Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

Cal. Pub. Res. Code § 21081

General

Known as the California Environmental Quality Act

The act spans §§ 21000–21189 (300 sections).

Applied in 31 court decisions — leading case 40 Cal. 4th 412 - Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova (2007)

Most recently applied in Aqualliance v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (February 2018)

Amended by Stats. 1994, Ch. 1294, Sec. 2

How often courts cite this section

199420002010201840
citing decisions per year

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.

Pursuant to the policy stated in Sections 21002 and 21002.1, no public agency shall approve or carry out a project for which an environmental impact report has been certified which identifies one or more significant effects on the environment that would occur if the project is approved or carried out unless both of the following occur:

(a) The public agency makes one or more of the following findings with respect to each significant effect:

(1) Changes or alterations have been required in, or incorporated into, the project which mitigate or avoid the significant effects on the environment.

(2) Those changes or alterations are within the responsibility and jurisdiction of another public agency and have been, or can and should be, adopted by that other agency.

(3) Specific economic, legal, social, technological, or other considerations, including considerations for the provision of employment opportunities for highly trained workers, make infeasible the mitigation measures or alternatives identified in the environmental impact report.

(b) With respect to significant effects which were subject to a finding under paragraph (3) of subdivision (a), the public agency finds that specific overriding economic, legal, social, technological, or other benefits of the project outweigh the significant effects on the environment.

Official source: California Legislative Information. Reproduced from public-domain California statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.