Last year, the California legislature passed a deeply flawed bill that stripped away fundamental environmental and community protections. Now, a new bill, SB 954, has been introduced that restores the most essential safeguards for nature and public health. SB 954 is moving through the California legislature and will be voted on by the Senate soon. Please use the form below to email your state senator today to tell them to support SB 954.
What’s Happening: We Must Reinstate Safeguards for Environment and Public Health
Last year’s flawed bill, SB 131, made devastating changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). CEQA is the main law that protects our environment and communities by requiring that the environmental impacts of proposed projects are reviewed and addressed, and ensuring that people’s concerns are heard. SB 131 was passed in a rushed, last-minute process that eliminated opportunities for public input and transparency. Legislators promised to address the most concerning aspects of the bill before the end of the year, but failed to take action. SB 954 would remedy that.
Our biggest concerns about SB 131 are that it eliminated important protections for habitat of endangered and threatened species, and made “advanced manufacturing,” a broad term that includes some incredibly toxic industries, exempt from CEQA review.
SB 954 will:
- Restore protections for the habitat of endangered and threatened species.
- Narrow what projects qualify for the advanced manufacturing exemption.
- Require exempted advanced manufacturing projects to be a safe distance away from homes, schools, and disadvantaged communities.
- Strictly limit air pollution from exempt advanced manufacturing projects.
Why It Matters: Current Law Creates Dangerous Precedent, Endangers People and Wildlife
If SB 954 does not pass, our environment and our communities will suffer.
Not only does SB 131 make important habitats vulnerable to development, it also creates a dangerous precedent. Other bills that create CEQA exemptions make it clear that the exemptions do not apply to projects located on habitat for threatened or endangered species. If SB 954 does not pass, SB 131’s failure to protect these lands could be repeated in other bills, leading to additional loss of protections for these critical habitats over time.
SB 131’s advanced manufacturing exemption is also incredibly concerning. Currently, this umbrella term covers industries like weapons, strip mining, semiconductors, lithium battery plants, and many more industries that are known sources of toxic pollution, radiation, groundwater contamination, and explosions. If these kinds of projects are exempt from CEQA, it means communities will not be informed of the impact they will have on the local environment and public health, and they will lose their right to participate in the planning process.
What You Can Do
Legislators committed to addressing the most concerning aspects of SB 131, and SB 954 gives them the opportunity to keep that promise.
Please email your state senator and ask them to support SB 954. It is essential that we reinstate protections for habitat for species that are threatened or endangered, and we must put strict limits on the exemption for advanced manufacturing facilities. Our environment and our communities depend on it.
