Save The Bay and other Bay Area advocates for resilience are still waiting for the legislative fix to SB 131 that legislators promised last year.
As part of a much larger budget bill package that was passed in the summer, SB 131 exempted “advanced manufacturing projects” from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
This now means that everything from lithium mining projects to data center build-outs will no longer have to go through the State’s most robust environmental review process.
The bill moved fast and with little time for public scrutiny; and even as it passed, legislators flooded bill hearings with concerns about the specific portion that had to do with advanced manufacturing.
In comments made on the Senate and Assembly floor as well as in a joint letter sent to leadership just after the bill was passed, at least thirty-five state legislators rightly noted that the exemption had serious environmental justice implications that required address.
We stand with those legislators, and we want to know – where is the fix?
It’s well known that poorer communities of color have long lived with the burdens of legacy pollution, and advanced manufacturing projects specifically are known for their potential to disastrously impact local air and water quality.
Because the CEQA process is the main legal avenue that these communities use to advocate for better projects and for reduced environmental impacts near their homes, the removal of CEQA in this case leaves them considerably more vulnerable to the health impacts of living close to polluting industries.
And there may be nowhere in the State that feels the painful consequences of this new law more than the Bay Area.
Disadvantaged communities all around us have long been burdened by the advanced manufacturing industry.
Santa Clara County has twenty-three active federally funded Superfund Sites, more than any other county in the United States. This is because of semiconductor facilities that were found to be leaking dangerous chemical solvents into local groundwater.
Richmond, which is a predominantly Hispanic community, has the worst possible pollution scores in the State according to the California EPA’s Cal Enviro Screen tool. The presence of two oil refineries — one of which is most infamous for a chemical spill that hospitalized 24,000 people – are major culprits. This refinery has also paid over $180 million in injury settlements and fines related to failing to control hazardous gas releases.
Semiconductor facilities and oil refineries have both been previously categorized by the state as “advanced manufacturing” projects, meaning these harmful projects will now no longer be subject to the public scrutiny involved in environmental permitting.
The advanced manufacturing provision passed in SB 131 legalized textbook environmental injustice.
While the state continues to announce stimulus funding for new advanced manufacturing activity in our backyard, Save The Bay is asking legislators to respond to the deep environmental justice of the CEQA exemption for advanced manufacturing.
We are waiting for the fix.
