Ballot measure would broaden reform of California’s key environmental law

Former Gov. Jerry Brown once referred to overhauling the California Environmental Quality Act as “the Lord’s work” because, he said, it made building much-needed things — housing, transportation improvements, water storage, etc. — too difficult and too expensive.

In 2018, as he neared the end of his second stint as governor, Brown vetoed a bill that would have prevented developers from circumventing CEQA’s laborious provisions by persuading local voters to directly approve projects.

It was one of hundreds of legislative measures CEQA’s defenders — environmental groups primarily — and its critics have proposed in the nearly half-century since then-Gov. Ronald Reagan signed CEQA in 1970.

“Instead of the piecemeal approach taken in this bill, I prefer a more comprehensive CEQA review, whic