A team of lawyers led by Amy Forbes at Gibson Dunn and Crutcher in Los Angeles were named recipients of “California Lawyer of the Year” for real estate in the March 2016 edition of California Lawyer Magazine.  The award recognized the approval of an NFL stadium in Inglewood on a 60-acre site near the Forum and Hollywood Park Racetrack.  The project also includes a 6,000 seat performance venue and more than 4 million square feet of hotel, office, retail and residential space.  The City Council approved the project just two months after its announcement.  The project was able to achieve such rapid approval by means of the initiative process, which enabled the City Council to approve the project after the voters presented the proposal to the City, based on the California Supreme Court’s decision in Tuolumne Jobs & Small Business Alliance v. Superior Court (2014) 59 Cal.4th 1029.  Whit Manley participated in the effort as CEQA counsel.  California Lawyer’s article on the award is at http://www.callawyer.com/2016/03/real-estate-development/.

On April 8, 2016, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Glen Reiser ruled that the City of Los Angeles complied with CEQA when it certified an EIR and approved a plan mapping out a strategy for upgrading the Los Angeles Airport.  Two lawsuits were filed challenging the City’s decision:  one was filed by the “Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion,” and another was filed by the cities of Inglewood and Culver City.  The petitioners sought to blow up the plan in hopes of thwarting upgrades at LAX, and forcing air traffic to other airports in the region.  Following a three-day trial in January 2016, Judge Reiser issued a 118-page ruling rejecting all of the petitioners’ claims.  Whit Manley, together with a team of lawyers led by Margaret Sohagi of the Sohagi Law Group, represent the City of Los Angeles in the litigation.

Senate Bill 4 (SB 4), which was sponsored by Senator Fran Pavley and signed into law on September 20, 2013, required the Department of Conservation and its Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) to prepare an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in order to study potential environmental impacts from well stimulation treatments. Senior Partner Jim Moose and Associate Elizabeth Sarine worked closely with Aspen Environmental Group and DOGGR staff on the SB 4 EIR.

DOGGR certified the Final EIR for the “Analysis of Oil and Gas Well Stimulation Treatments in California” on July 1, 2015.

The California Association of Environmental Professionals (AEP) has selected the SB 4 EIR for a Merit Award in the category of Outstanding Environmental Analysis Document, to be presented at AEP’s April 4, 2016 conference. The plaque for the award explicitly recognizes the “substantial assistance from the law firm of Remy, Moose and Manley” provided during the preparation of the EIR.

On October 29, 2015, the Third Appellate District issued an unpublished opinion upholding a mitigated negative declaration prepared by the City of Folsom for a trail improvement project along Lake Natoma in the American River Parkway. The project will pave some existing dirt trails to provide ADA-compliant access to the river, rehabilitate eroded areas, remove non-native invasive vegetation and replant native species, and provide a non-motorized boat landing beneath the Lake Natoma bridge at the edge of Folsom’s historic district. Save the American River Association claimed the project was inconsistent with the Folsom Lake State Recreation Area General Plan and American River Parkway Plan, but the court found no substantial evidence in the record to support SARA’s claim that increased use of the project area would conflict with the applicable plans, which designate the area for low intensity recreation. RMM partner Sabrina V. Teller represented the City of Folsom, assisted by associate Elizabeth Sarine and former associate John Wheat.

The Office of Planning and Research has released a preliminary discussion draft of updates to the CEQA Guidelines. OPR invites public comment on those updates by October 12, 2015. The proposed Guidelines address a broad range of topics, such as updates to address efficiency in implementing CEQA, substantive improvements, and technical improvements. Specific amendments address issues such as determining the baseline, deferral of mitigation, exemptions, analysis of energy impacts, water supply, tiering, and many more topics.

The preliminary discussion draft can be found here.

