BILL ANALYSIS Ó
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de León, Chair
SB 754 (Evans) - California Environmental Quality Act.
Amended: May 6, 2013 Policy Vote: EQ 6-2
Urgency: No Mandate: Yes
Hearing Date: May 23, 2013 Consultant: Marie Liu
SUSPENSE FILE.
Bill Summary: SB 754 would require CEQA documents to be prepared
either by the lead agency or consultants under the direct
contract and supervision of the lead agency, remove the cap on
the costs of mitigation measures related to archaeological
resources, prohibit the tiering-off of an EIR more than seven
years old, and create a new private right of action.
Fiscal Impact:
Unknown, possibly in the hundreds of thousands to millions
of dollars annually, from special and General Funds for the
development of a new EIR where a previous EIR was more than
seven years old.
Background: CEQA provides a process for evaluating the
environmental effects of a project. Under CEQA, lead agencies
with the principal responsibility for carrying out or approving
a proposed discretionary project are required to prepare a
negative declaration, mitigated negative declaration, or
environmental impact report (EIR) for the project, unless the
project is exempt. The CEQA documents must be prepared directly,
or under contract to, the lead agency. The purpose of CEQA is to
identify significant environmental impacts, including impacts on
archaeological resources, and then mitigate those impacts to the
extent feasible. Existing law caps the maximum dollar amount of
mitigation that a project proponent can be required to do in
order to mitigate impacts to archaeological resources.
Proposed Law: This bill would make various changes to CEQA.
Specifically, this bill would:
Require that if a public agency contracts out the preparation
of a draft EIR, EIR, negative declaration, or mitigated
negative declaration, it may only be with an "environmental
consultant" under the direct contract and supervision of the
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lead agency.
Remove the cap on the costs of required mitigations for
impacts to archaeological resources.
Prohibits a later project or infill project from tiering off a
previous EIR if that EIR is more than seven years old.
Create a new private right of action or proceeding to enforce
the implementation of mitigation measures should the project
applicant fail to implement those measures.
Staff Comments: This bill may increase the number of EIRs that
may need to be prepared because an older EIR, which could have
been tiered off from because it meets the existing requirements
for validity, is older than seven years. There would be costs to
the state under these provisions if the state is the project
proponent or the state is the lead or responsible agency and its
activities are not fully recovered by a fee paid by the project
proponent. Given that the cost of the new EIR would greatly
depend on the project specifics, staff estimates that this
portion of the bill may cause ten to hundreds of thousands
dollars to millions of dollars for new CEQA analyses annually.
Judicial Council does not anticipate an impact on the courts
should the new private right of action under this bill be signed
into law.
This bill clarifies that if a public agency contracts out to
prepare a draft EIR, EIR, negative declaration, or mitigated
negative declaration, it must be with an "environmental
consultant." Staff notes that the term "environmental
consultant" is not defined in the bill.
Staff notes that this bill contains findings and declarations
language regarding the Legislature's intent to provide limited
modifications to improve CEQA function. The findings list
several desired modifications, such as requiring translation of
initial notices and clarifying the baseline from which to assess
environmental impacts, which are not contained in this bill. It
is unclear whether the author's intent is to address these
issues at a later date or whether this is language is
unnecessary.
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