimately construction.

On average today, a major transportation project in this country and this state takes roughly 13 years from that planning phase all the way to construction. So the example I like to give is if a child is in kindergarten today, they will be in college or getting ready to graduate college by the time that transportation project is done, for a major project. And every delay, if it's a $100 million project for every delay for every year, $5 million. Tack it on each and every single time.

So it depends on the scale and the type of the type of project you're looking to deliver. If it's a small project, the time savings will be different. If it's a major project, the goal that you will be shooting for in time savings will be a little different. So it's not a uniform. Oh, it's going to be six months guaranteed that you're going to be able to save, because it depends on the type and the scale of the project.

So it's a little complicated, but the tools that we've identified that we've laid out from the Administration here, I think will make a big difference in those varying times along the way. One of them that I know you know about very well, and I'll mention this and we can keep moving forward is a job order contract. This body, you gave us the authority two years ago in 2021 to do JOCs.

It's not a part of the package we're referencing today, but we now use it for the Middle-Mile Broadband, which I know your high level of affinity for addressing, and also Clean California. That in all of your districts, you're working on Clean California projects using JOCs. We want JOCs. We want to be able to use that on other projects beyond Middle-Mile and Clean California.

It's those types of tools, once we bring them forward, can help with those five different phases for us to be able to deliver projects in a more timely fashion. But to answer your question, it's complicated. It's not a six month or one year goal.

Could I just follow up then?

If it's brief.

It is. And I said, I think I guess the question would be, what does the Administration see as the role of the Legislature? Because with the broadband piece, we've pushed you guys at Caltrans, and we have shortened a lot. I mean, we have made a lot of progress there, and I thank you for that. It's been remarkable. And there's dashboards to show that progress. So how are we going to see the progress?

How are we going to see that all of this work here actually has an impact? And I thank you, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thank you for the question. I mean, I think one of your roles you've pointed out is holding us accountable for moving as quickly as we can. And I think the Governor's executive order and the transparency that we're going to provide in each of these areas on how we're improving project delivery time frames, is going to provide that accountability on offshore wind, which is a topic of your interest and many of your interest.

No doubt you will and should hold us accountable for moving as quickly as we can while ensuring all of those statutory requirements to protect our coast and the interests of our impacted communities and tribes are addressed. So from our perspective, we will be providing more transparency than ever in terms of project delivery, and then we can provide as much communication with you on how we're doing and then obviously holding us accountable for that progress.

Thank you. We want to start the next panel in about 10 to 15 minutes, and I have about four to five Members that have requested to ask questions. So I'm going to ask the Members to be brief, and I want to ask you to also be specific to the CEQA proposals that we're hearing today so we can move on. We have two more panels great. Two more. Lots of panelists that also want to participate. And so next I'll go to Assembly Member Addis.

Well, thank you so much. And I want to applaud what I think is a desire for urgency. As you know, I represent 20% of California's coast. I'm also at the epicenter of possible solutions to the climate crisis between having offshore wind, Diablo, battery energy storage, a number of amazing educational institutions that are forward-thinking and innovative.

That said, some of this has huge implications for that part of California's coast, which is right now untouched, brings billions of dollars to the State of California, but also creates a lot of health and welfare for Californians and people who come here worldwide. And so as I'm thinking about the importance of these proposals and the process, I do have to say off the bat, I'm very uncomfortable that this has come so late in the game.

I think it could have come much earlier, possibly in January, where you would have had the intelligence of staff, Committee staff from across the Legislature, but also the legislators themselves who represent the public. And you could have had more public input that way. So that's a huge concern. I'm not going to ask you questions about why it's come so late. I just kind of want to get that out on the board.

The other piece of this, though, because the chair has asked us to really focus in on these proposals and the specifics of them. And one of the pieces of this is about the administrative record, about limiting access to internal communications, which has caused quite a bit of concern. The biggest concern to me is that these communications are accessible through a Public Records Act request. I had thought of that because I come from local government, and then it showed up in the staff's analysis.

So I was glad to see that we're addressing that. The reason I have a concern about that is that will also make this a very time-intensive and expensive process. If we're trying to circumvent the administrative records process and we end up in a Public Records Act situation, it's going to make this even longer. So I'm just wondering how you're thinking that this creates streamlining if we're going to get into even longer, more expensive lawsuits?

Thank you very much for that question, and I'll share that pardon me. Before joining the state, I worked in private practice, but primarily on behalf of local governments. So I share that perspective about assembling administrative records, addressing California Public Records Act. In my perspective, the fact that this proposal is limited only to the CEQA context demonstrates that we continue to be committed to public transparency and public accountability.

What this proposal does is make sure that all of those internal communications don't have to be a part of every single record that's prepared for every single lawsuit, even when they may not be relevant. A thing to remember about this proposal is, as I said, this sets forth what needs to be in every administrative record in every case.

Case law has made clear that when there is, and I'm referencing some of the comments that I've seen submitted on this about potential for malfeasance or undue influence, case law has made clear that even for documents that don't show up in the record, but that get to issues like malfeasance, that courts can still consider those records. And as you mentioned, those types of records may be surfaced in a Public Records Act.

So I think this construct does balance those two objectives of trying to maintain some efficiency in the administrative process without disregarding public accountability.

Okay, thank you for that. I guess another question I have is around specifically which projects you mentioned wind, but which part of wind? Wind is pretty big, right?

The proposal does thank you for the question. The proposal does refer to terrestrial wind. It is not directed at.

So not all around offshore wind or ports, as the Assembly Member mentioned.

Correct.

Okay. And then I had one more question here, my apologies. The other question I had, and this really comes from the Committee analysis, I believe, is that some of these projects actually may increase GHG output and that there's concern that while we're going towards streamlining because of the climate crisis, we may actually be increasing GHG output and that there's not enough safeguards in these proposals to address that.

Definitely appreciate the question and the concern. Unlike AB 900 and SB 7, which included net zero greenhouse gas emissions requirements, as mentioned in earlier remarks, those pieces of legislation were really directed at large private investments. This proposal is more directed at a different set of projects that are specifically directed at addressing the climate crisis. So from that perspective, it's built into the proposal that we're attempting to address the climate crisis.

The other issue that I would raise as Ms. Miller raised at the top, this proposal doesn't take away any requirements for studying any potential impacts. And so for those projects that would have increased greenhouse gas emissions, CEQA requires that those impacts be mitigated to the extent feasible. And that requirement remains for all projects.

Thank you.

Assembly Member Kalra.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good to see you all again. Third one of these, but we're going to focus on the issues at hand here. I second Assembly Addis, she asked one of the questions regarding just the use of the Public Records Act as a roundabout way that could end up lengthening the process. But also jus,t and these questions and comments are to all the panelists coming too so that I don't have to repeat them and take up more time.

But the idea behind when we do more legislation on criminal justice reform, DAs sometimes say, well, it's going to cost us more money, the resources for these challenges and that challenges. But that's kind of the cost of having an equitable justice system. Similarly, there is a cost to putting forward large-scale projects that require the information, relevant information being made available.

And I don't know if the threshold of just that information that gets provided to a decision-making body is that appropriate threshold having been on decision-making bodies. A lot of information, a lot of exchange, and recommendations get to us based upon a lot of people that are having a lot of conversations and research and studying and meetings. And I certainly can't say that that information wouldn't be relevant, especially in a judicial proceeding regarding CEQA or anything else for that matter.

So that's one issue that is of concern in addition to what Senator Addis raised. And then regarding the streamlining. Now one issue is that there appears to be different labor standards depending on the type of project or the size of project. And so that would be something that I would certainly want to see addressed to have some uniformity there rather than having different standards applying based upon the size of the project and what have you.

In terms of the streamlining, there already is a degree of prioritization for CEQA cases. By now further streamlining it, we can't ignore the impact on other cases in the civil courts, whether they be, I always raise the alarm on wage claims and those kinds of cases being backlog one, two plus years, there's folks facing eviction, other kinds of plaintiff cases of terminally ill plaintiffs or divorces, you name it. So what are the impacts?

I know we'll be hearing from someone from the courts on that, but that's something I think that the Administration should really be thinking about is what unintended consequences are being created by creating this type of specific streamlining. To the point of if these projects are about addressing the climate crisis, then why does we propose eliminating many of the GHG reduction in environmental leadership requirements?

If that's the case, then why would we not have them in there if that's truly the underlying goal, as opposed to other private projects where you have to have that specificity? Why would it hurt to have that specificity in here as well? And the last two things. One is, do you feel that shortening judicial timelines could lead to rush cases with inadequate information and thereby harm disadvantaged communities and harm the natural environment by rushing it through? Because ultimately, I get the urgency aspect of it.

But my last point is, which I've raised in all the other ones, too, is why does it need to go through the budget process and not the policy process, especially if we're talking about issues that have been around for, in some cases, decades, and we're talking about getting it done July 1 or January 1. And, look, if you really convince us, we could do urgency and get it done August 1, whatever it might be.

But I just want to put all those things out there specific to these CEQA trailer bills because I do have deep concerns as to the process being rushed.

Great. Thank you. Thank you. Assembly Member we only have five more minutes for this panel unless it's brief, but I want to move on to Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan. Is there a brief response?

We're happy to provide some of these responses in writing. I heard five questions on the administrative records review, the labor standards, the judicial process that you'll hear a little bit more about.

We'll go into more detail on the existing GHD admissions process within CEQA and then the ability to work with judicial counsel in the court. So we're happy to provide that all to you, and we have answers to all five of those. Thank you. Assembly Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm the guest appearing because I didn't spend enough time with some of you yesterday, but really wanted to focus on the water piece of all of this, as that's my role as Chair of Water.

And as highlighted in the analysis, the CEQA exemption replies fairly broadly to all water-related projects. And I appreciated Mr. Kelfie highlighting the report that you all put out on the strategy for a hotter, drier future. That was put out in August of 22, which talked about these streamlining.

And yet here we are nine months later, and it was not brought to us in January to the point of many of my colleagues, despite the fact that this was clearly thought out in advance, since it was in your report last August. You mentioned, and I want to highlight for the question that's been asked about GHG that some of the projects that are water related that are in that report, the Delta Conveyance Project, does not provide an environmental benefit of any kind. Right?

I mean, it transmits water, which is necessary given the future of drought, but it's not an environmental leadership project. In fact, yesterday we talked deeply about the impacts on that local community to the negative environmental impacts of that project, also having so many coastal members here. Ocean desalination is in that report with significant environmental costs and has been obviously something the state has really struggled with and tried to figure out. And so the projects we're talking about as it relates to water-related are broad.

They don't provide environmental benefit necessarily. And so I guess I really wanted to touch on that and ask you. You say the urgency is related, I believe, to the Inflation Reduction Act funds. Right. That's why this is so urgent is we could get some of these projects done because of that. And it doesn't really match up.

And that makes sense to me because I'd say that the priorities that were said today by you on behalf of the Administration have not matched up with the budget priorities that have been put forth in the water space. So maybe that makes sense because you're going to go seek federal dollars for those rather than general fund dollars. But if that's the case, and we asked this question yesterday, so I'm going to ask it again on the CEQA piece.

If there are projects that you want to go out and get inflation Reduction Act dollars for that are water-related, that you need CEQA streamlining for, what are they and why aren't we listing them? You must know what they are. And so I guess I'm just perplexed that we would allow a CEQA exemption or CEQA streamlining for all water-related projects with no end, with no judicial review of whether they apply.

