What are the CEQA Guidelines?
The Guidelines are the regulations that explain and interpret the law for the public at large and public agencies required to administer CEQA. The Guidelines provide objectives, criteria and procedures so that public agencies can evaluate projects and prepare environmental impact reports, negative declarations, and mitigate negative declarations by public agencies. The fundamental purpose of the Guidelines is to make the CEQA process comprehensible to those who administer it, are subject to it, and benefit from it. To that end, the Guidelines are more than mere regulations that implement CEQA, as they incorporate and interpret both the statutory mandates of CEQA and the principles advanced by judicial decisions.
