Chris Hannan, President of the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California, joined the America's Work Force Union Podcast to discuss Proposition 45, an issue on the November 2026 ballot that he described as the most dangerous measure the building trades have faced in a long time.
Backed by the California Chamber of Commerce and marketed as a permitting reform and affordability measure, Hannan said the 41-page initiative bypasses the California Environmental Quality Act, strips local elected officials of meaningful discretion over project approval, includes no provisions requiring any savings to be passed on to the public and contains labor standards subject to severability clauses that could be stripped away in litigation.
A broad and growing coalition of more than 270 organizations opposes the measure — including the building trades, the environmental movement, environmental justice advocates, firefighters and educators, Hannan said. They are mobilizing boots on the ground and raising enough money to tell the real story about what Proposition 45 does for an all-hands-on-deck effort between now and November.
- Proposition 45 is backed by the California Chamber of Commerce and marketed as a permitting and affordability reform initiative. Hannan said the 41-page measure contains no provisions requiring cost savings to be passed to the public, bypasses the California Environmental Quality Act for a broad range of project types, including large housing subdivisions, greenfield projects and mixed-use developments with up to 50 percent commercial use and includes a provision overriding any conflicting law — meaning environmental protections that conflict with the measure's approval requirements are automatically overridden.
- The coalition opposing Proposition 45 has grown to more than 270 organizations. It includes the California Federation of Labor, the environmental movement, environmental justice advocates, firefighters and educators. Hannan said the California Democratic Party's executive board took no position at its most recent meeting and elected officials across the state are expressing surprise at what the 41 pages actually contain once they are walked through it. This indicates the Chamber's marketing of the measure has obscured its actual provisions, he added.
- Hannan connected the building trades' defense of the California Environmental Quality Act to a long-term workforce interest: with more than 70,000 union construction apprentices training annually in California, the council has to ensure 30 to 35 years of career opportunity lies ahead for each of them. That requires projects to be sited and built sustainably rather than in ways that trigger moratoriums or shut down future work. He cited the existing moratorium on onshore wind in Los Angeles County as an example of what happens when projects are not sited properly.
Nearly Half a Million Members and 70,000 Apprentices
Chris Hannan has led the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California for several years, arriving in the position after a career that began in 1996 as an apprentice sprinkler fitter with UA Local 709. He went on to become a journeyman, an apprenticeship instructor and then president of the Local before moving to the state council. The organization he leads is the largest construction trades council in the country, representing nearly 500,000 members across 14 crafts, including approximately 70,000 apprentices currently training to be California's next generation of skilled union construction workers. He said the overall market for building trades work is strong, with commercial construction being the one soft area in an otherwise active environment.
That context matters when discussing Proposition 45, Hannan said, because an organization with half a million members and 70,000 people in training has an enormous stake in what California builds, how it builds it and who does the building.
What Proposition 45 Actually Does
The measure's official title gives the impression it is a permitting reform and affordability act. That framing is the problem, Hannan said, because the initiative's 41 pages tell a different story.
Proposition 45 would create a streamlined approval pathway for a broad category of projects, including large housing subdivisions, greenfield developments outside infill areas and mixed-use projects with up to 50 percent commercial content. For projects that qualify, local elected officials — city councils, county boards of supervisors and other lead agencies — would lose the ability to decline approval. If a qualifying project is submitted and the local agency does not approve it, the project's proponents can sue. The measure also alters what courts can consider in those cases. It also includes a provision stating that it overrides any conflicting law, which Hannan said means any environmental protection or local ordinance that conflicts with the measure's approval requirements is automatically nullified.
The California Environmental Quality Act, which has been the cornerstone of environmental and community review for construction projects in California for decades, is bypassed for qualifying projects under the measure. No environmental impact report or meaningful public participation process would be required before the project gets approved. Within the measure's labor standards provisions, Hannan said the protections are subject to severability clauses, meaning they can be stripped out through litigation while the core approval provisions remain intact.
Further, the measure contains no requirement that any cost savings be passed on to buyers, renters or utility customers. The California Chamber of Commerce and its for-profit members capture the benefit, and the public absorbs the risk, Hannan said.
The Coalition That Has No Daylight
What makes the opposition to Proposition 45 unusual is the breadth of the coalition and the absence of the divisions that normally separate its component parts. Hannan described the alignment between the building trades and the environmental movement on this measure as having no daylight between them — a phrase he repeated because, as he acknowledged, it is not a phrase he gets to use often.
The California Environmental Quality Act has been a shared cause for the building trades and environmentalists for years, even when the two communities were fighting each other over specific projects. The reason is the same on both sides: it is a legal framework that requires rigorous environmental review and meaningful public participation, which produces better, more sustainable projects that can be built and operated for decades without triggering the kind of backlash that leads to moratoriums. Hannan cited the current moratorium of onshore wind projects in Los Angeles County as a cautionary example. Wind energy needs to be part of California's clean energy portfolio. It also needs to be sited properly. When it is not, the result is not just one bad project but a moratorium that also blocks good projects.
The coalition opposing Proposition 45 has grown to more than 270 organizations. It includes the California Federation of Labor, environmental groups, environmental justice advocates, firefighters and educators. Firefighters are concerned because the measure contains no requirements for additional fire-safety mitigations, setbacks or resources as conditions of project approval in high-risk areas. Educators are concerned because the measure would allow projects to be approved adjacent to schools without requiring remediation of contaminated soil or other environmental hazards. The local community would have no formal avenue to raise those concerns, Hannan added.
Climate Jobs California and the Longer View
Hannan briefly addressed a separate initiative the California Building Trades is developing this year: Climate Jobs California and the Climate Jobs California Action Fund. Modeled on similar programs in New York and other states, the initiative brings labor and academia together to identify best practices for building clean energy infrastructure in ways that are both pro-environment and pro-worker. The work being done in other states has been solid, and California is building on those models, Hannan said.
The connection to Proposition 45 is direct. Building clean energy infrastructure — wind, solar, storage, carbon capture, hydrogen — requires a permitting and review process that gets it right, not one that bypasses the review that ensures projects are sited safely, built sustainably and supported by the communities where they land.
What Needs to Happen Before November
The California Chamber of Commerce has a catchy message about affordability and has been effective at keeping the public's attention on the marketing rather than the actual language. When elected officials and community members are walked through what the measure actually does, Hannan said, they are consistently surprised. That gap between the messaging and the substance is the central challenge between now and Election Day, he said.
The coalition needs to raise enough money to get the real story in front of voters. It also needs boots on the ground — not just the nearly 500,000 building trades members but the broader California labor movement, which took a unanimous no position at its endorsement convention. It needs elected officials to engage with constituents in their communities about what is actually at stake. And it needs everyone who cares about having a voice in what gets built next to them — in their neighborhood, near their children's school, in their fire-prone community — to understand that Proposition 45 removes that voice.
Listeners who want to get involved or learn more can visit noprop45ca.com. More information on the State Building and Construction Trades Council of California is available at cabuildingtrades.org.
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