Although it's so broad, I imagine anything would apply when you must know what they are. And I guess I give you an opportunity to tell us what they are.

Sure. So we had an opportunity to talk about this yesterday, so let me repeat myself or maybe be more clear. These water projects are urgent because we're focused on our communities not running out of water in coming years. And so when you talk about the urgency, I think I started out by really trying to explain that 6 million Southern Californians were underwater rationing in the winter. That could have easily grown to 20 million this summer had we not had this wet season.

That's half of California underwater rationing, including dozens, possibly hundreds, if the drought continued, of communities that literally have run out of water. So as it relates to, I'm speaking for water because you asked it. This is fundamentally about ensuring that California communities, California livelihoods into the future can continue. And I don't think I'm speaking in hyperbole because of what we've experienced. From our perspective, whether it's conveyance through the Delta or desalination. We need to help these projects go through full environmental review more quickly.

We need to adjudicate litigation more quickly to give these projects an up or down. The challenge we have is currently the status quo on a lot of these large projects, including the ones you mentioned, is denial by delay. We've been at this for years. The environmental document being created on Delta Conveyance is literally, I believe, hundreds of thousands of pages long. The previous Governor actually took the existing documents in his office, and it took up entirely half of the governor's office.

So this project is getting full environmental review. As I shared yesterday, from our perspective, this project is about ensuring water supply for 27 million Californians that could be threatened next year if there were a catastrophic earthquake. So there are very different perspectives. And I appreciate the local perspective of Delta communities and their concerns around local impacts. But with respect, this proposal, the urgency of this proposal on the waterside, yes, it's about federal funding, but it's about a lot more.

And the fact is, we are working hard to help local agencies get projects in the ground this year for next year, whether that's flood safety or drought. So I just want to be clear, because I know how challenging the urgency is. That's really the purpose for that.

And I appreciate that. And again, I would say then I think you know what those projects are. And I think that we would all feel more comfortable with clear delineation of where this CEQA exemption is going to apply as it relates to water projects. I know I would.

The second thing I would say on that, and this is my final comment, Madam Chair, know last year, Assemblymember Bloom, former Assemblymember Bloom had a Bill running through the Legislature on training judges on water because it is so, so complicated. And most judges do not feel adequately equipped to deal with the complexities of a case relating to water like Delta Conveyance. Right?

And the environmental issues in that are so broad and complex that the idea of having a court do this in 270 days, if I got the number right, seems impossible. Right? And maybe that's not true for every project. So, again, I think that if we had a delineated list of what it was you were trying to achieve in the short term that we could look at, maybe that would be feasible for a court to do in this short period of time.

But the idea that any water-related project could be handled by a court that expeditiously seems fairly complex and challenging. I know we're here from the courts themselves, but I just thought I would say that. Thank you.

Very much, appreciate your question. And I just want to make very clear that what we're proposing today, I don't think we can talk about as a CEQA exemption. We are not proposing to exempt any project from CEQA nor curtail the CEQA process. What we are talking about is streamlining the judicial review if feasible. So I think in answer to your direct question, that language is part of the proposal. So 270 days if feasible.

And there's a recognition that on more complex projects, it may not be feasible. So there is that flexibility.

Thank you. I think that's a perfect segue into our next panel. But I ask that representatives of the Administration stick around. We had a few more Members that had questions, and there will be an opportunity for them to ask those in another part of the hearing. But I share some of the concerns that Members brought up, especially Assembly Member Addis and Assembly Member Kalra. What's the difference between July 1 and August 1 and January 1?

As Members, when we meet with the Administration or the Governor, we get the message that if funding for our policy proposals is not in the budget, it will be vetoed. But here we are trying to get policy into the budget, and for me, it requires a longer process and for it to go through the legislative process. And we need time. That's why we're here. But I still feel that we need more time on these proposals. So thank you, and we're going to move on.

I'm going to hand this over to my fellow chair to facilitate the next panel. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I'm also not going to ask in the interest of time, I won't be asking you my questions. I will say maybe as a matter to reflect on is just the way this hearing is going. We have a full list of Members who want to ask questions. And I think maybe at a macro level that speaks to where the Legislature is at. We have so many questions, we cannot fit them into this hearing. So we're going to do the best we can.

But I think that's something maybe to think of a little bit about. Our second panel today will be slightly modified from the agenda as a result of a late addition of a witness. This panel will focus on the impacts of these proposals to other parts of government, specifically to the courts and local agencies. To that end, I'd like to introduce the Honorable Marla O'Anderson, the Monterey County Superior Court Judge and Chair of the Judicial Council's Legislation Committee.

Also testifying will be Yolo County Supervisor Oscar Viegas to offer his thoughts on the impact to the Delta region's local government. Judge Anderson, the floor is yours.

Afternoon and I will be concise and again, I thank you for the opportunity to present to you, honorable Chairs and Members. I am Judge Marla Anderson, Monterey County Superior Court and Chair of the Council's Legislation Committee. With me today is Corey Jasperson, Director of Office of Governmental Affairs, and he's here for a little bit of technical assistance and if there's any questions for any statistics or anything that he may be able to answer.

And I'm here on behalf of the Council to discuss the impacts to the courts of the proposed expedited judicial review of CEQA actions involving clean infrastructure projects. First, and what's important to note that my comments today focus solely on the court's impact of the legislation regarding expedited judicial review. The Judicial Council is not expressing any views on the California Environmental Quality Act generally or the underlying merits of any potential projects that could be covered by the legislation. Those issues are outside the Council's purview.

The Council recognizes that CEQA embodies California's strong public policy of protecting the environment and its purpose to inform the public of the potential environmental impacts of projects before they are approved, identify ways to avoid or significantly reduce environmental damage, require alternatives or mitigation measures when feasible, and disclose to the public the rationale for approval of a project that may significantly impact the environment.

Public agencies considering project approvals must give major consideration to preventing environmental damage while providing a decent home, adequate infrastructure and satisfying living environment for every Californian. Noncompliance with any aspect of CEQA review process is enforced through litigation. Timelines for filing a legal challenge for noncompliance depend on the alleged reason for the noncompliance and range from 30 days to 180 days from the lead agency's final determination.

Before hearing the merits of a secret challenge, the lead agency must prepare the administrative record and lodge it with the court. The administrative record is the set of documents considered by the lead agency in considering the project's approval. This proposal will require three different levels of court review to be accomplished within 270 days to the extent feasible. This means that within 270 day time period, the trial court will conduct its review of whether the lead agency's approval of a project complied with CEQA.

The Court of Appeal will review the trial court's determination of whether there was CEQA compliance by the public agency. And finally, the Supreme Court will review the lower court's determination regarding the agency's CEQA compliance. As stated, we understand and appreciate the important policy goals behind this proposal to accelerate the building of clean infrastructure. However, we do have some concerns with requiring the courts to complete their review in this very short time frame.

We believe that ongoing discussions regarding providing courts with additional resources and maintaining critical language in the Bill will move the courts forward to mitigating some of the impacts of the Bill. And some of our concerns include CEQA cases already receive priority. CEQA actions are entitled to calendar preference over all other civil actions in both the superior courts and the courts of appeal. Compressing the timeline even more for certain types of CEQA cases means that other cases may take longer to resolve.

The Legislature has given calendar preference to a number of important case types, including juvenile cases, criminal cases, and civil cases in which a party is at risk of dying. Courts are also required to prioritize cases involving wage theft, unlawful detainers, and floor coercive cases, just to name a few. At the end of the day, giving priority to more and more kinds of cases creates the challenge of balancing the priorities of one case type against the other.

A conundrum each statute failing to take into account the existence of the other. They are all competing for place on the court's priority calendar. When we receive a CEQA case subject to the 270 day timeline, we essentially set other cases aside. We assign a Staff Attorney full time to review the case, and we put other cases farther behind. If we expand the list of projects that receive expedited CEQA review, they will come to us more frequently, increasing the load.

We will need resources to meet these increased demands, and other important cases may be falling farther and farther behind, providing expedited review for specific CEQA. Cases of causes of action additionally become challenging because we also have cases with ancillary motions and administrative review and other causes of actions. Sometimes these cases come with a claim under the Historic Preservation Act or land use issues or other civil actions, and this may cause delays in the principal sequel action.

The requirement to complete review within 270 days to the extent feasible. Courts take this mandate seriously. Courts will make every effort to comply with a streamlined timeline. Critical language in the proposal is to the extent feasible, as it is important that all parties are provided with due process and access to justice. Meeting the 270 day timeline, to the extent feasible, can be made possible by providing additional support to the courts and counsel.

Training and education is vital to assure that there are sufficient number of judges who can hear these cases. Current CEQA education is once per year and the classes fill quickly. Providing more opportunities for training and education will increase the pool of available judges to hear these matters and increase the number of research staff able to handle the anticipated increased load.

Support is needed to hire more research attorneys who are pivotal in the court's ability to timely review the administrative record, filling existing judicial vacancies would provide support to the court, as would authorizing more funding and authorizing judgeships to the courts. I believe there is SB 75, which creates 26 new judgeships. That would be an assistance as well.

And again, the Council recognizes and appreciates the need and goal for transparency and accountability in governmental agency decisions that affect the environment and the need for timely judicial review of CEQA actions challenging agency decisions. However, the impacts on the courts in this proposal to expedite judicial review for clean infrastructure projects should not be minimized or ignore. We strive to be good partners with our sister branches of government, and we will look for ways to accomplish the goals of the proposals with the needed support requested.

Thank you.

Next witness, please.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Oscar Villegas. I'm a Yolo County Supervisor. I've been on the board about 10 years, and I'm here on behalf of the five Delta counties that comprised of Sacramento, Solano, Yolo, San Joaquin, and Contra Costa counties.

So I want to begin by saying thank you to the staff for the tremendous amount of background work that has occurred to really sort of recognize the value of the Delta counties and take this issue very seriously. So the five Delta counties are home to nearly 4 million Californians, and the Board of Supervisors in those counties are unanimously opposed to the conveyance project being proposed as part of the budget process.

We believe that weakening of the environmental standards of the Delta Tunnel is contrary to the governor's leadership thus far relative to climate change, disadvantaged communities and the environment. So that you're aware, there's a long history in the Capitol regarding the governor's or the tunnel project.

I'll spare you the history, but what I will say is that re-plumbing California's water by redirecting nearly half of what currently sits in the Sacramento River isn't forward thinking relative to climate change and all the other things that have been addressed here this morning. There's been a longtime discussion in the Capitol and in the Legislature regarding this proposal, and the Legislature has known for a long time it is a bad idea.

For this reason, and since the Delta Reform Act passed nearly 14 years ago, the Legislature has taken deliberate actions in bond proposals and other policy budget actions to neither advantage or disadvantage the tunnel proposal. This is in large part because the project itself would span nearly three counties and would absolutely create winners and losers, unnecessarily so, and out of respect to many of your colleagues, 16 legislators who currently represent those areas would end up on the losing end of this proposal.

The Legislature has not approved policies that would harm the districts of your colleagues who represent the five Delta counties and the nearly 4 million who live there. So you might recall if you were here last session, you were asked to vote on a sequel statutory exemption for habitat projects in the Delta. That proposal was only approved after the language was modified to exclude construction of the tunnel as part of the exemption.

