California’s housing crisis is real, and so is the need to build clean energy infrastructure at scale. But blaming CEQA — the California Environmental Quality Act — for our state’s lack of housing or climate progress is not only inaccurate, it’s dangerous.
In recent commentaries and podcasts, columnist Ezra Klein argues that CEQA is a well-meaning law gone wrong — a tool now weaponized to block housing and transit. His argument is gaining traction in some circles. But it’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what CEQA does, and what’s really holding back progress.
CEQA is not the reason California — or San Diego — struggles to build housing. Less than 2% of all projects are challenged in court. That’s not a systemic bottleneck. The real hurdles lie in outdated zoning, local opposition, and decades of underinvestment in affordable housing and transit infrastructure.
In San Diego County, like much of the state, CEQA has played a critical role in protecting wetlands, preventing dangerous sprawl into wildfire-prone areas, and giving communities a voice in decisions that shape their environment and quality of life. It’s the reason some of our most sensitive coastal and inland habitats haven’t been paved over. It’s also a key tool that helps residents — particularly in lower-income and historically marginalized neighborhoods — demand transparency and better outcomes when big developments come to town.
Stripping away CEQA protections won’t make housing more affordable or transit magically appear. But it will make it easier for powerful interests — developers, fossil fuel companies, and logistics giants — to bypass public input and environmental safeguards. That may speed up certain projects, but it comes at the cost of community trust, ecosystem health, and long-term climate resilience.
This isn’t a theoretical concern. San Diego is already under pressure to build faster and farther — sometimes at the edge of sprawl, in high-fire-risk areas, or without sufficient infrastructure. Weakening CEQA would only worsen those pressures and leave the public with fewer ways to demand better planning and smarter growth.
To be clear: we do need faster, more equitable housing production. We need clean energy, transit, and climate-ready infrastructure. But we don’t get there by gutting CEQA. We get there by addressing the true roadblocks — exclusionary zoning, local opposition to density, and the state’s long history of prioritizing market-rate development over deeply affordable homes.
The good news is CEQA already allows streamlining for many types of infill housing and clean energy. Recent state laws like SB 35 and AB 2011 have made it easier to build in the right places, near transit and jobs, with less environmental impact. CEQA didn’t stop those laws — it works alongside them.
There’s a false narrative emerging that we have to choose between environmental protection and progress. In reality, we can have both. We can build smart, we can build fast, and we can build fair — if we plan well and respect the rights of the communities most affected.
CEQA isn’t the obstacle. It’s one of the best tools we have to make sure California grows in a way that is sustainable, equitable, and informed. San Diego — and the rest of the state — deserves nothing less.
Pamela Heatherington is executive director of the Environmental Center of San Diego, which promotes healthy natural systems to improve the quality of life and economic vitality of our community.
