From Permits to Penalties: A Deep Dive Into Coastal Development Law
Navigating Environmental Restrictions on Alternative Project Delivery for Complex Infrastructure Projects
On-Demand Webinar | Charting a Course for Offshore Wind Energy in California
[WEBINAR] Update on the California Environmental Quality Act: What’s New for 2018
[WEBINAR] Building a Solar Energy Project in 2018
How Trump's Infrastructure Plan Impacts the Energy Industry
BB&K's Charity Schiller Discusses CEQA Baseline
Part three of a three-part series - As previously reported in Part 1 of this series, on June 30, 2025 Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 131 into law (SB 131), amending the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)...more
On June 30, 2025, Governor Newsom signed Assembly Bill 130 (“AB 130”) and Senate Bill 131 (“SB 131”) into law, making the most significant changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) in decades. Together, AB...more
Earlier this summer, as part of the state’s annual budget deal, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that alters how the existing California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) would apply to certain housing...more
Whether from the perspective of a developer, user or tenant, debt or equity financing provider, the government, or the broader community, the development of a data center project requires a host of considerations to assess...more
A Court of Appeal held that a provision in the County of Amador’s checklist for an encroachment permit requiring "[o]ther information as may be required" violated the Permit Streamlining Act. Old Golden Oaks LLC v. County of...more
The Court of Appeal held upheld the dismissal of a CEQA action for failure to timely name a developer that became a real party in interest during the pendency of the action. Citizens for a Better Eureka v. City of Eureka, 111...more
In an effort to tackle California’s persistent housing shortage and accelerate infrastructure development, California has enacted the most substantial reform to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in decades and...more
With the current housing shortage in California, coupled with recent regulatory changes, multifamily development is robust throughout the state. Perhaps the most consequential recent change is the reform of the California...more
City of Los Angeles Planning Department - Annual Increase to Planning Applications and Affordable Housing Linkage Fees - On July 1, 2024, the annual increases to the Planning and Land Use Fees and the Affordable Housing...more
This is the 10th update in our series covering AB 130 and SB 131, two bills that work substantive changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and California housing law....more
Welcome to “CEQA News You Can Use,” a quarterly production of Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, LLP’s Natural Resources lawyers. This publication provides quick, useful bites of CEQA news, which we hope can be a resource for...more
As discussed in our earlier post, California's CEQA landscape has rapidly, and potentially seismically, evolved with the passage of AB 130 and SB 131. This post focuses on the immediate creation of a new statutory exemption,...more
This is the ninth update in our series covering AB 130 and SB 131, two bills that work substantive changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and California housing law....more
Governor Gavin Newsom signed two budget trailer bills on June 30, 2025, enacting the most substantial reforms to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in over five decades....more
This is our third update on the important changes in the two budget trailer bills, AB 130 and SB 131, after previous posts addressing the new CEQA exemption for infill housing and the “near miss” CEQA streamlining process....more
Much is discussed every year in the Legislature about how the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) needs reform. But the calls for change nearly always fail, aside from a few tinkering changes. This year is...more
On June 30, 2025, Governor Newsom signed AB 130 and SB 131 into immediately effective law as budget trailer bills, marking a historic effort to accelerate housing production and to reform the CEQA review process that has been...more
On June 30, 2025, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Assembly Bill 130 (AB 130) and Senate Bill 131 (SB 131), legislation that contains significant changes to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) that...more
In April 2025, we reported that Governor Gavin Newsom issued Executive Order N-24-25 (the Order), suspending the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and certain permitting requirements under the California Coastal Act...more
Acquiring property for public projects typically does not occur until after the project has received environmental approval. In California, complying with the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) can sometimes take...more
On June 30, 2025, two budget trailer bills — Assembly Bill 130 (AB 130) and Senate Bill 131 (SB 131) — were signed by Governor Newsom and went into effect immediately. In addition to significant modifications to the...more
On June 30, 2025, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two budget trailer bills—AB 130 and SB 131—that together work major changes both to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and California housing law. Because these bills...more
Originally enacted in 1970, the objective of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) was to review projects to assess potential impacts on the environment, disclose those impacts to the public, and mitigate those...more
On June 30, 2025, Governor Newsom signed into law a sweeping set of housing and infrastructure reforms as part of the 2025–2026 State Budget, marking one of the most significant overhauls of the California Environmental...more
The City of Santa Ana (City) has recently undertaken an ambitious — and highly controversial — effort to reshape the landscape of its historically industrial-centric Transit Zoning Code (TZC) district. Through the adoption of...more