A recent court ruling demonstrates the challenges our region faces in maintaining our global competitiveness and creating good job opportunities. The ruling struck down a lengthy process that had resulted in local government approval of BNSF Railway’s proposed Southern California International Gateway.

The intermodal rail facility was planned to serve the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, two of the primary economic engines of our region and state. The proposed $500 million privately funded facility would have taken thousands of trucks off the 710 freeway each day. It would have included $100 million in green technologies and created thousands of good-paying jobs for blue-collar Californians. At the same time, it would have resulted in improved competitiveness of our ports and helped ensure that our existing port-related jobs are secure for the future.

Does California win with this ruling blocking the construction of this project? Most certainly not. Instead, the immediate winners are ports in British Columbia, Mexico, and the Southeastern United States that are eager to take the freight, jobs and economic benefits that come with this industry that has been a hallmark of our region for more than 100 years. Faced with having to go back through the environmental review process after more than 10 years of comprehensive environmental review and public input, it’s unclear whether BNSF will decide to take another run at this project. In the meantime, other U.S. cities and other nations are moving forward with their plans to show shippers that they can bypass Southern California.

Not obvious to most observers is a very important and potentially precedent-setting impact of this ruling. In rejecting the environmental impact report, the judge demanded analysis not only of the gateway project itself, but of numerous other unrelated rail facilities, such as BNSF’s Hobart Yard in downtown Los Angeles and Union Pacific’s ICTF yard near the ports. The court seems to indicate that under the California Environmental Quality Act, the proposer of a project has an obligation to also pay for environmental mitigation measures at other locations that are not part of the project being proposed. If CEQA is interpreted to hold new projects accountable for not only their own environmental impacts, but also the impacts of other unrelated existing facilities, it will fatally burden the approval process in California and lead to a decision not to invest in our state.

Every business considering an expansion in California will take note of this ruling, and not in a good way. This decision will be a deterrent to companies that operate in California and would like to expand their operations and create more good jobs. Furthermore, companies seeking to invest in California will look closely at this case and might decide the state’s regulations are not merely onerous, but so unpredictably interpreted as to discourage their investment here.

The ruling underscores the increasing difficulty of creating good manufacturing, transportation, and industrial jobs in California, the kind of jobs that made our state the envy of the nation during the 20th century. When a company has invested millions of dollars over more than a decade to develop a facility that will create jobs, reduce traffic, and improve air quality and still can’t get approval, other companies will question whether they should consider investing in our state, no matter how green their project or how many good-paying jobs they will provide.

Protecting our environment is important, but it must be done in a sensible way that encourages the use of state-of-the-art clean technology but doesn’t require the company to also pick up the tab for other projects in different locations that were built under different regulations.

This fall, voters in Los Angeles County will likely make a decision on whether to increase our sales tax to build transportation projects that will ease congestion. BNSF is trying very hard to reduce truck traffic on the 710 with its own money, not ours. For this reason and for the many other reasons noted here, the Port of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles City Council approved this project.

We regret that the court did not agree and can only hope that this is not the start of another set of CEQA lawsuits that will deny quality jobs to blue-collar workers in our state.

Gary Toebben is chief executive of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the largest business association in Los Angeles County.