January 4, 2012 (SACRAMENTO) – Today Assembly Member Mike Feuer (D-Los Angeles) introduced legislation under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to streamline new urban public rail transit infrastructure projects. AB 1444 would encourage such construction projects and get Californians back to work.
“This bill would create thousands of desperately-needed jobs, and give commuters and residents environmentally sound transit options as alternatives to sitting in stopped traffic,” said Feuer. “We’ve got to reduce the congestion that chokes our metropolitan areas,” said Feuer.
The bill would add urban rail transit projects to the types of leadership projects that may now benefit from CEQA streamlining under the Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act of 2011. That measure creates expedited judicial review procedures under California’s landmark environmental quality law for various types of LEED infill site projects, clean renewable energy projects, and clean energy manufacturing projects.
Under CEQA, environmental impacts of development projects must be identified and mitigated. The Act also guarantees the public an opportunity to review and comment on the environmental impacts of a project and to participate meaningfully in the development of mitigation measures for potentially significant environmental impacts. AB 1444 would maintain these protections while reducing the timeline for judicial review, thus allowing more environmentally friendly projects to be built more quickly.
The unemployment rate in California exceeds the national average at 11.8%, and in certain regions of the state the rate exceeds 13%. In Los Angeles County alone, 336,000 jobs have been lost since 2007, and 582,900 people were unemployed as of October 2011. The construction industry has been hit especially hard; over 53,300 construction jobs have been lost in recent years. Still, California’s population continues to grow, and is projected to increase by 4.3 million over the next decade. California needs to create an estimated 1.8 million jobs to keep up with its population growth. AB 1444 will put people back to work and create much-needed transportation infrastructure.
Assembly member Mike Feuer’s website: http://www.assembly.ca.gov/a42
