California
‘Too damn hard to build’: A key California Democrat’s push for speedier construction
In summary
Oakland Democrat Buffy Wicks said lawmakers will soon see 20 bills to speed up housing construction, along with more on energy, water and transit.
A California legislator wants to solve the state’s housing crisis, juice its economy, fight climate change and save the Democratic Party with one “excruciatingly non-sexy” idea.
Oakland Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks sees the slow, occasionally redundant, often litigious process of getting construction projects okayed by federal, state and local governments as a chief roadblock to fixing California’s most pressing problems, from housing to water to public transportation to climate change.
Last year, Wicks helmed a select committee on “permitting reform” — a catch-all term for speeding up government review at all stages of a project’s development, not just its literal permits. The committee went on a state-hopping fact-finding mission, taking testimony from experts, builders and advocates on why it takes so long to build apartment buildings, wind farms, water storage and public transit, to name a few notoriously slow and desperately needed project types.
Today, that committee released its final report. The summary, per Wicks, is that “it is too damn hard to build anything in California.”
The report stresses the need for the state to build millions of new housing units and electric vehicle chargers; thousands of miles of transit; drought, flooding and sea level rise projects; and renewable energy projects “built and interconnected at three times the historical rate.”
Though the jargon-laden technical analysis isn’t likely to go viral, the report tees up what could be one of the biggest legislative battles of the coming year. Wicks said lawmakers in both chambers are hammering out 20 bills on permitting snags for housing construction alone. Other bills to speed approvals for transit, clean energy and water projects are reportedly in the works too.
Lawmakers regularly pass one-off bills aimed at making it easier for favored projects to get built. Nearly every legislative session for the last decade has seen at least a handful of “streamlining” bills for dense housing.
This political moment may be primed for something bigger, said Wicks. In the capitol, an aggressive red-tape snipping mood seems to have set in. More California officials, especially in Los Angeles and especially in the wake of January’s wildfires, want to re-examine how buildings get permitted.
President Trump’s unambiguous, if modest, electoral victory in November, riding a wave of public anger over Biden-era inflation, has pushed many Democrats to reorient their policy platforms toward cost of living issues.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, a Salinas Democrat, kicked off this year’s legislative session by urging lawmakers to “consider every bill through the lens” of affordability. Gov. Gavin Newsom more recently acknowledged “the inability of the state of California to get out of its own way” on big, important projects. He suspended certain environmental regulations for fire prevention projects last Saturday.
In California and across the country, concurrent housing and climate crises have convinced many lawmakers and Democratic-leaning policy commentators to prioritize building lots and lots of things: apartment buildings, EV charging stations, electric transmission lines, solar and wind farms, rail lines and bus networks. The quicker the better.
The catastrophic Los Angeles firestorms from January highlighted just how difficult it can be to rebuild. Newsom has named cutting environmental regulations and speeding up entitlement and permitting processes in the burned areas as his top priority.
In Sacramento, a new batch of state lawmakers, elected partly by mad-as-hell voters and unscarred by past legislative battles over permitting changes, may be newly receptive to making big changes too.
“All of that combined makes, I think, a unique opportunity for us to actually have some pretty significant change,” said Wicks.
The report itself does not offer precise recommendations, but its analysis is often tellingly specific, offering clues about the changes that lawmakers can expect to debate this spring.
Described as “opportunities for reform,” these are, in Wicks’ words, often “excruciatingly non-sexy.” For example, the report notes that lawmakers could be more specific about when a certain type of housing application is deemed “complete” in order to shield developers from future legal changes. Another “opportunity”: Allow for third-party experts to sign off on a project’s plans.
Current policies that could be a template for regulatory revamping, according to the report: the state’s bolstering of accessory dwelling units, electric vehicle charging stations and certain environmental restoration projects.
But those “success stories” share a trait that points to what could be the most contentious aspect of the coming legislative package. All three are exempt from the California Environmental Quality Act, a 1970 law that requires governments to study and publish findings on the environmental impact of any decision they make, including the approval of new housing, transit or energy projects.
The act, pronounced see-kwah, is among the most fiercely debated in California politics. Opponents contend that the law is regularly hijacked by special interest groups, such as NIMBY property owners or organized labor unions, to stall projects for decidedly non-environmental reasons. They point to high profile court battles as examples of the act’s abuse, such as the case resolved by the state Supreme Court last year in which Berkeley neighborhood groups argued that the noise predicted to come from college student housing amounted to a pollutant under the law.
“If we want to reach our climate change goals, CEQA needs to be reformed,” Wicks said. “If we want to reach our housing goals, CEQA needs to be reformed.”
Defenders of the law say it is vital to deliberation, public input and transparency, keeping local and state governments and developers from running roughshod over vulnerable communities.
“Sometimes, for vulnerable communities, the act is the only tool available to have a seat at the decision making table,” said J.P. Rose, a policy director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “To brush all of that aside to say ‘that’s just permitting,’ I think that’s a misguided lens to address this issue.”
