Capitol Weekly’s Top 100: Kip Lipper

11. Kip Lipper

If there is an iconic figure in the Top 100, it’s Kip Lipper. He’s been around the Capitol for 48 years – half that time as a top aide to former lawmaker Byron Sher – and has long been viewed by friend and foe alike as the Senate’s premier environmental advisor. His influence routinely defines legislation targeting clean water, clean air, sustainable forestry, climate change, energy, container recycling, and more. He works out of a tiny, cluttered office at the tail end of the Senate’s administrative suite. “There’s no legislative staffer like him anywhere in the United States,” renewable energy advocate V. John White once told the LA Times. The latest battleground is the 53-year-old California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, the state’s bedrock environmental protection law that environmentalists and others use to block disputed projects – reservoirs and stadiums, for example. CEQA has been amended over the years, and this year Gov. Newsom urged a substantial overhaul. SB 149, key to his proposal, streamlined and speeded up CEQA. It got out, no surprise: Lipper was at the center of the fight.

Updated August 15, 2023