---
type: "Bill"
title: "California Environmental Quality Act: administrative and judicial procedures."
description: "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 (EIR) 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."
jurisdiction: "us/states/ca"
legislature: "California Legislature"
session: "20212022"
identifier: "AB 2965"
citation: "California AB 2965 (20212022)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: ["California Environmental Quality Act: administrative and judicial procedures."]
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Committee on Natural Resources"]
version_count: 4
action_count: 15
vote_count: 4
first_action: "2022-03-14"
last_action: "2022-06-21"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/8c9319ea-8d32-4337-bd0b-998289951b71"
source_url: "http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2965"
source_hash: "8413aa3ded8a14c17588c7fc613773191b3f5b1818fba77e86d9d93fc5382b09"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-ca"]
---

# California AB 2965 (20212022) — California Environmental Quality Act: administrative and judicial procedures.

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 (EIR) 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.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **03/14/22 - Introduced** (filed) — [source](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billPdf.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2965&version=20210AB296599INT)
2. **06/21/22 - Chaptered** (committee substitute) — [source](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billPdf.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2965&version=20210AB296597CHP)
3. **AB2965** (committee substitute) — [source](http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2965)
4. **06/10/22 - Enrolled** (enrolled) — [source](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billPdf.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB2965&version=20210AB296598ENR)

## Votes

- AB 2965 NAT. RES. Consent Calendar Second Day By RIVAS, L. — **68–0** (pass) · lower
- Do pass and be ordered to the Consent Calendar — **6–0** (pass) · upper
- Consent Calendar AB2965 NAT. RES. — **38–0** (pass) · upper
- Do pass. To Consent Calendar. — **11–0** (pass) · lower

## Sponsors

- Committee on Natural Resources — primary (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2022-03-14** Read first time. To print. `reading-1`
- **2022-03-15** From printer. May be heard in committee April 14.
- **2022-03-24** Referred to Com. on NAT. RES. `referral-committee`
- **2022-04-19** From committee: Do pass. To Consent Calendar. (Ayes 11. Noes 0.) (April 18). `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2022-04-20** Read second time. Ordered to Consent Calendar. `reading-1, reading-2`
- **2022-04-25** Read third time. Passed. Ordered to the Senate. (Ayes 68. Noes 0. Page 4406.) `passage, reading-1, reading-3`
- **2022-04-25** In Senate. Read first time. To Com. on RLS. for assignment. `reading-1`
- **2022-05-04** Referred to Com. on E.Q. `referral-committee`
- **2022-06-01** From committee: Do pass. To Consent Calendar. (Ayes 6. Noes 0.) (June 1). `committee-passage, committee-passage-favorable`
- **2022-06-02** Read second time. Ordered to Consent Calendar. `reading-1, reading-2`
- **2022-06-09** Read third time. Passed. Ordered to the Assembly. (Ayes 38. Noes 0. Page 4131.). `passage, reading-1, reading-3`
- **2022-06-09** In Assembly. Ordered to Engrossing and Enrolling. `committee-passage`
- **2022-06-16** Enrolled and presented to the Governor at 2 p.m.
- **2022-06-21** Approved by the Governor. `executive-signature`
- **2022-06-21** Chaptered by Secretary of State - Chapter 38, Statutes of 2022. `became-law`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/8c9319ea-8d32-4337-bd0b-998289951b71`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official California legislature records).