California Environmental Quality Act: judicial challenge: identification of contributors.

The California Environmental Quality Act requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report 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. The act authorizes specified entities to file and maintain with a court an action or proceeding to attack, review, set aside, void, or annul an act of a public agency on grounds of noncompliance with the requirements of the act. This bill would require a plaintiff or petitioner, in an action brought pursuant to the act, to disclose the identity of a person or entity that contributes $1,000 or more, as specified, toward the plaintiff's or petitioner's costs of the action. The bill also would require the plaintiff or petitioner to identify any pecuniary or business interest related to the project or issues involved in the action of any person or entity that contributes $1,000 or more to the costs of the action, as specified. The bill would provide that a failure to comply with these requirements may be grounds for dismissal of the action by the court.