Select Committee on Permitting Reform Releases Landmark Report, Calls for Action

SACRAMENTO – The Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform, chaired by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), today released its report detailing systemic permitting challenges to addressing our housing and climate crises. The report also identifies best practices, success stories, and opportunities for reform that would minimize uncertainty, speed up timeframes and reduce costs to these necessary infrastructure projects.

The white paper is the culmination of a year of work by the Select Committee to explore permitting challenges across California. The Select Committee held four public hearings, conducted site visits across the state, and engaged more than 100 stakeholder organizations over the past year. The Committee’s findings confirm that California’s permitting system not only hinders progress but drives up costs and delays projects communities desperately need to address interconnected housing and climate crises.

"It is too damn hard to build anything in California. Our broken permitting system is driving up the cost of housing, the cost of energy, and even the cost of inaction on climate change,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland). “If we’re serious about making California more affordable, sustainable, and resilient, we have to make it easier to build housing, clean energy, public transportation, and climate adaptation projects. This report makes it clear: the system isn’t working, and it’s on us to fix it."

The Committee’s report highlights how permitting inefficiencies and bottlenecks drive up the cost of housing, electricity, water and transportation projects – costs that are ultimately passed on to everyday Californians.

"California has the technology, investment, and workforce to lead the nation in clean energy — but our outdated permitting system is standing in the way. Renewable projects, battery storage, and transmission lines are stuck in years of delays when we need them now,” said Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine). "The findings in this report underscore the urgent need for reform so we can build the infrastructure required for a reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy future. We must take action to ensure our permitting process matches the scale and speed of our climate goals."

Here is how California’s complex, unpredictable and outdated permitting processes are slowing down essential projects:

• Housing: Despite a state target of 310,000 new homes per year, California produced only about 1/3 of that annually. This is due in large part to local permitting processes that frustrate the approval of new housing projects at every step of the process, as well as a CEQA process that can impede even climate-friendly infill housing.
• Clean Energy: California must triple its deployment of solar, wind and battery storage and expand $43-$63 billion in new transmission lines to meet its net-zero goals. Without substantial reforms, such as reducing the 10-year timeframe to approve new transmission lines, the state will never meet these goals.
• Water: Drought mitigation, flood control and sea-level rise adaptation projects require multiple agency approvals, creating years-long delays for infrastructure that are needed to protect or provide essential services to millions of Californians.
• Transportation: While California needs to increase transit, biking and pedestrian travel from the current level of 13% to 23% of all trips to meet climate goals, permitting delays for sustainable transportation projects add years to approval timelines, while highway expansions often move forward with fewer barriers.

“California has always led the way on clean energy and tackling the big challenges of our time. If we want to meet our ambitious climate goals, we have to build faster and smarter. That means cutting through the red tape that holds back the clean energy projects our communities need,” said Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva (D-Fullerton). “I want to thank Assemblymember Wicks for her leadership on this issue. Together, we can make sure California’s clean energy future becomes a reality.”

“We need to get back to rebuilding California. All over the State we see our housing, our infrastructure, our schools either crumbling, or desperately over capacity, or both,” said Assemblymember Juan Carrillo (D-Palmdale). “I am grateful that Assemblymember Wicks took on this project and invited me to participate, now I am ready to get to work.”

The Select Committee on Permitting Reform will continue its work in 2025, focused on translating these findings into legislative action, regulatory improvements and policy changes that will make California’s permitting system faster, more transparent and more predictable.

The full report is available at https://a14.asmdc.org/select-committee-permitting-reform.

Laura Tolkoff, Transportation Policy Director for SPUR

"California cannot build the future if our infrastructure is stuck in the past. This is a timely set of ideas that can help the talented and committed people working in government to do what they came to do – serve the collective good.”

Shannon Eddy, Executive Director, Large-Scale Solar Association

"The findings in this white paper reflect the reality our industry experiences every day: permitting delays and complications drive up costs, stall critical clean energy projects, and hinder California’s ability to meet its climate and reliability goals. Large-scale solar developers are committed to delivering affordable, reliable clean power, but our success depends on a permitting process that is transparent, predictable, and outcomes-oriented. Addressing these bottlenecks is essential to scaling up the infrastructure California needs for a decarbonized future. We applaud Assemblymember Wicks for shining a spotlight on this important issue."