And assurances were provided on the Assembly floor by leadership that the exemption would not benefit the tunnel. Now, here we are nearly 22 months later, and the Administration is asking for the Legislature to expedite the process, as been discussed earlier today, for a project that's projected to be $16 billion a few years ago. God knows what it is now.

For those who would compare what the Governor is proposing to the NFL and the NBA stadiums, legislation that's been approved in the years past, I would ask you to consider the following: the footprints for those projects, arenas and stadiums usually are within a single city within the land use authority done by in coordination with city leaders where stadiums and arenas are not being forced on local municipalities. In the case of the tunnel, every county and city that is affected, opposes it.

It would be 40 miles long and still have not clear funding, and it doesn't create new water, not one drop of new water. And as alluded to earlier today, the secretary indicated the need for more water, I think it's fair to say, and probably all can agree, our climate changing environment is very real.

And what I would expand on is that just a couple of years ago, I think we can all probably remember, under an existing statewide drought declaration, we were still extinguishing fires and we were having historic flooding. Our climate situation is very real. The 21st century challenges are not going to be resolved with 20th century thinking.

So, in conclusion, the five Delta counties respectfully request that any reference to the Delta Conveyance project in the Sequoia judicial streamlining provisions be stricken and made clear that the tunnel be subject to regular Sequoia judicial review.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak.

Thank you. Any questions from the Committee. Mr. Bennett?

I'll go ahead. My questions were from the previous one, but I think this is probably the appropriate time. Number one, a number of my questions have been asked, and so I won't ask those questions again. I do want to say I've attended now all three of these hearings. I've had lots of conversations with people both before and after each one of the hearings.

And in my mind, I've expressed over and over again that I'm glad we're increasing the sense of urgency about doing something, given how far behind we are in terms of our climate change goals, et cetera, in terms of moving forward. So I really welcome Secretary Crowfoot's introduction today where he said we're going to have sustained urgency because we need to have sustained urgency on this issue, but we also need durable change.

And whether it takes weeks or months or longer, I can't emphasize enough how important it is that all of us keep a sense of sustained urgency going forward. But I do want to address the issue of durable change, because if the change is not durable, we actually will erode support for urgency about what to do with climate change and all of the issues that are out there and durability combined with sustained urgency, long term sustained urgency, requires tremendous engagement of all of the stakeholders and tremendous responsiveness, particularly to the Legislature.

And so the question that I have still and the Administration does not have to come back up and answer it because it's more, but maybe I can watch Secretary Crowfoot and others nod their head. But the question is this is the Administration willing to engage? If the Administration wants to move quickly, is the Administration willing to engage the stakeholders, particularly the opponents to these projects?

Is the Administration willing to be more responsive to the Legislature? Because quite frankly, that's one place where the Administration has not done an adequate job. Stakeholders that were clearly be strong, initial opponents of this have not been engaged with yet. They need to be engaged with the legislatures, ask questions and ask for more specificity. To get to durable change requires much more and extensive commitment to this, both responsiveness and engagement, so that people feel a real part of this.

So that was the question that I had. And you can nod or not nod. You can respond later if you prefer. But my other questions were what are the eight projects, that has already been asked? And what about the question that was asked by Assembly Member Addis, regarding the public records request and stuff? So those are the three questions. I only had one left. So thank you very much.

And if you could please provide your responses to Mr. Bennett and to the Members of the two committees, it would be appreciated. Any other questions or comments from the Committee? Ms. Papan.

I know you say you could do this if feasible. What procedure would you like to implement to determine what's feasible? Would it be on an individual court basis? Would it be the presiding judge in each district? What do you foresee?

Well, if feasible is more to the complexity of the case that's filed. So it just depends on the complexity of the action and what the litigants are disputing and what the petitioner believes is the failure to comply with CEQA. And then you have a wide variety of causes of actions that are attached to it. And it depends on the project as well, depending on how large the project is. It depends on the size of the administrative record.

So those are the things that impact to the extent feasible as well as counsel, depending on if they have other cases going as well. So there's a lot of things that go into the formula.

So that's the criteria. But who would be determining that, the judge that the case is assigned to is in the best position?

Correct, the person assigned the case because you get on it right away. You get your research attorney on the administrative record right away. And then you take a look and go, okay, how large isn't this? How wide? How deep? And then let's put some timelines to it.

Ms. Addis.

Thank you and welcome from Monterey. I did want to ask you mentioned the possible need for more resources, and if there's a sense of magnitude around how many more resources, what that might cost?

It just depends on the size of the court and what your resources are. If you're Los Angeles with over 500 judicial officers and a wide cadre of research attorneys, I'm not sure what their need would be.

But they would have a need as well in order to increase the level of available research attorneys to at least quickly expedite the review of the administrative record and make sure that it's hyperlinked and everything for the judicial officer, as well as I think the education is really important, because then when you have a wider variety of judges who are able to handle the CEQA cases, then you can go ahead and send them out to a wide variety of judges rather than a select number.

So it depends on the court. You may have a small court, such as Mendocino, where they may need one additional person with a small court. I know with respect to my court, Monterey, we could probably use a few because, you know, it's a coastal county, and with Fort Ord and the water issues, we're kind of busy. And we have one CEQA attorney, and so some of the other research attorneys try to assist and help, but sometimes we have to stagger cases.

We do put out a monthly timeline and a monthly schedule with respect to what's pending, so that we can kind of juggle. So it's those resources that would be very much needed.

Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no further questions from the panel, I want to thank our witnesses for attending here today. We appreciate we're going to now move on to our third panel. I'll turn it back over to Chair Rivas.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Next, we'll move on to the non-governmental stakeholder panel. We have representatives from Defenders of Wildlife, Restore the Delta, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club and the California Environmental Justice Alliance. There's many of you on this panel. We have 30 minutes total for this panel, so I ask that you respect the time limit.

Of course. Good afternoon, Chairs and Members. My name is Kim Delfino. I'm with Earth Advocacy. But today I'm here representing Defenders of Wildlife. Defenders has been an active champion of moving aggressively to meet California's climate goals and achieve climate resiliency against the impacts that communities and ecosystems are already experiencing. As we have heard over and over today, and as we are well aware if you are out in the weather and read the news, California is facing a climate crisis and must act quickly.

However, I think that we have to make sure that while we are acting with urgency, we are not acting in haste. The Administration has put forward a proposed package of 10 Trailer bills that purport to be necessary to rapidly deploy infrastructure projects. However, as we've seen in the past two hearings and now in this third hearing, many of these proposals raise more questions than the Administration can answer.

And one of the biggest question is and has already been asked, what are the specific projects beyond the Delta Conveyance that this package is supposed to be benefiting? California FWD Report states by integrating the principles of equity, climate and shared prosperity in infrastructure development and delivery, California can shape a more modern, prosperous, resilient and inclusive economy that centers community voice and priorities.

My copanelists and the hundreds of thousands of Californians we represent will describe how the administration's infrastructure package does not reflect these principles and thus will not have the intended result. First, I'm going to discuss some of the problems regarding the administrative record proposal, but my colleague David Pruitt with NRDC is going to go more in depth into that.

To begin with, the proposed approach, with respect to the administrative record, is contrary to what we do under federal law, law that was critical to California's litigation against the Trump administration's attempt to roll back environmental laws. And indeed, the administration's trailer Bill runs counter to the position taken by the state in litigation with the Trump Administration in 2020. What the Administration appears to propose is to exclude from the administrative record all internal electronic communications, including emails, that were not presented to the final decision making body.

This is an extraordinary proposal when you think about how much communication is conducted via email and text. And I appreciate the comments that were made already by Assemblymember Calderon to this point. The proposal seems to discount the information that goes into the decisions that are made prior to the final decision by the decision-making body. When an agency is evaluating a project under CEQA, they're making many, many decisions along the way. What's the scope of the project?

What are the alternatives that we should be evaluating, what biological surveys should be done, et cetera, et cetera. That all leads up to the cumulative final decision. But the proposal that they're putting forward today could allow the agency to hold back those internal electronic communications that are going back and forth that generate the final decision.

And so that is really, I think, has been the case pointed out by the Committee analysis that it's hard to suggest that emails and texts are not a common and important form of agency communication and decision-making and therefore a relevant part of the administrative record. What's more, the proposal fundamentally weakens government accountability and good governance. It will result in the omission of significant information regarding an agency's decision-making process from the official record.

It could exempt attachments of critical documents contained in electronic communications from disclosure. It would significantly undermine a court's ability to review the adequacy of the agency's decision, and finally, it treats judicial review of CEQA determinations differently than all other types of public agency decision-making. In addition, the administrative record proposal appears to allow a lead agency to take over the record preparation and then charge the petitioner the cost of completing the record.

Record preparation is already a difficult burden for community organizations, and potentially a lead agency could use this provision to financially overwhelm petitioners, thereby making CEQA a protection, something only the rich can afford. Similarly, the judicial review proposal is breathtaking in its expansion of project scope, coupled with the absence of any protections included in prior legislation.

It applies to 20 unidentified transportation projects and an unlimited number of other projects permanently, with no limit and no sunset, including the Delta Conveyance project, water desalinization projects and water canal projects and the like. It applies to project types that very well may increase greenhouse gas emissions while being built or operated and have a range of other environmental impacts. And it includes no assurance that eligible projects will have a GHD benefit or are consistent with the state's climate goals.

The proposal shelves all of the environmental leadership requirements included in prior expedited judicial review laws. These aren't just nice to have. They're related to the administration's intent, because if the project is meeting these requirements, it's a project that is less likely to be litigated, as evidenced by the fact that only four of the 30 or so leadership projects have faced litigation.

Given the many unanswered questions and the enormous scope of potential projects affected by these proposals, it is critical that all potentially impacted communities be consulted, including frontline communities and tribes. I want to close by thanking the Committee for this Hearing and all the other two informational hearings. But three hearings in three days do not replace the regular deliberative legislative process.

And we urge you to resist reacting in haste to the governor's sense of urgency around proposals that just are not thoughtfully crafted at this point to meet the moment. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Members. My name is Brandon Dawson. I'm the Sierra Club California Director. Sierra Club is the largest grassroots environmental nonprofit in the nation, with over 3 million Members nationwide and 500,000 of those in California. First, I want to thank the Committee and consultants for their thorough analysis of this proposal. That analysis is clear. The administration's plan aims to keep communities and advocates uninformed and ill equipped through the judicial process, hindering the progress California needs to fight the climate crisis.

We wholly agree with the Administration that Californians are under threat by the climate crisis. Without urgent action, our communities and ecosystems face irreparable harm. And while Sierra Club appreciates the urgency and supports swift action. We also believe that the state must balance this with the go slow to go fast approach. In other words, California should thoughtfully integrate principles of equity, climate and shared prosperity and infrastructure development to meet the urgency of this moment.

And we're eager to witness California's rapid implementation of sustainable water projects, clean energy resources, and wildlife corridors. However, it is crucial to address these goals equitably economically and transparently. And regrettably, the current Trailer Bill proposal fails to meet these standards. These proposals undermine a critical element of CEQA and disregard the benefits and resources provided by the statute. CEQA has protected iconic landscapes communities from polluting industries and has aided in reducing greenhouse gas emissions across the state.

