CEQA calls for environmental review of discretionary projects at the earliest meaningful stage, to serve its purposes of public participation and informed decision-making. The basic idea is simple: analyze and shape the project to reduce or avoid environmental impacts before deciding to approve it. But there is a tension between CEQA’s mandate for early review and its requirement of detailed discussions of impacts and mitigation measures. Ever since the seminal case of Sundstrom v. County of Mendocino (1988) 202 Cal.App.3d 296, allegations of improper “deferral” – whether of analysis of potential impacts or feasible mitigation measures – have been a staple of CEQA litigation. Resolving the “deferral” dilemma calls for a careful, case-by-case balancing between CEQA’s mandate that significant environmental impacts and feasible mitigation measures be meaningfully analyzed prior to project approval, and the practical reality that the full extent of project impacts and precise details of needed mitigation frequently cannot be known until post-approval stages of project development.

In other words, it’s complicated. Two recent cases illustrate situations where EIRs have been upheld – and rejected – in the face of deferral challenges.