Daily Business Report: Tuesday, September 2, 2025
Decades Long Tijuana Sewage Crisis: Real Progress In just 100 days
By Katy Grimes | The California Globe
For many years, untreated raw sewage has flowed into Southern California from Mexico and polluted the Tijuana River Valley, causing beaches to close, rendering them unusable. Even with beaches closed, and dangerous pollution issues, the federal government never managed to get Mexico to deal with the sewage.
In recent years, Navy SEALs in Coronado couldn’t even train on the beach because of the sewage.
San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond has played a major role in bringing this crisis to a national level and putting it on the radar of the federal government.
CEQA Reform Is a First Step, Not a Gamechanger
By Deborah Sullivan Brennan | Voice of San Diego
Earlier this summer, California lawmakers updated a landmark environmental law to expedite housing construction.
Now San Diego business leaders say that will help… a little.
In June, the state legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom revised the California Environmental Quality Act, which has safeguarded communities from air pollution, habitat loss and sprawl for more than half a century.
The law, known as CEQA, requires developers to disclose potential impacts of projects and find ways to address them. And it allows the public to weigh in, or to challenge projects in court.
Classic cars will still need a smog test in California after lawmakers reject Jay Leno bill
By Ryan Sabalow | CalMatters
Jay Leno’s star power wasn’t enough to persuade a California legislative committee to pass a measure to allow owners of classic cars like him to be exempted from the state’s rigorous smog-check requirements.
The Assembly Appropriations Committee on Friday blocked Bakersfield Republican Sen. Shannon Grove’s Senate Bill 712 from advancing for a full vote. Leno had testified in support of the measure in Sacramento earlier this year.
The committee’s members and its powerful Democratic chairperson, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks of Oakland, did not provide a reason for killing the bill during Friday’s hearing, which quickly and with little fanfare announced the fate of 260 other bills that had been placed on the committee’s so-called “suspense file.” Seventy other bills also were killed without explanation.
