#ceqa

Using force account (i.e, direct hiring) would be faster than contracting, but the most significant difference would likely be that it would be much cheaper (which has an impact on speed, because cost overruns and underfinancing has been an issue for building out the California HSR system) than contracting.

However, my understanding is that the two biggest issues that have been responsible for slowing down the build-out of the California HSR system is:

the difficulty of acquiring the land and right-of-ways needed for the route, due in no small part to opposition from the Union Pacific railroad and local landowners.

extensive litigation from self-described environmentalist anti-development groups abusing the CEQA process to block/death-by-a-thousand-cuts a green project aimed at reducing C02 emissions from automobiles and by encouraging sustainable transit-oriented development over suburban sprawl.

Fingers crossed.

John Myers of the California Chamber of Commerce says their proposed measure is all about providing certainty to an often unpredictable and indeterminate CEQA process.

The initiative "seeks to provide clarity to the process of building the essential projects California needs," Myers tells Reason. "We're not changing a single environmental law. We are not guaranteeing that projects get built. We're simply trying to provide certainty in how projects get reviewed."

Even so, changing what is currently an amorphous "study everything" law into a checklist of regulatory compliance "would be a huge change," says Christopher Elmendorf, a law professor at the University of California, Davis. "Basically it ends CEQA in anything like the form we've known it."

In the past several years, the California Legislature has pared back CEQA largely by excluding certain types of projects from the law's requirements entirely. But lawmakers have been a lot more reticent to reform what CEQA requires of the projects it still covers.

For instance, last year, lawmakers approved a major CEQA exemption for urban infill housing. But a bill attempting to streamline the CEQA process for projects it still covers died in the Legislature.

Womp womp.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has this week issued an executive order to spare victims of the Los Angeles wildfires from onerous government permitting and review requirements as they rebuild their homes and lives. Specifically, he's putting on hold cumbersome rules required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and the Coastal Act.

That's smart politics and good policy, but why not take this approach further?