Center for Biological Diversity v. County of Los Angeles

A California trial court vacated approvals for the Centennial at Tejon Ranch project—a multi-use development on 12,323 acres on Los Angeles County’s border with Kern County—more than two years after finding that the environmental impact report for the project contained flawed analyses of greenhouse gas emissions because it improperly relied on California’s cap-and-trade program to mitigate emissions. The court also found that analysis did not support the conclusion that wildfire risk impacts would not be significant. A December 2021 settlement resolved one organization’s California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) claims, with the developer committing to measures to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and to implement wildfire resilience measures. In a press release after the approvals were vacated, the developer said further review of the project would assume implementation of the settlement. The developer also noted that it had the option of appealing the judgment, as well as a 2022 decision that gave one of the remaining petitioners prevailing party status for the successful CEQA claims.

In May 2019, the Center for Biological Diversity and California Native Plant Society filed a lawsuit challenging the environmental review for a development project on 12,323 acres on Los Angeles County’s border with Kern County. The project, which the petition called “a new, sprawl city,” would include 19,333 houses and 8.4 million square feet of commercial, industrial, and business park uses. The petitioners alleged that the project is “exactly the type of leapfrog sprawl development that climate legislation such as SB 375 sought to prevent” and that it would generate 75,000 new vehicle trips per day, with an average trip length of 45 miles. The petitioners contended that the greenhouse gas emissions generated by these trips “will be many orders of magnitude greater than those of a non-sprawl development and will hinder California's efforts to combat climate change.” They asserted, among other things, that the project’s greenhouse gas emissions were not adequately analyzed or mitigated in Los Angeles County’s California Environmental Quality Act review and that the project is inconsistent with the greenhouse gas goals of the Los Angeles County General Plan.