On June 29, 2015, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published a final rule defining the scope of “waters of the United States” protected under the Clean Water Act (80 FR 37054). The Final Rule was developed partly in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in U.S. v. Riverside Bayview Homes, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Rapanos v. United States. The Final Rule retains the definitions of traditional navigable waters, interstate waters, and territorial seas as jurisdictional waters. Within the definition of jurisdictional waters, the Final Rule includes impoundments and – for the first time – tributaries and all waters adjacent to tributaries. The Final Rule also modifies the definition of a tributary as a water “characterized by the presence of the physical indicators of a bed and banks and an ordinary high water mark.” The Final Rule, however, deletes the “waters of the United States” category of “other waters” whose use, degradation, or destruction would affect or could affect interstate or foreign commerce and replaces it with a new category of waters determined to have a “significant nexus” to a traditionally navigable water, interstate water, or the territorial sea. The Final Rule also requires a case-specific “significant nexus” test for certain categories of identified waters (i.e., prairie potholes, Carolina bays and Delmarva bays, pocosins, western vernal pools, and Texas coastal prairie wetlands) and for any waters found within a 100-year floodplain or within 4,000 feet of a water of the U.S. Based on prior regulation and practices, the Final Rule also expressly excludes a number of waters and features such as artificial lakes, waste treatment ponds, detention and retention basins, and percolation ponds for wastewater recycling. By clarifying which waters are subject to Clean Water Act jurisdiction, the Final Rule is meant to reduce the instances in which permitting authorities would make jurisdictional determinations on a case-by-case basis.

Enacted in late 2013, SB 4 requires state agencies to complete three main tasks in creating a comprehensive regulatory program for oil and gas well stimulation treatments: (1) adopt new temporary and permanent regulations, (2) prepare an EIR on well stimulation as conducted in California, and (3) conduct an independent scientific study. DOGGR released the Draft EIR required under task 2 on January 14, 2015. You can find that Draft EIR here.

The Draft EIR analyzes potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing and other well stimulation treatments, though not all oil and gas recovery operations throughout the state of California. The public is invited to review and submit written comment on the Draft EIR from January 14, 2015, till March 16, 2015. During the comment period, interested parties can also attend six public comment meetings throughout the state to provide verbal and written comments on the Draft EIR. SB 4 requires the Department of Conservation and DOGGR to certify a Final EIR by July 1, 2015. A more detailed discussion of SB 4 is available on our blog.

RMM would like to congratulate Senior Partner Jim Moose on his selection to the Sacramento Business Journal’s Best of the Bar 2014: An Insider’s Guide to Top Local Lawyers. Published Aug. 29, 2014, the Best of the Bar 2014 directory recognizes Sacramento-area attorneys who are especially well regarded by their peers.

Jim has enjoyed a distinguished career as one of the state’s leading environmental attorneys. His expertise on the California Environmental Quality ACT (CEQA) has made him a frequent guest speaker, author, and educator on the topic for audiences that include not only attorneys and judges, but also planners, consultants, policy experts, and students. In addition to CEQA, his practice covers the State Planning and Zoning Law, the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), the Endangered Species Act, the California Endangered Species Act, and other relevant land use and environmental statutes.

Jim’s clients include public agencies and project proponents up and down the state, as well as consulting firms, nonprofits and individuals. He handles all phases of the land use entitlement process and permitting processes, including administrative approvals and litigation, and has had nearly 30 opinions published by the state Courts of Appeal and the California Supreme Court. Over the past two decades, he has participated in drafting amendments to CEQA and the CEQA Guidelines. Along with Tina Thomas and Whit Manley, he is co-author of Guide to the California Environmental Quality Act (11th ed. 2007, Solano Press Books).

A native Sacramentan, Jim earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree in English and History from the University of California, Berkeley, and his J.D from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law (Boalt Hall). Jim joined the firm as an associate in 1986, became a partner in 1990, and is now a senior partner at RMM.

To develop its Best of the Bar 2014 listing, the Sacramento Business Journal encouraged attorneys to nominate their peers. Nominees then were awarded points based on a formula with two factors that were equally weighted. One was the number of nominations received, with nominations from attorneys in firms other than the nominee’s counting for more points. The second was based on the opinion of 20 well-known lawyers who served on a peer-review panel. In all, 96 attorneys were included in the listing.

Governor Brown signed SB 743 into law in September of 2013. Among other things, SB 743 requires the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research to propose and adopt amendments to the CEQA Guidelines to provide an alternative criteria to “level of service” for evaluating transportation impacts. The alternative criteria must “promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the development of multimodal transportation networks, and a diversity of land uses.” The draft guidelines provide that “[g]enerally, transportation impacts of a project can be best measured using vehicle miles traveled.” The draft guidelines state that to the extent a transportation project increases physical roadway capacity for automobiles in a congested area, the transportation analysis “should analyze whether the project will induce additional automobile travel compared to existing conditions.”

The draft guidelines can be viewed here.

OPR is requesting that comments be submitted by October 10, 2014.