The California Environmental Quality Act creates an open process for reviewing the environmental impacts of proposed projects. It is grounded on the principle that public-agency decision makers and the public should be fully informed about a project’s potential impacts on the environment, possible ways to minimize or mitigate any significant impacts, and reasonable alternatives to the project.
Normally, an agency’s focus when reviewing a project is its potential physical impacts on the environment. The environment includes humans and other species of animals, plant species and natural resources. In including humans as part of the physical environment, CEQA and federal cases interpreting federal environmental review statutes have nevertheless drawn a line between harm to the aesthetics of a physical environment, which are reviewable, and pure psychological impacts unrelated to physical impacts.
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