Brown Suspends Environmental Law in Drought Declaration

SAN FRANCISCO – The state’s foremost environmental law no longer protects wildlife or the environment from the effects of the state’s response to the drought, after an emergency drought declaration was signed by Governor Brown at a press event in San Francisco Friday morning.

Buried in the language of the declaration, unmentioned at the press event which focused on voluntary conservation programs, is a clause exempting the state’s responses from having to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the backbone of the state’s environmental protection law.

The declaration claims that compliance with CEQA would get in the way of swift reaction to the effects of the drought emergency.

Full story by Chris Clarke at kcet.org/news.