Global Courant
SACRAMENTO —
Democrats leading California’s Senate and Assembly announced a legislative state budget agreement on Monday, but they continue to disagree with Governor Gavin Newsom over his sweeping plan to streamline major infrastructure projects and reduce delays in environmental litigation.
Newsom introduced a series of budget accounts related to infrastructure last month after lawmakers already concluded committee hearings on spending proposals. Democrats in Newsom’s party have criticized the governor for the late arrival of legislation and expressed concern about not having enough time to act on potential impacts on communities and the environment.
“I just want to express my extreme disappointment that this comes at this time,” Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, a Democrat who lives in Stockton and represents cities in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, said at a Senate hearing last week. “It feels disrespectful to the process, to all the work we’ve done.”
Senate President Pro Tem Toni Atkins (D-San Diego) and House Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) said they “continue to negotiate and move forward” on a budget deal with the governor. Lawmakers plan to approve their agreed budget Thursday to meet a legal deadline of June 15 and then amend the budget law after reaching a final deal with Newsom in the coming days.
While passing a tentative budget and following up on an amended bill later became commonplace during Newsom’s tenure, an estimated budget shortfall of at least $31.5 billion this year has exacerbated Democratic discord in the Capitol. Interest groups are lobbying to keep promised funding in higher-income years, and Newsom and lawmakers continue to argue over where to make cuts.
The legislature’s $311.7 billion spending plan unveiled Monday came after 120 public hearings over the past six months. The legislative budget plan increases funding for education, childcare, public transportation and Medi-Cal above the levels Newsom proposed in his revised budget in May. It also reverses Newsom’s plan to spend $450 million from the Safety Net Reserve, an account created to support funding for programs like CalWorks and Medi-Cal during a recession.
Other areas that need to be ironed out with the governor include:
Lawmakers want to provide $1 billion in temporary rate increases for childcare providers. The legislative agreement rejects the governor’s proposal to delay the opening of subsidized child care for an additional 20,000 children and instead releases the slots on July 1, 2024. Newsom and lawmakers agree on using a tax on managed healthcare organizations, known as the MCO tax, to funder Medi-Cal at a time when the state is expanding eligibility to all eligible immigrants, regardless of their immigration status. But the two sides disagree on the timeline to spend the money. The governor wants to spend the tax revenue over eight to 10 years, while lawmakers push to invest $10.3 billion through the end of 2026 to improve reimbursement rates for health care providers and expand access to care. Lawmakers also want to reinstate a $2 billion reduction in transportation financing that Newsom proposed in May.
Newsom’s infrastructure plan remains the biggest bone of contention between the governor and lawmakers, who have questioned why the bills should be passed now rather than through the regular and more deliberative legislative process on policy issues to be finalized in September or even next year.
Newsom administration officials said the 10 bills proposed by the governor are critical to meeting California’s climate goals. The governor’s office called California’s bills “the most ambitious licensing and project review reforms in half a century” and said the legislation could cut project time by more than three years in some cases.
Some outside interests agree that the bills are important, but also shared the legislature’s concerns.
Mary Creasman, a general manager of California Environmental Voters, said it’s clear California needs permits faster for clean energy projects and it needs to protect its rich biodiversity.
“We need a thorough policymaking process that doesn’t run through budget trailer bills,” Creasman said.
One bill in the governor’s plan aims to reduce the likelihood of lengthy delays in preparing documents due to lawsuits filed under the California Environmental Quality Act that can sink construction projects. Another proposal would expedite judicial review in CEQA litigation related to water, transportation, clean energy, and semiconductor or microelectronic projects.
The changes Newsom has proposed would also make it easier to complete his controversial plan to build an underground tunnel to transport water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta to Southern California.
Newsom also wants to allow the California Infrastructure and Economic Development Bank, known as IBank, and the Department of Water Resources to take advantage of and use federal funding for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
For projects in public transport, its package would make it easier to approve environmental mitigation and permits for California Department of Transportation projects impacting endangered species or located within the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Newsom wants too repeal state laws and reclassify various species which are “fully protected” to “threatened” and “threatened” under the California Endangered Species Act.
Another proposal would allow Caltrans to contract directly to build three wildlife crossings along Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County and to change the tendering process to accelerate highway projects.
Newsom wants the State Department of Water Resources and the California Department of Transportation to use it a more flexible contracting process for up to eight major projects each.
Atkins said the Senate is reviewing the governor’s proposals and holding talks with the Assembly and administration.
“It is important to my Democratic colleagues in the Senate and to me that streamlining is consistent with California’s commitment to environmental protection,” Atkins said.
John Casey, a Rendon spokesman, said the Assembly is doing the same.
“We are digging in to understand what specific issues the governor is trying to solve and are working on legislation that will address those issues in a workable way,” the speaker’s office said in a statement.
The governor’s office hopes to reach a final budget agreement with the legislature this week.
Staff writers Liam Dillon and Hannah Wiley contributed to this report.
