ID: 1479
Presenting Author: Dean Wallraff
Session: 539 - EIA Litigation Around the World
Status: pending
How we use California’s EIA law to force warehouses and data centers to fully mitigate their greenhouse-gas emissions.
California's EIA Law, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA),
is one of the strongest in the world. It requires full mitigation of
significant greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. My organization,
Advocates for the Environment, a non-profit environmental law firm,
follows the CEQA
process by submitting comment letters and oral comments before
project approval, doing any necessary administrative appeals, and then,
if the project is approved, filing a lawsuit in state court. Most cases settle
early in the litigation process
for carbon offsets, additional solar energy or EV charging stations.
CEQA requires the preparation of an Environmental Impact Report (EIR)
or, for smaller projects, a Mitigated Negative Declaration (MND). These
documents must contain a conclusion about whether the project’s GHG impacts
are significant and must support the conclusion with substantial evidence.
The GHG analysis in most EIRs and MNDs does not comply with CEQA.
For cases that do not settle, the law provides a remedy of setting aside
project approvals and the EIR or MND, which forces the developer to revise
the EIR or MND in accordance with the court’s decision. When we win
one of these cases it is usually because the GHG analysis in the EIR or MND
was inadequate or because the project’s emissions were deemed significant
but the EIR or MND failed to require full GHG mitigation.
CEQA contains many
exemptions and exceptions for housing projects, so we sue mostly over warehouse and data-center projects.
Dean Wallraff is the Executive Director of Advocates for the Environment, a non-profit
California Environmental law firm and advocacy organization. He litigates
Environmental issues in California.