The law ensures a public process where communities can engage in discussions and demand improvements to projects that pose significant harm. Citizen enforcement is a key advantage of CEQA. It empowers communities and groups to sue developers or project proponents who fail to comply with the law. The decentralized approach is necessary, as no single enforcement agency can fully grasp the nuances of potential impacts of the new projects in those communities. In other words, the CEQA litigation process is the enforcement process that is a fundamental aspect of CEQA.

However, the current proposals jeopardize this crucial aspect. They seek to streamline judicial review, undermining the importance of thorough scientific analysis and evidence-based decision-making. Rushing the review process undermines the integrity of the law and compromises the protection of communities and the environment. And this is especially important considering the types of projects the Administration seeks to expedite, which my colleague from Restore the Delta will talk about in just a second. So why is the Administration pursuing this aspect?

They claim that CEQA litigation significantly delays the projects, but in reality, CEQA litigation is rare, with no more than 250 cases statewide in any given year from 2002 to 2015. The actual deterrence of large-scale development have primarily been local zoning laws, local zoning laws, land use policies, construction cost, and limited open space in major cities.

The real need that this Legislature should address is the 40 new positions that the Administration requested in a budget BCP in January that both the Senate and the Assembly Budget Committees approved to help the Department of Fish and Wildlife be staffed adequately to move energy and water infrastructure projects expeditiously. Furthermore, singling out CEQA ignores the multitude of federal laws, state statutes, and local ordinances that govern large projects, each with their own enforcement mechanism and litigation, can be brought under those at just as much as CEQA.

Lastly, in Monday and yesterday and even today's hearings, you heard the Administration state that by adhering to the Justice40 principles, they will ensure that environmental justice, communities and protections will be adhered to throughout this process. However, this is simply a misrepresentation of what Justice40 is. Under Justice40, agencies should be consulting with communities and environmental justice groups and expanding the integration of their input into agency actions.

Following Justice40 is meant to be a net benefit to addressing environmental needs for our frontline communities, not a tradeoff for undermining existing environmental laws core to transparency and decision making like CEQA. In conclusion, while the Governor claims to be aligned with environmental justice and environmental groups in tackling the climate crisis, the reality is that this proposal falls short of that. Environmental and environmental justice groups possess invaluable knowledge and expertise in developing solutions. And the proposal before you today is not one of those.

We were not consulted and we were just as surprised as you were when receiving this. We strongly urge the Legislature to refrain from hastily responding to the Governor's sense of urgency regarding the current proposals as they lack thoughtful crafting to address the current situation that California is currently in. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Chair and Board Members. My name is Barbara Barrigan-Parrilla and I'm with Restore the Delta. We have 70,000 supporters in California and we reach about 450,000 Californians monthly with our communications. I have been leading our organization since 2006 and am very familiar with the proposed Delta Conveyance project presently and its past iterations as well. I want to thank you for your work and for the opportunity to speak today.

A thorough and transparent CEQA process is essential to protecting our communities and our environment. CEQA has been used by a number of tribes to help preserve cultural resources. Please note that tribal representation is not here because they have not been given time to respond to these trailer bills or engaged in with this process through any type of consultation government to government. We learned this morning that some local Delta government agencies have also just learned about the trailer package in the last 48 hours.

The Delta, according to data compiled by the Department of Water Resources, is a majority disadvantaged BIPOC community in both its rural and urban areas with pockets of wealth. It also contains, percentage wise, some of the largest environmental justice communities in the state with one third of Stockton living at the bottom 80 to 99 percentile for environmental health. It is also the historic home for numerous cultural sites for a number of California tribes.

This is important to understand when we consider where we are at with the present Delta Conveyance EIR and the economic burden accelerated judicial review and record administration will place on financially-burdened communities should the project advance in its present form. We are at ground zero for the impacts.

When California water fix ended and the Newsom Administration announced going forward with a single tunnel, Restore the Delta engaged in a good faith effort with the Delta Conveyance and Construction Authority for two years to work on improving the project for communities. We were very sincere with that effort. Our continuous questions around harmful algal blooms, salinity water quality and long term changes to that water quality were ignored by the Construction Water Authority, telling us that the Department of Water Resources would be addressing those questions in the EIR.

They have not been addressed fully, accurately or adequately. Furthermore, the EIR contains no detailed mitigation plan for impacts around air and water quality during construction for our AB 617 community or rural Delta communities. And modeling for water supply is right now based on historically dated data as identified by the State Auditor in their recent report.

Rather than using the best available climate science, this EIR is the worst version of the Delta Conveyance Project that we have seen over the course of 17 years. We understand that a revised or final EIR will be issued in December. If this version becomes the final EIR, the Delta and its significant environmental justice population will be burdened with extreme water and air quality problems for decades. We may need to litigate.

Small organizations like ours only can avail ourselves of legal representation with pro-bono counsel and often by doing the work ourselves or with legal interns to assemble the legal record. Rushing procedures and adding costs to litigation effectively prohibits small groups from participating in the legal process, thereby weakening democracy and due process. We oppose the trailer bills for these reasons, as a matter of fairness for disadvantaged communities, and we hope you will take our comments into consideration. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairs and Members. I am Jonathan Pruitt with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, or CEJA. CEJA represents 10 grassroots environmental justice organizations from the Bay Area to the Central Valley to the Tijuana border, with membership in the tens of thousands advocating for progressive environmental policies at the state level. Several of our member and partner organizations use CEQA to protect the environmental health and well being of the most vulnerable communities in the state.

CEJA supports a just transition to a clean and renewable energy system that prioritizes retirement of polluting infrastructure in the environmental justice communities. And it's this transition that involves developing and replacing with clean energy generation, storage and distribution. And through this transition, it's crucial to honor the community leadership, protect against false energy solutions, and ensure tangible benefits and investments reach those environmental justice communities. Aligning with the principles that the California Environmental Equality Act fundamentally upholds.

CEQA is essential for EJ communities to ensure that their voice is heard in the land use and planning and protecting their environmental health, and promoting clean air, water and soil. While we understand the Administrator's desire to create greater certainty and faster timelines for CEQA-related lawsuits, such policies can actually disproportionately harm low-income neighbors and communities that are predominantly black, indigenous and people of color, causing environmental damage if implemented poorly and diverting attention from the effective solutions to the environmental challenges.

And it's this dynamic that is complicated by the fact that low-income and BIPOC communities have fewer resources and limited access to legal advocacy compared to the well resourced industry and other privileged special interest groups. To top it off, we actually have public agencies that seek to push projects that harm EJ communities. In the narrowly defined scope of internal agency communications, the proposal aims to exclude internal agency communications like emails that were not presented in the final decision making body.

Community-based environmental justice organizations have traditionally relied on those things for the body of evidence. Internal emails can provide a window in the environmental and analysis that was done on the project, as well as the communication between staff and developers regarding the project scope as well as the impacts.

And let me share a specific example. In late 2017, a warehouse complex was proposed in South Fresno, threatening a small environmental justice community with proposing 6000 daily truck trips and increased air pollution. And despite the community's concerns voiced in multiple hearings, their pleas were unheard. In teaming up with the Leadership Council for Justice Accountability, a CEJA Member organization, the community filed a petition to challenge the project. And a long story short, the communications with the Mayor proved critical in the disposition of the matter.

The current proposal, as drafted, could leave petitioners in the dark as to these communications and severely hamper in the efforts to ensure effective and equitable environmental review and decision making. Additionally, we are concerned that the rigid 60 day expedited timeline for the administrative record preparation could pose barriers for the low income, community based grassroots organizations, equally shift the power to those agencies.

And as drafted, the legislation is especially problematic in that it does not clarify that the agency will cover the cost of record production if the agency takes over record production from a petitioner. The digital streamlined proposal creates no guarantee that even a goal that the projects will not create or exacerbate environmental harms in EJ communities. The state should not be providing judicial streamline for projects that threaten severe environmental and health-related harms for EJ communities, both during construction and during operation.

We should engage in more careful consideration and deliberation on whether or not these projects should be built and where they should be located. For instance, the state should not provide policy preferences for the transportation projects that cause or exacerbate climate, air and noise impacts. Critically, the inclusion of highway or other major artery expansions or interchange expansions in this Bill is deeply problematic. These projects in the Central Valley are often pitch as quote unquote, safety measures, but they facilitate more freight.

These projects often promote industrial development near environmental justice communities, and we've seen this in multiple instances in the Central Valley, such as those in South Central Fresno and Matheny Tract in Tulare County. Expansion projects claim to alleviate congestion and enhance safety, but in the medium and long term, they fail to do so due to latent-induced demand. Instead, these projects often encourage more freight traffic, leading to increased pollution and safety concerns.

Lastly, the bill's broadly defined list of proposed clean energy projects for a streamlined CEQA judicial review may include harmful energy systems and approaches that increase pollution extraction EJ communities. We are especially concerned about the possibility of expediting judicial review for lithium extraction and production, battery production, dirty hydrogen and biofuels, carbon capture and storage, among others. As noted, there are no protections that expedited projects will not exacerbate local pollution in disadvantaged communities.

And so we strongly recommend that these bills go through the full legislative process, so that we can ensure a full democratic process for vetting these bills. Those who would be most impacted by these projects, especially those predominantly low-income and BIPOC neighborhoods, should be consultant at the table when these decisions are made. We have a lot of expertise to offer decision makers as these policies are further evaluated. I thank you for your time and your consideration.

Thank you. We have a few minutes left. I just want to make sure that Members have the opportunity to ask questions, so please be brief.

Thank you very much, and I will. My name is David Pettit. I'm a lawyer. I'm a litigator with the Natural Resources Defense Council. I try cases and argue appeals for a living and have done so for a long time. So what I'm trying to bring to the table this afternoon is sort of a street level view of what these proposed changes will mean in the actual CEQA practice. Most of my clients are community groups, members of the EJ communities.

They tend to have not a lot of money to be able to pay for administrative records. As you've heard, I had a case a couple of years ago where the city of Los Angeles wanted $400,000 up front before we saw a piece of paper. Number one, for the administrative record that's really not supportable. Anything that would make that more difficult should not be entertained, I think, by the Legislature.

So I want to turn to a couple of things that the Administration has talked about in terms of making California more competitive. First, the 270 day rule. The kicker there is, if feasible, that's an exception that swallows the rule. It's unenforceable. And if the Administration went to the Feds and said, look, you can give us all this money, we're ready to go, because these cases will be handled in 270 days if feasible. What does that even mean?

Would that convince anybody that we're actually ready to go? The second is the idea that we're going to save money by cutting down on emails in the administrative record. Two things on that. First, I do these cases, typically, the emails are a tiny, tiny percentage of what goes into the record.

So if it saves the agency a couple of days in a process that can last a couple of years, I think that's relatively trivial compared with it's, particularly compared with the injury to the process and the communities by not being able to see what is in those emails. I think Mr. Calfee hit it right on the head where he said courts can still consider evidence of malfeasance, but there's a couple suppositions in there.

One is that we can find that evidence, and second, that we can convince the court to look at it. And if it's not automatically presented in the administrative record as was discussed before, we need to go through the California Public Records Act. That could lead to litigation by itself. And when we finally got the document, we'd need to go to the CEQA judge and say, 'hey, Your Honor, this should go on the record'. The lead agency would say, 'oh, no, it shouldn't'. We'd fight over that.

All of that leads to more time and expense in resolving the CEQA case at the trial court level, and then you've got the appellate level on top of that. I think that there may indeed be ways to make CEQA more productive, and there are certainly ways to speed up the infrastructure projects that we need in California.

