SACRAMENTO, Calif. — There’s no better example summarizing California’s enduring problems than the recent Sacramento Bee story explaining that a union representing some public employees has “sent ‘exhaustion’ letters to over 100 state departments, arguing that the return-to-office order will require more than 90,000 state workers to commute four days a week, which will negatively impact California’s environment.”
The union claims that Gov. Gavin Newsom’s effort to force state workers to finally return to their cubicles after years of COVID-related stay-at-home laxity runs afoul of the California Environmental Quality Act. CEQA (pronounced See-kwa) is the “landmark” 1970 environmental law that requires every construction project that needs a discretionary governmental approval to navigate a maze of environmental impact reports, oversight, and even lawsuits.
It’s a pitch-perfect summary of why California — a state that once led the nation in its infrastructure advancements — cannot build anything efficiently. This self-serving argument spotlights the way that public employee unions and environmental interest groups paralyze the state. Newsom ended California’s COVID State of Emergency in February 2023. Yet more than three years later, he has been unable to force his own employees to head back to the office.
When it comes to public employee unions, it’s like the tail wagging the dog. The governor set a July 1 return-to-office date, but the SEIU Local 1000 filed an unfair labor practice complaint. The union has argued that Newsom hasn’t bargained in good faith, but here’s a key demand from that union: “The state shall have the burden to demonstrate, by clear and compelling evidence, why the employee is unable to perform the essential duties and functions of their job 100% remotely.”
That union’s officials also are demanding a variety of benefits and stipends in exchange for any return to the office. You’ve got to read some of this yourself to believe it. This is basically a shakedown from workers who already receive salaries and pension benefits that would boggle any non-Californian’s mind. These demands aren’t remotely reasonable.
Per the letter from the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment (CASE) union, the governor’s order “is a discretionary decision that will have myriad environmental impacts that must be analyzed, disclosed and mitigated.” The letter argues that additional state worker commutes will increase air pollution, but it’s pretty clear the environmental impacts are not driving this action.
It’s about the convenience of state workers: “For CASE members across California and other state employees, telework has proven to be an essential tool that allows state agencies and departments to recruit and retain highly qualified legal professionals while maintaining the efficient delivery of public services,” the letter added.
The silver lining is this effort spotlights how easy it is for special interests, especially unions, to game the CEQA system to achieve results totally unrelated to improving the environment. Unions often file lawsuits against proposed construction projects as a way to muscle developers into granting labor concessions or union-only Project Labor Agreements. CEQA lawsuits — or merely the threat of filing one — add unnecessary costs and delays and even halt projects.
“In an example from the East Bay, where I represent housing developers, leveraging the threat of CEQA litigation has been the longstanding strategy of an association of four building trade unions — that demand high-priced no-bid contracts from developers in exchange for an agreement to stand down on meritless CEQA claims,” argued attorney Robert Selna in a 2022 San Francisco Chronicle column. Research confirms most CEQA litigation comes from groups with no history of environmental activism.
This latest action is an expansion of the usual nonsense, but it’s not out of character. The best hope is that even the state’s Democrats recognize that CEQA is badly in need of far-reaching reform — and not just the piecemeal tweaks they’ve thus far approved. Almost everyone in the Capitol knows the law has become an enormous hurdle to development, especially desperately needed housing projects. Nearly half of the CEQA lawsuits target environmentally friendly projects such as parks, transit, bike lanes, and infill developments designed to battle sprawl.
As I’ve explained for The American Spectator, California lawmakers have over the past few years passed — and Newsom has signed — reasonable laws that streamline CEQA approvals and create categories of projects that are approved “by right” and therefore are exempt from CEQA’s “Alice in Wonderland” process. But these apply only to specific types of projects in specific areas, and they often include new union-friendly requirements. Perhaps it’s time for state officials to acknowledge that constantly giving in to unions only emboldens them.
Fortunately, the California Chamber of Commerce has submitted signatures for a statewide ballot initiative for the general election that would result in widespread CEQA reform by, for instance, creating timetables for environmental reviews and more thorough judicial oversight of CEQA lawsuits. One can only hope the union shenanigans over Newsom’s back-to-office orders might push the governor to embrace this campaign. Time will tell, but my expectations are limited.
CASE’s action is so far over the top that it’s garnered plenty of negative media attention, ranging from Reason to the Washington Post. It would be nice to see state workers finally head back to the office, just as most California workers have done years after the pandemic. But it will be well worth the delay if it convinces state leaders to finally get serious about CEQA reform.
Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute. Write to him at [email protected].
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