California Building Industry Ass'n v. Bay Area Air Quality Management District

—The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA; Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.) requires public agencies to conduct an environmental review of discretionary projects they carry out or approve and to prepare an environmental impact report (EIR) for any project that may have a significant effect on the environment. (Pub. Resources Code, §§ 21151, 21100, 21080, 21082.2.) The CEQA guidelines encourage public agencies to develop and publish “thresholds of significance” to assist in determining whether a project’s effect will be deemed significant. (CEQA Guidelines, § 15064.7.) “A threshold of significance is an identifiable quantitative, qualitative or performance level of a particular environmental effect, non-compliance with which means the effect will normally be determined to be significant by the agency and compliance with which means the effect normally will be determined to be less than significant.” {Id., subd. (a).)

Following a grant of review of our previous opinion in this case, the Supreme Court held CEQA “does not generally require an agency to consider the effects of existing environmental conditions on a proposed project’s future users or residents.”…