California lawmakers say they'll cut infrastructure red tape

California Assembly

A California lawmaker says fixes are in the works to cut the regulatory red tape that slows infrastructure and housing development in the Golden State.

The 12-member Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform, chaired by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, spent the past year investigating permitting challenges responsible for sometimes decades-long delays on projects of all kinds.

The committee's report, released Tuesday, identified reforms to speed up the regulatory process and reduce costs for infrastructure projects after confirming the permitting system drives up costs and delays projects.

Lawmakers are "hungry to introduce more reforms," Wicks said at a hearing.

To deal with the housing crisis, homelessness, and water supply and climate change issues, the state will need to "facilitate new construction at an unprecedented scale," the report says.

"This includes millions of housing units, thousands of gigawatts of clean energy generation, storage and transmission capacity, a million electric vehicle charges and thousands of miles of transit, and thousands of climate resiliency projects to address drought, flooding, sea level rise and changing habitats," the report says.

Each project requires a government-issued permit – and some require dozens, the report says.

"It is too damn hard to build anything in California," Wicks said in a statement. "Our broken permitting system is driving up the cost of housing, the cost of energy and even the cost of inaction on climate change."

Now that roadblocks have been identified, the committee will spend 2025 translating the findings into legislation to reduce red tape for housing, transit, clean energy and water projects.

The state has only produced about one-third of the 310,000 homes it needs to build annually due to moribund local permitting processes, the report says. The permitting processes frustrate the approval of new housing projects at every step and the California Environmental Quality Act, which impedes even climate-friendly infill housing, adds to the burden, Wicks said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom suspended provisions of CEQA and the California Coastal Act for wildfire protection efforts Saturday in the wake of January's deadly Los Angeles-area wildfires. He contends the laws were slowing critical forest management projects.

"If we are serious about making California more affordable, sustainable, and resilient, we have to make it easier to build housing, clean energy, public transportation and climate adaptation projects," Wicks said.

"California has the technology, investment and workforce to lead the nation in clean energy – but our outdated permitting system is standing in the way," said Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Irvine. "Renewable projects, battery storage and transmission lines are stuck in years of delays when we need them now."