California Forever’s vision for a safe, affordable, and sustainable Bay Area community is laudable. Founded by Czech-born Jan Sramek and backed by Silicon Valley billionaires, the company bought vast tracts of Solano County farmland to build a new city under a single master plan, bypassing the region’s usual maze of restrictive zoning, rezoning fights, and neighborhood vetoes.

But as the project’s recent loss of a $3.2 billion shipbuilding contract shows, developing such a pro-growth city in California is impossible as long as the state refuses to repeal its obstructive environmental permitting laws.