April 2014

The analysis of climate change impacts under CEQA has rapidly evolved over the last several years. For this reason and others, nearly every challenge to an environmental impact report today features an attack on the EIR’s analysis of greenhouse gas emissions.

Fortunately, amendments to the CEQA Guidelines and recent court decisions have provided environmental professionals

On Tuesday April 9, Perkins Coie hosted “Housing Summit: 30,000 Homes by 2020,” the Mayor’s housing plan to build more housing and to make San Francisco housing affordable.  The Housing Summit was held at International Hotel Senior Housing Project, an important symbol of the City’s historic housing struggles and a reminder of how affordable housing

On March 25, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers jointly released a proposed rule defining waters that fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act as “waters of the United States.”  The wide sweep of the coverage afforded by the proposed rule, if finalized, would represent a significant

Caltrans’s analysis of impacts to redwoods from  realignment of a one-mile stretch of Highway 101 has been rejected.  The court of appeal ruled that the project EIR both failed to identify any significance threshold for impacts to redwoods and impermissibly labeled mitigation measures as project features.  Lotus v. Department of Transportation, No. A137315 (First