Survey: CEQA rarely impedes projects

From Legal Planet:

A constant complaint from many business leaders and their allies is the high cost of complying with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s signature environmental law which requires environmental review for major new projects. But a new survey from the State of California shows that the law rarely affects most projects where the state is the lead agency.

The study examined all state-led projects over a five-year period, from 2011 to 2016. First, 90% of the state’s projects were already exempt from the law, due to compliance with legislative or regulatory provisions that exempt certain types of projects. Second, a full-blown environmental impact report occurred less than one percent of the time, while litigation was virtually negligible. 

These findings are consistent with a 2016 study sponsored by the Rose Foundation, which found similarly low litigation rates statewide:

The number of lawsuits filed under CEQA has been surprisingly low, averaging 195 per year throughout California since 2002. Annual filings since 2002 indicate that while the number of petitions has slightly fluctuated from year to year, from 183 in 2002, to 206 in 2015, there is no pattern of overall increased litigation. In fact, litigation year to year does not trend with California’s population growth, at 12.5 percent overall during the same period.

The rate of litigation compared to all projects receiving environmental review under CEQA is also very low, with lawsuits filed for fewer than 1 out of every 100 projects reviewed under CEQA that were not considered exempt. The estimated rate of litigation for all CEQA projects undergoing environmental review (excluding exemptions) was 0.7 percent for the past three years. This is consistent with earlier studies, and far lower than some press reports about individual projects may imply.

So while some in the big business (and big law) fields have gone to great lengths to portray CEQA and its attendant litigation as a major problem in the state, the data just aren’t matching (though “soft” costs, from defensive project siting and design, have still yet to be researched in any meaningful way).

It’s still true that CEQA can be a barrier to new development. But based on the data so far, it’s just not a major one.

See also Big Lie about CEQA reform #1 and Big Lie about CEQA reform #2.

Doonesbury

See also City To Consider Banning Fur Apparel Sales and 'Decades Of Fashion' Owner Pleads No Contest To Misdemeanor Endangered Animal Sales on Hoodline.

Hoodline

Questions about that Amtrak derailment

Elaine Thompson, A.P.

Randal O'Toole on the Amtrak derailment:

The wreck of the 501–--the Amtrak train that crashed near Seattle on Monday–--is raising lots of questions about Amtrak operations, but they aren’t always the right ones. Here are some questions that should be asked and some of the Antiplanner’s preliminary answers. Answers from Amtrak (the operator), FRA (the funder), Sound Transit (the track owner), or WSDOT (the train owner) may differ.

1. Congress required passenger railroads to install positive train control (PTC) by the end of 2015. Why did the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) give money to the Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) for a new passenger rail line that would not open until after 2015 when the project didn’t guarantee funding for positive train control?

Answer: The Obama administration wanted to distribute high-speed rail funds to as many states as possible in order to build political backing for the program, so it couldn’t be bothered with positive train control. The tracks the train was on are owned by Sound Transit, which says it is installing PTC, but it won’t be finished until spring. Public releases of WSDOT’s application for funds for this train didn’t mention PTC.

2. Around 800 people die in railroad accidents a year. PTC would prevent only about one percent of these fatalities; far more would be saved by spending the same amount of money on better grade crossings and fencing of rail rights of way. Why do we put so much emphasis on an expensive technology that will do so little?

Answer: Accidents that PTC could have prevented tend to be more spectacular than people getting killed when a train hits their car at a grade crossing. This suggests that, when politicians decide where private businesses spend their money, it’ll get spent on grandiose programs rather than things that could really make a difference.

3. When an auto driver runs a red light and kills a pedestrian, we don’t blame the auto maker for not making driverless cars sooner; we blame the driver and, perhaps, the people who were supposed to train the driver. 

Why blame this accident on the lack of positive train control when the train driver should have slowed down and Amtrak should have made sure the driver was qualified to operate this section of track?...

See also Passenger Rail Has an Accountability Problem.