Less than a day before trial, the California High-Speed Rail Authority and Madera/Fresno farming organizations announced they had reached a settlement -- dissolving the last legal challenge to the first segment of California's HSR. According to Anja Raudabaugh, executive director of the Madera Farm Bureau, the rail authority offered significant concessions including increased mitigation for agricultural impacts and compensation for landowners who are affected by the project.

As expected, President Obama has picked a mayor to succeed Ray LaHood as Secretary of Transportation. But it's not Los Angeles's Antonio Villaraigosa. It's Anthony Foxx, the mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina.

Jerry Brown may have given up on CEQA reform this year, but Darrell Steinberg has not.

The Senate leader released details of his proposed reform of the California Environmental Quality Act yesterday. It's not sweeping reform. Rather, it contains a series of incremental changes designed to speed projects along. These include statewide significance treshholds on some topics including traffic; some reforms to CEQA litigation procedures; and $30 million in annual funding to the Strategic Growth Council to continue providing statewide planning grants.

Among some conservative circles, it's become fashionable to say that liberals "hate America" any time Democrats try to do, well, anything.

After a bruising campaign that saw energy company AES spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, Redondo Beach voters have rejected a local ballot initiative that would have rezoned AES's beachfront power plant to parks and commercial uses.

AES still must receive California Energy Commission approval to rebuild the plant, which must stop using ocean water to cool its steam turbines no later than 2020. Defeat of Measure A, however, makes CEC approval of continuing power plant operations more likely.

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has – for the second time – ruled against three Peninsula cities who filed suit against the High-Speed Rail Authority under the California Environmental Quality Act.

Not long ago, the Census Bureau released some new analyses of commuting, focused especially on "mega-commuting" – that is, commuters who drive more than 50 miles and 90 minutes one way. The numbers are predictably frightening – these folks travel extremely long distances, using up a lot of time, gas, and road capacity on the process.

But mega-commuters only make up about 2% of all commuters. The bigger message from the Census data is a much more prosaic – and discouraging – message about ordinary, day-to-day commuting.

Is the California Environmental Quality Act finally on the verge of major reform?

Or will CEQA's defenders succeed in limiting the reform to just nibbling around the edges, without attacking the law's basic structure?

Like the plot of the Bill Murray movie, Groundhog Day, Sacramento politicians are back to the same story on redevelopment this year. It's a re-run of last year, with proponents of redevelopment re-introducing many of the same bills as last year. 

Attempts to resurrect redevelopment were a flop in 2012 when Governor Jerry Brown vetoed most redevelopment-related bills. This year, there is hope for a different ending, where Brown and his Democratic allies can find themselves in agreement on future steps to aid economic development at the local level. 

The Court of Appeal has upheld an environmental impact report dealing with mining in a dry riverbed in Santa Barbara County.

Troesh Materials, Inc. submitted an application to the County of Santa Barbara ("County") to operate a new mine within the dry bed of the Cayuma River. The mine would be positioned away from the active streambed and roughly 1,500 feet upstream from an existing, active mine. Potential excavation could proceed to a maximum depth of 90 feet, with an average production of 500,000 cubic yards per year.

Not all signs are created equal. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld local regulations in Arizona restricting directional signs to more rigorous standards as compared to other forms of non-commercial speech.

As part of its overall regulatory code, the City of Gilbert, Arizona, enacted various sign regulations. The regulations generally require a City-issued sign permit unless the sign qualifies under one of 19 different exceptions. Three of the 1i exceptions involved: