Prop 45 is a statewide ballot measure backed by the California Chamber of Commerce, data center developers, for-profit utilities, and some of the state’s biggest corporations. It would dismantle the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), the state’s foundational environmental protection law, for a broad range of polluting projects. CEQA is California’s strongest defence against the Trump Administration’s rollbacks of critical protections for our public health, air, land, and water.

Prop 45 would make it easier for big corporations to build large, potentially polluting projects including: data centers, warehouses, CO₂ and methane gas pipelines, landfill gas facilities, fossil fuel power plants, freeway expansions, dairy biogas digesters, dams, forest clearcutting, glyphosate and herbicide application projects, industrial projects that emit toxic chemicals, and large-scale sprawl developments in wildfire and flood zones. The only projects Prop 45 specifically excludes are jails and detention centers, new oil and gas production facilities, nuclear facilities, high-speed rail, and the Delta tunnel.

Yes. Prop 45 applies to any project “incidental to” or that “enable[s] the operation of” broadband internet. Data center facilities frequently include both internet service provider infrastructure and hardware that enables AI and cloud services. Many types of data centers would therefore fall under this measure. Prop 45 would dismantle one of the strongest tools available for California communities and local governments to limit the impacts of data centers on water supplies, electrical systems, noise, and public health.

At the same time that proponents of Prop 45 proclaim that data centers are not included, the Yes on Prop 45 campaign has accepted $250,000 from Prologis and $500,000 from the California Resources Corporation, both of which are currently developing data centers in California. These actions undercut the credibility of their statements.

Major funders of this initiative include the California Chamber of Commerce, investor-owned utilities like SoCal Edison and PG&E, data center and warehouse developers, the California Building Industry Association, and other special interests.

Prop 45 is opposed by a broad coalition of more than 300 organizations representing housing, health, transit, clean energy, Labor, civil rights, environmental justice, emergency response, conservation, and other interest areas.

The non-partisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates Prop 45 could cost state and local governments $100 million or more annually to implement. Additionally, when developers of high-impact projects like data centers and warehouses bypass meaningful review, these projects can strain local water and electrical systems and pollute our air, water, and soil. The clean up costs for these projects will fall on taxpayers. For example, taxpayers are already spending more than $750 million to clean up lead contamination from just one industrial plant in Southern California.

Yes. If there is a conflict between Prop 45 and a state water quality law, a state air quality law, the California Endangered Species Act, the California Coastal Act or any other statute, the initiative “wins.”

No. It shifts pollution- and healthcare-related costs onto cities, counties, and taxpayers, burdening the public with higher utility and healthcare bills and long-term pollution clean-up costs. The word “affordable” does not appear once in the 41-page initiative.

Prop 45 will not streamline most urban housing, as the majority of such projects were already exempted from CEQA under AB 130 (passed in 2025). Instead, the measure will encourage sprawl developments in remote, high wildfire-risk areas. Sprawl housing can end up increasing costs due to higher insurance rates and longer commutes. Prop 45 includes no requirements that developers pass on cost savings to renters or homeowners. It contains no protections against displacement.

State law already includes provisions that streamline environmental and judicial review for clean energy projects. Some of the deadlines imposed under Prop 45 are the same as, or even slower than, the timelines already in place for utility-scale solar, wind, geothermal, and other energy projects.

Prop 45 would make it easier to build certain warehouses in light industrial zones. Many jurisdictions throughout the state, including Oakland and Los Angeles, allow warehouses in some light industrial zones. Prop 45 would therefore make it easier for developers and corporations to build some types of warehouse projects.