New Economic Study Shows CEQA Protects Environment without Stunting Economic Growth
August 15, 2016
BAE Urban Economics report includes quantitative analysis of CEQA’s impacts on litigation, development costs and affordable housingClick for the full report
Berkeley, Calif. – Economic analysis firm BAE Urban Economics released a new report today that shows the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) supports economically and environmental sustainable development in California. The report was commissioned by the Rose Foundation in response to a number of flawed analyses released in recent years that inaccurately blame CEQA for economic challenges in the state.
“This report uses quantitative analysis to clarify that anti-CEQA rhetoric really has no basis in fact,” said Janet Smith-Heimer, President of BAE Urban Economics. “After extensive analysis, we found that CEQA does not have an actual dampening effect on California’s economy.”
The report includes a number of significant findings, including:
There is no quantitative evidence that CEQA has a retarding effect on the state’s economic prosperity.
Legislative changes to CEQA aimed at streamlining the CEQA process to encourage infill development are working. In San Francisco, only 14 environmental impact reports were prepared in the last three years. In that time, 100 projects proceeded with CEQA exemptions or expedited review.
Despite rapid population growth and development, the number of CEQA lawsuits statewide has remained constant over the past 14 years. Between 2013 and 2015, legal challenges were filed in 0.7 percent of projects subject to CEQA review.
Less than one percent of projects subject to CEQA review face litigation.
Direct costs for complete environmental reviews under CEQA typically range from 0.025% to 0.5% of total development costs.
California is the 11th most densely populated state in the nation. Its urban areas compare favorably to cities around the country with regard to the rate of infill vs. greenfield development.
The state’s largest cities show ongoing improvement in walkability. California is home to 12 of the nation’s 50 most walkable cities.
CEQA does not hamper the development of affordable housing in urban areas. Although the need to provide more affordable housing in California is undisputed, when compared to other states, California produces the second highest number of affordable housing units per 100,000 residents in the nation.
CEQA was signed into law in 1970 by then-Governor Ronald Reagan. CEQA requires public agencies to identify environmental impacts associated with development and to reduce or eliminate such impacts whenever feasible. The law provides provisions to ensure transparency and invites community involvement in development decisions.“CEQA is often the only legal protection afforded to communities of color and low-income communities disproportionately burdened by environmental harms,” noted Gladys Limón, Staff Attorney with Communities for a Better Environment. “It identifies environmental health and safety impacts that would otherwise be passed off to residents and taxpayers generally. CEQA ensures smart development that respects the right of a decent home and suitable living environment for every Californian.”
The report’s analysis includes:
A literature review of recent studies on CEQA’s impacts.
A detailed review of legislation, legal findings and regulatory changes intended to streamline the CEQA process, and the degree to which those efforts have been successful.
Five case studies that illustrate how the CEQA process works (a transit center in Anaheim, an affordable senior housing project in Richmond, a Specific Plan for the Millbrae BART station, a solar installation in the Mojave Desert, and the contested SCIG railyard development at the Port of Los Angeles).
An analysis of the direct costs for the environmental review portion of a project, placed into context of other planning and constructions costs.
A review of California’s ranking compared to other states with regard to infill development, population density, walkability (a key metric of sustainable development) and economic prosperity.
“Public enforcement of CEQA plays a crucial function in protecting public health and the environment in California’s most vulnerable communities,” said Sean Hecht, Co-Executive Director, Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, UCLA School of Law. “At the same time, this report shows that litigation under CEQA affects only a small fraction of projects in the state.”To read the full report, CLICK HERE.
BERKELEY MAYOR TOM BATES: Letter opposing Valero Crude By Rail
The Benicia Independent is in receipt of a letter sent today to the City of Benicia by Berkeley, CA Mayor Tom Bates. Mayor Bates writes in opposition to certification and permitting of Valero’s proposal.
