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This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.

Political action committees funded by technology companies, the state’s major utilities and other corporate interests have spent nearly twice as much to pass a ballot measure that would greenlight major development projects with minimal environmental or public review as public interest and labor groups have spent opposing it.

Developers and other corporate interests aim to streamline the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, which requires public agencies to identify, disclose and mitigate a development project’s negative impacts on a wide range of environmental resources, including wildlife, air and water quality and tribal cultural resources.

Proposition 45 shifts who determines the scope of environmental review from public agencies and communities to project developers by rewriting the state’s foundational environmental law to fast-track major projects.

Supporters of Prop 45, sponsored by the California Chamber of Commerce, have spent more than $56 million to pass the measure, the most recent state records show. Opponents, led by a coalition of more than 550 labor, health and environmental organizations, have spent close to $30 million to defeat what they say will give polluters a free pass.

“Prop 45 will modernize the approval process for essential projects by establishing clear, enforceable timelines for agency decisions and court challenges,” the chamber said in promotional materials, “while keeping environmental protections intact and preserving worker protections, tribal protections and local control.”

The Tech Oligarchs Have Captured Washington — Now They’re Pivoting to the States

Critics say Prop 45 will gut the state’s primary vehicle for allowing people to learn about plans for polluting developments in their neighborhoods and propose alternatives.

“It undermines basically every stage of that process,” said Woody Little, the spokesperson for No on Prop 45.

Little and his allies say the 41-page ballot measure was written by corporations who have paid to get their special interests on the ballot to create loopholes that favor polluting industries like recently regulated data centers while limiting the input of communities and local tribes.

Critics of CEQA, signed in 1970 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, blame the law for hobbling home construction and driving housing and cost of living increases in California, which are among the highest in the nation.

Prop 45 will lower housing and utility costs by reducing “endless” bureaucratic delays and protect taxpayers by reducing waste and cost overruns, Yes on Prop 45 materials argue.

Yet there is no requirement in the measure to reduce housing costs or utility bills. And the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that Prop 45 could leave state and local governments paying $100 million or more a........

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