California Environmental Quality Act: transportation impacts: vehicle miles traveled: mitigation.

Plain English Breakdown

The official source material does not provide specific details about how lead agencies will implement these new requirements.

California Environmental Quality Act: Transportation Impacts and Vehicle Miles Traveled

AB-2059 sets limits on the cost of measures to reduce transportation impacts, defines when projects are considered less impactful based on location, and outlines criteria for assessing these impacts in California.

What This Bill Does

• Sets a limit that mitigation costs for reducing vehicle miles traveled (VMT) must not exceed 5% of total project costs.
• States that if VMT measures cost more than 5%, they are considered economically unfeasible under the Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
• Establishes that projects covering at least 80% in nonmetropolitan areas have less significant transportation impacts based on VMT.
• Requires the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to recommend metrics like VMT for assessing environmental impact.

Who It Names or Affects

• Lead agencies responsible for project approvals under CEQA
• Local governments involved in transportation projects

Terms To Know

Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)

A measure of how much driving a project might cause, used to assess environmental impact.

Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)

California law that requires government agencies to consider the environmental effects of their actions and projects.

Limits and Unknowns

• The bill does not specify how lead agencies will implement these new requirements.
• It is unclear what happens if a project's mitigation costs exceed 5% but are still deemed necessary for environmental protection.

Official Summary Text

AB 2059, as amended, Wilson.
California Environmental Quality Act: transportation impacts: vehicle miles traveled: mitigation.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment.
CEQA requires the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to prepare, develop, and transmit to the Secretary of the Natural
Resources Agency for certification and adoption proposed revisions to the CEQA implementation guidelines to establish criteria for determining the significance of transportation impacts of projects within transit priority areas, and requires the criteria to promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the development of multimodal transportation networks, and a diversity of land uses. CEQA requires the office to recommend potential metrics, including, among other metrics, vehicle miles traveled, to measure these transportation impacts.
This bill would, except as provided, specify that
the total cost of mitigation measures required to address a significant transportation impact as determined by the vehicle miles traveled metric is not to exceed 5% of
the estimated total project costs. The bill would specify that mitigation measures to address a significant transportation impact as determined by the vehicle miles traveled metric that exceed the 5% limit are deemed to be economically infeasible for the purposes of CEQA.
a transportation project is presumed to have a less than significant transportation impact as determined by the vehicle-miles-traveled metric if at least 80% of the project lies within one or more nonmetropolitan counties.
Because the bill would impose additional duties on a lead agency in its analysis of
mitigated measures required to address
significant transportation impacts, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.
The California Constitution requires the state to
reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.
This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Current Bill Text

Download Bill PDF