AB 543, as amended, Campos. California Environmental Quality Act: translation.
Existing law, the California Environmental Quality Act, referred to as 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.
This bill would require a lead agency to translatebegin insert,
as specified,end insert
certain notices required by the act and a summary of any negative declaration, mitigated negative declaration, or environmental impactbegin delete report,end deletebegin insert reportend insert when the impacted community has a substantial number of non-English-speaking people, as defined. By requiring a lead agency to translate these notices and documents, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
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.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: yes.
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
Section 21097 is added to the Public Resources
2Code, to read:
(a) A lead agency shall translate each of the following
4when the impacted community has a substantial number of
5non-English-speaking
people:
6(1) Any notice required pursuant to Sectionbegin delete 21080.5,end delete 21083.9,
721092, 21152,begin delete orend delete 21161begin insert or any notice authorized pursuant to
8subdivision (b) of Section 21108 or subdivision (b) of Section
921152end insert.
10(2) A summary of any negative declaration, mitigated negative
11declaration, or environmental impact report.
12(b) A document described pursuant to subdivision (a) shall be
13translated into all languages understood by a
substantial number
14of non-English-speaking people.
15(b)
end delete
16begin insert(c)end insert For the purposes of this section, “substantial number of
17non-English-speaking people” means members of a group who
18either do not speak English or who are unable to effectively
19communicate in English because it is not their native language,
20and who comprise 5 percent or more of the people whobegin delete mayend deletebegin insert are
21likely toend insert be affected by the projectbegin insert
within the jurisdiction of the
22lead agencyend insert.
No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to
24Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution because
25a local agency or school district has the authority to levy service
26charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or
P3 1level of service mandated by this act, within the meaning of Section
217556 of the Government Code.
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97