Protect Public Health in California: Vote No on Prop 45
This November, Californians will face a ballot measure that should concern anyone who values clean air, clean water, clean soil and the health of their community. Prop 45, brought forward by the California Chamber of Commerce, is a serious threat to public health, and people who care about protecting their families and neighborhoods need to stand up and oppose it.
What Prop 45 Would Do
Officially titled "Modifies Environmental Review Process for Certain Projects," Prop 45 would overhaul the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for a broad range of projects, permanently. For decades, CEQA has been California's primary tool for identifying and reducing the health and environmental harms of major polluting projects before they get built.
Prop 45’s rollbacks of CEQA’s protections would limit the public's ability to learn about and reduce health risks before projects are approved. The initiative would make it easier for developers to site heavy industrial projects, data centers, freeway expansions, biomass power plants, landfill gas facilities, and CO2 pipelines right next to homes, schools, and public water sources, with weaker review and fewer safeguards. It would also limit environmental review for large-scale applications of herbicides including glyphosate, which was recently identified by researchers as a carcinogen.
A weaker public review process means that developers will be allowed to build polluting projects without taking adequate steps to limit the public health impacts these projects will have on the communities where they’re built. In short, Prop 45 trades away community oversight and public health protections for corporate profit.
The Public Health Stakes Couldn’t Be Higher
The health consequences of living near heavy industrial activity are well documented. Neighbors of heavy industrial projects face elevated rates of asthma and chronic respiratory disease, as well as cardiovascular disease and stroke. Exposure to toxic substances like arsenic, lead, and hexavalent chromium is linked to cancers including leukemia, lung cancer, and bladder cancer. Air, water, and soil contaminants are tied to reproductive harm and low birth weight, and children exposed to lead, mercury, and industrial toxins can suffer lasting neurological damage and developmental disorders.
These risks are already a reality in many communities that sit in the shadow of industrial facilities, warehouses, and freeways. Weakening environmental review makes it far more difficult for residents of these communities to prevent new polluting facilities from spewing toxins into their neighborhood for decades or more.
Prop 45 also imposes costs that every Californian will feel, not just those living closest to a new facility. When industries pollute with less oversight, families and our public healthcare system pay for more asthma-related emergency room visits, more treatment for heart disease and cancer, and more long-term care for developmental disorders. CEQA's public review process exists to prevent these harms before they happen. By dramatically weakening CEQA, Prop 45 shifts the public health burden from polluters to taxpayers.
CEQA Protects Public Health by Improving Projects
CEQA has played a critical role in reducing or avoiding the harmful impacts of polluting industries on families and communities. Consider the West Valley Logistics Center in Fontana, a complex of seven industrial warehouses totaling more than 3.4 million square feet, sited next to a community of color already burdened with some of the worst air quality in the nation. This project planned to add more than 2,000 diesel trucks a day to local streets. Using CEQA, environmental groups reached a settlement in which the developer committed to concrete reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollution, along with improved water efficiency. The warehouses will still be built, just with more community protections included.
Similarly, environmental justice groups in West Long Beach and three public agencies used CEQA to challenge the Port of Los Angeles’ approval of the Southern California International Gateway (SCIG) railyard, which was planned across the street from homes and schools. The Court of Appeal ruled that the project's environmental impact statement had failed to adequately address the project’s air quality impacts, particularly the cumulative pollution burden on the surrounding community. The Port must now take steps to limit these community impacts before they threaten the health of people in the affected neighborhoods.
These are exactly the kinds of protections Prop 45 puts at risk.
Our Position
Physicians for Social Responsibility - Los Angeles joins more than 250 organizations opposing Prop 45, including the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments, American Nurses Association\California, California Nurses for Environmental Health and Justice, and Learning Disabilities Association - California. Every Californian deserves the right to know about, and weigh in on, polluting projects that could affect their family's health.
This November, protect public health. Vote no on Prop 45.
Learn more: visit https://www.noprop45ca.com/.
