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Senate committee advances measure to speed environmental review for Southern California veterans cemetery
Summary
The Senate Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs voted unanimously to send AB 571 to the Appropriations Committee. The bill would create a narrow CEQA exemption to accelerate planning and permitting for a veterans cemetery project in Orange County backed by state and local officials and roughly $55 million in committed funding.
The California State Senate Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs on Monday voted to pass AB 571 to the Committee on Appropriations, advancing a targeted exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) intended to speed development of a Southern California veterans cemetery in Orange County.
Assemblymember Sharon Quirk Silva, the bill’s sponsor, told the committee the project is “a decade in the making” and that AB 571 provides “a targeted CEQA exemption with an urgency clause for the Southern California Veterans Cemetery” to streamline planning and permitting. She said the measure would help deliver “a final resting place for Orange County’s and surrounding areas’ veterans, a place of honor, dignity and peace.”
The bill’s supporters said the exemption is narrowly drawn to prevent what they called abuse of CEQA that can delay or kill projects.…
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