And we at NRDC, invite the Administration to come to the table with the EJ groups, with the tribes, with the NGOs, and talk about how to do that rather than springing something like this on the Legislature on very short notice. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we'll move to questions from Committee Members, and we'll start with Assembly Member Reyes Gómez.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I think if we look at the big picture, I think we'll all agree that we want to draw down as much federal money as we can. We also can agree that we want to move as quickly as possible on infrastructure projects that are good for our communities and good for the environment.

However, I think that what the Governor is proposing here suggests that the best way to get this done is to undermine the very laws that the Legislature has written that help determine and shape the projects that we indeed call good. That's a false premise. What is lacking from this conversation are efforts and investments in early and thoughtful planning for infrastructure projects that are so often the key to successful projects.

The proposals lack investment in our permitting agencies, and as we heard, also for our courts, we lack the investments there as well. We need to give them the staff and the capacity to permit and also to do the judicial reviews. The package sends the message that the key to getting key projects done is to let agency staff make decisions out of the administrative record, to limit judicial scrutiny of huge, complex projects, to make it harder for small organizations with limited resources to engage in CEQA enforcement.

All of this sounds like California that we don't want to be. With that said, I did have some questions for the Administration. I'll ask them here. If I may, Secretary Crowfoot, you stated that the package is important to achieving our climate goals. Yet I saw in this proposal, that would actually require these projects to be beneficial from the climate lens. For example, the eligible transportation projects have to be consistent with a climate action plan for transportation infrastructure goals. One of those goals is to improve safety.

Often, highway widening projects are often argued as safety projects, but widening our freeways is hardly in line with our climate goals. How does this, the first question this can be provided later- So how does this proposal ensure that eligible projects actually reduce GHG emissions or improve adaptation? Another question is how does this proposal restrict judicial streamlining benefits to projects that do not adversely impact disadvantaged communities? I know that there are some questions or some comments about Justice40 principles to address EJ concerns.

But Justice40 is about improving investments and decision-making processes to better incorporate community perspectives. It's not supposed to be an excuse to undermine laws that protect communities. Basically, if we have a dashboard showing where investments are made, it simply isn't the same as CEQA. More specifically regarding warehouses and building of warehouses, and this was touched on by some of the panelists, how can we ensure that marginalized communities? We talked about Central Valley, but the Inland Empire is another example.

These communities, especially those who do not have the resources, the opportunities or the capacity to engage with their local agencies to make sure they're not subjected to projects being forced into their neighborhoods in my district. We have seen this with warehouses. They pose a threat to the public health of our communities. And I fear that action taken through the administration's proposals may lead to further abuse.

So the question would be what is the response to these concerns that without a doubt, are going to affect the marginalized communities that have been discussed and that I represent? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Assembly Member Addis?

Well, first of all, I want to thank you each for your testimony. And I share the concern that the tribes aren't represented here today, that we're not able to hear from them in this hearing. I do want to go back to something we heard in the judicial review portion, but ask our attorney his thinking, because this 270 days when feasible. You have experience with CEQA. I'm wondering if there have been arguments that have extended the process when it comes to when feasible.

To me, that seems, and I think it might have been in the analysis that we could extend the process inadvertently when we get into these arguments about when feasible.

Thank you for the question. I've had cases that were resolved more quickly than that and cases that took a lot longer than that. I mean, there's a couple of factors that determine, at least in my view, what is feasible. One is how long does it take to prepare the record? And that's a whole different topic we could talk about on another occasion. But it's true. It can take nine months or longer for the agency to prepare the record, where everyone's just sitting around.

We're not writing briefs. We're just waiting. Once the record is completed, then that triggers the briefing schedule. Often both sides want extensions in the briefing. People are busy, and sometimes it's hard to deal with the issues in 30 days. And then you've got the court schedule when the courts are crowded. I mean, CEQA cases do have priority right now in the civil courts, but sometimes you just have to wait until your turn comes up.

So, yes, I think it's easy under the current regime to go over 270 days through appeal and what's feasible or not, I'm not sure that you can have, like, a bright line that says, here it is, and here it's not. I think you need to look at the factors in the case, including how big is the record and how crowded is the court?

Thank you.

Before I move on to questions from other Members, I want to provide an opportunity for the Administration to answer questions that Members had asked. If we could maybe split the seats for now. I mean, we still want this panel to be here, but maybe.

Thank you. And after you answer, then we'll move on. I have a list of Members that want to continue to ask questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think what we'll do, if I could invite the secretaries back up here, please. I think we'll start by maybe, and hopefully then you'll hear support. I just want to make sure I'm there's a bunch of folks I know in the audience. Yes, perfect.

After this, we will move to public comment, and we definitely want to provide the opportunity from Members of the audience to also express their views.

Thank you. We appreciate that. So I think what I want to do is maybe just start with the process. Obviously, the Governor appointed the Mayor Villaraigosa, just to clear up any misconceptions here. Mayor Villaraigosa did a year long tour of the state with thousands of stakeholders.

When the Governor speaks to where these proposals came from, they came from your districts and many of the stakeholders we see here that have been engaged with obviously the idea that we haven't met with stakeholders is inaccurate. We in fact have.

So I just want to be clear on that and also completely understand that there are extraordinary times which we do use the Trailer Bill process and completely understand the need for analysis and looking forward to continue working on this, but also don't want to be under the impression that we've never used this Trailer Bill process for items of priority. So I think all of those are just super important misconceptions that I just really want to clarify.

I'm going to turn it over in one moment to the secretaries, but this idea of the where feasible and I'd even invite the judge to come back up, it is absolutely judicial discretion. Mr. Calfie can speak to this more. So there's two things. One, the Department of Finance has already made a commitment to this training that we've heard a lot about so that we get the expertise.

The state government, the Administration and the Legislature have never told the judicial branch where to put their resources for the exact reason that the judge referred to, which is different courts need different resources. So want to just clarify that and then be really specific to the attorney here. That of course, where feasible is not determined by the Administration. It is in fact determined by the judicial branch.

And finally, before I turn it over to Secretary Crowfoot, just on this idea of which projects, we specifically tried to limit the idea of the projects so that it wouldn't be that there would be 10 projects for water. 10 for transportation, specifically so that we could get input from the Legislature. Use things like captive, which the Legislature has spoken a lot to us about in the past.

So we are in fact trying to really limit the projects that would be subject to these benefits by being really mindful of previous state laws. So I hope that clarifies, some of the previous statements made, and with that, would love for Secretary Crowfoot, I think, can answer all the questions. Additionally, Mr. Bennett, on meetings with stakeholders and the urgency Assembly Member Reyes, who I know isn't here, I'd love to answer.

If Secretary Omishakin can answer the highway widening and the other two pieces of clarification, I promise you I'm almost done. There are no warehouse provisions anywhere in these laws, nothing whatsoever. No warehouse is subject to any of these benefits. And then, second, a clarification on Justice 40. Justice 40, the federal law that requires us to account for disadvantaged communities and everything that we do is in fact, based on the Cal enviro screen. If Secretary Yana Garcia were here, she would speak to that.

So it is, in fact, embedded into everything we're doing. And to Secretary Crowfoot's earlier point, this infrastructure strike team that the Governor has directed will not only maintain at least 40%, and the state will go above that of the projects, will be in disadvantaged communities with appropriate mitigations, but we will actually go above that. So I'd also just say that the previous comments on justice 40, in fact, are not accurate.

So with that, Secretary just on the meeting with stakeholders, the water specifically, and then to Secretary Omashak and I think on the highway widening and then any other questions we can answer, I really appreciate it, Madam Chair. Thank you.

I'll just be super brief. We very much value the working relationship we have with stakeholders, including when we don't find ourselves agreeing with each other. So we have had and started dialogue with stakeholders, including, I think, four of the five folks testifying here today to better share our perspective in terms of the intent of this proposal or these proposals, as well as understanding their concerns. So that dialogue has been helpful, and I'll be brief as well.

But I think it's important to the Assembly Member who asked the questions about the captive and the highway component of this. I'll say these proposals are not in any way intended to skirt the environmental processes that we have embraced as a state. This is about looking at our existing processes to see where there are opportunities for efficiency and improvement.

Hearing from community members and stakeholders across the state is something that we will not move away from, especially in the stage that we're in today as it relates to issues around equity. We will not be trying to encourage skirting the environmental process or stakeholder and community engagement specifically to issues around highway widening and its relation to captive. The Climate Action Plan for transportation infrastructure that we adopt as a state about 18 months ago.

It is the way that we do our work in transportation today across the board, from the agency at CalSTA, all the way down to Caltrans and the other departments, if there's a safety project or any type of maintenance project that somehow will propose a widening, if you will. We will look to make sure that it addresses the VMT concerns or GHG concerns that we're also focused on today.

So we're not going to do a safety project that's going to create these exponential increases in VMT or GHG that we're all concerned about. CAPTI is the guide policy document for transportation investment in the state right now. It's been adopted by the CTC. I signed off on it when I was Caltrans Director before I became secretary. It's the way we do our work today.

So just want to be clear that we're not going to be widening the highways and skirting the environmental process or not listening to communities moving forward based on these proposals. Thank you.

Thank you for answering those questions.

Madam Chair. If I could just follow up very briefly.

I have Members, but I'll add you to the list. I have Assembly Member Hart, Zbur, and Pellerin. If we just go ahead. Assembly Member Hart.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate Secretary Omishakin's explanation about the CAPTI issues. There are additional layers of the question. What are the principles that you're going to use to evaluate projects? Which aspect of these principles warrant streamlined judicial review? What projects does the Administration have planned that apply to one of these principles and where are they in environmental review? Many layers of questions. Don't expect you to answer those kind of questions today, but I think it speaks to the process and the challenge.

I appreciate deeply what you are trying to do because as our colleague from Ventura spoke to, the moment requires urgency and this is a big deal and we need to move more quickly than the status quo. Yet, you know, folks are really concerned about what that means and it's uncertain what that means. And I mentioned this yesterday, and I think it's apt today, and I hear it from other people. More specificity about the specific projects that you're proposing to do.

This would relieve the tension to a large extent, would focus the stakeholders on the issues that are most urgent and imperative and would, frankly, let us all focus in on the realistic work that you can do. Now, I appreciate what Secretary Crowfoot said about the urgency of the drought response and the situation that we were in and how it's hard to narrow that lens because the impacts were profound. But we have a little bit of a breath.

Thankfully, nature helped out and we've got a little bit more water. And I just know to be successful and to get everybody on the same page and to make the progress that we need to do, we need to be more clear about what it is specifically we're trying to do. And I think the Administration would be well served by doing that.

Thank you. Assemblymember Zbur.

Actually, I was going to say a lot of the things that Assembly Member Hart said, so I'm not going to repeat that I did have a question for Mr. Pettit and that's related to the portion of the proposal related to the administrative record. Is your concern related to that part of the proposal? And I have some concerns about the elimination of the internal electronic records. I think it sort of cuts in a lot of different ways.

If that part was eliminated, can you give me your sense of the rest of the proposal? I know that that's a big chunk of it, but there are some other parts of that proposal. I'm just wondering if you could give me your sense of your views on that.

