JUDICIAL DEVELOPMENTS

October 2008

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California Courts Continue to Focus on California Environmental Quality Act’s Requirements for Analysis of Project’s Contribution to Climate Change
Environmental Council of Sacramento v. California Department of Transportation

If the summer of 2008 shall be remembered for moose-hunting making its way into the national lexicon, the season shall also be noted as the year that California Superior Court judges demonstrated new-found confidence in their ability to opine regarding the California Environmental Quality Act’s (CEQA) requirements for a lead agency to analyze a project’s contribution to climate change. In two separate cases, Sacramento County and Riverside County Superior Court judges confidently set forth specific requirements for such analysis. As Superior Court cases, these decisions are not binding. However, they represent a shift away from a strikingly more hesitant judicial approach that availed itself of any opportunity to defer any substantive descriptions of CEQA’s requirements for climate change analysis.