AB 406 IS THIS YEAR'S MOST IMPORTANT CEQA BILL!!

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is the most important environmental protection law in effect within the State of California. Assembly Bill 406 will significantly strengthen this critically important statute. Monterey County Assembly Member Simon Salinas will probably cast a key vote on AB 406. You can contact Assembly Member Salinas through his local office at 831-759-8676, or by email at assemblymember.salinas@assembly.ca.gov.

The California Native Plant Society, the Planning and Conservation League and other major environmental organizations all support AB 406, by Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara). AB 406 was voted out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee Wednesday, May 28, and will now head to the Assembly floor, where it must earn 41 votes out of 80 by the end of next week.

AB 406 amends the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in two ways. First, it requires the lead public agency for any development project be responsible for preparing the environmental review documents needed for the public and public decision makers to understand the projects full environmental impact. Under current law, developers are allowed to prepare or control the preparation of these important public reports. It is simply good public policy to have public agencies, who do not have a financial stake in the outcome of an environmental analysis and who are accountable to the public, be responsible for the CEQA process. Current law allows project proponents who may gain financially and who are not accountable to the public to prepare, or to hire a consultant to prepare for them, the environmental report necessary to comply with CEQA. AB 406 would end this practice.

Second, AB 406 also ends the practice of allowing "confidentiality agreements" between developers and consultants they hire to do the environmental analysis on their project. Confidentiality agreements can prevent the public and public agencies from knowing and understanding the full potential environmental damage caused by a proposed project. Recently, the Newhall Land Co., a developer in southern California, tried to use a confidentiality agreement to hide the existence of the San Fernando Valley spineflower, an endangered native plant, on a site the developer intended to develop. Only a criminal investigation yielded the finding of the flower on the property. Confidentiality agreements undermine the public’s right to know what the CEQA process intends to be public. AB 406 would disallow confidentiality agreements.

Every vote will be critical to getting AB 406 off of the Assembly floor next week. You can find out who your Assemblymember is and how to contact him or her by going to the California Assembly web site at www.assembly.ca.gov and clicking on "Find my district."

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06.02.03