Few would dispute that the California Supreme Court has played a leading role in judicial CEQA reform in recent years. It has clarified the law on the operation of CEQA’s statues of limitations, and attempted to bring more coherence and common sense to the fundamental rules and concepts governing the statute’s scope, operation and timing.
Having issued another major decision in 2013 clarifying the law on environmental baseline analysis (see Neighbors for Smart Rail v. Exposition Metro Line Construction Authority (2013) 57 Cal.4th 439 [CEQA requires project impact assessment against “existing conditions” baseline, disallows sole reliance on “future conditions” baseline unless substantial evidence shows existing conditions baseline would be misleading or without informational value]), the Supreme Court is poised to tackle several more important CEQA issues in decisions that may be forthcoming the next year.Continue Reading Judicial CEQA Reform On Supreme Court’s Docket In Coming Year?