I think that part, if the record I'm sorry, the email stuff were cut out, I would still have concerns about the scope of projects that are subject to the speed up, who would pay for the administrative record, as has been discussed by others. The lack of specificity about which projects we're talking about. There's an issue that was alluded to earlier that AB 900, which started a lot of the speed up stuff, did have some environmental conditions attached to it which aren't present here.

And the Administration said, well, you don't need to have that because those are private projects. But we're the Administration, and in my experience, every project proponent, everyone says my project is a great project. Everyone's going to be healthy, it's going to help the environment. And you know what? Sometimes that's not true. And without a robust SQL process, the people that I represent are never going to be able to find out whether that's true or not.

Yeah, I guess that's great. Thank you.

Assembly Member Pellerin.

Thank you. I just want to add my voice to echo what Gregg Hart said. My colleague and I'm sure other colleagues have said, and yesterday as well in the Water Parks and Wildlife hearing, that this is a concerning process for me and let alone the policy. And these are very complex, complicated issues that do require time and attention. And I do understand the urgency of all this.

But our democracy basically calls upon us as legislators to go through a public hearing process where all stakeholders have plenty of time to review the proposals, submit testimony. And I'm very grateful for these information hearings. I was sat through the Water Parks and Wildlife yesterday, and I'm sorry I missed a lot of this today. But these are really important issues that we need to tackle as a state and we need to work together.

And I do have concerns about the process and would like to see them go through the regular process where we have hearings and everyone has a chance to testify. So just want to add my voice to that.

Thank you. Assemblymember Bennett.

I just wanted to clarify that I welcome hearing because as I've come out of each of these hearings, as I've heard from people, I certainly heard from a significant number of people who felt like they had not been reached out to at all. And with regard to, yes, there was a year long process with former Mayor Vivar Goso, but that was a process to sort of formulate how these proposals are going to come forward.

But as these proposals are coming forward, the fact that some significant opponent stakeholders felt completely blindsided is hurting our ability, I think, to keep us with that balance between urgency and appropriateness in terms of process, et cetera. So that's why I really welcome the fact that that helps and that that's what we need. If it's this important, then it needs both responsiveness and engagement. Thank you very much.

Assemblymember Addis.

Well, thank you for coming back up here. And, Ms. Miller, I know your statement was meant to normalize the trailer Bill process, but I think you actually hit the nail on the head of the problem that with something of this magnitude, we really shouldn't be using the trailer Bill process. And I think that's the frustration you're hearing, not just from those up here on the dais, but you'll probably hear in public comment, although I can't speak for people.

And so we just really ask that you consider that when you're normalizing that process for something that has this much of an effect on coastal communities and all communities of California, this is really not the process to do this. And then, Secretary Crowfoot, I know you're good at stakeholder engagement because you came to my district and you did some stakeholder engagement there. I have never met a constituent outside of a government worker who said, no, we don't want to see internal government communications. So I'm really interested about the contour of who these stakeholders are that are saying, please limit the public record.

Yeah. If I understand your question correctly, you're asking the genesis of the proposal from our agency.

I think I'm hearing from the panel or from some of you on the panel, that you did a lot of stakeholder engagement, that you developed these proposals based on stakeholder input, that this is what stakeholders want, that you went to our districts, that you talked to our constituents. I'm saying never in my life outside of government workers, government officials, have I had a stakeholder say to me, please limit the public record.

So I'm just wondering, where is this coming from? If it's coming from my constituents, I would like to know.

Right.

Yeah. So let me be clear that that proposal is generated from a question of how can we help the CEQA process get adjudicated fairly, but more quickly so we can build the infrastructure we desperately need? Not every letter of every proposal was a direct recommendation from a constituent, but I can tell you I have great faith in my colleagues that work to move projects through the process in a fair way. And the status quo is broken. I think everybody, either publicly or quietly, can acknowledge that.

And the Legislature and the Governor have signed laws that set climate targets that are unrealistic unless we change the process. So we have made a good faith effort to identify ways to streamline or accelerate the adjudication of SQL lawsuits. That's the goal. And we have been circle around this issue for years. And the status quo is a policy choice, but I don't think it's a policy choice that we can make if we're actually going to meet the targets we've passed into law.

So I say this as candidly and genuinely as I can, that these proposals come from well meaning colleagues and our agencies that want to deliver on the targets that our policymakers have set.

Thank you. I have Bauer-Kahan, Assembly Member Papan, Assembly Member Hoover and then we will move to public comment. We definitely want to hear from those in the audience.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just touch quickly on the electronic record piece because it's come up a couple of times. I left practice over a decade ago, maybe more, and even then the tools to get email content together to deliver were pretty straightforward and quick. I imagine in the decades since I've been a lawyer, they've improved.

So I just don't see how that's the time suck is getting those emails which are done through electronic means prepared is what is stopping CCore from moving quickly. Seems irrational to me, having practiced law. And I know that I'm getting headshakes from the other lawyers on the dais.

And in addition, I think it's really important that even if emails were not delivered to the entire body, which is what this requires, they absolutely could have weighed into the decision if delivered to a minority of the body that makes the decision. So I think it is really important that if we're looking at these decisions, how they were made, those documents are integral to it. And so I think it is a key point that we're making here.

But I really wanted to give an opportunity probably to the secretarial, both the secretaries. There's been a lot of comments made about not engaging tribal Californians and I know that it is a huge commitment of this Administration. And so I did want to give you an opportunity to address that because I imagine that happened and so wanted to do that.

But I also before that wanted to say that one of the things that we brought up yesterday and I think relates equally to the CEQA proposals is this question of environmental justice and one that I know this Administration is incredibly dedicated to. And I wanted to reiterate that these proposals outlast this Administration. So even if we trust this Administration to take those communities into consideration every single day, every step of the way, there is no sunset on these bills.

And so we do not know that the Next Administration would do the same thing. And so it is critically important that that be in statute rather than just a commitment of the Administration, which I trust you to uphold, but we can't trust who we don't know to come in the future. But if you want to address the tribal question.

I would first just share something that I didn't share before, which is we have created or established or updated, I should say, our state's climate adaptation strategy. And that's required by a state law. And so our agency leads that process. And I'm really proud of the update that was released last year and in a sense forth six fundamental principles. First and foremost is prioritize those communities most vulnerable.

So I just want to remind us that our policy and our focus is putting in place what we need to protect the most vulnerable communities and remind us all that taking action is all about protecting these communities. And we saw this with Pajaro and Planata and other places that these impacts are hitting our most vulnerable first. So I share that with because I didn't include that prior to this. You're right.

We're very proud of our tribal engagement and our partnership with tribes, both acknowledging past wrongs and really institutionalizing more consultation and tribal partnerships. My understanding is that government to government consultation is not built into the legislative process nor the budget process. And so we're submitting proposals into this process. Certainly as we develop government programs, whether they're funding programs or what have you, we're going through that government to government consultation process and are proud of that.

Madam Chair, did you want any of the administrative record review questions answered now?

I have two more Members, and I just want to make sure Assembly Member Papan

So I just want to follow up on the administrative records. I concur that it's probably not a great burden and it does cause concern as it relates to transparency. As we heard from one of the witnesses today, there are decisions that are made all along the way.

So you can understand that the public might think, why won't you let me see these records? This is what went into the decision making process. And while we may have public engagement, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're listening. And I think that it is important to the process to see how you were listened to, and some of those records will reflect how you were listened to. So I'm not sure I recognize the status quo, but I think nowadays things are pretty efficient. We can do it.

So I'm not so persuaded that that changes how efficient we can be. And I want to tag on to the why are we doing this now in trailer bills. Right, wrong or indifferent is a big thing. It is big conceptually, it is big philosophically. And you can hear it. These people make a living by being representatives of their various districts. And it seems like there's notwithstanding the urgency, I thank you, Ms. Miller, for shaking your head.

It does seem like there is some circumventing of that process. So you want to talk about public engagement. These people want to be engaged because we're here because our district sent us here to engage and to engage fully and robustly, notwithstanding the urgency. So thank you for hearing me on that. If you want to add to the hey, why won't you let us see the discussions along the way via emails? I'm ready to listen.

Thank you. Assembly Member. Mr. Calfee. Chris, do you want to add anything to this question of administrative record? And specifically, why are we making the case that administrative record is a burden that, if addressed in this way, could help adjudicate litigation more quickly?

Yes, happy to address those questions. I will say that Mr. Pettit and I have talked about this issue for many, many years. I think we've had different experiences as practitioners, and it sounds like the members'experiences may be a little bit different as well in terms of the time that it takes to assemble these records. In my practice, I have found that a big chunk, actually, of the administrative record does constitute those internal agency emails. One example was approximately 20% of the entire record involved individual internal emails.

The reason that that becomes an issue for a time issue totally agree that electronic mail can be fairly easy to import and export. The issue, though, is particularly because they are internal agency emails, each one needs to be reviewed carefully for attorney client privilege and deliberative process privileges. And that's an important function of what an agency does. And that does take significant amount of time.

On the issue that was raised about and I really appreciate the comment that was raised about making sure that people feel heard as part of the process. And that is built into the CEQA process, particularly on the requirement that agencies provide responses to those comments that they hear from the public. And so that's an example of one of the ways that CEQA requires lead agencies to be responsive to its constituency.

And so things like the notices, things like the environmental documents, all of the technical studies, all of the responses to comments, all of the written findings, all of those things definitely remain in the written record that goes in front of a court. Last thing I'll say is, in response to Stakeholder comments, one of the things that we heard in the context of CEQA is don't take away our public process. Don't try to provide exemptions. Don't try to cut out pieces of environmental review from the process.

So the thing that was left was focusing on the litigation process. And particularly, we have heard that the administrative record is a place where we can cut down on some of that time and delay. So appreciate the chance to answer.

Thank you. And our final question from Assemblymember Hoover.

Thank you. Just brief comments. I would say. I share the concerns of my colleagues and the legislative analysts on using the Budget Trailer Bill process. I think that this is not a process that should be used for major policy changes, although the Legislature does do that with regularity. And I actually agree with Assemblymember Kalra, who said earlier that it almost makes more sense to use an urgency vehicle for these discussions.

But that said, I do believe that the Administration has identified a critical problem with these proposals. We have to do more to streamline and reform CEQA, but the Legislature has not had success doing this other than one off exemptions. And we've set some really ambitious goals in our state, and I don't believe that we can meet them without these reforms. Well, maybe I should say efficiencies rather than streamlining.

Sorry, Assembly Member Wood, but we also need to urgently act to ensure that we can build critical infrastructure. So I appreciate the conversation today and look forward to being a part of those discussions moving forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you to all our panelists today. Next, we're ready for public comment. I'll hand it back to Assemblymember Maienschein.

Thank you. We'll turn over to public comment now, and I'm not having any further questions or comments other than to say I also want to stress about I would have very strong feelings about the public either actually being denied internal emails or feeling like they're being denied internal emails. So we'll leave my strong feelings there. We'll start with public comment. We have a whole lot of people, and we're going to try to get through all of them. I would ask again to try to be brief, concise, and to the point. And I will start with Mr. Wetch.

Mr. Madam Chair and Mr. Chair. Scott Wetch. On behalf of the State Association of Electrical Workers, the California State Pipe Trades Council, the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers, the California Coalition of Utility Employees, Elevator Constructors Union I'd just like to say, on the record, I think it's unfortunate that labor didn't have a panel here today to have equal time with the opponents of this proposal. We're here in strong support.

