The Legislature finds and declares that it is the policy of the state that public agencies should not approve projects as proposed if there are feasible alternatives or feasible mitigation measures available which would substantially lessen the significant environmental effects of such projects, and that the procedures required by this division are intended to assist public agencies in systematically identifying both the significant effects of proposed projects and the feasible alternatives or feasible mitigation measures which will avoid or substantially lessen such significant effects. The Legislature further finds and declares that in the event specific economic, social, or other conditions make infeasible such project alternatives or such mitigation measures, individual projects may be approved in spite of one or more significant effects thereof.
Cal. Pub. Res. Code § 21002
Policy
Known as the California Environmental Quality Act
The act spans §§ 21000–21189 (300 sections).
Applied in 49 court decisions — leading case 52 Cal. 3d 553 - Citizens of Goleta Valley v. Board of Supervisors (1990)
Most recently applied in Pesticide Action Network N. Am. v. Cal. Dep't of Pesticide Regulation (September 2017)
Amended by Stats. 1980, Ch. 676, Sec. 277.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.