Opinion ID: 1036474
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Use of Future Conditions Baselines Generally

Text: For the proposition that the baseline for an EIR‟s significant impacts analysis must reflect existing conditions, Neighbors relies heavily on section 15125, subdivision (a) of the CEQA Guidelines,4 which provides: “An EIR must include a description of the physical environmental conditions in the vicinity of the project, as they exist at the time the notice of preparation is published, or if no notice of preparation is published, at the time environmental analysis is commenced, from both a local and regional perspective. This environmental setting will normally constitute the baseline physical conditions by which a lead agency determines whether an impact is significant.” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15125, subd. (a) (Guidelines section 15125(a)), italics added.) In Communities for a Better Environment, we relied on Guidelines section 15125(a) and CEQA case law for the principle that the baseline for an agency‟s primary environmental analysis under CEQA must ordinarily be the actually existing physical conditions rather than hypothetical conditions that could have existed under applicable permits or regulations. (Communities for a Better 4 The CEQA Guidelines, promulgated by the state‟s Natural Resources Agency, are authorized by section 21083 and found in title 14 of the California Code of Regulations, section 15000 et seq. By statutory mandate, the Guidelines provide “criteria for public agencies to follow in determining whether or not a proposed project may have a „significant effect on the environment.‟ ” (§ 21083, subd. (b).) In interpreting CEQA, we accord the Guidelines great weight except where they are clearly unauthorized or erroneous. (Communities for a Better Environment, supra, 48 Cal.4th at p. 319, fn. 4; Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova, supra, 40 Cal.4th at p. 428, fn. 5.) 6 Environment, supra, 48 Cal.4th at pp. 320-322.) Applying this principle, we held the air pollution effects of a project to expand a petroleum refinery were to be measured against the existing emission levels rather than against the levels that would have existed had all the refinery‟s boilers operated simultaneously at their maximum permitted capacities. (Id. at pp. 322-327.) In a separate part of the Communities for a Better Environment analysis, we addressed the problem of defining an existing conditions baseline in circumstances where the existing conditions themselves change or fluctuate over time, as the refinery‟s operations and emissions assertedly did. (Communities for a Better Environment, supra, 48 Cal.4th at pp. 327-328.) We concluded that despite the CEQA Guidelines‟ reference to “the time the notice of preparation is published, or if no notice of preparation is published, . . . the time environmental analysis is commenced” (Guidelines, § 15125(a)), “[n]either CEQA nor the CEQA Guidelines mandates a uniform, inflexible rule for determination of the existing conditions baseline. Rather, an agency enjoys the discretion to decide, in the first instance, exactly how the existing physical conditions without the project can most realistically be measured, subject to review, as with all CEQA factual determinations, for support by substantial evidence.” (Communities for a Better Environment, at p. 328.) Communities for a Better Environment provides guidance here in its insistence that CEQA analysis employ a realistic baseline that will give the public and decision makers the most accurate picture practically possible of the project‟s likely impacts. (Communities for a Better Environment, supra, 48 Cal.4th at pp. 322, 325, 328.) It did not, however, decide either the propriety of using solely a future conditions baseline or the standard of review by which such a choice is to be judged. Our holding that the analysis must measure impacts against actually existing conditions was in contrast to the use of hypothetical permitted conditions, 7 not projected future conditions. And our holding that agencies enjoy discretion to choose a suitable baseline, subject to review for substantial evidence, related to the choice of a measurement technique for existing conditions, not to the choice between an existing conditions baseline and one employing solely conditions projected to prevail in the distant future. Justice Baxter therefore errs in citing Communities for a Better Environment for the proposition that an agency‟s future baseline choice is valid if it is “a realistic measure of the physical conditions without the proposed project . . . .” (Conc. