Environmental quality: California Environmental Quality Act: transportation impacts.

(1) 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 (EIR) 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. This bill would require the Office of Planning and Research, in consultation with specified entities, to prepare and adopt guidelines that would, among other things, establish the percentage reduction in the projected trip generation and vehicle miles traveled for a project as compared to the average for trip generation and vehicle miles traveled for that project type that would assist a region in meeting the greenhouse gas emission reduction targets established by the State Air Resources Board for the automobile and light truck sector for that region, and develop a list of mitigation measures that a project may incorporate to reduce the project's projected trip generation and vehicle miles traveled. The bill would provide that a project meeting or exceeding the percentage reduction in trip generation and vehicle miles traveled or a project that incorporates the listed mitigation measures sufficient to allow the project to meet the percentage reduction would not need to consider the transportation-related impact of the project in environmental documents prepared pursuant to CEQA. Because a lead agency would be required to determine whether a project would meet the percentage reduction established by the guidelines, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (2) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.