BILL NUMBER: AB 1981	INTRODUCED
	BILL TEXT


INTRODUCED BY   Assembly Member Mayes

                        FEBRUARY 16, 2016

   An act to amend Section 21082.2 of the Public Resources Code,
relating to environmental quality.


	LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST


   AB 1981, as introduced, Mayes. California Environmental Quality
Act: environmental impact report.
   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 lead
agency to determine whether a project may have a significant effect
on the environment based on substantial evidence in light of the
whole record.
   This bill would make nonsubstantive changes to that provision.
   Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.


THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

  SECTION 1.  Section 21082.2 of the Public Resources Code is amended
to read:
   21082.2.  (a) The lead agency shall determine whether a project
may have a significant effect on the environment based on substantial
evidence in light of the whole record.
   (b) The existence of public controversy over the environmental
effects of a project shall not require preparation of an
environmental impact report if there is no substantial evidence in
light of the whole record before the lead agency that the project may
have a significant effect on the environment.
   (c) Argument, speculation, unsubstantiated opinion or narrative,
evidence  which   that  is clearly
inaccurate or erroneous, or evidence of social or economic impacts
which do not contribute to, or are not caused by, physical impacts on
the environment, is not substantial evidence. Substantial evidence
shall include facts, reasonable assumptions predicated upon facts,
and expert opinion supported by facts.
   (d) If there is substantial evidence, in light of the whole record
before the lead agency, that a project may have a significant effect
on the environment,  the lead agency shall prepare or cause to
be prepared  an environmental impact  report shall be
prepared.   report. 
   (e) Statements in an environmental impact report and comments with
respect to an environmental impact report shall not be deemed
determinative of whether the project may have a significant effect on
the environment.