Jennifer L. Hernandez

Hernandez has received many awards for her work on overcoming environmentalist opposition to housing and other projects supported by minority communities.

In March, she filed a civil rights suit on behalf of a minority advocacy group over new state rules designed to promote housing development near mass transit to limit greenhouse gas emissions. "The California Environmental Quality Act has been hijacked to block housing and cause disproportionate harm to California's minority communities," she wrote. The suit targets what she describes as modern-day "redlining" that could re-segregate the state. The Two Hundred v. Governor's Office of Planning and Research, CIVDS1938432 (S. Bernardino Co. Super. Ct., filed March 13, 2020).

Separately, Hernandez is the lead land use and environmental counsel for Kern County in its regulation of oil and gas production activities. The county produces about 80 percent of the state's oil and gas; some oil fields there have been in production for more than 100 years.

"This is a situation where CEQA can be useful," she said. "Kern had 1950s-era zoning ordinances, so we're working to put all kinds of environmental and planning parameters in place."

When the updated plan passed, "We were sued, of course," Hernandez said. "We won one suit by an oil company and another by a farmer who wanted veto rights over oil and gas production. There are environmental groups who say, 'Keep it all in the ground.' We are still in litigation."

Hernandez is the lead land use, environmental CEQA litigation counsel for the 240,000 acre Tejon Ranch in the wake of a historic 2008 conservation and land use agreement she helped broker. How it will play out remains in dispute. "We very proactively decided to negotiate with major environmental groups to make this work," she said. The Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Audubon California, the Planning and Conservation League and the Endangered Habitats League got on board.

"This is the biggest privately owned property in California. It could have been carved up into big ranches for the wealthy." Instead, the groups agreed on three large master-planned communities with thousands of new homes. "It made sense to deal with the environmental groups instead of everybody stomping our feet and yelling."

Still, lawsuits proliferated. One holdout group is the Center for Biological Diversity, Hernandez said. "The won't give an inch. We've been sued seven or eight times and three suits are still pending. We hope to clear them and start digging."

-- John Roemer