SB 607 Threatens to Undermine California Environmental Protections

Mar 28, 2025

Eel River at Rio Dell

 

Re:  SB 607 (Wiener) (as amended March 24) – Oppose 

 

Dear Senator McGuire, Senator Blakespear, and Members of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee: 

The undersigned conservation, land use, and environmental justice organizations write to oppose Senate Bill 607 (Wiener).

SB 607 is being portrayed as making “technical changes” to clarify CEQA, streamline review for projects like infill housing, clean energy, and childcare centers, and implement recommendations from the Little Hoover Commission. But the bill is not narrowly focused on specific beneficial projects; it weakens environmental protections for nearly all private and government projects. The bill’s main proposals were never even considered, much less endorsed, by the Little Hoover Commission. And the replacement of provisions that have existed in the law for over 50 years with a broad, new legal framework is certain to lead to more, rather than less, litigation as well as confusion over compliance and legal standards of review.

SB 607 would undermine CEQA across the board. While the bill makes a narrow exception for distribution centers and oil and gas infrastructure, it weakens CEQA for all other projects. These include, for example, freeways, airports, railyards, shipping terminals, office buildings, shopping malls, sports complexes, dams, sewage plants, mining, incinerators, power plants, prisons, and massive mixed-use developments on farmland, sensitive habitat, or in high wildfire danger zones. Indeed, the changes proposed in the bill have been characterized as “monumental” and “disruptive” by pro-development CEQA watchers. The bill would result in less transparent environmental review, agency confusion, and more litigation.

The press release for SB 607 claims that the bill will speed review of “infill housing,” and contains quotes from advocates asserting support for new infill housing. The actual bill, however, is not focused on streamlining housing development. In fact, the press release from the bill author acknowledges that infill housing in urban areas is already largely “exempt from CEQA.” And, in any case, the latest empirical study on CEQA found that it does not impose major impediments to housing, especially given the numerous recent amendments streamlining or exempting infill housing throughout California.

Rather than advancing housing, then, SB 607 proposes a major overhaul of CEQA. Except for a token exemption for distribution centers and oil and gas infrastructure, the bill removes environmental protections for destructive projects in every region of California.

For over 50 years, CEQA, like its federal counterpart the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), has protected our health and safety and preserved our wildlife, farmland, coastlines, forests, and rivers. CEQA acts as an environmental bill of rights, giving Californians access to critical information that affects their communities. At a time when environmental protections, including those provided by NEPA and federal air and water quality laws, are under assault at a national level, we urge you to reject this bill for the following reasons:

  • SB 607 would reverse the longstanding presumption in favor of in-depth environmental review for projects that may have significant impacts.
  • SB 607 expands the scope of CEQA exemptions in ways that were never envisioned when the exemptions were adopted.
  • SB 607 would attempt to make rezoning exempt from CEQA, without a limiting principle.
  • SB 607’s proposed modifications to the infill exemption go too far.
  • SB 607 would allow public agencies to exclude key documents from the administrative record.

SB 607 is not a “good government” bill and will not clarify CEQA or streamline only “environmentally friendly and environmentally neutral” projects, as the author’s press release claims. The bill adds confusing new provisions that will confound public agencies and the courts. Even worse, by weakening CEQA and the requirements for EIRs, the bill would undermine the public’s right to meaningful review of projects across the state and eliminate critical protections for environmental resources and public health. We respectfully urge you to stop SB 607 now.

Click here to read the full letter to the California State Senate, signed by over 100 organizations.