Quote:
Originally Posted by gblansten
|
Rules and regs in Cali is crazy. There is WAY TOO MUCH idealism in their government. I generally refuse to work on environmental projects in Cali because their environmental rules and regulations are so extensive and different than any other state in the US. Their Green goals are not obtainable and are pipe dreams. That is starting to become abundantly clear now and many are now seeing that it's not feasible and is hurting their economy. Expect much of it to get delayed (effectively ceased though they won't say that directly).
Oddly, the Cali regulators I've worked with are some of the brightest, knowledgeable, down to earth, and well-trained professionals I've ever come across though. But they aren't the ones making the laws.
Air and water are their biggest concerns and rightly so. SoCal is still under a blanket of smog, though far less dangerous than even 10 years ago and especially compared to 30+ years ago. You can still see the smog layer clearly when flying into LA even now. Pretty crazy, IMO. Smog is a huge health issue for SoCal, but not so much elsewhere in the state, thus a one size fits all approach is rather silly, IMO.
Water availability/scarcity is a huge issue as well thus the reason why they are have so rules surrounding it. Water availability, not air, is and will be the state's biggest environmental issue over the next 50 years. The rules surrounding water usage and rights are bonkers in CA. The agriculture industry and population in SoCal are largely the problem. The growth of both is not sustainable and is a major problem and critical.