## Facts

- Chevron sought City of Richmond permits (April 2005) for the Chevron Energy and Hydrogen Renewal Project at the Richmond refinery to replace/upgrade facilities and increase flexibility to process a broader range of crude oils.
- The refinery spans about 2,900 acres near residential neighborhoods, with multiple neighborhoods within one mile.
- The City acted as CEQA lead agency, prepared an EIR, certified the final EIR, and approved the project and permits by a 5–4 vote (July 2008).
- Community and environmental groups petitioned for writ of mandate, alleging CEQA violations, including an inadequate and misleading project description (especially crude slate implications), failure to analyze the whole project, and vague, deferred greenhouse-gas (GHG) mitigation based on an unenforceable “no net increase” goal.
- The trial court found CEQA violations, issued a writ of mandate, and set aside the approvals.
- The City and Chevron appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the EIR’s project description was sufficiently “accurate, stable, and finite,” including clear disclosure of crude-processing changes and related emissions implications.
2. Whether the EIR improperly failed to analyze the whole of the project by limiting or segmenting related modifications and operational effects.
3. Whether the EIR complied with CEQA’s requirements for GHG analysis and mitigation, or instead relied on vague performance goals and unlawfully deferred mitigation.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed in part and reversed in part.
- The court held the EIR was deficient under CEQA because the project description was not sufficiently clear and internally consistent to support meaningful environmental review.
- The court held the EIR’s GHG mitigation was impermissibly vague and improperly deferred, relying on a general “no net increase” objective without enforceable measures adopted at approval.
- The court largely upheld the writ of mandate requiring the City to decertify the EIR and set aside approvals until CEQA-compliant review was completed, and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court rejected or narrowed some “whole of the project” arguments, but required the City to describe the project’s true functional scope candidly where it affected impact analysis.

## Legal Principles

- An EIR must include an “accurate, stable, and finite” project description; ambiguity or internal inconsistency that impairs public review and informed decisionmaking violates CEQA.
- CEQA requires analysis of the whole of the action and forbids piecemealing; the project’s functional scope must be described and evaluated where it drives environmental effects.
- Mitigation under CEQA must be feasible and sufficiently specific and enforceable at the time of approval; agencies may not rely on broad goals coupled with later, unspecified plans that leave meaningful choices to future decisionmaking.
- For informational and required-content defects (such as an inadequate project description or mitigation measures), courts treat compliance as a legal question; technical fact disputes are reviewed for substantial evidence.

## Conclusion

The court required further CEQA review because the EIR’s unclear project description and deferred, non-enforceable approach to GHG mitigation prevented meaningful evaluation and mitigation of environmental impacts before project approval.


Communities for a Better Env’t v. City of Richmond, 184 Cal. App. 4th 70, 108 Cal. Rptr. 3d 478 (Ct. App. 2010)