"This NEVER had anything to do with the environment."
Not sure what is meant by "this."
If the rolling exemption had been preserved, the current cut off might be something like 1990.
As I posted earlier, interested folks can find some "perspective" on why the Terminator signed off to terminate that rolling structure...
For example:
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2004-sep-24-me-arnold24-story.html
I suspect that legislative information about AB 2683 (2004) is available on the CA legis info site.