Reform would not in any manner curtail lawsuits filed by environmental advocacy groups, or by individuals who are actually at risk from a project’s adverse environmental impacts. the Judicial Council suggested that this was a rule change more appropriately decided by the Legislature.340 However, in another vivid illustration of the power of the entrenched special interests who use (and abuse) CEQA lawsuits, legislative proposals modeled on federal environmental statutes requiring petitioners to disclose their identity and confirm that they are seeking to enforce CEQA for environmental rather than non-environmental purposes have not seen the light of day, and have been withdrawn or sidelined by policy committee leaders. As the influential “Think Long Committee for California” of the Berggruen Institute has noted: “Petitioners should be able to bring a CEQA lawsuit only if they have, and can demonstrate in court, a legitimate and concrete environmental concern about a project, as well as the absence of a competitive commercial or economic interest on their part in the project.”341 It is also important to recognize that this reform would not in any manner curtail lawsuits filed by environmental advocacy groups or by individuals who are actually at risk from a project’s adverse environmental impacts. Controversial projects with alleged significant adverse “environmental” impacts – with the potential to cause adverse public health impacts or harm to the natural ecology (e.g., the types of concerns raised by mines and landfills, and large-scale power, water and infrastructure projects) are far more likely to be sued by regional and national environmental advocacy groups and named individuals. The rights of those parties to seek judicial review of agency CEQA compliance practices would remain unchanged. In contrast, anonymous parties who seek to block improvements to underutilized neighborhood parks, schools, apartment projects and libraries – and business competitors and NIMBYs seeking to protect their economic interests, and lawyers with sham or non-existent clients seeking “greenmail” financial settlements – would lose the right to continue to abuse CEQA litigation for non-environmental purposes.
2. Eliminate Duplicative CEQA Lawsuits: Enforce CEQA Once, Not 20+ Times CEQA applies to every “discretionary” decision made by a public agency, but many of our laws, regulations and ordinances now require multiple agencies to make separate decisions on the same project, and also require the same agency to make multiple decisions about implementation of the same project over time. • Playa Vista – a single urban redevelopment project in Los Angeles that is in the final phases of converting a polluted aircraft manufacturing facility into a coastal park, mediumdensity housing, and a “Silicon Beach” mix of employment uses – has been sued under CEQA over 20 times over more than 20 years – including lawsuits filed during the 2010-2012 study period for this report.342 • Newhall Ranch, long included in Los Angeles County and adjacent city plans as the continuation of adjacent master planned development projects in northern Los Angeles County, and also included in the region’s approved (and not litigated) plan to achieve the regional greenhouse gas reduction goals established by SB 375, has been sued almost 20 times in less than 20 years, including two lawsuits during the study period (one of which is now pending at the California Supreme Court).343
Duplicative CEQA lawsuits create a strong deterrent against comprehensive community planning such as General and Community Plans, and can result in a “project-by-project” review and approval pattern that is driven solely by opportunistic private sector development applications.
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