Karim Drissi, Senior Vice President of Legislative Affairs, California Building Industry Association (CBIA)

"Assemblymember Buffy Wicks has been instrumental in driving meaningful progress to address the state’s housing policy crisis. The California Building Industry Association applauds Chair Wicks and the Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform for recognizing that overcoming barriers to building more housing requires continued decisive action. CBIA looks forward to continuing to work with the members of the Select Committee and the Legislature at large to advance policy solutions that bolster housing production, thereby making homes more attainable for California families and resulting in stronger, more vibrant communities throughout the state.”

Newsha Ajami, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab:

"Our modern day infrastructure requires a modern day permitting process that embraces digital tools and stronger agency collaboration to create a faster, more effective system, to support both environmental protection and sustainable and resilient development. This report, along with the discussions generated by the select committee, provide a great foundation for identifying smart and practical reforms and advancing solutions that align our permitting process with the needs and challenges of the 21st century."

Juan Matute, UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies

"California has fallen into a rigidity trap in which local governments have used zoning and permitting to reinforce the status quo rather than adapt to meet the state's myriad climate, affordability, and accessibility crises. This report deftly lays out that challenge and offers the first steps for how the state can facilitate the creation of more efficient, multimodal transportation systems and complete, livable places."

Tony Estremera, Valley Water Board Chair

“Water is one of the most complex policy issues in California. Valley Water appreciates the progress made by the Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform. Our mission at Valley Water is to serve the public, be it water supply, flood risk reduction or environmental stewardship. Given the critical nature of these shared goals with the State of California, it is essential to speed up critical water supply projects, especially in light of the increasing challenges posed by climate change. The Committee's report outlines a clear and actionable plan to help achieve these shared goals.”

Jim Wunderman, President and CEO of the Bay Area Council

“To build the affordable housing California desperately needs and make critical investments in clean energy and transportation infrastructure, we must reign in the many-headed hydra of out-of-control permitting. The work Assemblymember Buffy Wicks is leading to reform California’s onerous, excessive and expensive permitting processes will make it easier, faster and less costly to build and invest in addressing our biggest challenges and bolster our economic competitiveness. We heartily applaud Assemblymember Wicks for her incredible leadership and are proud to be partnering with her to reform California’s broken permitting system.”

Nicholas Marantz, University of California, Irvine:

“In both good times and bad, California’s multifamily permitting lags far behind other economically dynamic states, including Washington, Texas, and Oregon.
“Many states have environmental impact assessment laws, but CEQA is unique in its chilling effect on housing. “Given all the benefits associated with facilitating multifamily housing, why does California lag so far behind other West Coast states, not to mention more laissez faire sunbelt states? First, local governments continue to impose a myriad of restrictions on multifamily housing, including flat prohibitions on its construction in most areas. Second, even in zoning districts where multifamily housing is allowed, it often requires discretionary approvals, triggering long and unpredictable permitting processes. Third, the need for discretionary approvals also triggers review under CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. Although the legislature has made numerous attempts to address these challenges, it has not taken sufficiently bold action to make a meaningful impact.”

Michael Wara, Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University:

“The bad news is that the state has a very complex siting and planning process for electric infrastructure that involves close coordination, or requires close coordination, between a set of agencies and independent actors. “At the highest level, we need to move from a reactive to a proactive planning and siting process, and we should be doing more programmatic review of this planning so that we can streamline siting of individual lines that’s going to be needed after the projects make it out of the planning process.”

Carter Rubin, Natural Resources Defense Council:

“We are simply not building the clean transportation system at the scale and speed that we need to reach our climate goals. “If a local government wants to build a new bike path or dedicated bus lane that crosses a state highway, that city needs to obtain an encroachment permit from Caltrans… This encroachment permit process can be fraught and take six months to a year to navigate...”

About Assemblymember Buffy Wicks:

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks represents California’s 14th Assembly District, which includes all or portions of the cities of Oakland, Richmond, Berkeley, Albany, El Cerrito, San Pablo, Pinole, El Sobrante, Hercules, Rodeo, Kensington, and Piedmont. You can learn more about Assemblymember Wicks at http://a14.asmdc.org.

About the Select Committee on Permitting Reform:

The Select Committee on Permitting Reform is dedicated to addressing and resolving California’s systemic permitting issues. By fostering bipartisan collaboration and engaging diverse stakeholders, the Committee aims to streamline regulatory frameworks to support the state's goals in housing, clean energy and climate resilience. Through these efforts, the Committee seeks to create a more efficient and equitable system that facilitates the development of critical projects while preserving the health of our environment and the wellbeing of California's residents.