Mayor Elizabeth Patterson City Council Members Tom Campbell, Mark Hughes, Alan Schwartzman, Christina Strawbridge Principal Planner Amy Million City of Benicia Benicia, California
Dear Mayor Patterson; Council Members Campbell, Hughes, Schwartzman, Strawbridge; and Ms. Million:
I ask you to uphold the Benicia Planning Commission’s decision to withhold certification from the Valero Refining Company’s Crude-by-Rail project. I believe the risks of this dangerous rail spur far outweigh possible benefits.
I agree with Attorney General Kamala Harris and environmental and community groups and that the Interstate Commerce Commission Termination Act does not prevent the City from assessing the transportation and public-safety risks when considering the project under its land-use authority.[1] The issue is one of local land use not pre-empted by federal regulation.
Another chief reason for not approving the project is that the CEQA analysis did not assess all of the project’s potential environmental impacts, including its impacts on other cities.[3] Allowing up to two 50-car trains of crude oil a day to come into the Valero refinery exposes Benicia and other communities to major safety risks, especially given the history of train derailment in recent times, both nationally and internationally.[2] An oil spill could be catastrophic to the local environment and waterways. Moreover, the transport of crude oil will emit toxic pollutants not adequately assessed in the environmental review, thus contaminating the air breathed by your residents and those of other communities as well.
The Berkeley City Council has reviewed the issue of transporting crude oil on the freight lines in the East Bay and has gone on record in unanimous opposition to such transport because of the unacceptable level of hazardous risk, including to Berkeley. The Union Pacific tracks are embedded in our West Berkeley community where people live, work and go to school.
I ask that you not approve this rail spur until the volatile organics are removed from these crude oil shipments and the railroads are upgraded to modern standards to handle such shipments.
On March 30, attorney Rachael E. Koss of Adams Broadwell Joseph & Cardozo, representing Safe Fuel and Energy Resources California (SAFER), sent the Benicia City Council this letter of opposition to Valero’s oil trains project.
SIGNIFICANT EXCERPT:
First, Valero’s argument that the City should not consider Project impacts from crude slate changes because emissions would not exceed its permit limits has already been rejected by the California Supreme Court. The California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”)l requires the City to determine whether a project would change the existing environment by increasing emissions as compared to actual existing emissions — not whether the Project will change the environment by exceeding hypothetical emissions allowed under permit limits. This was precisely the issue before the California Supreme Court in Communities for a Better Environment v. South Coast Air Quality Management District.2 The Court rejected the argument that “the analytical baseline for a project employing existing equipment should be the maximum permitted operating capacity of the equipment, even if the equipment is operating below those levels at the time the environmental analysis is begun.”3 The Court held that CEQA requires the baseline to reflect “established levels of a particular use,” not the “merely hypothetical conditions allowable under the permits…”4 Following the Supreme Court decision, the court in Communities for a Better Environlnent v. City of Richmond5 similarly rejected the city’s use of a hypothetical baseline, which failed to reflect actual operational conditions. “The [Supreme Court] stated that using hypothetical, allowable conditions as a baseline ‘will not inform decision makers and the public of the project’s significant environmental impacts, as CEQA mandates.”’6 Thus, Valero’s argument has already been rejected by the California Supreme Court.
Repost from the East Bay Express [Editor: I am posting this excellent review by Jean Tepperman belatedly, with thanks for East Bay Express’ regional coverage of a Benicia story with huge regional and national implications. I’ve not read a better review of the Feb. 8-11 Benicia Planning Commission hearings. – RS]
Benicia Blocks Oil-By-Rail Plan
By Jean Tepperman, February 12, 2016
Valero Refinery in Benicia. – WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
The little town of Benicia is looking to become the next link in the chain barring crude oil from traveling by rail to the West Coast. After four evenings of contentious hearings, the Benicia Planning Commission on Thursday unanimously rejected Valero refinery’s proposal to build a rail spur that would allow it to import up to 70,000 barrels a day of “North American crude oil” — meaning extra-polluting crude from Canada’s tar sands and the highly explosive crude from North Dakota’s Bakken shale fields. Both fossil fuels have been involved in numerous derailments, explosions, and fires, including a 2013 fire and explosion in Lac Megantic, Quebec that killed 47 people.
