By admin 
At an economic forum Wednesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom touted changes to the California Environmental Quality Act that he strong-armed through the Legislature last year. But he said the law’s “weaponization” still delays much-needed building projects.
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“You’ve got to just move things,” Newsom said at the California Economic Summit in Long Beach. He cheered advancing projects like the Darden Clean Energy Project, a massive solar energy and battery storage facility under construction in Fresno County. “I’m just done with the litigation … Years and years of B.S. We’re gonna get crushed, guys.”
Newsom went on to deride CEQA-related delays, including those that come through litigation, and said the permitting process shouldn’t take years to complete.
“Eight years to develop something? Give me a break,” he said.
The comments stood in stark relief to his silence on Proposition 45, perhaps the most significant CEQA reform effort on the table yet. Clean energy infrastructure like solar installations and battery storage facilities are among the projects that would receive shortened timelines under the measure.
As of Friday, Newsom had taken a stance on 12 of the 14 measures on California’s ballot for the November election.
Prop. 45 is one of two the governor has stayed silent on, despite his vocal CEQA reform push. The ballot measure did not come up at Wednesday’s discussion, a livestreamed conversation with his former economic advisor, Lenny Mendonca.
Newsom has also not taken a position on Proposition 41, a measure designed to cancel out the proposed billionaire tax, which the governor has vocally opposed.
Last week, a spokesperson for Newsom said he was still reviewing Prop. 45. On Wednesday, his office did not respond to a request for comment on his disposition toward the measure. But Newsom’s press office highlighted his comments on the social media site X.
“This weaponization of our environmental protections needs to stop,” the post said.
“We welcome the discussion and we think it’s a good example of why Proposition 45 is so important,” Amelia Matier, a spokesperson for the Yes campaign, told The Sacramento Bee.
The ballot measure has driven at times surprising splits in some California political camps. The California Democratic Party opposes the measure, but many of its leading officials have stayed silent.
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Newsom hoped his likely predecessor, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, continued to push permitting reforms through the California Legislature, he told the California Economic Summit crowd.
“We’ve got to be in the ‘how’ business, and I just I pray when Becerra gets in there, that’s his mindset in terms of what he does day in and day out,” Newsom said. “And I think he has a Legislature right now that’s ready for that.”
Becerra has also not picked a side on Prop. 45, though the candidate has taken fewer positions than Newsom, weighing in on only half of the measures.
Prop. 45’s backers have been battling an opposition coalition of environmental, public health and labor organizations that say the measure goes too far and would strip protections and local control from California communities. The measure’s proponents have accused their opposition of falsely invoking the possibility that widely unpopular data centers could apply for the more streamlined CEQA pathway established under Prop. 45. They say the measure is designed to apply to essential infrastructure projects communities need to achieve their growth goals.
Prop. 45 creates a streamlined CEQA approval process for eight categories of building projects — housing and public health developments, such as hospitals; clean energy; water infrastructure; schools including higher education facilities; public safety projects, including wildfire mitigation work like vegetation management; transportation; and broadband and digital access. The measure works largely by imposing deadlines on state agencies and courts to issue decisions quickly.
“The governor is exactly right,” Woody Little, a spokesperson for the No on Prop 45 campaign, told The Bee. “Thanks to his work with the Legislature, California is making great strides in building the housing we need. And the Legislature is the right place to ensure that California is building the housing and infrastructure we need, not with a 41-page ballot measure.”
The Yes on Prop. 45 camp have argued gains in the Legislature came only when Newsom and some key lawmakers forced changes past the opposition of environmental groups and other defenders of CEQA. Many of the same groups now in the coalition opposing Proposition 45 opposed last year’s housing reforms, Jason Elliot, one of the measure’s key architect and a former top Newsom aide, said in an Oct. 7 debate hosted on radio station KQED.
“That exact same coalition is now opposing Proposition 45,” Elliot said.
In 2025, Newsom threatened to veto the state’s budget if lawmakers didn’t pass the two CEQA reform bills. In Long Beach, Newsom acknowledged how unprecedented the move was, even for a governor known for ramming proposals through the Legislature.
“We were able to break through only by using the budget. We don’t do policy like that in budgets. We had to in order to move some land use and zoning reforms through to finally address those regulatory thickets as it relates to housing,” Newsom said. “That’s got to be the mindset with everything.”
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