California's Prop 45 could help data centers dodge environmental review, critics warn

California's Proposition 45 promises to streamline approvals for "essential" infrastructure like housing and clean energy. But environmental advocates and legal experts fear the measure contains a Trojan horse: loopholes that could let data center developers bypass environmental review and limit community input.

How Prop 45 would reshape environmental review#

The measure would fundamentally alter how California evaluates major projects under the state's landmark California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Instead of the current flexible timeline, Prop 45 would impose hard caps—365 days to complete environmental impact reports, just 45 days for public comment, and 270 days to settle legal challenges.

The proposal also shifts responsibility for finding solutions. Under today's CEQA process, state agencies work with developers to identify ways to reduce environmental harm. Prop 45 would reverse this: developers would propose a single mitigation plan, and regulators would have limited ability to ask for additional information or demand revisions.

Perhaps most significantly, courts would lose the power to halt projects entirely. Even if a judge finds an agency violated environmental law, they could only pause specific problematic elements—not stop construction altogether. As Earthjustice attorney Fernando Gaytan puts it, "It's hard to undo harms once you've already started a project."

The broadband loophole#

The measure lists nine categories of eligible "essential" projects, including housing, renewable energy, and "broadband Internet access." That final phrase may be the wedge that data centers exploit.

Prop 45 defines broadband broadly: any project providing "mass-market retail service by wire service, wireless service, or radio to customers in this state that provides the capability to transmit data to, and receive data from, all or substantially all internet endpoints, including, but not limited to, any capabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communications service."

UC Davis law professor Richard Frank and attorney Matthew McKerley argue in the Daily Journal that data center projects including any broadband transmission could fit this definition. They note that data center developers have poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaigns backing Prop 45—and that while the measure excludes nuclear energy and dial-up internet, it contains no explicit carve-out for data centers.

Competing interpretations