California Environmental Quality Act: transportation impacts.

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 the lead agency 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. CEQA establishes a procedure by which a person may seek judicial review of the decision of the lead agency made pursuant to CEQA. CEQA requires the Office of Planning and Research to prepare and develop proposed guidelines for the implementation of CEQA by public agencies and requires the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to certify and adopt those guidelines. CEQA requires the office to prepare, develop, and transmit to the secretary for certification and adoption proposed revisions to the guidelines establishing criteria for determining the significance of transportation impacts of projects within transit priority areas, as defined, that promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the development of multimodal transportation networks, and a diversity of land uses. Existing law requires the office to recommend potential metrics to measure transportation impacts, as specified. CEQA authorizes the office to adopt guidelines establishing alternative metrics to the metrics used for traffic levels of service for transportation impacts outside transit priority areas. This bill would require the office, by January 1, 2025, to conduct and submit to the Legislature a study on the impacts and implementation of the guidelines described above relating to transportation impacts. The bill would require the office, upon appropriation, to establish a grant program to provide financial assistance to local jurisdictions for implementing those guidelines.