UNDERMINES LOCAL DECISION MAKING ABOUT COMMUNITY HEALTH CARE
UNDERMINES CEQA ANALYSES OF LOCAL LAND USE PROJECTS
What AB 1272 does:
- Undercuts thorough, professional CEQA analyses by imposing additional reports not subject to CEQA’s stringent analytical requirements.
- Injects uncertainty into local government decision-making by requiring standardless additional reports only when a local government says no to a hospital helipad.
- Provides no way for the public to challenge the project proponent’s additional report for accuracy, thoroughness, or sufficiency. Cuts citizens out of current due process protections provided by CEQA.
- Disrupts CEQA’s level playing field by imposing additional bureaucratic consulting and reporting requirements on land use decisions only when the local government wants to say no.
- Creates new bureaucratic consulting requirements for California cities and counties with local Emergency Medical Services Agencies (EMSAs).
- Stacks the deck in favor of helipads by creating an expensive new layer of reporting before a local government can say no to over 316 acute care hospitals that do not have helipads.
AB 1272 leads to undesirable and unintended consequences:
- Conflicts with CEQA because the bill does not integrate its new reporting and consulting requirements with the current CEQA process.
- Will drive up health care costs by over-use of medical helicopters instead of ground ambulances.
- Creates needless risk and cost by greenlighting expedited helipad approval at a time when the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) questions the safety of medical helicopters.
- Could violate the Brown Act by requiring additional analysis only when a local government has already decided to vote no; undermines CEQA by nullifying a local government’s “no” vote on a helipad EIR until additional undefined reports are created by the local EMSA.
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