Description: Challenge to greenhouse gas thresholds of significance for land use projects.
-
California Building Industry Association v. Bay Area Air Quality Management District
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 12/17/2015 Opinion Download Opinion issued. California Supreme Court Said CEQA Did Not Generally Mandate Analysis of Effects of Existing Environmental Conditions on Proposed Projects. The California Supreme Court ruled that the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) does not generally require consideration of the effects of existing environmental conditions on a proposed project’s future users or residents, but that CEQA does mandate analysis of how a project may exacerbate existing environmental hazards. The court said that portions of the CEQA guidelines that required consideration of the impacts of existing conditions were not valid. This decision was made in a case concerning the California Building Industry Association’s (CBIA’s) challenge of thresholds of significance for air pollutants, including greenhouse gases (though the particular issue before the Supreme Court did not concern the greenhouse gas thresholds). CBIA had argued that the thresholds for toxic air contaminants and fine particulate matter unlawfully required evaluation of the environment’s impacts on a given project, potentially limiting urban infill projects. The California Court of Appeal had said that the receptor thresholds had valid application regardless of whether CEQA required analysis of impacts of existing environmental conditions on project users. The Supreme Court said that the Court of Appeal should address CBIA’s arguments in light of this opinion’s elaboration of CEQA’s requirements with respect to existing conditions. -
California Building Industry Association v. Bay Area Air Quality Management District
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 03/05/2012 Decision Decision issued. A California state court issued a decision ordering the Bay Area Air Quality Management District to set aside, depublish, and stop the circulation of thresholds of significance for greenhouse gas emissions for analyses under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The thresholds were intended to be used by the District and other local agencies in the San Francisco Bay Area to determine whether a local land use project would have significant air quality impacts under CEQA. In 2010, the District adopted a resolution which included numeric air quality thresholds, including greenhouse gas emissions, for analyses by lead agencies under CEQA. If a project’s emissions exceeded the thresholds, it would result in a finding of significant impact necessitating preparation of an environmental impact report and adoption of mitigation measures. A building industry association filed suit, alleging that the District did not analyze the thresholds as a project under CEQA and failed to study their impact on future development patterns. The court agreed, holding that the thresholds should be set aside pending full CEQA compliance. -
California Building Industry Association v. Bay Area Air Quality Management District
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 08/12/2016 Opinion Download Opinion issued. California Appellate Court Barred Routine Reliance on Significance Thresholds Based on Existing Environment’s Impacts on Project, But Said Such Thresholds Had Some Valid Uses. On remand from the California Supreme Court, the California Court of Appeal concluded that thresholds of significance based on impacts on a proposed project’s occupants (receptor thresholds) could be used for some purposes in reviews under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), though such thresholds could not be used to require an environmental impact report or mitigation measures based solely on the impacts of the existing environment on a proposed project. (The California Supreme Court held in December 2015 that portions of the statewide CEQA guidelines that required consideration of the impacts of existing conditions were not valid.) The California Court of Appeal considered how the Supreme Court’s decision applied to receptor thresholds established by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) for toxic air contaminants and fine particulate matter. (BAAQMD’s receptor thresholds for greenhouse gases were not specifically at issue in this case.) In its August 2016 decision, the appellate court said that permissible uses of the receptor thresholds included voluntary application by lead agencies when considering their own projects and when considering whether a proposed project would exacerbate existing environmental conditions, as well as for school projects and in connection with certain CEQA exemptions for housing developments. The appellate court left open whether the thresholds could be used for determining whether a proposed project is consistent with a general plan. 08/13/2013 Opinion Opinion issued. The California Court of Appeal reversed. The Court of Appeal concluded that the state’s California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) guidelines, which dictated the procedure for enacting “generally applicable thresholds of significance,” did not require CEQA review of the thresholds, and that the environmental changes that the building association contended would result from adoption of the thresholds were “speculative and not reasonably foreseeable” and did not provide a basis for requiring CEQA review. The court also determined that “receptor thresholds” had valid application regardless of whether CEQA required an analysis of how existing environmental conditions affect a project’s future residents or users.