Environmentalists say the best thing to happen this legislative session was that the California Environmental Quality Act or CEQA wasn't changed.

A last minute effort to revamp the law failed, but so did several other bills that environmental groups actually liked.

Bans on plastic bags and Styrofoam food containers didn't pass...neither did bills that would have required manufacturers to recycle mattresses, and utilities to purchase renewable energy in low income communities.

Bruce Reznik with the Planning and Conservation League called it a "lost year".

REZNIK: "We were able to stave off a lot of big attacks on CEQA as well as other key priorities like AB 32, climate change bill, and other types of things but we weren't able to push our agenda very much either."

Reznik attributed the lack of successful environmental bills to a bad economy combined with a tough re-election year for some Democrats.