The Second District of the Court of Appeal on June 8 ordered publication of its May 12 opinion affirming the denial of a writ of mandate that challenged the City of Buenaventura’s removal and relocation of a statue of Junipero Serra. Petitioner, the Coalition for Historical Integrity, alleged that removing the statue required CEQA review
The California Supreme Court, on May 17, 2023, granted review of the First District Court of Appeal’s decision in Make UC a Good Neighbor v. Regents of University of California (2023) 88 Cal.App.5th 656, where the Court of Appeal invalidated the EIR for UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan and a housing development at
Governor Gavin Newsom announced proposed major new infrastructure permitting reforms on May 19, 2023 in an effort to create thousands of jobs and build California’s clean energy future. The eleven-bill package seeks to expedite certain water, transportation, clean energy, semiconductor, and microelectronics projects, including water recycling and desalination plants, solar fields, offshore wind farms, the
Members of the Rangers led the First Continental Army during America’s Revolutionary War, and their “No man left behind” motto became a central fixture of U.S. military protocol. The slogan communicated the need to make sure that EVERYONE was taken care of. But do we have the same policy when it comes to levees? At the Federal level,
On June 3, 2023, President Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (“FRA”) into law, extending the U.S. debt limit into 2025. As part of the Congressional deal, FRA also contains amendments to the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), including narrowing NEPA’s scope of consideration, streamlining the documentation of NEPA, and setting time limits,
The Sixth Appellate District, on May 10, 2023, published a decision in Preservation Action Council of San Jose v. City of San Jose (2023) 91 Cal.App.5th 517 upholding the City of San Jose’s certification of a final supplemental EIR (SEIR) for development of three high-rise office towers in downtown San Jose on a site that
A proposed bill before the California legislature would impose strict requirements for the construction of logistics facilities and warehouses throughout California. AB 1000, introduced by California Assembly Majority Leader Eloise Gomez Reyes would require planned industrial facilities to adopt statutory mitigation measures to be approved by local governments. The bill would apply to facilities
Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court released its highly anticipated opinion in Sackett v Environmental Protection Agency, delineating the appropriate standard to determine waters of the United States (WOTUS) under the federal Clean Water Act (CWA). The Supreme Court significantly reduced the reach of WOTUS from its earlier jurisprudence by holding that under the CWA, the
Back in 2019, we wrote a post about the surprising connection between the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). That post concluded with the following:
It looks like the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will be forced to address ESA compliance on a state-by-state basis, unless it can develop a
In Durkin v. City & County of San Francisco (2023) 90 Cal.App.5th 643, the First District Court of Appeal held that the trial court erred in granting the real party in interest’s special motion to strike under anti-SLAPP (strategic litigation against public participation) law on the grounds that the real party’s actions were not the