State of California
Pete Wilson, Governor
Governor's Office of Planning and Research
1400 Tenth Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
916-322-2318
Lee Grissom, Director, Office of Planning and Research
Ben Williams, Deputy Director
Antero Rivasplata, Chief, State Clearinghouse
August 1994
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
OPR thanks Norm Hill of the Department of Water Resources for his contributions
to this paper. In addition, the following people reviewed and offered us
their comments on the draft version. Although the final version does not
always reflect their views, their thoughtful contributions were extremely
valuable. We appreciate their assistance.
Linda Ferraro, City of Atwater
David Salazar, CSU Monterey Bay
Table of Contents
The Base Closure and Reuse
Planning Process
Figure 1: Typical Military Base Disposal
and Reuse Process
NEPA and CEQA: Comparisons and Contrasts
Figure 2: NEPA and CEQA: Parallel
Processes
Comparison of EIS and EIR
Preparing a Combined EIS/EIR
Boarding a Moving Train: Joining the
EIS Process
Applying an Existing EIS to Later Local
Projects
SB 1180 and Baseline Conditions
Bibliography
Appendix 1: Excerpts from the California
and Federal Statutes
Appendix 2: Sample MOU for Joint EIS/EIR
Introduction
The purpose of this advisory is to illustrate how local agencies may proceed
through the process of evaluating a base reuse plan pursuant to the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) while utilizing the environmental analysis
prepared by a Federal agency under the National Environmental Policy Act
(NEPA). Both CEQA and the CEQA Guidelines contain several specific
provisions which can streamline CEQA compliance where an environmental review
document is also being prepared or has already been prepared under NEPA.
CEQA, NEPA, and Base Closure offers substantive suggestions for employing
those provisions to avoid repetitive work.
This paper briefly reviews the base closure and reuse process, compares
CEQA and NEPA procedures, discusses the provisions in CEQA, NEPA, and the
CEQA Guidelines for preparing joint EIS/EIR documents, and concludes
with some suggestions for complying with CEQA where a joint document has
not been prepared. All code citations refer to the California Public Resources
Code unless otherwise noted.
Pertinent excerpts from the CEQA Statutes and Guidelines and the NEPA Guidelines
may be found in Appendix 1. A sample Memorandum of Understanding for preparing
a joint EIS/EIR is in Appendix 2.
Next: The Base Closure and Reuse Planning
Process