CEQA Litigation After AB 130 and SB 131
For more than 50 years, CEQA litigation has followed a familiar script: lengthy environmental review, detailed impact analysis and disputes over whether agencies went far enough. But AB 130 and SB 131 represent a meaningful break from that pattern.
For qualifying housing projects, these reforms shift the question at the heart of many CEQA disputes from whether an environmental impact report is adequate to whether CEQA review is required at all.
Download the white paper to learn:
- How AB 130 and SB 131 create broader exemptions and streamlined pathways for housing projects
- Why CEQA litigation may increasingly focus on exemption eligibility rather than EIR adequacy
- Where disputes are likely to arise around statutory criteria, general plan consistency and administrative records
- How approval strategies could change for agencies and developers
- Why early coordination, documentation and substantial evidence will be critical
- What CEQA attorneys should consider when advising developers and agencies
Why this matters now
AB 130 and SB 131 do not “gut” CEQA. They reflect an effort to recalibrate how environmental review operates in the context of infill housing projects.
The law remains an active and enforceable framework for judicial oversight of discretionary project approvals. What changes is the nature of the potential claims.
Rather than challenging the adequacy of environmental analysis, legal and factual challenges are likely to center on whether a project qualifies for a particular exemption.
Get the white paper
Download From Environmental Review to Threshold Fights: CEQA Litigation After AB 130 and SB 131 to better understand how these reforms may reshape CEQA litigation, approval strategy and client counseling.
