Communities for a Better Environment v. South Coast Air Quality Management District

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.) requires a public agency to prepare an environmental impact report (FIR) only on projects that may have significant environmental effects (§§ 21100, subd. (a), 21151, subd. (a)). To decide whether a given project’s environmental effects are likely to be significant, the agency must use some measure of the environment’s state absent the project, a measure sometimes referred to as the “baseline” for environmental analysis. According to an administrative guideline for CEQA’s application, the baseline “normally” consists of “the physical environmental conditions in the vicinity of the project, as they exist at the time . . . environmental analysis is commenced . . . .” (Cal. Code Regs., tit. 14, § 15125, subd. (a).)

In the present case, ConocoPhillips Company (ConocoPhillips), the private proponent of a project to conduct a new industrial process at a petroleum refinery, and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (District), whose failure to prepare an EIR before approving the refinery project is at issue, contend that the existence of valid permits to operate industrial equipment…