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CALIFORNIA STATE BUDGET HOLD-UP ENDS: ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT EXAMINED

By Gary A. Patton
Executive Director
Planning and Conservation League

As you probably know, the State Legislature finally passed a budget. Fifty-two days after the start of the fiscal year, two Senate Republicans finally added their "aye" votes to the votes of all the Senate Democrats, thus achieving the two-thirds vote required.
What was the pound of flesh extracted for this vote? Republican leaders in the Senate were asking for two things: (1) $700 million more in cuts, and (2) an amendment of California's premier environmental law – the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) - to eliminate consideration of global warming impacts during the normal environmental review process. The Governor promised to deliver on the first matter weeks ago.

Their second demand not only has nothing to do with the budget process but is also bad policy. However, because the budget requires a two-thirds vote, a compromise had to be reached. Thus, the Legislature passed SB 97, a bill that exempts certain transportation and flood projects from normal CEQA review. SB 97 allows a project to go forward without an analysis of its climate emissions if it is already regulated by the Air Resources Board under AB 32 – The Global Warming Solutions Act. Provisions of the bill sunset on January 1, 2010.

PCL is still analyzing the new language, but it appears that the Democratic leadership was able to minimize the negative effects of SB 97. But let's focus for a moment on the process. Most non-fiscal bills can pass and become law on a majority vote. In the normal situation, in other words, California does have a "majority rule" rule. But the budget doesn't operate according to "majority rule" principles. Since it takes a two-thirds vote to pass the budget, minority legislators (currently that means the Republicans) can in effect turn "majority rule" into "minority rule." That's what happened with the amendment to CEQA.

Global warming is an admitted environmental problem – a huge problem. And CEQA covers it. CEQA requires governmental agencies to reduce or eliminate the global warming impacts of projects if it's economically feasible to do so. That's just common sense! To demand that CEQA be amended to let global warming impacts get a "free ride" is not something that a majority of the Legislature would ever support – because it's such a bad idea. For minority Republicans in this budget session, though, responding to the desires of the development and oil industry, the minority saw a way to leverage such a result. That's why the budget was so late.

Those Californians doing the hard work of caring for the elderly, or our children, small business owners who make their living contracting with the state, students who've earned low-income grants for college, and our already strapped university systems paid the price of this gambit. Their pocket books were hit hard with extravagantly high interest rates as they tried to keep afloat or buy school books using loans. Billions of dollars of the state's bills went unpaid, meaning everyone on the receiving end of those payments didn't get paid when they were entitled to.

After the debate was done, Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez called out several cases in particular where small businesses and facilities that care for low-income elderly or children, were severely impacted by the delayed budget. In one particular case, the facility owner lost $4,000 to interest on loans. She will not be reimbursed for that $4,000, but don't worry, Legislators will be able to recoup their salaries.

This is really not a "partisan" issue, though it was clearly minority Republican Senators who caused the budget havoc this time around. The state budget should not be held hostage and Californians should not suffer just so 15 members of the Legislature can force through a measure that would not otherwise win approval.

These past weeks have revealed a couple of things. First, Senate Republicans (excluding Senator Maldonado who was the one lone Republican to vote for the budget in July) are clearly out of step with the mainstream. Californians do care about global warming, and want prompt actions to address it. Second, it might be high time for the state to reevaluate the two-thirds requirement to pass a budget. Most other states do not have this requirement, and California was the only state with a budget so seriously delayed by this "minority rule" provision.

Gary Patton is the Executive Director of the Planning and Conservation League, a statewide, nonprofit lobbying organization. For more than thirty years, PCL has fought to develop a body of environmental laws in California that is the best in the United States. PCL staff review virtually every environmental bill that comes before the California Legislature each year. It has testified in support or opposition of thousands of bills to strengthen California's environmental laws and fight off rollbacks of environmental protections.

Posted on August 24, 2007

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