[CPEO-BIF] "A California bill made removing toxic soil more expensive. Some say it’s a tax on housing"

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

A California bill made removing toxic soil more expensive. Some say it’s a tax on housing

By J.K. Dineen, 
San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
June 6, 2024

When Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 158 into law three years ago, the governor touted the environmental measure as a badly needed reform that would give “overburdened communities … an equitable opportunity to thrive in a healthy environment.”

The bill restructured and increased fees related to the handling of hazardous materials. It pumped $500 million into cleaning up contaminated properties. It created a “board of environmental safety” and an ombudsperson to handle complaints. It generated an additional $104 million in revenue for the Department of Toxic Substances Control, known as DTSC.

But for the nonprofits and residential developers brave enough to break ground on projects in a challenging post-pandemic California, the changes have amounted to an unexpected — and some would argue duplicitous — bureaucratic money grab that amounts to a tax on housing. 

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-toxic-soil-bill-19496867.php

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)




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