California wants to lead on clean energy. So why are the projects we need sitting in bureaucratic purgatory for a decade?

Solar arrays. Battery storage. Wind farms. Transmission upgrades. Projects that would lower bills, clean the air, and keep the lights on — stuck in review queues for three to nine years or more. Not because of complex environmental findings, but because agencies can stall indefinitely with no consequence.

That’s the problem the Building an Affordable California Act is designed to fix. A broad coalition — American Clean Power – California, the California Energy Storage Alliance, the Large-Scale Solar Association, and others — just threw their weight behind this statewide ballot measure. And rightly so.

This isn’t just a clean energy bill. It’s an accountability bill. It establishes enforceable timelines for agency decisions and judicial review — not aspirational goals, not best-practices guidance. Enforceable deadlines. Agencies must act. Courts must rule. The clock runs.

Critically, CEQA is not waived. Environmental review isn’t eliminated — it’s required to actually be completed. Public input is preserved. What changes is that “review” can no longer mean “sit on it indefinitely.” Decisions must be made on time, based on clear, existing rules.

We accept without debate that doctors must see patients and police must respond to calls. Public servants are expected to perform. Why do we tolerate a permitting culture where delay is always the path of least resistance — and carries zero accountability?

The Affordable CA Act applies a standard that should be unremarkable: do your job, on time, by the rules. The fact that it requires a ballot measure tells you everything about how broken the current system has become.

Pay people to do their jobs. Hold them to a timeline. Let the projects get built.