March 27, 2026
By Steve Forbes
For more than five decades, California has been governed by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). It’s a law originally designed to protect the state’s natural resources. Signed by Governor Ronald Reagan in 1970, CEQA was a well-intentioned framework, but good intentions don’t guarantee good outcomes. Today, CEQA has drifted disastrously far from its original purpose. It has become a bureaucratic maze that delays housing, infrastructure, clean energy and public safety projects—sometimes indefinitely. The California Chamber of Commerce’s proposed ballot initiative, the Building an Affordable California Act (BACA), offers a long-overdue fix. Californians across the political spectrum should vote yes.
The most urgent crisis BACA addresses is housing. The CEQA and its implementation are the key reason home prices in California are absurdly high. The Golden State faces a shortage of millions of homes, and the resulting cost of living has helped drive residents and businesses alike to other states. Under the current CEQA framework, even modestly sized housing projects can be tied up in litigation for years before a single shovel breaks ground. BACA would establish firm, reasonable deadlines for agencies to complete environmental reviews and for courts to resolve legal challenges. This isn’t about bypassing environmental protections—BACA explicitly preserves them. It’s about ending the weaponization of procedural red tape blocking projects communities desperately need.
BACA’s reach extends well beyond housing. The initiative designates a broad class of “essential projects”—including clean energy installations, water infrastructure, public health facilities, broadband networks and transportation improvements—as eligible for its streamlined review process. These are precisely the kind of investments California needs to remain competitive and resilient in the 21st century.
This is not a partisan issue. BACA has drawn genuine bipartisan support, uniting business groups, labor unions, housing advocates and clean energy proponents who rarely find themselves on the same side. Governor Gavin Newsom has championed CEQA reform for housing. Republicans and Democrats alike have grown frustrated watching California fall behind in building the infrastructure its people rely on. This rare convergence of political will is itself a signal that BACA reflects common sense rather than ideology.
Critics will argue that weakening CEQA weakens environmental protection. But BACA does no such thing. It doesn’t exempt essential projects from environmental review; it simply requires that the review happens on a predictable schedule. Delays don’t protect the environment—they raise costs and extend pollution from aging infrastructure. They prevent California from building water infrastructure such as reservoirs.
BACA doesn’t ask Californians to choose between affordability and environmental values. It asks them to insist that their government work efficiently enough to deliver on both. It’s time to pass BACA and start building the California that the next generation deserves.