A high-stakes California ballot measure designed to fast-track essential infrastructure could inadvertently allow data center developers to bypass public scrutiny, according to environmental advocates. As reported by The Verge, Proposition 45 would shorten timelines for environmental reviews and restrict residents from challenging projects in court.
Changes to Environmental Reviews
Proposition 45 would loosen standards governed by the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. This law currently requires state agencies to perform environmental assessments, work with developers to limit public health risks, gather community input, and consider public comments prior to approvals.
The measure would establish a 365-day deadline to finish environmental impact reports and mandate that legal challenges be resolved within 270 days. Furthermore, it would limit public comment periods to 45 days and only require consultations with federally recognized Native American tribes, contrasting with current rules that set minimum review timelines and mandate broader tribal outreach.
Under Prop 45, the responsibility of creating alternative project plans would shift to developers rather than regulators. State agencies would also lose the authority to repeatedly request additional information, requiring them instead to specify all necessary company requirements at the start of the application process. Additionally, courts would be barred from halting an entire project for CEQA noncompliance, limiting judges to pausing only problematic sections.
“It’s hard to undo harms once you’ve already started a project,” said Fernando Gaytan, a senior attorney at Earthjustice, expressing concern over the judicial restrictions.
Concerns Over Data Centers
Prop 45 lists nine types of eligible essential projects, including housing, clean energy, and broadband internet access. Gaytan and other legal experts argue that the broadband designation could encompass data centers due to language covering mass-market retail services that transmit data to internet endpoints.
Legal experts Richard Frank and Matthew McKerley noted in a column that proposed data centers with broadband infrastructure might fit this definition, especially since data center companies have financially supported the measure’s campaign and the proposition does not explicitly bar them. Conversely, attorney and lobbyist Kurt Oneto argued in The National Law Review that supporting the internet does not qualify data centers as essential broadband projects under the measure.
Supporters of the measure include the California and Hawaii chapter of the NAACP. Rick Callender, president of the NAACP California/Hawaii State Conference, stated that working families and communities of color suffer when essential projects are delayed, emphasizing that the proposition aims to create a smarter process while protecting civil rights and safeguards.
Opponents maintain that the measure risks disempowering local communities regardless of its direct impact on data centers. “It’s about public participation and democracy,” Gaytan said as reported by The Verge.
