BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 543
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 29, 2013
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON NATURAL RESOURCES
Wesley Chesbro, Chair
AB 543 (Campos) - As Amended: April 22, 2013
SUBJECT : California Environmental Quality Act: translation
SUMMARY : Requires a lead agency to translate certain notices
and summaries of a negative declaration, mitigated negative
declaration, or environmental impact report (EIR) required under
the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when the
community impacted by the proposed project has a substantial
number of non-English-speaking people.
EXISTING LAW : Establishes CEQA, which:
1)Requires a lead agency to:
a) Prepare and certify the completion of an EIR for a
proposed project that it finds would have a significant
effect on the environment, or if it finds otherwise, adopt
a negative declaration or mitigated negative declaration.
b) Prepare and file, with either the Office of Planning and
Research (OPR) or the county clerk having jurisdiction over
the project, the following notices:
i) A notice of intent (NOI) when the lead agency
decides to adopt a negative declaration or a mitigated
negative declaration;
ii) A notice of determination (NOD) when the lead agency
decides to carry out or approve a project for which it
has adopted a negative declaration or mitigated negative
declaration, or certified an EIR;
iii) A notice of preparation (NOP) when the lead agency
decides to prepare a negative declaration, a mitigated
negative declaration, or an EIR for the project; and
iv) A notice of completion (NOC) when the draft EIR is
complete.
c) Call and provide notice of at least one scoping meeting
AB 543
Page 2
for projects that may affect highways or other facilities
under the Department of Transportation's (CalTrans)
jurisdiction if CalTrans requests such a meeting, or for
projects of statewide, regional, or areawide significance.
2)Authorizes a lead agency to file a notice of exemption (NOE)
when it approves or determines to carry out a project that
qualifies for a statutory or categorical exemption from CEQA.
THIS BILL :
1)Requires a lead agency that prepares a required notice (such
as an NOI, NOD, NOP, or NOC) or a NOE, and a summary of a
negative declaration, mitigated negative declaration, or EIR,
to translate these documents into all languages understood by
a substantial number of non-English-speaking people in the
impacted community.
2)Defines "a substantial number of non-English-speaking people"
to mean members of a group who either do not speak English or
who are unable to effectively communicate in English because
it is not their native language, and who comprise five percent
or more of the people who are likely to be affected by the
project within the jurisdiction of the lead agency.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown
COMMENTS :
1)Background. CEQA requires state and local agencies to undergo
an environmental review process before carrying out or
approving a proposed project. This allows stakeholders such
as a private developer, a public agency, and a local community
to consider the significant environmental effects of the
proposed project and adopt measures that would minimize or
mitigate them.
With the increasing diversity of California's communities,
multi-stakeholder engagement is critical to ensuring that
CEQA's environmental goals are achieved in an equitable
manner. The author argues that a project may have significant
consequences on immigrant and low-income communities who
either live at or close to the project site. But because of
their limited ability to communicate in English, they cannot
participate in the CEQA process as meaningfully as native
AB 543
Page 3
English speakers would. Translating important CEQA notices
and executive summaries to the community's language would thus
be an important step in rectifying this concern.
2)Translation Statutes in California . The state's diverse
population has given rise to statutory requirements for
translating important consumer and government services
documents to popular foreign languages like Spanish and
Mandarin. One example in the Civil Code is the foreign
translation of consumer contracts if negotiations between a
business representative and a consumer are conducted primarily
in Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, or Korean. The
business representative must provide the consumer a copy of
the negotiated contract in the foreign language spoken by the
consumer during negotiations.
Another example is the Dymally-Alatorre Bilingual Services
Act, which applies to state and local agencies.
Dymally-Alatorre requires state agencies to translate
informational documents about government services when five
percent or more of the people served by its local office or
facility either do not speak English or cannot effectively
communicate in English because it is not their native
language.
Recently, the Legislature enacted AB 938 (V. Manuel Perez,
2011), which requires public water systems to provide notices
of drinking water contamination in the foreign language spoken
by ten percent of the people it serves. AB 938 requires the
public water system to utilize data from the American
Community Survey of the United States Census Bureau to
identify the non-English speaking groups that reside in a
city, county, or city and county that encompasses its service
area.
3)Identifying the "impacted community?" Existing statutes
identify non-English-speaking populations according to a
geographic or service area, while this bill would do so on the
basis of an impacted community. Because CEQA requires
project-specific analysis, the definition of an impacted
community will have to depend on the project at hand. This
would mean that a lead agency would not be able to determine
who comprises the impacted community until it conducts at
least an initial study or prepares an EIR.
AB 543
Page 4
Some notices, particularly an NOE, are filed well before a
project can even reach the point of an initial study. But if
non-English-speaking populations could not be given timely
notice because a lead agency could not identify them until
much later, then this bill would not achieve its objectives.
Moreover, the bill's definition of "a substantial number of
non-English-speaking people" includes the phrase "people who
are likely to be affected by the project." This creates
confusion because the phrase would cover a group of people
larger than an impacted community.
4)Suggested Amendments . The author may wish to clarify the
definition of non-English-speaking people for which a lead
agency will be translating CEQA notices and documents.
Specifically, the author may wish to consider deleting
references to the phrases "impacted community" and "a
substantial number of," and instead use the term "a group of a
non-English-speaking people" to refer to the target
population. Additionally, the author may wish to consider
making the translation requirement apply when this group
comprises at least five percent of the population within a
lead agency's jurisdiction, and the proposed project will be
located at or near an area where members of a
non-English-speaking group reside.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Asian Pacific Environmental Network
California Coastal Protection Network
California Coastkeeper Alliance
California Environmental Justice Alliance
California Native Plant Society
California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation
Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment
Clean Water Action California
Coalition for Clean Air
Committee for Green Foothills
Communities for a Better Environment
Endangered Habitats League
Environment California
Environmental Defense Center
Foothill Conservancy
AB 543
Page 5
Forests Forever
Friends of the Eel River
Laguna Greenbelt
National Parks Conservation Association
Nichols-Berman Environmental Planning
North County Watch
Planning and Conservation League
Sierra Club California
Transportation Solutions Defense and Education Fund
Western Center on Law and Poverty
Opposition
American Council of Engineering Companies, California
American Planning Association California Chapter (unless
amended)
Associated Builders and Contractors of California
California Building Industry Association
California Business Properties Association
California Chamber of Commerce
Analysis Prepared by : Melissa Sayoc / NAT. RES. / (916)
319-2092