Growing up in Salinas, I thought it was pure luck that allowed me to live near the coast and hillsides, where I can jump in the ocean or hike Toro Park on a whim. Now, as a land-use attorney, I know that the beauty and splendor of the Golden State didn't happen by chance.

For more than five decades the California Environmental Quality Act has pushed local officials to consider the harmful effects of industry and development before agreeing to a project with lasting consequences.

Developers call this red tape. I call it checks and balances.

But those protections were radically weakened under a bill that slipped through the California legislature this summer with shockingly little attention or debate.

Senate Bill 131 was a trailer bill tied to the state budget that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed without the transparent, deliberative process of typical legislation. The bill slipped under the public's radar while enacting the most significant rollbacks in decades to the state's landmark environmental protection law.

S.B. 131 allows advanced manufacturing projects and development on endangered species habitat to skip a thorough environmental review. That means a project that will degrade our air quality or pave over a wildlife corridor could get the green light without a second look.

In the coming week, legislators can and should amend S.B. 131 and require CEQA review for projects with dangerous environmental consequences.

They should look to the Central Coast to see why this is so important.

Here in the "salad bowl of the world," food processing facilities have a history of leaking toxic gases and causing evacuations and hospitalizations. A 2018 leak at a Watsonville facility put five workers in the hospital. Years later the Environmental Protection Agency fined Del Mar Food Products for 11 other unreported leaks.

These facilities can have dangerous and deadly consequences.

Although CEQA can push developers to assess environmental risks and develop a plan to reduce them, it doesn't prevent disasters. That's why our state's environmental protection laws should be strengthened, not watered down as S.B. 131 dictates.

CEQA requires a mining operation to analyze the presence of sensitive wildlife before starting to dig. It forces a housing development to have wildfire evacuation plans before construction.

Unfortunately, Newsom and many lawmakers are prioritizing development, even when it has the potential to cause enormous harm. This is part of a Trump-inspired anti-regulatory wave that doesn't belong in California.

Food processing facilities aren't the only concern. Operations that manufacture aerospace parts or recycle plastics would also get special treatment under S.B. 131. If developers are right in claiming that advanced manufacturing projects aren't risky, they should still conduct a thorough study to prove it.

The more we exempt CEQA for pet projects, the more likely it is we'll lose the open landscapes and amazing biodiversity the law was meant to protect.

If S.B. 131 is left unchanged, we'll also see unchecked development on endangered species habitat at a time when the environment is already under attack from a hostile Trump administration. That means mountain lions, California tiger salamanders and rare plants like Monterey gilia could be driven to extinction. That means the natural heritage that makes California so special could become a memory.

Newsom has yet to make a case for why imperiled species no longer require protection and why certain manufacturing projects deserve a free pass. The environmental protection law that California is known for shouldn't be dismantled in such a cavalier way. It leaves the legislature a clear course of action -- fix the glaring mistakes of S.B. 131.

Frances Tinney is an expert in land use and the California Environment Quality Act. Tinney is an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit organization using science, law, and activism to protect endangered species and wild places.