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LAW OFFICES OF BEST BEST & KRIEGER LLP The remainder of the cases summarized below have not resulted in direct changes to the Local Guidelines. However, they do provide some clarification on the application of CEQA and, as such, are worth noting. As indicated above, in Communitiesfor aBetterEnvironment v. California Resources Agency, Sacramento County Superior Court Case No. OOCS00300, a trial court judge invalidated 8 provisions of the State CEQA Guidelines. Generally, administrative agencies such as the Resources Agency may issue regulations interpreting and clarifying provisions of a statutory scheme. However, administrative regulations cannot contradict the provisions of the governing statutes. To the extent there is any conflict between the administrative regulations and the statutes, the statutes control and the regulations are invalid. Petitioners in the Communities for a Better Environment case were environmental groups who challenged certain portions of the State CEQA Guidelines that the Resources Agency had adopted as part of its 1998 amendment of the Guidelines. Petitioners argued that these provisions were invalid because they conflicted with the statutes under which they had been promulgated. The judge agreed with the environmental groups in part and invalidated the following 8 provisions: (1) § 15064(h), relating to a project's compliance with an environmental standard; (2) 15130(b)(1)(131)(2), defining "probable future projects"; (3,4) §§ 15130(a)(4) and 15064(1), authorizing a finding of no significant cumulative impact when the project's cumulative impacts are de minimis; (5) § 15152(f)(2), allowing a later project proceeding under a first-tier to find that the project's cumulative impacts were not significant when they were de minimis; (6) § 15064(i)(3), authorizing a finding that a project's incremental impact is not cumulatively considerable when the project complies with the requirements of a previously approved plan or mitigation program (such as a water quality control plan, air quality plan, or integrated waste management plan) adopted to avoid or substantially lessen the cumulative problem in the project's geographic area; (7) 15152(f)(3)(C), authorizing a lead agency analyzing a later project to find that its "significant environmental effects" had been adequately addressed in the first-tier EIR as long as all feasible mitigation measures had been adopted in connection with the prior environmental approvals and the only purpose of including analysis of such effects in another EIR would be to put the agency in a position to adopt another Statement of Overriding Considerations; and (8) § 15378, excluding "organizational or administrative activities ofgovernments which are political or which are not physical changes in the environment" from the definition of "projects" subject to CEQA review. This case is currently pending before the Third District Court of Appeal, which means that it is possible that the trial court's decision could be overruled some time this year. In the meantime, though, agencies should not rely upon any of the 8 provisions discussed above. RVPnB\CITY\625913 .. -4-