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J., post, at p. 7.) In Communities for a Better Environment, we held an agency‟s discretionary decision on “exactly how the existing physical conditions without the project can most realistically be measured” is reviewed for substantial evidence supporting the measurement method. (48 Cal.4th at p. 328, italics added.) We did not hold or imply agencies enjoy equivalent discretion under CEQA and the CEQA Guidelines to omit all analysis of the project‟s impacts on existing conditions and measure impacts only against conditions projected to prevail 20 or 30 years in the future, so long as their projections are realistic. Nor does the concurring and dissenting opinion‟s citation to Cherry Valley Pass Acres & Neighbors v. City of Beaumont (2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 316 aid its argument. (Conc. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J., post, at p. 6.) The cited decision merely applied Communities for a Better Environment to determine that a water allocation approximating the property‟s recent historical use constituted a realistic measure of existing conditions. (Cherry Valley Pass Acres & Neighbors v. City of Beaumont, supra, 190 Cal.App.4th at pp. 337-338.) The case has nothing to say about an agency‟s decision to omit an existing conditions analysis and employ solely a baseline of conditions in the distant future. 8 The Courts of Appeal, however, have since addressed the future conditions baseline question directly in Sunnyvale West Neighborhood Assn. v. City of Sunnyvale City Council (2010) 190 Cal.App.4th 1351 (Sunnyvale West), Madera Oversight Coalition, Inc. v. County of Madera (2011) 199 Cal.App.4th 48, and Pfeiffer v. City of Sunnyvale City Council (2011) 200 Cal.App.4th 1552 (Pfeiffer), as well as in the present litigation. In Sunnyvale West, the appellate court held inadequate an EIR‟s analysis of a road extension project‟s traffic impacts because it used projected conditions in the year 2020 as its only baseline, even though EIR preparation began in 2007 and the project was approved in 2008. (Sunnyvale West, supra, 190 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1358, 1360, 1370.) While acknowledging that Guidelines section 15125(a) and our decision in Communities for a Better Environment provided agencies discretion on how best to measure existing conditions, the court concluded “nothing in the law authorizes environmental impacts to be evaluated only against predicted conditions more than a decade after EIR certification and project approval.” (Sunnyvale West, at p. 1380.) The use of a single future conditions baseline was per se a violation of CEQA; it was not a discretionary choice that could be justified by substantial evidence. (Sunnyvale West, at p. 1383.) The Sunnyvale West court observed that, although in its view the baseline for analysis of a project‟s direct impacts must be existing conditions, “discussions of the foreseeable changes and expected future conditions . . . may be necessary to an intelligent understanding of a project‟s impacts over time and full compliance with CEQA.” (Sunnyvale West, supra, 190 Cal.App.4th at p. 1381.) In particular, the effects of the project under predicted future conditions, themselves projected in part on the assumption that other approved or planned projects will proceed, are appropriately considered in an EIR‟s analysis of cumulative impacts (see Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15130) or in a discussion comparing the project to the “no 9 project alternative” (id., § 15126.6, subd. (e)). (Sunnyvale West, at pp. 13811382.) So long as the EIR evaluated the project‟s significant impacts on existing conditions, the court saw “no problem” with also examining the effect on projected future conditions “where helpful to an intelligent understanding of the project‟s environmental impacts.” (Id. at p. 1382.) The court in Madera Oversight Coalition, Inc. v. County of Madera, considering the adequacy of an EIR‟s discussion of a mixed-use property development‟s traffic impacts, followed Sunnyvale West on the baseline question. Without extensive additional statutory analysis, the court adopted from Sunnyvale West the rule that agencies “do not have the discretion to adopt a baseline that uses conditions predicted to occur on a date subsequent to the certification of the EIR.” (Madera Oversight Coalition, Inc. v. County of Madera, supra, 199 Cal.App.4th at p. 90.) In Pfeiffer, a different panel of the same court that decided Sunnyvale West reviewed the EIR for a medical center‟s expansion project. The EIR‟s analysis of traffic impacts compared, for various road segments and intersections in the project‟s vicinity, existing traffic conditions with various growth and project scenarios. (Pfeiffer, supra, 200 Cal.App.4th at p. 1571.) Holding the plaintiffs had not shown this analysis inadequate under CEQA, Pfeiffer distinguished Sunnyvale West as involving the use of only a future conditions baseline, whereas in Pfeiffer “the traffic baselines included in the EIR were not limited to projected traffic conditions in the year 2020, but also included existing conditions and the traffic growth anticipated from approved but not yet constructed