Providing Environmental Protection or Merely Performing It

West Coast Land Use and Environment attorney Nicholas Targ published a column in the Daily Journal arguing that California's environmental and land use laws fail to protect people and places by focusing on bureaucratic processes instead of measurable outcomes. Mr. Targ points to major wildfires in the last decade whose rebuilding and cleanup efforts remain incomplete as examples of how constant litigation under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), dysfunctional housing laws and hazardous waste standards, and unwieldy government procedures have rendered many Californians unable to return home after natural disasters, all the while stuck with higher costs, lowered air quality and greater transportation risks. He then lays out questions lawmakers must address to restore legitimacy to environmental governance decision-making, from "are voters getting what they need?" to "is the government capable of delivering what it says it will?" The piece ends with a call to action for the state to pivot its attention toward observable, quantifiable data: what gets built, whether housing is affordable, and how quickly (and well) cleanups occur.

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