Environmental Review and CEQA Compliance

The California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 (CEQA, as amended, Public Resources Code Section 21000 et seq.) applies to discretionary projects to be carried out or approved by public agencies. A basic purpose of CEQA is to inform governmental decision-makers and the public about potential, significant environmental effects of the proposed activities. Since the project is subject to CEQA and the Commission must issue a discretionary decision in order for the project to proceed (i.e., the Commission has the exclusive authority to approve the project pursuant to Section 1202 of the Public Utilities Code), the Commission must consider the environmental consequences of the project by acting as either a lead or responsible agency under CEQA.

The lead agency is either the public agency that carries out the project,¹ or the one with the greatest responsibility for supervising or approving the project as a whole.² Here, LACMTA is the lead agency for this project because it is undertaking and constructing the project, and the Commission is a responsible agency because it has jurisdiction to issue a permit for the project. As a responsible agency under CEQA, the Commission must consider the lead agency's environmental documents and findings before acting on or approving this project.³

LACMTA prepared an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for the Canoga Transportation Corridor, Metro Orange Line Extension project and found that the project will have a significant effect on the environment. In particular, LACMTA found that noise related to construction activity would result in an unavoidable significant impact. Noise impacts are within the scope of the Commission's permitting process and with respect to the significant noise impacts identified in the EIR, the Commission finds that the LACMTA adopted reasonable and feasible mitigation measures to reduce the impact of noise during construction. However, mitigation measures will not be able to reduce the impact of noise during construction to a less-than-significant level. LACMTA filed a Notice of Determination (NOD) on January 22, 2009 with the County Clerk adopting a Statement of Overriding Considerations (SOC) for those impacts that could not be mitigated to less-than-significant levels.

We will adopt LACMTA's environmental findings and mitigations for purposes of our approval

¹ CEQA Guidelines (Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations), Section 15051(a).

² CEQA Guidelines (Title 14 of the California Code of Regulations), Section 15051(b).

³ CEQA Guidelines, Sections 15050(b) and 15096.