developments.” (Pfeiffer, at p. 1573.) The appellate court in the present case flatly disagreed with the Sunnyvale West analysis. Noting that Guidelines section 15125(a) states the EIR‟s description of existing environmental conditions “ „normally‟ ” serves as the 10 baseline for analysis of project impacts, the court reasoned that “[t]o state the norm is to recognize the possibility of departure from the norm” and concluded the Sunnyvale West court erred in finding in the law an absolute rule against use of projected future conditions as the baseline. In the lower court‟s view, future conditions are properly used as a baseline if the projections on which they are based are reliable and their use “provide[s] information that is relevant and permits informed decisionmaking.” We conclude CEQA and the Guidelines dictate a rule less restrictive than Sunnyvale West‟s but more restrictive than that articulated by the Court of Appeal below. Projected future conditions may be used as the sole baseline for impacts analysis if their use in place of measured existing conditions—a departure from the norm stated in Guidelines section 15125(a)—is justified by unusual aspects of the project or the surrounding conditions. That the future conditions analysis would be informative is insufficient, but an agency does have discretion to completely omit an analysis of impacts on existing conditions when inclusion of such an analysis would detract from an EIR‟s effectiveness as an informational document, either because an analysis based on existing conditions would be uninformative or because it would be misleading to decision makers and the public. Before addressing the use of a future conditions baseline, we pause to clarify some potentially confusing aspects of the standard analysis, in which the project‟s impacts are assessed against existing environmental conditions. First, although most projects for which an EIR is prepared do not yet exist or are not yet in operation at the time the EIR is written, it is common for an EIR‟s impacts analysis to assume, counterfactually, that the project exists and is in full operation at the time the environmental analysis is conducted. (See, e.g., Gilroy Citizens for Responsible Planning v. City of Gilroy (2006) 140 Cal.App.4th 911, 916-917, 933 11 [EIR analyzed impacts on city‟s existing central business district of developing proposed outlying retail center]; Association of Irritated Residents v. County of Madera (2003) 107 Cal.App.4th 1383, 1389, 1393-1394 [EIR analyzed impacts on wildlife of replacing existing farm fields with proposed dairy operation]; cf. 1 Kostka & Zischke, Practice Under the Cal. Environmental Quality Act (Cont.Ed.Bar 2d ed. 2008) Significant Environmental Effects, § 13.21, p. 635 (rev. 3.13) [EIR must analyze significant effects of entire project, including phases to be implemented later].) In such an analysis, the EIR attempts to predict the impacts a project would have on the existing environment if approved and implemented. CEQA‟s wording reflects the fact that projects generally are not yet operating when an EIR is prepared: an EIR must be prepared for any project “that may have” a significant environmental effect (§ 21100, subd. (a)); the report‟s purpose is to inform the public and decision makers as to the effects a proposed project “is likely to have” on the environment (§ 21061); and the “environment” referred to is the set of physical conditions in the area “which will be affected” by the project (§ 21060.5). Second, we note that in appropriate circumstances an existing conditions analysis may take account of environmental conditions that will exist when the project begins operations; the agency is not strictly limited to those prevailing during the period of EIR preparation. An agency may, where appropriate, adjust its existing conditions baseline to account for a major change in environmental conditions that is expected to occur before project implementation. In so adjusting its existing conditions baseline, an agency exercises its discretion on how best to define such a baseline under the circumstance of rapidly changing environmental conditions. (Communities for a Better Environment, supra, 48 Cal.4th at p. 328.) As we explained in our earlier decision, CEQA imposes no “uniform, inflexible rule for determination of the existing conditions baseline,” instead leaving to a 12 sound exercise of agency discretion the exact method of measuring the existing environmental conditions upon which the project will operate. (Ibid.) Interpreting the statute and regulations in accord with the central purpose of an EIR—“to provide public agencies and the public in general with detailed information about the effect which a proposed project is likely to have on the environment” (§ 21061)—we find nothing precluding an agency from employing, under appropriate factual circumstances, a baseline of conditions expected to obtain at the time the proposed project would go into