SB 1248: Environmental quality: judicial challenge: identification of contributors.

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 authorizes specified entities to file and maintain with a court an action or proceeding to attack, review, set aside, void, or annul an act of a public agency on grounds of noncompliance with the requirements of CEQA.

Existing law authorizes a court, upon motion, to award attorneys fees to a successful party in an action that resulted in the enforcement of an important right affecting the public interest under specified conditions.

This bill would require a plaintiff or petitioner, in an action brought pursuant to the provisions of CEQA, to disclose specified information regarding the plaintiff or petitioner in the complaint or petition or in a subsequent notice. The bill would require disclosure of the identity of a person or entity that contributes in excess of $100 dollars, as specified, toward the plaintiffs or petitioners costs of an action. The bill would provide that a failure to provide this disclosure shall be grounds for dismissal of the action by the court or, if the failure occurs during a postjudgment proceeding, the denial of attorneys fees for a successful plaintiff or petitioner. The bill also would require the plaintiff or petitioner to identify any pecuniary or business interest related to the project or issues involved in the action of any person or entity named as a plaintiff or petitioner or that contributes in excess of $100 to the costs of the action, as specified.