SB 1159: California Environmental Quality Act: roadside wildfire risk reduction 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 requires the Office of Planning and Research to prepare and develop, and the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency to certify and adopt, guidelines for the implementation of CEQA. CEQA requires the guidelines to include a list of classes of projects that have been determined not to have a significant effect on the environment and are exempt from the requirements of CEQA, commonly known as categorical exemptions.

This bill, on or before January 1, 2026, would require the office to evaluate, and the secretary to consider, the inclusion of roadside projects no more than 5 road miles from a municipality or census-designated place that are undertaken solely for the purpose of wildfire risk reduction in the classes of projects subject to a categorical exemption. The bill would require the office to consider appropriate eligibility criteria for these projects, as specified.