operation. For example, in an EIR for a new office building, the analysis of impacts on sunlight and views in the surrounding neighborhood might reasonably take account of a larger tower already under construction on an adjacent site at the time of EIR preparation. For a large-scale transportation project like that at issue here, to the extent changing background conditions during the project‟s lengthy approval and construction period are expected to affect the project‟s likely impacts, the agency has discretion to consider those changing background conditions in formulating its analytical baseline. Contrary to Justice Baxter‟s view (conc. & dis. opn. of Baxter, J., post, at p. 15), such a date-of-implementation baseline does not share the principal problem presented by a baseline of conditions expected to prevail in the more distant future following years of project operation — it does not omit impacts expected to occur during the project‟s early period of operation. Is it ever appropriate for an EIR‟s significant impacts analysis to use conditions predicted to prevail in the more distant future, well beyond the date the project is expected to begin operation, to the exclusion of an existing conditions baseline? We conclude agencies do have such discretion. The key, again, is the EIR‟s role as an informational document. To the extent a departure from the “norm[]” of an existing conditions baseline (Guidelines, § 15125(a)) promotes 13 public participation and more informed decisionmaking by providing a more accurate picture of a proposed project‟s likely impacts, CEQA permits the departure. Thus an agency may forego analysis of a project‟s impacts on existing environmental conditions if such an analysis would be uninformative or misleading to decision makers and the public.5 Parenthetically, we stress that the burden of justification articulated above applies when an agency substitutes a future conditions analysis for one based on existing conditions, omitting the latter, and not to an agency‟s decision to examine project impacts on both existing and future conditions. As the Sunnyvale West court observed, a project‟s effects on future conditions are appropriately considered in an EIR‟s discussion of cumulative effects and in discussion of the no project alternative. (Sunnyvale West, supra, 190 Cal.App.4th at pp. 1381-1382.)6 5 Amicus curiae South Coast Air Quality Management District provides a hypothetical example of factual conditions in which use of an existing conditions baseline would arguably mask potentially significant project impacts that would be revealed by using a future conditions baseline. In this illustration, an existing industrial facility currently emits an air pollutant in the amount of 1,000 pounds per day. By the year 2020, if no new project is undertaken at the facility, emissions of the pollutant are projected to fall to 500 pounds per day due to enforcement of regulations already adopted and to turnover in the facility‟s vehicle fleet. The operator proposes to use the facility for a new project that will emit 750 pounds per day of the pollutant upon implementation and through at least 2020. An analysis comparing the project‟s emissions to existing emissions would conclude the project would reduce pollution and thus have no significant adverse impact, while an analysis using a baseline of projected year 2020 conditions would show the project is likely to increase emissions by 250 pounds per day, a (presumably significant) 50 percent increase over baseline conditions. 6 A cumulative impacts analysis focuses on the effects of the proposed project together with other projects causing related impacts and may rely on projections of future conditions that are expected to contribute to a cumulative adverse effect (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15130, subds. (a)(1), (b)), while analysis of the no project alternative includes a discussion of “what would be reasonably (footnote continued on next page) 14 But nothing in CEQA law precludes an agency, as well, from considering both types of baseline—existing and future conditions—in its primary analysis of the project‟s significant adverse effects. (Pfeiffer, supra, 200 Cal.App.4th at p. 1573; Woodward Park Homeowners Assn., Inc. v. City of Fresno (2007) 150 Cal.App.4th 683, 707.) The need for justification arises when an agency chooses to evaluate only the impacts on future conditions, foregoing the existing conditions analysis called for under the CEQA Guidelines. The need to justify omission of an existing conditions analysis derives in part from the CEQA Guidelines, which clearly establish that the norm for an EIR is analysis against a baseline of existing conditions. In addition to Guidelines section 15125(a), which expressly so provides, the Guidelines provide that an EIR “should normally limit its examination to changes in the existing physical conditions in the affected area,” considering both direct and indirect effects and “giving due consideration to both the short-term and long-term effects” of the project. (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15126.2, subd. (a), italics added.) Moreover, the Guidelines explain that “[t]he no project alternative analysis is not the baseline for determining whether the proposed project‟s environmental impacts may be significant, unless it is identical to the existing environmental setting analysis which does establish that baseline (see Section 15125).” