Are 'Certified Regulatory Programs' Functionally Equivalent to CEQA. A Comparison of their Statutes and Regulations.

摘要

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) of 1970 is one of California's most important and powerful environmental laws. It requires public agencies to prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for any project that will have significant adverse impacts on the environment. The CEQA EIR process requires a public agency to analyze and disclose the potential adverse environmental impacts of a project it is initiating, funding or approving. The EIR process must consider alternatives, develop proposals to mitigate or avoid impacts to the extent feasible, and involve the public and other public agencies in the evaluation process. Certain state regulatory programs are exempted from the requirement to prepare an EIR because they have been certified as meeting certain criteria designed to ensure that they meet the basic goals of CEQA. These programs are often referred to as being 'functionally equivalent' to the CEQA EIR process. The Senate Committee on Natural Resources and Wildlife requested that the California Research Bureau compare several of these programs to CEQA to answer the following questions: To what extent are the laws and regulations for these programs equivalent to the laws and regulations governing the CEQA process, and how do they differ. And what are the policy implications of any such differences.