Gov. Gavin Newsom has rejected legislation that would have tightened environmental oversight of manufacturing plants built close to homes and schools, siding instead with business groups that warned the measure would slow industrial growth across California.
The bill, authored by state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, D-Encinitas, was drafted in response to a chemical scare earlier this year at GKN Aerospace in Garden Grove, an incident that forced evacuation orders affecting roughly 50,000 Orange County residents. The proposal sought to scale back a broad exemption under the California Environmental Quality Act that currently applies to a wide range of advanced manufacturing operations, limiting the carve-out to facilities involved only in final-stage production.
In his veto message issued Friday, Newsom argued that Senate Bill 954 would have effectively gutted the exemption altogether rather than simply refining it. “Protecting communities and strengthening California’s advanced manufacturing economy are not mutually exclusive goals,” he wrote, adding that the exemption was intentionally designed to serve both purposes and deserves time to prove itself. If issues surface down the road, he said, lawmakers should pursue narrow fixes rather than dismantling the policy before it has a chance to work.
Blakespear said she was disappointed by the decision and intends to bring the issue back before the Legislature next year. She pointed again to the Garden Grove episode as evidence of the risks posed by unchecked exemptions.
“We should not have to wait for another emergency before recognizing that sweeping — and rushed — exemptions from environmental review need reasonable guardrails,” she said. “Protecting communities and workers is not an impediment to economic growth — it is part of responsible growth.”
The debate traces back to last year’s contentious overhaul of California’s signature environmental law, a rewrite Newsom personally pushed through by threatening to hold up state budget approval unless lawmakers agreed to the changes. Legislators ultimately went along with the plan but voiced unease over how sweeping the new manufacturing exemption turned out to be, covering everything from strip mines to renewable energy facilities.
Environmental advocates maintain that Blakespear’s bill wouldn’t have blocked manufacturing projects outright — it simply would have added safeguards for nearby residents. Kim Delfino, a lobbyist representing environmental justice organizations, said the veto undermines a basic principle of environmental law.
“It’s really unfortunate that we have to wait until something bad happens before we make an adjustment,” Delfino said. “A foundation of environmental law is the precautionary principle: that we try to protect instead of waiting for something bad to happen. This is flipping it on its head.”
Asha Sharma, deputy director of Sierra Club California, echoed that concern, saying the veto represents a missed chance to shield communities that are frequently asked to absorb the risks of industrial development without adequate protections or a voice in the process.
Industry groups, however, welcomed Newsom’s decision. Organizations including the Bay Area Council and the California Manufacturers & Technology Association had lobbied against the bill, warning it could hinder the state’s competitiveness in emerging industries.
Bay Area Council CEO Libby Schaaf praised the veto, saying advanced manufacturing is central to California’s economic future. “From autonomous vehicles and clean energy systems to revolutionary medical devices and digital technologies, advanced manufacturing is building the future and creating the good-paying, high-skilled jobs that California desperately needs,” she said.
Original source: CalMatters
