California Environmental Quality Act: exemption: roadway projects.

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of, an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment. CEQA, until January 1, 2020, exempts a project or an activity to repair, maintain, or make minor alterations to an existing roadway, as defined, if the project or activity is carried out by a city or county with a population of less than 100,000 persons to improve public safety and meets other specified requirements, including a requirement that the project involves negligible or no expansion of an existing use beyond that existing at the time of the lead agency's determination. This bill would extend the above exemption to January 1, 2023. The bill would revise the requirement described above to specify that the exemption applies if, among other things, the project involves negligible or no expansion of an existing vehicular use beyond that existing at the time of the lead agency's determination.