The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment.
CEQA requires the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to prepare and develop proposed guidelines for the implementation of CEQA by public agencies and requires the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to certify and adopt those proposed guidelines. CEQA requires those adopted guidelines to include a list of classes of projects that have been determined not to have a significant effect on the environment and exempts those classes of projects from CEQA, commonly known as categorical exemptions.
This bill would require a lead agency to limit the scope of an environmental impact report to the condition of a categorical exemption that the lead agency determines, after a preliminary review of the project, disqualifies the project from eligibility under the categorical exemption, if the lead agency determines that the project meets all other conditions of the categorical exemption except for the one condition that disqualifies it, as specified. The bill would require that a lead agency's determination to adopt a negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration be upheld if there is a fair argument that substantial evidence supports the determination. The bill would provide that these provisions do not apply to a project to construct or that is related to a distribution center or oil and gas infrastructure. The bill would exempt from the requirements of CEQA, except as provided, a rezoning that is consistent with an approved housing element. Because the bill would require a lead agency to determine the applicability of this exemption, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
This bill would require the office, on or before July 1, 2026, to map the eligible urban infill sites within every incorporated city in the state, as provided. The bill would require the office, on or before July 1, 2026, to prepare, develop, and transmit to the agency for certification and adoption refinements to the infill development project categorical exemption, as provided. The bill would provide that specified regulations related to the significant effect exception to the use of a categorical exemption do not apply to an infill project that meets all conditions of the infill development project categorical exemption. The bill would require, if an infill project is not eligible for the infill development project categorical exemption, only the reasons for the ineligibility be subject to CEQA review. The bill would provide that these provisions do not apply to a project to construct or that is related to a distribution center or oil and gas infrastructure.
CEQA requires an action or proceeding to attack, review, set aside, void, or annul certain acts or decisions of a public agency to be commenced according to specified processes, including that at the time that the action or proceeding is filed, the plaintiff or petitioner shall file a request that the respondent public agency prepare the record of proceedings relating to the subject of the action or proceeding, and requires the record of proceedings to include specified items and materials, including, among other things, all internal agency communications, including staff notes and memoranda related to the project or to compliance with CEQA, but excluding communications that are of a logistical nature, as specified.
This bill would also exclude communications of persons tangential to or far removed from project decisionmaking from the materials to be included in the record of proceedings, except as provided.
This bill would require, except as provided, if an action or proceeding alleging that a lead agency improperly applied to a project a statutory or categorical exemption is successful, the subsequent environmental review for the project be limited to the facts the action or proceeding relied upon that disqualified the project from the statutory or categorical exemption.
The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Statutes affected:
SB 607: 21080.1 PRC, 21167.6 PRC
02/20/25 - Introduced: 21080.1 PRC, 21167.6 PRC