California Environmental Quality Act: geothermal exploratory projects.

Plain English Breakdown

Using official source text because the generated explanation was unavailable or could not be confirmed against the official bill text.

California Environmental Quality Act: geothermal exploratory projects.

AB 2234, as introduced, Papan.

What This Bill Does

• AB 2234, as introduced, Papan.
• California Environmental Quality Act: geothermal exploratory projects.
• 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 the lead agency 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.

Limits and Unknowns

• This entry is temporarily using official source text because the generated explanation could not be confirmed against the official bill text during the last sync.

Official Summary Text

AB 2234, as introduced, Papan.
California Environmental Quality Act: geothermal exploratory projects.
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 the lead agency 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.
Existing law establishes the Geologic Energy Management Division in the Department of Conservation. Existing law requires the division to
be the lead agency for all geothermal exploratory projects for purposes of CEQA, except as provided. Existing law defines “geothermal exploratory project,” for purposes of CEQA, in part as a project composed of not more than 6 wells and associated drilling and testing equipment whose chief and original purpose is to evaluate the presence and characteristics of geothermal resources. Existing law requires wells included within a geothermal exploratory project to be located at least
1
/
2
mile from geothermal development wells that are capable of producing geothermal resources in commercial quantities.
This bill would expressly include as part of a geothermal exploratory project, among other things, equipment and activities necessary to establish interconnectivity between wells and reservoirs. The bill would exclude certain wells connecting to geothermal reservoirs from
the
1
/
2
-mile limit described above.

Current Bill Text

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