For those of you who have been around a while, my coalition has been at the forefront of protecting CEQA for 25 years. I personally have testified and lobbied against more CEQA bills than all the advocates sitting at that last table. We're very comfortable with this very modest proposal of the governors. But I ask, where was the opposition and where was the indignation when this Legislature passed AB 2011 by Buffy Wicks last year, which wasn't an expedited judicial review, but a complete elimination of the CEQA process for large housing developments?

I would guess that the reason why it passed unanimously and why I believe that Senator Weiner's SB 423, which goes along the same lines, will pass this year, is because housing is a crisis. And that's where we are with climate. And you have to stop letting the perfect. Be the enemy of the good. We have to get this done. And I'll tell you the reason why we have to get this done that nobody in any of the panels will mention.

But it's the fact, and I'm talking to my folks in Washington on a daily basis in the debt ceiling debate that took place a week ago, the Republicans in Congress tried to pull back every single dollar that the Biden Administration put in the infrastructure act towards climate projects. They're going to attempt that in the Budget Reconciliation Act, and they'll try it in next year's budget.

And if anybody's looked at the newspaper lately, we're facing an election in 2024 where we're probably going to lose the US Senate and very likely could lose the presidency. So we have a very narrow window, and the economic headwinds are coming at us. We're going to have a recession, and I'll be here in two years in front of you talking about the unemployment that we're facing in the State of California. This is an opportunity that you cannot fumble. So we would absolutely urge your aye vote. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Gianni Gianelli in support of IBEW 1245. And I support this Bill. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Rocio Gianelli, Member of IBEW 1245, in support.

Thank you. My name is Derrick Maynard, Local 1245 Member, and I support this Bill as well. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Mona Garcia. I'm a Member of IBW 1245, and I support this Bill as well.

Hello, my name is Tim Neal, Member of IBEW 1245, and I'm also in support of this Bill. Thank you.

Hi. My name is Kayla Jones. I'm also a Member of IBEW Local 1245, and I am support in support of the governor's infrastructure proposal. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Emilio Sanchez, a Member of the IBEW 1245, and I'm in support of the Bill.

Hi, Julie Gonzalez with IBEW 1245, and I am also in support of the governor's infrastructure Bill.

Hello. My name is Alvin Dayoan, a Member of IBEW Local 1245. I'm also in support of the governor's infrastructure proposal. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Members. Joe Cruz, on behalf of the California State Council of Laborers. Appreciate the conversation about this very important package of provisions that accelerate and move projects off the planning table. I do echo some of the concerns raised earlier is that I wish working families and labor had an opportunity to really detail the benefits of what these projects mean. The water quality, flood control, climate resiliency, air quality, and jobs in the economy, and just overall quality of life benefits that are associated with building these projects.

We represent 70,000 hardworking men and women in California, and when we build these construction projects in California, we pull people of color, women, and second chancers into the middle class, right? We need to accommodate all new growth. We need to accommodate big projects that keep our states competitive. But more importantly, we got to change people's lives, and we want the opportunity to talk about what those projects mean to everyday people. So thank you for your time, and thank you for your consideration.

Good afternoon, Chairs and Members of the Committee. Paul Mason with Pacific Forest Trust. And I'm going to stay focused on the internal agency communications portion of the package that I'm deeply concerned about. I've been involved with CEQA litigation since the Wilson Administration, which I highlight just to point out that administrations change. We won't always be dealing with our friends in the Newsom Administration, and these proposals are permanent changes to CEQA.

And I don't see any meaningful acceleration of the timeline by excluding being able to see some of those internal conversations that influence the outcomes. That seems to be exclusively to hide the warts, to keep some of the real liabilities out of the record and curate a record that helps support the project. I think that's deeply problematic and I urge you to reject that portion of the package. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Lance Hastings, President of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association. I think it goes without saying that infrastructure is actually the fabric that holds us together. Right now California's infrastructure is broken, which includes roads, highways, water, bridges, energy, and, of course, the human element of our workforce, which is not to be understated in the infrastructure discussion. I also observe after the course of this afternoon that urgency is a relative thing. Depends how one approaches it.

But manufacturers have been calling for enhanced infrastructure in California for at least 20 years. We really are at that tipping point. And if federal dollars are going to be the thing that brings us all together, we can't really underestimate that. It's important to manufacturers to have the ability to get our products to the consumers who want them. And we urge your support as swift as you can do with an infrastructure package like this. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. Adam Regele on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce. We wanted to thank the Administration. We strongly support the proposal. I did want to just use my time to speak to the administrative record piece. As a former CEQA litigator, I was tasked with reviewing privileged emails for the AR, or the Administrative Record. And just as noted, I think by the General Council, effectively, it would be hundreds of hours billing at hundreds of dollars an hour to review the entire email, privileged, non privileged.

Then there's a whole litigation fight over whether you did that correctly. That does add hours. It's not really the pulling of the email. You can do that with a couple of clicks. It's truly the reviewing of that. And I would say in my years of very rarely does an email matter. If it does matter, the actual proposal says if it's before the agency is part of the decision, it's part of the record.

But this would cut out a lot of the superfluous emails that are truly irrelevant to the disposition of the case. And there is an entire process under CEQA for extra judicial record to bring in that information. So I think the proposal balances those two competing issues of getting the necessary information to per the record and cutting out hundreds of hours that Bill and due add costs and time to the preparation. So I just want to put that on the record. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairs and Members. My name is Mark Watts. I represent Transportation California Coalition of Contractors and Allied Labor. And I'm here in support of the administration's proposal. I've been asked by the head of CalCOG, the California Council of Governments as well, to express his support for the measures.

And we see the acceleration of many projects in the transportation arena through this package, including some of the key transportation climate related projects that can reduce GHG or assist in adaptation to climate issues. So I thank you and request your support. Thank you.

Thank you. And just before the next speaker begins, I see we have a line that's curving around I don't know how many more people also. So just to make sure we get to everybody, if you can say your name and organization and position, that's great. If you have a new point to add that hasn't been raised by somebody else, that's great too. But let's just try to keep it concise, because I'm not even sure that individual there is the last one. So just to keep it flowing. So please proceed.

Hi, Samantha Samuelsen with Audubon California in opposition to the proposals discussed today, echoing the concerns raised by the panelists and the last panel.

Thank you.

Madam Chair and Mr. Chair, Chris McKayley on behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce in support. Just two quick points. One is, I don't think that expedited judicial review is elimination of a robust CEQA process. Second, I heard at least one witness say that they were not aware of the language until the last 48 hours. If my memory serves me right, all these proposals were posted on the DOF website almost three weeks ago. Thank you.

Chairs and Members. Alex Torres, Director of State Government Relations for the Bay Area Council. We represent over 300 employers in the nine county Bay Area. Also here as a proud member of the New California Coalition, a statewide coalition of business leaders. And we had submitted a letter with over 80 business organizations throughout the state and all of your districts in strong support of this proposal. I won't dwell too much on what's already been said.

I do want to borrow heavily from Secretary Crowfoot and that we need to be in a dead sprint on water projects. I think when it comes to CEQA litigation, a Chapman Law Review Journal article that was just released in March indicated that water projects were the most heavily targeted by CEQA litigation in 2019 through 2021. Transportation projects also heavily targeted. Renewable energy projects, solar, wind, battery storage. All of these are projects that have been targeted by CEQA.

So really excited to see these provisions in this package. Thank you to the Governor for proposing this and appreciate your time here. And I think Mr. Car was here, Ms. Pellerin here for multiple hearings. Appreciate your time and the deep dive on this discussion. I think it's an important one. Proud to be here in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Manny Leon, California Alliance for Jobs. We'll align many of our comments with California state laborers and Mr. Cruz. We're in support of the infrastructure package. We just want to highlight the economic benefits and the well paying jobs that these proposals will generate. Thank you very much.

Madam Chair and Members. Michael Pimentel, Executive Director of the California Transit Association, on behalf of our more than 220 member organizations, pleased to join you today to voice our support for the governor's proposals. I want to reflect on Ms. Miller's remarks and just acknowledge that we were one of the hundreds of stakeholder groups that met with infrastructure advisor Antonio Villaraigosa over the last year to offer our local perspective and recommendations for this proposal.

And I also want to reflect that over the last year, we've been engaged with you all in deep conversation about the state of our industry. And in those conversations, I have personally fielded countless questions and comments about why our industry isn't more efficient and effective in carrying out our mission. And I've routinely acknowledged that oftentimes state law and regulation gets in our way. One of those state laws that often gets in our way is CEQA.

And so what is before you today are some modest proposals for helping to streamline CEQA and improve our ability to be effective as an industry, and to carry out the functions that you all have asked us to pursue. And so as I close, I just want to also acknowledge that the proposals that are before you are complementary of other legislation that you have passed as a Legislature, including SB 922 and SB 44, which creates some CEQA exemptions for transit projects, though not all of them, and also helps streamline project delivery by providing, albeit for a short number of projects, that expedited judicial review. Again, at the appropriate time, would encourage your support for these proposals. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Stephanie Estrada, on behalf of the California Building Industry Association and California Business Properties Association, in strong support of Governor Newsom's plan to streamline critical infrastructure projects. We urge the Legislature to work with the Administration to adopt these proposals in the state budget process. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Genesis Tang on behalf of Cleaner Task Force in strong support of the Administration's policy package, specifically the CEQA judicial streamlining for clean energy projects. Cleaner Task Force Transmission Analysis identified permitting delays under CEQA and Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity, regulatory reviews that increase project development timelines and costs.

Legislative proposals like SB 420 by Becker and SB 619 Padilla provide specific and promising solutions to these permitting delays, and we see the Governor's proposal as a complementary measure in addition to these bills. And for topics outside of clean energy infrastructure, we are deferring to those experts. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Erin Norwood on behalf of the Almond Alliance, representing 7600 growers and over 100 almond processors in the state. The almond industry has seen firsthand the impacts of climate change, particularly with drought and flooding in the state. We believe that the need for real reforms and water solutions is right now, as articulated by Secretary Crowfoot, and for these reasons, we support the package. Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Members. Beverly Yu on behalf of State Building Construction Trades Council of California. I thank you for the hearing today. We also appreciate the series of hearings that the assembly has held to discuss the Governor's infrastructure package here. As we have covered in prior hearings, we would like to thank the Governor for his work to maximize the amount of federal funds coming in, as well as tackling the ballneck for projects like Sites Reservoir. We support these efforts, as well as the vast majority of the Governor's package as written.

Would like to flag that we do not align ourselves with the folks who oppose the efforts to streamline for the proposal. Our intent here is really just to make sure that the proposal is strong and make sure that it draws down the federal funds necessary to build these projects. Based on the agenda, I want to provide a few points on the CEQA judicial streamlining proposal. The Legislature has acted on streamlining before.

Specifically, in 2021, SB 7, authorized the Governor to certify publicly and privately financed projects that met heightened environmental standards and made commitments to utilize a skilled and trained workforce. These measures are very important. They work, they get these projects online quicker. We were strong supporters of the Bill at the time and believe that provides important template that can be built off us.

While we appreciate that skilled and trained was included in electrical and manufacturing components of the proposal, we want to make sure it's reflected in the whole proposal itself. And we want to make sure that the thresholds for the application of labor standards should not also be too high, that they leave large portions of projects uncovered. We also believe language should be added to the proposal that better defines what an eligible project should be to avoid potential efforts to manipulate project size in order to skirt labor standards. Thank you very much.