Starting on Monday, planning commissioners, led by Commissioner Steve Young, grilled staff members about their decision to recommend approval of the Valero project, identifying inconsistencies and pointing to problems that the project would create, from blocking traffic to increasing pollution to potential oil spills and other emergencies that the city would not be able to cope with. The central issue that emerged, however, was whether the city had the authority to make decisions about the project.
The staff report actually said the benefits of the project did not outweigh the potential harm. Shipping crude oil by rail, the staff found, would have “significant and unavoidable” impacts on air quality, biological resources, and greenhouse gas emissions. These impacts would conflict with air quality planning goals and state goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But the city can’t prevent any of this, the staff report said, because only the federal government has the authority to regulate railroads.
Bradley Hogin, a lawyer whom the city hired on contract to advise on this project, said federal law prevents local governments from interfering with railroads, a principle referred to as “preemption.” According to the interpretation of “preemption” described by Hogin and city staff, local governments are not permitted to take actions that “have the effect of governing or managing rail transport,” even indirectly. And they are not allowed to make decisions about a project based on impacts of rail shipping connected with that project.
“Hogin is making a case that would affect cities across the nation dealing with crude by rail,” said environmental activist Marilyn Bardet in an interview. “They were going to create a legal precedent on preemption here.”
Bardet reported that public testimony by representatives of environmental organizations and “two young women from the Stanford-Mills Law Project made it clear that “there are many people who would disagree with Hogin’s interpretation.”
Roger Lin, lawyer with Communities for a Better Environment, said in an email that, contrary to Hogin’s claims, the California Environmental Quality Act actually requires local governments to consider “indirect or secondary effects that are reasonably foreseeable and caused by a project, but occur at a different time or place.” Valero is not a railroad, he said, so the “preemption” doctrine does not bar the city from using its land-use power to reject the project.
However “preemption” is interpreted, Bardet said, “the commissioners seemed uncomfortable with being told they would have to approve the project based on considerations they couldn’t accept.” Late in the hearing process, commission chair Donald Dean said, “I understand the preemption issue on a theoretical legal level, but I can’t understand this on a human level.”
Bardet expressed appreciation for the commissioners’ concern. “My sense was that these guys are real human beings,” she said. “They all listened carefully. None of them was asleep.”
Project opponents packed the hearing room for four straight nights, filling two overflow rooms on the first night. People came from “uprail” communities, including Davis and Sacramento, as well as allies from across the Bay Area, Bardet said.
Opposition to the project has been led by a community group, Benicians for a Safe and Healthy Community, formed in 2013 when the city seemed ready to approve the project without requiring any environmental impact study. “We joined with other refinery communities in the Bay Area Refinery Corridor Coalition” and in a coalition working to persuade the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to pass tough new regulations on refinery pollution, Bardet said. She said support from the National Resources Defense Council and Communities for a Better Environment was also important. “The grassroots came alive together,” she said.
Many of these organizations, like the Benicia group, are concerned, not only about the hazards of shipping crude by rail, but by the impact of refining the extra-polluting crude oil from Canada’s tar sands, Bardet said. She noted that the city’s environmental review of the project made no mention of this issue, although it is well established that refining dirty crude oil, like oil from tar sands, emits more health-harming pollution as well as more greenhouse gases.
Valero is expected to appeal the planning commission decision to the city council, which could meet to decide on the issue as early as mid-March. “The city council is going to be hard-pressed to reject the views of their own planning commission,” Bardet said.
She emphasized the significance of this decision for the national and international issue of shipping crude oil by rail. “The whole world is watching,” she said. “I just got a message from a guy in New Jersey congratulating us.”
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