The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA ) is a California statute passed in 1970 and signed in to law by then-governor Ronald Reagan, shortly after the United States federal government passed the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), to institute a statewide policy of environmental protection. CEQA does not directly regulate land uses, but instead requires state and local agencies within California to follow a protocol of analysis and public disclosure of environmental impacts of proposed projects and, in a departure from NEPA, adopt all feasible measures to mitigate those impacts. CEQA makes environmental protection a mandatory part of every California state and local (public) agency's decision making process.
In 1972, the California Supreme Court broadened CEQA by interpreting a "public" project as any development that needed government approval. Since then, CEQA has become the basis for anyone with a grievance against a project to file lawsuits to slow projects by years or kill projects by imposing delays and litigation costs that make projects infeasible.
CEQA has contributed to the California housing shortage. It has been criticized for being abused (used for reasons than environmental ones) to block, downsize, delay, or gain other concessions from new development. CEQA has even been used to block or delay projects that have positive environmental impacts, such as solar plants, wind turbines, bike lanes on pre-existing roads, and denser housing. One study found that 85% of CEQA lawsuits were filed by organizations with no record of environmental advocacy and 80% of CEQA lawsuits targeted infill development. CEQA has also been used by NIMBYs to block homeless shelters, student housing and affordable housing projects, by businesses to try to block competition, and by unions to force developers to use union workers.
All governors since 1983 (George Deukmejian, Pete Wilson, Gray Davis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jerry Brown), as well as current governor Gavin Newsom, have stated that CEQA needs to be reformed. In 2025, the state legislature passed two bills, with bipartisan support, that exempted various types of developments from CEQA environmental review, including most urban infill housing development.
History CEQA was signed into law in 1970 by governor Ronald Reagan, in a time of increasing public concern for the environment, caused by events such as the 1969 Cuyahoga River Fire. The statute required that for any "public" project, the government must conduct an environmental study to examine what impacts the project might have on things like air/water quality, noise, or nature, and then generate an EIR (Environmental Impact Report) documenting all these impacts as well as potential and planned mitigations. Fifteen other states followed California, generally modelling their laws after California's law.
However, in a departure from other states, in 1972 state courts interpreted a "public" project as any development that needed government approval. As of 2021, this application of the law is unique to California.
By 2021, the CEQA guidelines, which explain how CEQA reviews must be handled, had grown from an initial 10 page checklist to over 500 pages, including issues such as aesthetics.
National Environmental Policy Act
NEPA, a United States federal statute passed the year before CEQA, is similar to CEQA in that both statutes set forth a policy of environmental protection, and a protocol by which all agencies in their respective jurisdictions make environmental protection part of their decision making process.
NEPA is narrower in scope than CEQA. NEPA applies only to projects receiving federal funding or approval by federal agencies, while CEQA applies to projects receiving any form of state or local approval, permit, or oversight. Thus, development projects in California funded only by private sources and not requiring approval by a federal agency would be exempt from NEPA, but would likely be subject to CEQA.
The environmental impact statement (EIS) required under NEPA and the EIR required under CEQA are similar documents, yet have some crucial differences. For example, under NEPA, an agency can list all reasonable alternatives and their impacts, then choose their preferred project without regard to the severity of its impacts, even if it is more harmful to the environment. Under CEQA, the lead agency is required to mitigate all "significant" adverse environmental impacts to "the maximum extent feasible" and can approve a project only if the agency adopts a Statement of Overriding Considerations detailing the specific overriding economic, legal, social, technological, or other considerations that outweigh the project's significant, unavoidable impacts. If a major federal project, or project using federal funds is seeking approval in California, its lead agency must prepare both an EIS and an EIR, but both can be combined into one document (since the EIS and EIR have the same elements for the most part). Said document, however, must be processed through both the CEQA and NEPA approval steps.
2025 reform bills
The California State Legislature, 2025–2026 session, passed bills AB 130 and SB 131 as part of the annual budgeting process; these bills exempt certain kinds of development, such as infill housing, advanced manufacturing in industrial districts, high-speed rail, and wildfire mitigation, from CEQA review.
Policy The CEQA statute, California Public Resources Code § 21000 et seq., codifies a statewide policy of environmental protection. According to the act, all state and local agencies must give major consideration to environmental protection in regulating public and private activities, and should not approve projects for which there exist feasible and environmentally superior mitigation measures or alternatives.