Good evening, Christina Scaringe with the Center for Biological Diversity. In the interest of time, I'll just reference our written submission, which is in opposition, and align our comments with the third panel. We also appreciate the deep engagement from the Dais on the comments related to transparency, accountability, and public right of access stakeholder engagement and really appreciate the comments about balancing this crisis, which is a crisis, with durable solutions. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Annalie Aiken on behalf of the Family Business Association of California in support mostly due to increases in good paying jobs for Californians and then also to state water contractors, Santa Clarita Valley Water Agency and San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District regarding the support for water related infrastructure. Thank you.

Hello, Voleck Taing with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. As the leading organization representing the innovation economy and its ecosystem. SVLG supports streamlining CEQA as the Governor has proposed and we also support streamlining the review for the delta conveyance to stabilize water supply for Silicon Valley region. So that's my short statement. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Mr. Chair, Committee Members. Mark Fenstermaker on behalf of Earth Justice. We are in opposition to the two proposals considered here today. I want to echo many of the comments from the third panel, but as my client does litigate CEQA cases, just want to reiterate the point that limiting the judicial record will lead to longer times and actually decrease efficiency because we will continue to ask for augmentation of the record if it's limited to emails we think are pertinent. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. Cara Martinson here on behalf of the Large Scale Solar Association in support of the measures before you with the major caveat that we believe this is just a first step and actually more reforms that are needed on the front end, on the back end of CEQA and really outside of the CEQA process, local land use constraints, to get the 86 gigawatts of clean energy infrastructure online by 2045 to meet our climate and energy goals. We do share the sense of urgency and we believe that projects that help reduce the GHG emissions should be expedited through all these various proposals and measures out there. Thank you.

Thank you. Melissa Cortez on behalf of the California Wind Energy Association, we want to offer our support to the administration's proposals. But I also would like to echo the comments from the Large Scale Solar Association. We think this is a good effort. We actually think it's a modest effort. If we're serious about meeting our climate goals, there's a lot more that we should be doing to streamline some of these processes and eliminate duplications. Thank you.

Good afternoon, honorable Chair and Committee Members. My name is Artie Valencia and I'm here on behalf of Restore the Delta and Environmental Justice Communities and we oppose the proposals. I have one outstanding question from today's session. So if the Delta tunnel is to be paid for by state water contractors, then why do we need accelerated CEQA for federal grants? It is not a federal or state funded project. Thank you.

And as the next speaker comes up, I'll just remind everybody we still have a lot more speakers. Try to be concise. I will remind everyone this is informational hearing. This will proceed. There will be a lot of opportunities for everybody from both the dais and from the audience to engage. So please proceed.

Thank you. Good afternoon, honorable Chairs and Members. Matthew Baker, Policy Director for Planning and Conservation League. We share the sense of urgency of the Administration and acknowledge the enormity of the task at hand. But we object to using the budget process for policy of this importance and scope.

And we have specific concerns with CEQA provisions that we discussed today, which we submitted to your committees in writing. You know, there's good and bad across these proposals, but it's going to take time and a lot more stakeholder collaboration to get these policies right and it demands at least the full legislative process.

Good afternoon, Chairs and Members, Matt Klopfenstein on behalf of SMUD. Local utility here in Sacramento and Energy Source Minerals, geothermal lithium company in Salton Sea Valley area, both in support of the two provisions before you today. Thank you.

Good evening, Chairs and Members. Natalie Boust on behalf of the California Business Roundtable. We fully support the Governor's proposed plan to improve the efficiency of environmental planning, permitting, and judicial review. And I urge your swift support of these proposals to boost job creation and enhance our state's infrastructure. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Olivia Seideman with Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability. The proposed changes to the scope of the administrative record would, as the Committee analysis states, have a chilling effect on government accountability and exclude critical information from judicial review of projects. This change to state law will harm the environment at large and environmental justice communities in particular.

Second, I just want to kind of echo some of the question asked by Assembly Member Reyes and really emphasize that any proposal to fast track or streamline transportation projects must exclude highway, other major artery and interchange expansions. These projects often promote industrial development near and cut into disadvantaged communities, as we've seen multiple times in the Central Valley, in places like South Central Fresno and Matheny Tract in Tulare County.

And consistency with cap dye is insufficient to prevent expansion projects from being streamlined when reducing congestion, improving safety of an intersection, or other principles are often used to excuse these expansions that increase VMT and air pollution. Without explicit language prohibiting expansions, we run the risk of streamlining these projects using captive principles. And while we encourage the straight transition to renewable energy, it is essential that we do not create further harm to disadvantaged communities already heavily burdened by the climate crisis and disinvestment.

The concept of specialized products, components or systems related to renewable energy and energy storage must be clearly defined to ensure that it does not apply to projects with known and unknown consequences to already disadvantaged communities, including lithium extraction, battery manufacturing, and polluting hydrogen. And finally, we just want to underscore the glaring omission of equity priorities in the infrastructure policy package. As a proposal meant to advance the state's top priorities in infrastructure implementation, the complete lack of environmental justice and equity standards is unacceptable and raises major concerns about the state's commitment to equity goals. Thank you.

Good evening, Mr. Chair, Madam Chair and Members. Adam Quinonez on behalf of the Association of California Water Agencies, also want to register support for our partner Association Water Reuse. Just want to underscore the sense of urgency that the Secretary, Secretary Crowfoot, spoke about. We saw what happened last year with the drought. We saw what happened this year with the flood. Our state's water system is not prepared to deal with climate change. These proposals would provide a mechanism for the state to build at the pace and scale that's needed to address the impacts of climate change. Thank you.

Honorable Chairs, Members of the Committee. Neal Desai with the National Parks Conservation Association. Two points. First of all, great work today. The Administration said they need this authority now, not later in the session, but now, to allow specific projects that they know will soon complete CEQA, so that they can benefit from this within a very short period of time. And so if there's that urgency that they must know the list. So I think we need to know what are the list of energy and water projects that they know. So let's get some daylight there.

Thank you for your help in asking those questions. Another claimed source of urgency is the future opportunities for federal grant funding, like infra, mega, and rural surface. There has been no evidence pointed to date that shows the state cannot apply and secure these and needing some sort of expedited legislation right now rather than in August or September.

And lastly, we don't think it's smart policy to silence the voices of scientists and other experts that can be excluded from the administrative record. Under this trailer Bill, a political appointee simply needs to tell a scientist, don't talk to this person and they're not in the record. And that just doesn't make sense. So thank you for your consideration.

Hi. Susan Jordan, the Director of the California Coastal Protection Network. I want to kind of bring this back just for a second to the public who I consider to be the major stakeholder here, because they are the people in all these communities who are going to be affected by these proposals. In terms of outreach, I think we need to define what outreach really is. Those meetings that California Forward held, I read that report. I went to that section. A thousand people in five hundred meetings, and I don't know one person, except for the person who said he was invited, that went or was invited to those meetings.

As a trained researcher, I'd want the Administration to provide to the Committee the names of the people, the groups that were invited, who actually participated. Was Restore The Delta invited? I kind of doubt it. So I just think it's really important for that to come forward. And I'm really glad that Assembly Member Bennett brought this up, because in terms of outreach to the groups that were sitting here and myself and we have 100 groups signed on to our letter. The first meeting we had with the Administration was last Friday with some follow up meetings on Monday. I do not call that outreach. I call that exclusion. Thank you.

Good evening. Laura Deehan, Director for Environment California. And today I stand in opposition to the two proposed bills, both the efforts to shortcut judicial review and also the administrative record. We strongly support getting more clean energy as fast as we can. We need to accelerate that effort and more clean transportation projects. But we think these two proposals are not the right way to do it. We've lots of other good ideas.

Honorable Chairs and Members, my name is Victoria Rome, I'm with NRDC, but I was asked to deliver a brief comment on behalf of Golden State Salmon Association, whose representative wasn't able to be here today. And the Salmon Association is opposed to lowering the CEQA bar on any water related projects that could affect salmon. The Delta Conveyance Project and Sites Reservoir are at the head of that list. The salmon fishing season is closed for 2023 because of the water management decisions that were made during the drought.

The $1.4 billion, 23,000 job salmon industry depends on healthy rivers. Those rivers are collapsing. We need to strengthen protections for salmon, not weaken them. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Melissa Romero with California Environmental Voters. I'm not going to repeat the comments that were made about needing more time for public review and comment and full discussion of solutions. I think that's been made. But I do appreciate, and we appreciate the opportunity to really discuss the substantive concerns that we all have in the environmental community with these proposals, and particularly the administrative review and judicial streamlining proposals being particularly concerning.

Those infrastructure proposals in this package are missing really important policies that should also be examined and discussed, such as improving planning and siding of projects, more robust upstream community engagement, increased investments in permit staffing at agencies, and more coordinated and efficient approvals of transmission and other key infrastructure projects that are really essential to a climate resilient future. And I also just want to respond to the last point that the Administration made about justice 40.

Because with 40% of expenditures going to benefiting disadvantaged communities, that doesn't mean that the projects and the other 60% of that funding should harm disadvantaged communities. And that is exactly what CEQA would protect against. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Almost evening. Ashley Overhouse, also with Defenders of Wildlife, but I have been asked as a colleague to give a comment on behalf of the Bay Institute, who also could not be here. I'll keep it brief. They are also opposed to these proposals in substance in process, and I echo our other colleagues' concerns and Kim Delphino, especially as the witness testimony. Thank you.

Hello. Good afternoon. Julia Dowell, I'm with San Francisco Baykeeper. We are strongly opposed to the trailer bills discussed today. Both of these trailer bills and others in the Governor's infrastructure package include sweeping changes to policy that should receive the full legislative scrutiny. For this reason and others mentioned by Restore the Delta, NRDC, Sierra Club, Defenders of Wildlife, and others, we do not support these trailer bills or the infrastructure package at large. Thank you for your time.

Good afternoon. Hunter Stern with IBEW 1245. You heard from some of our members earlier today. We are in support of the Governor's infrastructure proposals, and our members do a lot of different work in the energy space. I want to put a spotlight on manufacturing specifically, that this is an area that does require some urgency. There are tens of billions of dollars of federal funding and incentives that are available through the IRA, the IIJA, and the Chips Act.

Lesser known Is steps that the President has taken through executive order to invoke the Defense Production Act to accelerate the manufacturing of clean energy equipment here in the United States. Solar panels, building insulation, heat pumps, equipment for making clean electricity generated fuels, and critical power grid infrastructure like transformers.

Our members make transformers here in California for three different manufacturers. Right now it's more of a boutique industry. If we don't move fast enough to take advantage of this, these manufacturing facilities will go to other states. Thank you for your time and attention and your patience.

Hi, Jennifer Fearing. Thank you for this hearing and for all of the hearings this week. I just wanted to say, and not even cheekily, that I strongly support the 40 positions that the Governor proposed for the Department of Fish and Wildlife to streamline permitting of clean energy projects, infrastructure projects that both houses have approved. That is the single most important piece of this puzzle and the front end. And I just want to thank you for your support for that. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes the public comment. I want to thank everybody from the public who participated in this. I want to thank my colleagues in the Assembly, both from the Natural Resources Committee and from the Judiciary Committee for attending here today, the Administration and all the panelists who attended as well. And with that, this meeting is adjourned. Thank you all very much.