by Robert Cruickshank/California High Speed Rail Blog
Last week Governor Jerry Brown proclaimed efforts to reform the California Environmental Quality Act to be dead for this legislative session. But Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg disagreed, declaring CEQA reform not dead yet and that it is in fact moving forward in this session:
A day after Gov. Jerry Brown said overhauling California’s environmental laws was unlikely this year, the leader of the state Senate said Wednesday the effort is very much alive in the Legislature and he thinks it can be accomplished by year’s end. Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) said his bill to streamline the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is moving forward and he looks forward to talking to Brown now that the governor has returned from a trade mission in China. “The Legislature is hard at work on CEQA reform,” Steinberg told reporters. “As soon as the governor gets back, I’m going to sit down with him and go over specific provisions of the bill.”