California Environmental Quality Act: essential local fire station projects: infrastructure project streamlining.

The bill's scope expanded from adding only a new standalone section (21080.74.5) to also amending the existing Governor's infrastructure project certification chapter (Sections 21189.81, 21189.81.1, and 21189.82), making essential local fire station projects a new category of certifiable infrastructure project alongside energy, semiconductor, transportation, and water projects.

New cost-sharing requirements: if the applicant is not the lead agency, the Governor must ensure the applicant agrees to pay trial court and court of appeal costs for any challenge to the project, pay costs of preparing the record of proceedings concurrently with environmental review, and demonstrate the record is being prepared per Section 21189.86.

New disadvantaged community obligations: applicants must avoid or minimize significant environmental impacts in disadvantaged communities, mitigate any required impacts consistent with CEQA (including Section 21002), and enter into a binding and enforceable compliance agreement before EIR certification.

New 45-day deadline: the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation must provide the Governor's office with evidence and materials to support consideration of an essential local fire station project application no later than 45 days after posting the materials on its website.

The definition of 'essential local fire station project' was moved into Section 21189.81 as subdivision (e), adding it to the chapter's definitions. A minor citation correction changed the wetlands reference from 'Section 328.3' to 'Section 328.3(c)(1)' of Title 33 CFR in the new definition.

New provision stating that the Governor's decision to certify a project shall not be subject to judicial review, providing an additional layer of protection for certified projects including fire stations.

The bill text was reformatted from a traditional legislative document layout (with line numbers, page headers/footers, and formal amendment history block) into a web page display format that includes site navigation elements (home, accessibility, FAQ, feedback, sitemap, login), search tools, bill information links, and version comparison options. No policy language was added, removed, or altered.

The definition of 'essential local fire station project' was narrowed to exclude rehabilitation and maintenance. It now only covers projects to plan, design, acquire property for, and construct or replace a fire station. Previously it also included rehabilitate or maintain.

The project labor agreement requirement was narrowed. It now applies only to construction contracts (no dollar threshold), rather than to construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance contracts in excess of $50,000 as before.

The judicial streamlining deadline for resolving environmental appeals is clarified at 270 calendar days from filing of the certified record of proceedings. The prior version showed both 365 and 270 days in markup, indicating this was a reduction from 365 to 270 days.

Subsection lettering was corrected: the bill previously had two subsections labeled (g), which has been fixed by renumbering the definition subsection from (h) to (g).

The deadline for resolving court actions challenging an environmental review document for an essential local fire station project was shortened from 365 calendar days to 270 calendar days after the certified record of proceedings is filed with the court.

A new provision (subdivision g) states that an environmental impact report for a qualifying essential local fire station project is not required to include any discussion of alternatives to the project or the growth-inducing impacts of the project. This narrows the scope of environmental analysis required.

The definition of 'essential local fire station project' was expanded to include 'replace' a fire station, in addition to construct, rehabilitate, or maintain. This broadens which projects qualify for the streamlined review process.

The project labor agreement requirement was narrowed from covering construction, rehabilitation, and maintenance contracts over $50,000 to covering only construction contracts. Rehabilitation and maintenance contracts are no longer required to be covered by a PLA.

New Section 21080.74.5 adds a judicial streamlining mechanism for essential local fire station projects, providing an alternative to full CEQA exemption that speeds up court resolution of environmental challenges to 365 days.

The state-mandated local program designation changed from 'yes' to 'no,' reflecting that the judicial streamlining is discretionary rather than a mandatory duty imposed on local agencies.

Defines 'essential local fire station project' as a project undertaken by a city, county, or local fire agency to plan, design, and acquire property for, and construct, rehabilitate, or maintain, a fire station.

For judicial streamlining eligibility, the lead agency must determine based on substantial evidence that: (1) the project is not on sensitive sites (farmland, wetlands, hazardous waste sites, floodplains, earthquake fault zones, conservation lands, or protected species habitat), (2) the project employs best practices to avoid or mitigate significant environmental effects including noise, traffic, and hazardous materials, and (3) all construction contracts over $50,000 are covered by a project labor agreement.

The Judicial Council must adopt rules of court on or before July 1, 2027, requiring that actions to attack, review, set aside, void, or annul the certification of an EIR, mitigated negative declaration, or negative declaration for an essential local fire station project be resolved within 365 calendar days of filing the certified record, including any appeals.

Requires the lead agency to prepare and certify the record of proceedings pursuant to Section 21167.6.2 and file a notice of determination with the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation when a project is found eligible for judicial streamlining.

The entire CEQA exemption provision (Section 21080.74) is deleted. Fire station projects are no longer fully exempt from CEQA review; they must still go through the standard environmental review process, though they may qualify for judicial streamlining.

The bill's title and digest are updated to remove references to 'exemption: fire stations,' now focusing solely on judicial streamlining for essential local fire station projects.

A new subsection (f) requires that judicial streamlining applies only if the project applicant agrees to pay the costs of the trial court and court of appeal in any action or proceeding brought under the section, including costs for appointment of a special master if deemed appropriate by the court.

Section 2 (reimbursement under Article XIIIB of the California Constitution) is deleted, and the state-mandated local program designation changes from 'yes' to 'no,' reflecting that the bill no longer imposes significant additional duties on local agencies.

Assembly Member Wicks is added as a co-introducer alongside Assembly Member Gonzalez.