The L.A. Times is reporting that the five GOP Senators whose votes Gov. Brown has been courting in order to pass his budget proposal are making a new demand just hours before both houses of the Legislature are scheduled to vote. Their demand is to significantly weaken the landmark environmental law known as the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA. The law requires development projects to go through stringent environmental reviews, and it has long been a target of Republican legislators. Seizing their moment of greatest leverage, these Republicans are now hoping the Governor and legislative Democrats will be desperate enough for a resolution to the budget ordeal that they will be willing to sacrifice CEQA.
The details of the plan are still being sorted out, but according to the L.A. Times article:
The demand, pushed in private talks with the governor, would curtail lawsuits against projects threatening ecological damage, grant waivers to big telecommunications companies and exempt many urban developments from environmental review.
Democrats would face anger and feelings of betrayal from some of their most important constituencies were they to allow this to pass:
Environmentalists expressed outrage at the Republicans' bid. Bill Magavern, director of Sierra Club California, said that what the legislators want amounts to a "wholesale gutting" of the law.
"They're using the state's fiscal crisis as leverage to try to reward the big developers," he said. The proposal "would freeze communities out of the planning process."
Update: I decided to liveblog the CA budget tonight - you can read it here: Live Blog: CA Budget Vote:
Crossposted at www.CapInsider.com