Lawmakers often carve specific exemptions into the law, but historically, making across-the-board changes to CEQA has been a heavy lift in Sacramento. Two years ago, Newsom rolled out plans to overhaul the law in order to speed up the approval of big, infrastructure projects. Many of its most ambitious proposals were sidelined. Last year, the Legislature tried to rush through a bill aimed at getting clean energy projects up and running more quickly (it failed).
“Right now, there are too many opportunities in the process to put a wrench in the gears.”Buffy Wicks, Assemblymember, Oakland
Lawmakers are likely to spend plenty of time arguing about the act, no matter what happens to the permitting package. One bill, already in print, by San Francisco Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener, would make it easier for urban housing projects to exempt themselves from the law and for local and state governments to avoid having to conduct full environmental reviews for every aspect of each project. The senator dubbed it “the fast and focused CEQA Act.”
Rose, at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the bill “fires a shotgun at the heart of CEQA.”
Carter Rubin, a public transportation advocate with the Natural Resources Defense Council who testified to the select committee last year, said there ought to be a difference between the way regulators review projects that help achieve the state’s housing and climate goals and those that emphatically do not.
“We certainly would not support streamlining highway expansion or sprawl development that impacts ecosystems,” he said in a phone interview. “It’s really important that the Legislature focuses on shovel-worthy projects, not just shovel-ready projects.”
Wicks said she will put forward a housing bill on CEQA as part of the overall package.
“Right now, there are too many opportunities in the process to put a wrench in the gears,” she said. “There will be a cost for us Democrats on the ballot in the future if we don’t fix that problem.”
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As the nation prepares for its 250th Independence Day celebration, a decades-long California Fourth of July fireworks tradition that has raised millions for local children’s programs is going dark this year after the California Coastal Commission rejected a final effort to keep it alive, citing environmental concerns to protect the bay.
“We’ve raised over the past 14 years $2 million for kids programs here in Long Beach,” event organizer John Morris told Fox News Digital, adding the July 3 event is fully funded by the local community.
“This community pays for everything — everything. City fees, and the city doesn’t give us a break. We pay $20,000 to the city for police and fire, which I’m fine with, because there’s 100,000 people enjoying the fireworks,” said Morris, a Long Beach resident and business owner.
Morris, who owns the Boathouse on the Bay restaurant, had planned a scaled-up fireworks display this year to mark America’s 250th Independence Day.
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Long Beach residents have enjoyed the fireworks organized by John Morris for over a decade. (Scott Varley/MediaNews Group/Torrance Daily Breeze via Getty Images)
In January, Coastal Commission staff rejected the proposal, and last week commissioners unanimously upheld that decision despite an appeal backed by local, state and federal officials.
Regulators warned Morris last year that 2025 would likely be the final year for fireworks at the event, as they continue pushing organizers to switch to drone shows they say are more environmentally friendly.
The decision stands in contrast to other approvals by the commission, including a permit granted to SeaWorld allowing up to 40 nights of fireworks.
“They get 40 nights in Mission Bay. All I’m asking for is 20 minutes — it doesn’t make any sense,” Morris said.
Morris, 78, also pushed back on the environmental concerns cited by the commission, pointing to years of testing around the event.
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Due to the lack of fireworks, Morris has decided to cancel the July 3rd celebration.
“We’ve had 10 years of environmental studies,” Morris said. “We test the water before and after the fireworks and send a robotic camera into the bay to check for debris — there’s never been any. It’s been spotless.
“We’ve also had eight years of bird reports to make sure we’re not harming wildlife. We’ve never had an issue. We’ve never been written up one time. So what is it really about?”
Joshua Smith, a spokesman for the California Coastal Commission, told Fox News Digital that permits are determined on a case-by-case basis, citing environmental concerns to “protect the bay.”
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Organizer John Morris said environmental studies are regularly conducted to measure the impact of the fireworks show on the bay. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
Smith said Morris was approved for a permit to hold a drone show in lieu of fireworks. Morris told Fox News Digital such a show would cost about $200,000 — roughly four times more than traditional fireworks.
Smith confirmed that SeaWorld received a permit allowing 40 nights of fireworks. When pressed on the discrepancy, he reiterated that decisions are made individually and declined to provide further details.
Morris said the loss of the fireworks show will be felt across the community, from local businesses to families who have made the event an annual tradition.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — In the wide-open race for California governor, billionaire Tom Steyer is on a spending binge.
The hedge fund manager-turned-liberal activist is using his personal fortune to saturate TV screens and mobile phones with advertising, while his competitors accuse him of trying to use his vast wealth to buy the state’s most powerful job.
Steyer’s ads — in which he promises to bring down household costs or rails against federal immigration raids — appear inescapable at times in heavily Democratic Los Angeles, the state’s largest media market. Data compiled by advertising tracker AdImpact show Steyer has spent or booked over $115 million in ads for broadcast TV, cable and radio — nearly 30 times the amount of his nearest Democratic rival.
