ConnectingCalifornia.org

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Schwarzenegger's effort to expedite 10 highway projects angers environmentalists

1/11/2009, excerpted from

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-enviro11-2009jan11,0,2221.story

Schwarzenegger is proposing that the California Department of Transportation forge ahead with some construction projects that are tied up in court over environmental issues. One is a $165-million carpool-lane expansion on U.S. 50 in Sacramento that a judge has delayed because of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions it could generate, among other concerns.

Protections would also be lifted on a freeway-widening project through an ecologically sensitive area of coastal San Diego County and on a controversial plan to drill a tunnel into the Berkeley Hills. And Schwarzenegger wants to empower a panel of his appointees to waive environmental rules on other projects....

...Schwarzenegger is proposing to largely exempt the 10 highway projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, a 1970 law requiring review of big projects and efforts to offset any deleterious effects on the surroundings....

The Democrats who dominate the Legislature have so far demurred.

They are offering instead a fast-tracking process for the projects that conservationists find more acceptable. Administration officials say that will not get construction moving quickly enough...