PCL’s Capital Insider – April 2026

PCL’s Capital Insider for April 2026

Organizing, Communicating…and Making Progress

For decades, PCL has worked together to protect the values we share, our lands, water, wildlife, and public health. These values are being challenged from every direction. In recent years, we’ve seen a steady stream of proposals that weaken the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and other bedrock environmental safeguards — often rushed through the Legislature with little public scrutiny. These rollbacks don’t just threaten our environment; they open the door to costly, wasteful projects that benefit special interests at the expense of taxpayers and communities.

This year, the threats are even more serious, both in the legislature and on the November ballot. Backed by well‑funded corporate interests, these attacks aim to carve massive new loopholes into CEQA. If passed, many would fast‑track polluting projects — including manufacturing plants, freeways, waste facilities, dams, and development in high‑risk wildfire zones — while cutting the public out of the process. These are some of the most sweeping attempts we’ve ever seen to dismantle California’s environmental protections.

In the face of this onslaught, PCL and our allies have been busy organizing, communicating…and making progress. By most metrics, April was quite a successful month for California environmental policy. Across the board, we stood strong with our allies to advance positive bills and fix potentially harmful ones. This month’s Capital Insider provides an update on progress made in recent weeks and highlights just some of the work that remains.

SB 954 (Blakespear): Of great interest to PCL’s supporters should be the news that SB 954 — the bill to fix last year’s “advanced manufacturing” CEQA exemption contained in SB 131 — sailed through its first two committees without receiving a single ‘no’ vote from any Democrat. This success is due in no small part to the tireless advocacy of our many allies across the state, with whom we have been organizing since last June to close this toxic industrial loophole. SB 954 will be reviewed next by the Senate Appropriations Committee, after which it will be taken up for a vote on the Senate floor. Organizations or local elected officials interested in supporting this campaign should contact PCL Environmental Policy Advocate Gabriel Tolson at gabriel@pcl.org.  

AB 2569 (Hart): This year, PCL helped to introduce and advance AB 2569, a bill to strengthen CEQA review for projects sited in high-risk areas. Specifically, the bill would require project proponents to address and mitigate not only the project’s environmental impacts, but also the impacts of existing environmental hazards—such as wildfire risk, sea level rise, or flood risk—on the project and its future users. This bill mirrors a proposal introduced by PCL in 2013 (AB 953, Amiano) and is necessary to provide local agencies with the tools to protect their constituents from climate change-driven hazards. The Assembly Natural Resources Committee passed AB 2569 and will be voted on shortly by the Appropriations Committee.

SB 1097 (Wiener): Senator Wiener reintroduced in SB 1097 the same erosion of the CEQA “fair argument” standard proposed last year under SB 607, this time limiting the measure to a range of consequential energy projects. Covered facilities included dairy digesters, landfill gas facilities, biomass incineration plants, and other projects with documented adverse impacts on communities and the environment. Fortunately, PCL and a coalition of advocates worked successfully with the Senate EQ Committee to remove this section of the bill entirely. SB 1097 remains far from fixed, however, as it still contains a CEQA exemption for certain transmission projects located in national parks, national monuments, and other protected lands. The bill will next be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee, and then on the Senate floor.

Other Wins: PCL and its partners helped amend or kill several harmful, anti-environmental measures. AB 2231 (Ahrens), for example, was one of many project-specific CEQA exemptions introduced this year and was amended in the Assembly Natural Resources committee to replace the exemption with administrative and judicial streamlining. AB 1740 (Zbur) would have enacted sweeping Coastal Act exemptions for major projects across the Coastal Zone, but was amended in committee to affect only one city for only 10 years. And AB 2620 (Carrillo) would have created a CEQA exemption for large-scale broadband projects—and may have included certain data centers—but was pulled before its first committee hearing.

CalChamber Initiative: Many likely saw the California Chamber of Commerce’s announcement on Monday, April 27, that it has received the requisite signatures to qualify their measure for November’s voter ballot; the state must verify the count. To review: this ballot measure would fundamentally undermine environmental and public health protections for a range of consequential projects, from certain heavy industrial facilities to dams, highways, and other large-scale infrastructure. Despite the grave implications of this announcement, advocates should be heartened to learn that PCL has already assembled a coalition of more than 200 organizations to oppose the measure and is currently urging state legislators and others to join the campaign. Organizations or locally elected leaders who would like to learn more about the measure, organize a briefing, or otherwise support this effort should contact PCL Environmental Policy Advocate, Gabriel Tolson, at gabriel@pcl.org.

As always, you can visit PCL’s Legislation Watchlist page for the latest updates on these and the hundred-plus bills we are following.

This message proudly paid for by the Planning and Conservation League.