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State employees are fighting back against Gov.Gavin Newsom ordering them off the couchand back into the office, arguing that by doing so thousands of additional cars will be on the road, hurting the state’s efforts to be carbon neutral.
In a blistering exhaustion letter, the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment (CASE) argued that any agency adopting Newsom’s Return-to-Office executive order (RTO) without first studying its environmental fallout is violating the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA.
The union blasted the mandate as a “discretionary project” under CEQA, which requires state and local agencies to review and disclose the environmental impact of major actions before moving forward.
CEQA mandates agencies “disclose and evaluate the significant environmental impacts of proposed projects and adopt allfeasible mitigation measuresto reduce or eliminate those impacts,” the letter noted.
CASE claimed agencies that enforce the RTO order without conducting those reviews are committing “an abuse of discretion.”
The union, which represents nearly 5,000 state-employed attorneys, judges and hearing officers, warned the policy could trigger major indirect environmental impacts, including increased commuting and pollution.
The letter was issued to some 100 state departments/agencies demanding an environmental impact review of the RTO be done,Merced Sun Starreported.
The letter said departments adopting the RTO for employees back to the office “four days per week is a discretionary decision that will have myriad environmental impacts that must be analyzed, disclosed, and mitigated.”
The union claimed that CEQA demands that a review be done before the RTO can be adopted and made it crystal clear that the union will move forward with legal challenges if that doesn’t happen.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