If he makes it through the June 2 primary election, Steyer could easily eclipse the 2010 record set by Republican Meg Whitman, who spent $178.5 million in a losing bid for governor, much of it her own money. At the time, it was the costliest campaign for statewide office in the nation’s history.
Even when ad buys from all his major competitors are combined, along with ad purchases by independent committees supporting candidates, Steyer is outspending the field by tens of millions of dollars.
“Billionaire money is flooding our state in an attempt to buy this election,” former U.S. Rep. Katie Porter, one of Steyer’s chief rivals, warned her supporters this month.
Mail-in ballots are set to go out to voters next month. Steyer is among a crowd of candidates hoping to seize a spotlight after former Democratic U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell’s dramatic departure from the race following sexual assault allegations that he denies.
But while Steyer has ticked up in polling amid his spending splurge, he has not broken away from the field, leaving some wondering if he’s getting value for his dollars.
“If your first round of ads doesn’t move you dramatically (in the polls), the third, fourth, fifth, six, seventh and eighth rounds won’t either,” said veteran Democratic strategist Bill Carrick, who for years advised the late Democratic U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. “There is something inherently holding Steyer back.”
In recent prior campaigns for governor, at this stage a leading candidate was taking control of the race. This year, voters appear to be shrugging at a contest that lacks a star candidate among seven leading Democrats and two Republicans.
“Somehow the campaign is frozen,” Carrick added.
History shows that money doesn’t always translate into votes.
Billionaire developer Rick Caruso spent over $100 million in 2022 in his bid to become Los Angeles mayor, much of it his own money, but he was handily defeated by Mayor Karen Bass, who spent a fraction of Caruso’s total. Billionaire former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spent more than $1 billion of his own money on his 2020 presidential bid before dropping out. And Steyer’s money was unable to lift him into contention in the 2020 presidential contest, when he dropped out early in the year after a poor finish in the South Carolina primary.
Steyer has never held elected office.
In a 2019 interview with The Associated Press, Steyer was asked what he would say to people who think he’s trying to buy the presidency.
“I don’t think that’s possible,” Steyer said at the time, before adding, “I’m never going to apologize for succeeding in business. That’s America, right?”
His campaign did not respond directly when asked about similar criticism facing his run for governor.
“Tom now stands as the only Democrat with the grassroots energy, institutional backing and resources to advance to the general election,” spokesperson Kevin Liao said in a statement.
The governor’s race was recently reordered by two developments: Swalwell, a leading Democrat, abruptly withdrew from the race then resigned from Congress, following sexual assault allegations. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump endorsed conservative commentator Steve Hilton.
Still, there is no clear leader.
Polling in late March and early April by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California found a cluster of candidates in close competition: Democrats Steyer and Porter, Republicans Hilton and Chad Bianco, and Swalwell. Other candidates were trailing. The polling was conducted before Swalwell withdrew.
Democrats have feared the party’s large number of candidates could lead to them getting shut out of the general election in November. That’s because California has a primary system in which only the top two vote-getters advance to the general election, regardless of party.
Leading Democrats are all claiming to have picked up support since Swalwell’s exit. Steyer nabbed one plum endorsement, when the influential California Teachers Association, which previously backed Swalwell, recommended him.
In his ads, Steyer promises to “abolish” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been staging raids across California. In another, he laments the state’s punishing cost of housing, “Everybody needs an affordable place to live,” he says.
Rapper was stabbed 16 times by fellow inmate in May 2025 while 10-year sentence in Megan Thee Stallion shooting case
Tory Lanez has filed a $100 million lawsuit against the California Department of Corrections stemming from a May 2025 incident where the rapper was stabbed in prison.
Lanez — born Daystar Peterson and currently serving a 10-year sentence after being found guilty in the Megan Thee Stallion shooting case — also sued the warden and guards at the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, where the rapper was stabbed 16 times in an “unprovoked life-threatening attack” by another inmate, the lawsuit states.
Peterson was hospitalized following the May 2025 incident, suffering a collapsed lung among stab wounds to his back, torso, and head.
According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit criticized the Department of Corrections for housing Peterson with fellow inmate and alleged attacker Santino Casio, who was serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. “The choice to house Casio with Peterson was known or should have been a known danger,” the lawsuit said, adding that Tory Lanez’ “high-profile celebrity status” made him a target.
The lawsuit also said that prison guards were slow to respond to the shanking, and didn’t employ flash grenades or other measures to halt Casio’s attack.; Casio was not charged for stabbing Peterson, the Associated Press notes.
Lanez, who following his hospitalization was transferred to San Luis Obispo County’s California Men’s Colony, also alleges in the lawsuit that he never received his possessions from the California Correctional Institute in Tehachapi, including songbooks filled with lyrics to his unreleased music.
Lanez is serving a 10-year prison sentence for shooting Megan Thee Stallion in the foot during a confrontation in the summer of 2020. He was eventually convicted on several firearms charges, including assault with a firearm, in December 2022. In November 2025, his appeal was denied by a three-judge panel, and the 10-year sentence was upheld.
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