Source: https://www.ceqadevelopments.com/responses-to-comments/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 13:43:16+00:00

Document:
In an opinion filed March 20, and later certified for publication on April 12, 2018, the First District Court of Appeal (Division 3) affirmed a limited peremptory writ of mandate issued by the Contra Costa County Superior Court requiring the County to set aside an EIR and land use permit for Phillips 66 Company’s “Propane Recovery Project” at its oil refinery in the City of Rodeo, pending County’s correction of specified inadequacies in the EIR’s air quality analysis. Rodeo Citizens Association v. County of Contra Costa (Phillips 66 Company, Real Party in Interest) (2018) 22 Cal.App.5th 214. Unsatisfied with the trial court’s grant of limited relief and denial of its additional CEQA challenges to the EIR (based on an allegedly defective project description and deficient GHG and hazard analyses), plaintiff/appellant Rodeo Citizens Association (“RCA”) appealed as to those issues, but the Court of Appeal rejected its arguments and affirmed the writ as issued by the trial court.
In an opinion filed on November 30, and belatedly ordered published on December 22, 2017, the Second District Court of Appeal, Division 1, affirmed the trial court’s judgment denying all CEQA challenges asserted by plaintiff/appellant Los Angeles Conservancy (“Conservancy”) to the City of West Hollywood’s (“City”) approval of the “Melrose Triangle” project (“project”). Los Angeles Conservancy v. City of West Hollywood (Charles Company, et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2017) ____ Cal.App.5th _____.
The project proposed office, retail, residential and restaurant uses, and public and private open space and pedestrian paseos, on a 3-acre site at the City’s western “gateway,” and called for demolition of the site’s existing structures, which included an architecturally significant building originally constructed in 1928 and potentially eligible for listing in the California Register of Historical Resources (the “9080 Building”). By 2012 amendments, the City’s general plan called for the site’s development with an iconic “Gateway” building with exemplary architecture, and significant open space and pedestrian walkthroughs open to the sky. Developer Charles Company’s proposed Gateway Building would occupy the space currently occupied by the 9080 Building, and other buildings and features on the site were also proposed to implement the general plan’s development vision.
In a published opinion filed September 19, 2017, the First District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court’s denial of a writ petition challenging defendant California Department of Pesticide Regulation’s (“Department”) approval of label amendments for two pesticides containing an active ingredient toxic to honeybees. The Court held the Department’s environmental review was deficient in failing to adequately address feasible alternatives, lacking adequate baseline information, and lacking an adequate cumulative impacts analysis, and that its public reports were so inadequate and conclusory as to render public comment effectively meaningless and require recirculation. Pesticide Action Network North America v. California Department of Pesticide Regulation (Valent U.S.A. Corporation, et al., Real Parties In Interest) (1st Dist., Div. 3, 2017) 15 Cal.App.5th 478.
On July 13, 2017, the California Supreme Court rendered a 6-1 decision holding that the San Diego Association of Governments’ (SANDAG) 2011 EIR for its Regional Transportation Plan/Sustainable Communities Strategy (RTP/SCS) issued pursuant to SB 375 did not violate CEQA “by declining to explicitly engage in an analysis of the consistency of projected 2050 greenhouse gas emissions with the goals in [a 2005] executive order [the “2005 EO”].” (Cleveland National Forest Foundation, et al v. San Diego Association of Governments (2017) 3 Cal. 5th 497, Supreme Court Case No. 5223603.) This conclusion is not surprising, and it is undoubtedly correct. But it is disappointing that the majority’s opinion lacks significant practical or legal guidance for conducting CEQA-compliant GHG analysis for long term regional plans.
Maybe I expect too much. Maybe the nature of the opinion is just a result of the narrowly-framed issue on which the Court chose to grant review. Maybe the interrelationship between CEQA and SB 375 is so complex that hope for greater clarity and simplicity in this area is unrealistic. Perhaps, by its very nature, CEQA is inherently ill-suited to “analyzing” the global-scale environmental impacts of GHG emissions on a project-by-project basis. Or perhaps the case’s narrow holding flows from the strong flavor of mootness that permeates it. In this last vein, it seems somewhat odd for our Supreme Court to decide the legal validity of one discrete aspect of SANDAG’s 2011 EIR despite the facts that (1) the 2011 RTP/SCS which that EIR analyzed has now long been superseded by an updated 2015 RTP/SCS (“San Diego Forward: The Regional Plan”); (2) SANDAG did conduct a 2005 EO consistency analysis in connection with the updated plan; and (3) no one has challenged the updated plan or its EIR.
In a 5-2 decision filed November 30, 2015, the California Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeal which had upheld the EIS/EIR for the controversial Newhall Ranch development project. Center For Biological Diversity, et al. v. California Department of Fish and Wildlife (The Newhall Land and Farming Company, Real Party in Interest) (2015) 62 Cal.4th 204. The high court approved the EIS/EIR’s methodology analyzing the significance of the project’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in terms of reductions from projected “business as usual” (BAU) emissions consistent with AB 32’s statewide reductions mandate, rather than against some absolute numeric limit above the project site’s “baseline” emissions. However, it held the GHG analysis lacked supporting substantial evidence and a cogent explanation correlating the project-specific reductions to AB 32’s mandated state-wide reductions so as to demonstrate consistency with the latter’s goals under the approved methodology. The Court further held the EIS/EIR violated Fish & Game Code § 5515’s prohibition on the taking of “fully protected” fish species by including mitigation measures providing for the collection and relocation by USFWS of the unarmored threespine stickleback. Finally, the Court held – under the particular factual circumstances of the case – that certain issues raised by plaintiffs during an optional public comment period on the Final EIS/EIR were timely raised so as to sufficiently exhaust administrative remedies under Public Resources Code § 21177(a).

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