AMENDED IN SENATE AUGUST 13, 2026

AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 22, 2026

AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY MARCH 19, 2026

CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE— 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION

96

Introduced by Assembly Member Wilson

(Coauthors: Assembly Members Aguiar-Curry, Carrillo, and Hoover)

February 18, 2026

An act to add Section 21081.4 to the Public Resources Code, relating to environmental quality.

Vote: majority   Appropriation: no   Fiscal committee: yes   Local program: yes

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires a lead agency, as defined, to prepare, or cause to be prepared, and certify the completion of an environmental impact report on a project that it proposes to carry out or approve that may have a significant effect on the environment or to adopt a negative declaration if it finds that the project will not have that effect. CEQA also requires a lead agency to prepare a mitigated negative declaration for a project that may have a significant effect on the environment if revisions in the project would avoid or mitigate that effect and there is no substantial evidence that the project, as revised, would have a significant effect on the environment.

CEQA requires the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to prepare, develop, and transmit to the Secretary of the Natural Resources Agency for certification and adoption proposed revisions to the CEQA implementation guidelines to establish criteria for determining the significance of transportation impacts of projects within transit priority areas, and requires the criteria to promote the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the development of multimodal transportation networks, and a diversity of land uses. CEQA requires the office to recommend potential metrics, including, among other metrics, vehicle miles traveled, to measure these transportation impacts.

This bill would require the Department of Transportation to develop guidance on vehicle-miles-travel mitigation measures for transportation projects in nonmetropolitan counties, as provided. The bill would require the department to publish the guidance on its internet website and add the guidance as an addendum to the Transportation Analysis Framework and the Transportation Analysis under CEQA. The bill would, until the development and publication of the guidance and except as provided, specify that a transportation project is presumed to have a less than significant transportation impact as determined by the vehicle-miles-traveled metric if at least 80% of the project lies within one or more nonmetropolitan counties. Because the bill would impose additional duties on a lead agency in its analysis of significant transportation impacts, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

Section 21081.4 is added to the Public Resources Code, to read:

21081.4.

(a) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

(1) “Demonstrated evacuation need” means a project that is specifically identified as necessary to provide evacuation capacity for the affected area in an adopted local hazard mitigation plan, general plan safety element, local emergency operations plan, or other local or regional emergency evacuation plan approved by a city, county, or regional planning agency through a public process.

(2) “Demonstrated safety need” means a project for which the lead agency demonstrates, through documented collision, injury, or fatality data specific to the project location, or through a risk-based or systemic safety analysis consistent with state and federal guidance, that the proposed project includes safety countermeasures that are necessary to reduce the number and severity of injuries or the number of fatalities, including reducing specific risks to vulnerable road users.

(3) “Nonmetropolitan county” means a nonmetropolitan county designated by the Methodology for Determining Rural Status of Project Site for 2025 Applications issued by the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee on January 1, 2025.

(4) “Transportation project” means a project undertaken by a public agency that consists of the planning, design, construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, improvement, expansion, or operation of a highway, road, bridge, transit facility, rail facility, bicycle or pedestrian facility, or other public transportation infrastructure.

(c) (1) A transportation project is presumed to have a less than significant transportation impact as determined by the vehicle-miles-traveled metric developed pursuant to Section 21099 if at least 80 percent of the project lies within one or more nonmetropolitan counties.

(2) Paragraph (1) does not apply to a transportation project that adds one or more general purpose lanes to the state highway system unless there is a demonstrated safety or evacuation need for the project.

SEC. 2.

No reimbursement is required by this act pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIIIB of the California Constitution because a local agency or school district has the authority to levy service charges, fees, or assessments sufficient to pay for the program or level of service mandated by this act, within the meaning of Section 17556 of the Government Code.