Here we go again…

Two more proposals to provide CEQA relief to sports stadiums

It’s another legislative season in Sacramento, so yet another opportunity for legislators to hand out regulatory goodies to large corporations and wealthy people, in the form of CEQA “streamlining” for the construction of sports stadiums.  There are two bills currently in the queue: AB 734 which would benefit the Oakland A’s and AB 987 which would benefit the LA Clippers.  News coverage of each is here and here. I’ve written before about these bills, and why they’re problematic.  (See here, here, and here.)  I’ll also note that it seems to have become commonplace in the state legislature to try and do these exemption bills for major sports infrastructure projects, and when exemptions are not granted, the proponents argue that it is unfair that their project didn’t get a CEQA exemption when other projects did.  I have warned about that risk before.  In any case, large sports stadiums are probably the last thing that needs CEQA exemptions in California, since they have deep-pocketed proponents standing behind them.

California, CEQA, CEQA streamlining