California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)

 The California Environmental Quality Act requires local and state governments to consider the potential environmental effects of a project before deciding whether to approve it. The purpose of CEQA is to disclose the potential impacts of a project, suggest methods to minimize the impacts, and discuss alternatives to the project so that decision makers will have full information upon which to base their decision. Types of CEQA documents include:

• Initial Study (IS): An analysis of a project's environmental effects and their relative significance. An initial study is preliminary to deciding whether to prepare a negative declaration or an EIR.
• Negative Declaration/Mitigated Negative Declaration (ND/MND): When a project is not exempt from CEQA and will not have a significant adverse effect upon the environment, a negative declaration must be prepared. The negative declaration is an information document that describes the reasons why the project will not have a significant effect and proposes measures to completely mitigate or avoid any possible effects.
• Environmental Impact Report (EIR): A detailed review of a proposed project, its adverse impacts upon the environment, measures that may avoid or reduce those impacts, and alternatives to the project.