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Governor Gavin Newsom announced proposed major new infrastructure permitting reforms on May 19, 2023 in an effort to create thousands of jobs and build California’s clean energy future. The eleven-bill package seeks to expedite certain water, transportation, clean energy, semiconductor, and microelectronics projects, including water recycling and desalination plants, solar fields, offshore wind farms, the Sites Reservoir Project in the Sacramento Valley, and the plan to build a tunnel to transport water to Southern California beneath the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta (the Delta Conveyance Project). A Senate budget committee found the package was too complex for last-minute consideration before the June 2 cutoff for bills to pass out of their house, but there is still some hope that the plan could move forward.

In Committee to Relocate Marilyn v. City of Palm Springs (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th 607, the Fourth District Court of Appeal held that the petition filed by the Committee to Relocate Marilyn (Committee), challenging the determination by the City of Palm Springs (City) to issue a Notice of Exemption (NOE) for an art installation on…

In Save Livermore Downtown v. City of Livermore (2022) 87 Cal.App.5th 1116, the First District Court of Appeal held that the City of Livermore (City) did not violate planning and zoning laws when it approved a 130-unit affordable housing project (Project) in the downtown area. The Project was found to be exempt under CEQA…

In Citizens’ Committee to Complete the Refuge v. City of Newark (2021) 74 Cal.App.5th 460, the First District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s ruling that a residential project in a specific plan area in the city of Newark fell within Government Code section 65457, a statutory exemption under CEQA for residential development…

On March 30, 2022, the First District Court of Appeal published its opinion in Save the Hill Group v. City of Livermore (2022) 76 Cal.App.5th 1092, invalidating an Environmental Impact Report (“EIR”) for the Garaventa Hills Project (“Project”) because it failed to disclose the feasibility of funding sources or rezoning that could allow the…

On April 19, 2022, the Biden administration finalized a new rule (“Final Rule”) rolling back the Trump administration’s 2020 changes limiting the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The Final Rule re-establishes the prior broader scope of NEPA review, restores key provisions of NEPA that existed prior to 2020, and requires…

On April 20, 2022, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) adopted changes to its thresholds for evaluating the significance of climate impacts from land use projects and plans under CEQA.  These thresholds of significance changes are important because they can be used by agencies as guidelines for determining climate impacts from projects subject…

In Central Delta Water Agency v. Department of Water Resources (2021) 69 Cal.App.5th 170, the Third District Court of Appeal considered three consolidated appeals arising out of long-term water contracts that have been the subject of repeated rounds of environmental review and litigation lasting decades. In each of the consolidated cases, the Court of Appeal set forth the respective trial courts’ reasoning and rulings at length, and affirmed them in full.

In September 2021, the Third District Court of Appeal in Sierra Watch v. Placer County(Cal. Jan. 19, 2022) reversed a judgement upholding Placer County’s Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for a resort development project in the Olympic (formerly Squaw) Valley area. In the published portion of the opinion, the court found errors in the EIR’s…

In Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods v. The Regents of the University of California, Case No. A160560, the Court of Appeal held that under the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) and related procedural rules, real parties in interest are not automatically considered indispensable parties to CEQA litigation.  Whether a real party in interest is indispensable…