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15126.6, subd. (e)(1).) While the latter regulation does not absolutely prohibit the use of a future conditions baseline where appropriate, it makes clear that normally the baseline for determining a project‟s significant adverse impacts is not (footnote continued from previous page) expected to occur in the foreseeable future if the project were not approved, based on current plans and consistent with available infrastructure and community services” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15126.6, subd. (e)(2)). 15 the same as the no project alternative, which takes into account future changes in the environment reasonably expected to occur if the project is not approved. (Id., subd. (e)(2), (3)(C).) The CEQA Guidelines establish the default of an existing conditions baseline even for projects expected to be in operation for many years or decades. That a project will have a long operational life, by itself, does not justify an agency‟s failing to assess its impacts on existing environmental conditions. For such projects as for others, existing conditions constitute the norm from which a departure must be justified—not only because the CEQA Guidelines so state, but because using existing conditions serves CEQA‟s goals in important ways. Even when a project is intended and expected to improve conditions in the long term—20 or 30 years after an EIR is prepared—decision makers and members of the public are entitled under CEQA to know the short- and mediumterm environmental costs of achieving that desirable improvement. These costs include not only the impacts involved in constructing the project but also those the project will create during its initial years of operation. Though we might rationally choose to endure short- or medium-term hardship for a long-term, permanent benefit, deciding to make that trade-off requires some knowledge about the severity and duration of the near-term hardship. An EIR stating that in 20 or 30 years the project will improve the environment, but neglecting, without justification, to provide any evaluation of the project‟s impacts in the meantime, does not “giv[e] due consideration to both the short-term and long-term effects” of the project (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15126.2, subd. (a)) and does not serve CEQA‟s informational purpose well. The omission of an existing conditions analysis must be justified, even if the project is designed to alleviate adverse environmental conditions over the long term. 16 In addition, existing environmental conditions have the advantage that they can generally be directly measured and need not be projected through a predictive model. However sophisticated and well-designed a model is, its product carries the inherent uncertainty of every long-term prediction, uncertainty that tends to increase with the period of projection. For example, if future population in the project area is projected using an annual growth multiplier, a small error in that multiplier will itself be multiplied and compounded as the projection is pushed further into the future. The public and decision makers are entitled to the most accurate information on project impacts practically possible, and the choice of a baseline must reflect that goal. Finally, use of existing conditions as a baseline makes the analysis more accessible to decision makers and especially to members of the public, who may be familiar with the existing environment but not technically equipped to assess a projection into the distant future. As an amicus curiae observes, “[a]nyone can review an EIR‟s discussion of current environmental conditions and determine whether [it] comports with that person‟s knowledge and experience of the world.” But “[i]n a hypothetical future world, the environment is what the statisticians say it is.” Quantitative and technical descriptions of environmental conditions have a place in CEQA analysis, but an agency must not create unwarranted barriers to public understanding of the EIR by unnecessarily substituting a baseline of projected future conditions for one based on actual existing conditions. (See Laurel Heights Improvement Assn. v. Regents of University of California (1988) 47 Cal.3d 376, 392 [EIR allows the public to “know the basis on which its responsible officials either approve or reject environmentally significant action,” thereby promoting “informed self-government”].)