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Comment by mchusma | Hacker News Reader

Environmental impact reports are a disease and need to be abolished or reformed dramatically. Like make it only apply to a few named categories of things.

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They have been weaponized by activists. It can take up to a year to prepare one. Then the activists say things have changed over the year, so you must prepare another. And so on, so the project is indefinitely stalled.

You could be right but do you have a better idea? Without environmental impact reports it's likely that there would be nearly no natural land left in California. Most of the SF bay would likely have been reclaimed by now and the remaining natural environment (including air and water) would be even more polluted.

> Without environmental impact reports it's likely that there would be nearly no natural land left in California.

I don't think we rely purely on impact statements for this, there's plenty of parks / nature reserves where building is simply not allowed. And of course zoning heavily restricts what can go on land where building is allowed.

I believe (and another comment mentions here) the California law is unusual because it allows private groups to request additional reviews in addition to the government environmental regulators. And as a result of this, groups that oppose projects for non-environmental reasons will take advantage of the complex environmental impact process to drag out anything they don't like. So a straightforward change would be to leave the environmental review to government agencies and not private groups.

To me it seems like it would make more sense to address these issues at a regional level - like apartment buildings can go here, houses can go here, and looking at the general impact that those developments would have - instead of doing a very protracted process on a per-project level. At least for common things like housing, maybe not chemical factories. Maybe someone who is more familiar with public policy around urban planning can weigh in on how other locations address these problems and if California's approach here makes any sense, or if it is just some unintended consequence of laws that were maybe a little too broadly-written.

> but do you have a better idea?

Of course; don't do them. They are worse than nothing.

Do you support development work without looking into what it would do to a local ecosystem? That part seems worthwhile to prevent destroying sensitive habitats, etc.

They are weaponized these days far more often when doing something like replacing a drive thru with an apartment thats a couple stories high in the middle of the built urban environment. This is California. All available virgin land has been developed by now practically.

I think the phrase "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" is particularly applicable here. Perhaps we should advocate reform instead?

There's a cliché for every viewpoint. Why let the perfect be the enemy of the good?

Though note that part of the idea of "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" is that it's preferable to have both the baby and the bathwater than to have neither, which obviously isn't the case here.

Cliches are cliches for a reason.

The idea behind the saying is that the baby has value, and isn't intrinsically linked to the bath water that you want to get rid of.

To be more concrete: there is value in protecting local environments. If the problem is with environmental groups using reviews as a "weapon" (which is an inappropriately loaded term designed to cause a strong emotional reaction), then we should reform that problem.

What we should not do is to allow un-reviewed, unfettered development without any space for environmental advocacy. Balance is necessary.

CEQA has been used to block or slow transit/climate friendly projects while single family homes and highways have proliferated. It hasn't done a good job and should be eliminated.

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