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5.21 Climate Change

the sale of zero-emissions vehicles to a goal of ten percent of new vehicle purchases by 2016
(Pacific Coast Collaborative 2013).

State

California has enacted a variety of legislation relating to climate change, much of which sets
aggressive goals for GHG emissions reductions within the state. However, none of this
legislation provides definitive direction regarding the treatment of climate change in
environmental review documents prepared under CEQA. In particular, the amendments to
the State CEQA Guidelines do not require or suggest specific methodologies for performing
an assessment or thresholds of significance, and do not specify greenhouse gas reduction
mitigation measures. Instead, the CEQA amendments continue to rely on lead agencies to
choose methodologies and make significance determinations based on substantial evidence,
as discussed in further detail below (CNRA 2009b). Consequently, no State agency has
promulgated binding regulations for analyzing GHG emissions, determining their
significance, or mitigating any significant effects in CEQA documents. The discussion below
provides a brief overview of the Governor’s, CARB and California Office of Planning and
Research (OPR) policies, of court decisions, and of the legislation that relates to climate
change that may affect the emissions associated with the proposed Project.

California Supreme Court Ruling in Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of
Fish and Wildlife

In its recent decision, Center for Biological Diversity v. Department of Fish and Wildlife,
S217763 (Newhall), the Court evaluated the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s
(CDFW) analysis of potential impacts caused by GHG emissions contained in the EIR for the
proposed land development called Newhall Ranch (California 2015a). In the EIR, the CDFW
analyzed GHG emissions under Assembly Bill (AB) 32, using the business-as-usual (BAU)
comparison as its sole criterion of significance.

In Newhall, the California Supreme Court concluded that a finding of consistency with
meeting statewide emission reduction goals is a legally permissible criterion of significance
when analyzing potential impacts of GHG emissions under CEQA. However, the Court found
that the EIR’s conclusion that the project’s emissions would be less than significant under
that criterion was not supported by substantial evidence, and remanded back to the
appellate court the narrow issue of whether substantial evidence supported the application
of AB 32 statewide GHG reduction goal of 29 percent to new land use projects.

The Court then identified “potential options” for lead agencies evaluating cumulative
significance of a proposed land use development’s GHG emissions in future CEQA documents,
but the Court was careful to note that there was no “guarantee” that any of these would be
sufficient:

We do not, of course, guarantee that any of these approaches will be found to
satisfy CEQA’s demands as to any particular project; what follows is merely a
description of potential pathways to compliance, depending on the
circumstances of a given project.

R:\Projects\PAS\CEN\000306\Draft EIR\5.21 ClimateChange-051117.docx 5.21-11 Centennial Project
Draft EIR