CEQA process overview CEQA mandates actions all state and local agencies must take to advance that policy. Specifically, for any project under CEQA's jurisdiction with potentially significant environmental impacts, agencies must identify mitigation measures and alternatives by preparing an Environmental Impact Report, and must approve projects with feasible mitigation measures and the environmentally superior alternative. The California Natural Resources Agency promulgates the CEQA Guidelines, California Code of Regulations Title 14 § 15000 et seq., which detail the protocol by which state and local agencies comply with CEQA requirements. Appendix A of the CEQA Guidelines summarizes this protocol in flowchart form. CEQA originally applied to only public projects, but California Supreme Court interpretation of the statute, as well as later revisions to the wording, have expanded the CEQA's jurisdiction to nearly all projects within California, including those accomplished by private businesses and individuals. § 21002.1: "Each public agency shall mitigate or avoid the significant effects on the environment of projects that it carries out or approves whenever it is feasible to do so." For private projects, CEQA applies when a discretionary government permit or other entitlement for use is necessary.
Lead agency and responsible agencies Lead Agency: The lead agency is responsible for conducting the CEQA review and has final approval of the project. They are responsible for coordinating with the project applicant, public and associated agencies during the CEQA process. When more than one agency is involved in a project, the agency with primary responsibility for approving a project is the lead agency, for purposes of following the CEQA protocol. Responsible Agency: Other agencies with discretionary approval power over the project are called "responsible agencies". The lead agency has an obligation to consult with these agencies during the CEQA process to ensure their input is accounted for. Responsible agencies often have a vested interest in a specific environmental resource that they are charged with regulating. Trustee Agency: An agency with jurisdiction over a resource held in trust for the people. This agency has no approval power over a project.
Initial study If a project is not exempt from CEQA, a lead agency can conduct an initial study to preliminarily assess project impacts. Appendix G of the CEQA Guidelines lists types of environmental impacts to consider in checklist form. This initial study guides the lead agency to prepare either a negative declaration, mitigated negative declaration, or environmental impact report depending on the impact assessment. The initial study completion also gives the project applicant opportunity to change their project scope early in the CEQA process if the initial study indicates significant impact(s) are likely. If the lead agency determines the project clearly has significant impacts, they can skip the initial study phase and immediately conduct an Environmental Impact Report.
Thresholds of significance Under CEQA, every agency in the state "is encouraged to develop and publish thresholds of significance" against which to compare the environmental impacts of projects. Such thresholds are to be published for public review and supported by substantial evidence before their adoption. A lead agency will normally consider the environmental impacts of a project to be significant if and only if they exceed established thresholds of significance. According to a 2001 survey, however, few agencies have actually developed thresholds of significance. The survey's analysts wondered, "if most agencies are not developing thresholds and publishing them for public review, then what criteria are they using?". In absence of thresholds of significance developed independently by lead agencies, impact assessments apply the significant criteria detailed in Appendix G, Environmental Checklist, of the CEQA Statutes and Guidelines, which is produced by the California Office of Planning and Research (OPR). Lead agencies can also defer to authority agencies that publish their recommended guidelines for the resources they regulate. Examples of this include the California Department of Conservation has threshold tests for assessing impacts to agricultural resources using the LESA model, and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District has published guidelines for air quality impacts.
Environmental impact analysis The lead agency must analyze project impacts to 18 different environmental resource factors detailed in Appendix G during their CEQA review.
Resource factors (in alphabetical order): Aesthetics Agriculture and Forestry Resources Air Quality Biological Resources Cultural Resources Energy Geology and Soils Hazards and Hazardous Materials Hydrology and Water Quality Land Use and Planning Mineral Resources Noise Population and Housing Public Services Recreation Transportation Tribal Cultural Resources Utilities and Service Systems Wildfire Mandatory Findings of Significance
Greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas emissions were not required to be analyzed as an impact to the environment when CEQA was originally adopted. The scientific community has since attributed greenhouse gases to climate change and resulting negative impacts to humans and the environment.Oreskes N. 2004. The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change. Science. 306(12): 1686. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a report in 2007 stating that human activities are responsible for increased global temperatures. As a result of these assessments, the California Legislature passed Assembly Bill 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 that mandated greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020. This assembly of legislation and evidence of environmental impact led to California enacting requirements for lead agencies to consider greenhouse gas emissions in their CEQA reviews.