Californias Prop 45 aims to speed construction projects. Opponents say data centers will benefit

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Set us as preferred When a county judge put the brakes on what would be the largest data center in California, ruling the whole project needed extensive environmental review, Kristian Salgado was relieved.The community organizer lives in Imperial County, where the nearly one-million-square-foot facility was proposed.The rural county near the Mexico border struggles with bad air pollution and has one the state’s highest rates of asthma hospitalization for kids, according to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

One of Salgado’s nephews lives right next to the site and struggles with the respiratory disease.“It just seemed very unusual that a project of this scale, with that many backup generators could be permitted without requiring any further [analysis] of what that would mean for residents,” she said.Now, Salgado and others who share her concern believe Proposition 45 on the November ballot could roll back their wins.

The initiative changes the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, a law intended to inform decision makers and the public about a project’s possible environmental impacts — and mitigate them to the extent possible.Supporters say Prop 45 will speed up environmental review for essential housing, transportation, water, health, education and other projects, cutting costly delays and passing the savings on to consumers.Opponents say it not only weakens environmental protections for many developments, but will cover potentially polluting ones — including data centers.

The Yes on 45 campaign forcefully rejects the data center claim, but independent legal experts are divided.At the heart of the debate is the definition of one of the categories covered by Prop 45: “broadband internet access projects” or “mass-market retail service … that provides the capability to trans...