SACRAMENTO, California — Dozens of conservation and environmental justice groups lambasted Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state Legislature in a letter Monday for weakening major environmental laws in this year’s legislative session.
What happened: Over 50 groups signed on to the letter, including the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, the Central Valley Air Quality Coalition and the Leadership Counsel on Justice & Accountability Action.
They called out in particular this year’s passage of SB 131, which overhauled the California Environmental Quality Act in the name of building more housing, and SB 237, which cleared the way for more oil drilling in Kern County.
“Under the guise of ‘affordability”’ and ‘abundance,’ you enacted the most regressive policies in generations,” they wrote.
