“California lawmakers on Monday night rolled back one of the most stringent environmental laws in the country, after Gov. Gavin Newsom muscled through the effort in a dramatic move to combat the state’s affordability crisis.

The Democratic governor—widely viewed as a 2028 presidential contender—made passage of two bills addressing an acute housing shortage a condition of his signing the 2025-2026 budget. A cornerstone of the legislation reins in the California Environmental Quality Act, which for more than a half-century has been used by opponents to block almost any kind of development project…

The California Environmental Quality Act was signed into law in 1970 by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan, at a time when Republicans were at the forefront of the nation’s burgeoning green movement. President Richard Nixon also signed groundbreaking protections, including the Endangered Species Act.

CEQA, as it is known, requires state and local agencies to review environmental impacts of planned projects and to take action to avoid or lower any negative effects. Opponents of projects have used the law to delay them by years.”

From Wall Street Journal.

“The North Carolina House passed a bill unanimously Wednesday [6/26/25] that would block local governments from forcing developers to build parking.

Why it matters: An issue that has been controversial in Charlotte received bipartisan support in Raleigh.

The big picture: With a starting price tag of about $5,000 per space, parking mandates add to the rising costs of new construction. Those expenses are then passed on to residents and businesses as higher rent.”

From Axios.

“For more than 40 years, the United States—a nation that putatively cherishes freedom—has had one of the largest prison systems in the world. Mass incarceration has been so persistent and pervasive that reform groups dedicated to reducing the prison population by half have often been derided as made up of fantasists. But the next decade could see this goal met and exceeded: After peaking at just more than 1.6 million Americans in 2009, the prison population was just more than 1.2 million at the end of 2023 (the most recent year for which data are available), and is on track to fall to about 600,000—a decline of roughly 60 percent.”

From The Atlantic.

“Secure land tenure transforms dormant assets into active capital—unlocking access to credit, encouraging investment, and spurring entrepreneurship. These are the building blocks of job creation and economic growth.

When landowners have secure property rights, they invest more in their land. Existing data shows that with secure property rights, agricultural output increases by 40% on average. Efficient land rental markets also significantly boost productivity, with up to 60% productivity gains and 25% welfare improvements for tenants…

Building on a long-term partnership with the World Bank, the Government of Côte d’Ivoire has dramatically accelerated delivery of formal land records to customary landholders in rural areas by implementing legal, regulatory, and institutional reforms and digitizing the customary rural land registration process, which is led by the Rural Land Agency (Agence Foncière Rurale – AFOR).

This has enabled a five-fold increase in the number of land certificates delivered in just five years compared to the previous 20 years.”

From World Bank.