Politicization Will Hamper California Infrastructure Improvements

Construction workers smooth tar as they pave a road in San Francisco, Calif., on Oct. 5, 2018. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Commentary

Even in wealthy areas, California’s infrastructure clearly is falling apart. You can feel it in your bones when you drive on the potholed roads in Newport Beach, Huntington Beach, and other cities where home values stretch on average above $1 million.

Two developments show the state is advancing infrastructure improvements that also push forward political goals on the environment and “equity,” meaning giving an advantage to politically favored groups.

The first is Gov. Gavin’s Newsom’s announcement on May 19 of an executive order that, his office explained:

1. Speeds up construction.

2. Speeds up court review of legal challenges under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

3. Streamlines permitting.

4. Streamlines CEQA permitting “across the board.”

5. Maximizes $180 billion over the next decade from the federal Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

CEQA reform certainly is welcome, and long-needed. But past governors have pushed CEQA reform, only to see it get stuck in the Legislature from intense lobbying from environmentalists and, even more intensely, unions that use the regulations to put roadblocks in front of developments not using union labor.

Construction for an upcoming trollycar system is underway in Santa Ana, Calif., on May 4, 2022. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

From the executive order itself comes this word salad:

“WHEREAS California was one of the first states to recognize environmental justice as a factor in the planning process, directing governmental entities to engage meaningfully with, and provide technical assistance to, populations and communities most impacted by pollution in all phases of the environmental and land use decision-making process, including low-income and disadvantaged communities that have traditionally been most impacted by environmental harms and have not shared equitably in the economic opportunities that accompany major infrastructure projects.”

The problem is obvious: Poor people, especially immigrants just arrived here, get jobs where they can and live where they best can afford. They’re not working in office “campuses” and living in pristine gated communities. Instead they sometimes take dangerous jobs in industrial areas. They naturally want to live close to work, if they can, which means living in areas that might have some industrial pollution. Otherwise, they have to take long commutes, which themselves cause problems from being on the road an hour a day—sometimes more than one hour.

As I have mentioned before, I grew up in an industrial city west of Detroit, the City of Wayne, Michigan, where one-sixth of the land is still Ford’s Wayne Stamping & Assembly plant.

The men worked in tough and often dangerous jobs. But they put a roof over their families’ heads and food on the table.

All that will happen with advancing “equity” for “populations and communities most impacted by pollution” will be to drive those jobs into the underground economy, or to other states and countries.

A sign outside a shuttered Exide Technologies battery recycling plant in Commerce, Calif., on Jan. 31, 2020. The plant was the source of lead and arsenic pollution covering neighborhoods in the surrounding 1.7 miles. Chris Karr/The Epoch Times

California Forward—Or Backward?

The second development: Newsom’s announcement included this, “Today’s announcement follows Thursday’s report urging permitting reform from Infrastructure Advisor to California, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and California Forward.”

California Forward is a highly influential think tank. The report’s title contains the requisite buzzwords: “Building a more inclusive and sustainable California: Maximizing the federal infrastructure funding opportunity.” How many high-paid consultants will be hired to make sure it’s “inclusive and sustainable”? How much of that money could have been better spent fixing roads in poor areas?

In the 38-page report, including filler, I counted “equity” 29 times, “inclusive” 36 times, and “sustainable” 40 times. That’s what the CAFWD report really is all about.

Equity just means socialist redistribution of wealth based on political criteria. As I have noted several times, equity contrasts with equality—that is, treating everyone equally, giving each person the opportunity to excel. It’s Dr. Martin Luther King’s ideal, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

The report itself mixes up what’s really needed, reform to build new infrastructure from that expected $180 billion in federal money, with all the other claptrap. Consider this paragraph under the heading “The Bottom Line”:

“However, to achieve the utmost value for our infrastructure spending, significant and substantial regulatory and governance reform is necessary. Perpetuating the status quo will reinforce historical inequities, delay the shift to carbon neutrality, and fail to make our infrastructure more resilient to the physical threat of climate impacts.”

“Carbon neutrality” means Newsom’s goal last year of a “pathway to carbon neutrality by 2045.” But that’s a chimera, as I detailed in my May 11 Epoch Times article, “California ‘Carbon Neutrality’ Won’t Reduce Global Temperatures.”

Traffic moves along Interstate 80 in Berkeley, Calif., on Feb. 16, 2022. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Why Not Just Build It?

The fact is, $180 billion is a lot of money. If the state ignored the “equity,” “inclusive,” and “sustainable” nonsense it could rebuild the world-class infrastructure it enjoyed in the 1970s, including for poor people. In 1978, after U.S. Army boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood, I was posted to Monterey to learn Russian at the Defense Language Institute.

I had come from Michigan, whose auto industry had been devastated from the “malaise” economy of the mid-1970s. The roads were crumbling. Unemployment was high. But out in California, the roads were all paved and a joy to drive on in my hopped-up 1970 Buick LeSabre. The only bad thing was it was a gas hog during the high prices, shortages, and long lines at the pump caused by President Jimmy Carter’s price controls. But former Gov. Ronald Reagan solved those national problems when he took office in 1981.

Otherwise, California in 1978-79 really was the Golden State. Why can’t we have that again?

John Seiler’s email: [email protected]

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.