CEQA Hasn’t Been Overhauled. That’s Good News for Californians: Los Angeles Times Letter to the Editor

By Douglas Carstens, Board President of the Planning and Conservation League and managing partner of Carstens Black & Minteer LLP

Doug Carstens

August 27, 2024

The Los Angeles Times ran this Letter to the Editor from Doug Carstens:

In his op-ed article calling for reforming the California Environmental Quality Act<https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-08-23/reform-ceqa-stop-punching-holes-in-it>, William Fulton does not acknowledge the reason that the law has not been drastically overhauled: It empowers a very broad range of the state’s population, including the most vulnerable.

CEQA is a bill of rights for an environmental, participatory democracy.

In addition to being relied upon by environmental groups, labor unions and community-based organizations, it has also empowered public agencies, Native American tribes and others who are seeking to protect California’s precious environment and resources.

An across-the-board deregulatory approach that fails to encompass the nuances necessary to protect California’s diverse population with its multiplicity of interests is not going to fly in the Legislature, nor should it.