Environment: mitigation measures for air quality impacts: environmental justice.

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 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 mitigation measures, identified in an environmental impact report or mitigated negative declaration to mitigate the adverse effects of a project on air quality of a disadvantaged community, to include measures for avoiding, minimizing, or otherwise mitigating for the adverse effects on that community. The bill would require mitigation measures to include measures conducted at the project site that avoid or minimize to less than significant the adverse effects on the air quality of a disadvantaged community or measures conducted in the affected disadvantaged community that directly mitigate those effects. The bill would require all public agencies, in implementing CEQA, to give consideration to the principles of environmental justice, as provided, by ensuring the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of people of all races, cultures, incomes, and national origins. Because the bill would impose additional duties on the lead agency, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. 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.