A column written by Cynthia Kurtz, President and CEO of the San Gabriel Valley Economic Partnership, ran in the Whittier Daily News this week that is very much worth reading. Kurtz describes how the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which is now 40 years old, continues to give rise “to a boutique business for many attorneys who do nothing but file suits related to CEQA. She adds, “CEQA has become more about who is suing whom then it is about finding ways to protect the environment.”
As she points out, limiting who has standing to file suits under CEQA is one way of changing this trend. This abuse ends up delaying vital projects that are critical to economic growth, and Kurtz touches on a major inequity in CEQA that puts a major strain on local governments trying to make these projects come to fruition:
“If a city is sued under CEQA and loses, it has to pay the attorney fees for the plaintiff. But if the city wins, it is not permitted to recover any of the legal costs it spent using taxpayer money to defend against the lawsuit. That is not fair. Cities all around the state are having terrible budget problems. Why should they and taxpayers not be able to recover the costs of successfully defending against these lawsuits?”
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