Friday, August 21, 2015

CEQA Alert: Extensive Proposed Revisions to CEQA Guidelines Released for Public Comment

On August 11, 2015, the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (“OPR”) released a preliminary discussion draft of comprehensive revisions to the CEQA Guidelines (“Discussion Draft”).   

Revisions to the CEQA Guidelines are usually piecemeal, and made in response to either specific legislation amending the CEQA statute or court decisions interpreting CEQA. However, in 2013, OPR broadly solicited suggestions from stakeholders as to what changes to the CEQA Guidelines should be made. The Discussion Draft resulted from this process.

The Discussion Draft proposes revisions to 25 aspects of CEQA, broken down into three categories:  “Efficiency Improvements” (seven revisions), “Substance Improvements” (two revisions), and “Technical Improvements” (16 revisions). However, the fact that only two of the proposed revisions fall under the heading of “Substance Improvements” is somewhat misleading, as virtually all of the “Efficiency Improvements” would also substantively alter the Guidelines, with ramifications for both the environmental review process and post-review CEQA litigation. These substantive changes address a number of areas, including:
  • adoption and application of thresholds of significance;
  • determinations as to whether an activity is within the scope of a program EIR;
  • the contents of Guidelines Appendix G (Initial Study Environmental Checklist);
  • the consequences of a court decision finding a violation of CEQA;
  • analysis of energy impacts;
  • analysis of water supply impacts;
  • selection of the baseline conditions for impacts analysis;
  • deferral of mitigation; and
  • response to comments on a draft EIR.
While some of the proposed revisions merely attempt to harmonize the Guidelines with recent case law and legislative acts, other revisions go well beyond such considerations and will likely be controversial. Moreover, OPR has posed a number of questions for stakeholders in the Discussion Draft, which could lead to additional proposed revisions.

The Preliminary Draft is available here. Comments on the Draft Guidelines must be submitted to OPR by October 12, 2015.

For more information, contact Don Sobelman at (415) 228-5456 or des@bcltlaw.com, or Kathryn Oehlschlager at (415) 228-5458 or klo@bcltlaw.com.

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