Prior environmental reviews for high-speed rail and Caltrain didn\u2019t cover the full station footprint, Cortese said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe alternative is to do an (environmental impact report) all over again. That would be at least the third one,\u201d Cortese told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cYou wouldn\u2019t want the CEQA to be the bottleneck again on something that\u2019s already been looked at a few times.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill cleared the Assembly floor last week with San Jose Assemblymember Ash Kalra as co-author. The bill was amended after it left the state Senate, and it\u2019s expected to return there for a concurrence vote before heading to Gov. Gavin Newsom\u2019s desk. Cortese said he expects the vote as early as this week.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/c04-1024x573.jpg\")
A rendering shows the planned redevelopment of Diridon Station, a $3 billion to $6 billion project expected to become the centerpiece of Northern California\u2019s transportation network. Rendering courtesy of Caltrain.<\/p>\n
Projects that show significant or cumulative impact under CEQA, or the potential for it, require a full environmental impact report. Earlier reports for high-speed rail and Caltrain covered only the ground those projects planned to build on, Cortese said, so work extending past those lines leaves two options: leave that ground out of the project or do another report, a process he said can easily take two to three years.<\/p>\n
Eugene Bradley, founder and CEO of Silicon Valley Transit Users, who primarily follows VTA and Santa Clara County transit offered his brief take on SB 1375.<\/p>\n
\u201cSuch a bill does not surprise me, given the need to bring Diridon into the 21st century, that is, in terms of having high-speed rail,\u201d Bradley told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight.<\/p>\n
Diridon Station is expected to be the future centerpiece of Northern California\u2019s public transportation network, but the project has already spent years working through environmental review before it can move toward construction.<\/p>\n
Cortese said the bill came about after he talked with San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan, and connected with the city\u2019s Department of Transportation. Cortese\u2019s main concern was that the exemption not become a backdoor for a housing project the Legislature hadn\u2019t vetted.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told the city I\u2019m not comfortable with (SB 1375) being any kind of a Trojan horse or a bait and switch or a masquerade for including some kind of a major housing project,\u201d Cortese said.<\/p>\n
Where displacement was likely to occur, due to construction around the community, Cortese wanted contingencies written into the bill \u2014 such as replacing lost housing with new market-rate homes and affordable housing\u00a0 \u2014 or giving tenants facing relocation access to legal counsel, along with a community benefits discussion<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Diridon Station project is approaching year two of the three- to four-year environmental phase, after spending seven years ironing out the vision for the redevelopment, Marian Lee, Caltrain consultant and Diridon Station program liaison, said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we get the CEQA exemption, we think it will shave about a year off of our overall time frame,\u201d Lee told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cWhile there aren\u2019t a whole lot of administrative cost savings with this, the time savings are significant because it has implications to just trying to build it sooner than later.\u201d<\/p>\n The exemption applies specifically to the station, a $3 billion to $6 billion project, Lee said. Shortening the environmental phase would move it into preliminary engineering sooner.<\/p>\n San Jose sponsored SB 1375 and Caltrain supported it, Devon Ryan, Caltrain\u2019s government and community affairs manager, said.<\/p>\n \u201cSen. Cortese has been a leader in the environmental space, and this is just yet another example of his leadership getting us to a cleaner future,\u201d Ryan told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cWhich is what we are trying to do with (Diridon Station), because we think it will be a way to highly encourage people to take public transit.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not removing the environmental review process,\u201d Hare told San Jos\u00e9 Spotlight. \u201cIt\u2019s a streamlining bill to try and remove some of the unnecessary duplication of environmental review.\u201d<\/p>\n Much of the land around Diridon has already been examined in earlier environmental reviews for high-speed rail, Caltrain and Google\u2019s Downtown West project<\/a>, Hare said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can carve a year out of the (Diridon Station redevelopment) through some removal of some red tape, it\u2019s a win for everybody,\u201d Hare said.<\/p>\n![\"In-line](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/interactive-321838904008.png\")
<\/a>The project has to clear environmental review at both the state level under CEQA and the federal level under the National Environmental Policy Act, and a state law can\u2019t waive the federal requirement, according to Jeffrey Hare, a San Jose State University lecturer who teaches land use and planning law.<\/p>\n