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November 8, 2024 Page 16 7357-013acp printed on recycled paper V. THE DEIR FAILS TO ADEQUATELY ANALYZE, QUANTIFY, AND MITIGATE ALL POTENTIALLY SIGNIFICANT IMPACTS The failure to provide information required by CEQA is a failure to proceed in the manner required by CEQA.71 Challenges to an agency's failure to proceed in the manner required by CEQA, such as the failure to address a subject required to be covered in an EIR or to disclose information about a project’s environmental effects or alternatives, are subject to a less deferential standard than challenges to an agency's factual conclusions.72 In reviewing challenges to an agency’s approval of an EIR based on a lack of substantial evidence, the court will “determine de novo whether the agency has employed the correct procedures, scrupulously enforcing all legislatively mandated CEQA requirements."73 Even when the substantial evidence standard is applicable to agency decisions to certify an EIR and approve a project, reviewing courts will not “uncritically rely on every study or analysis presented by a project proponent in support of its position. A clearly inadequate or unsupported study is entitled to no judicial deference.”74 A. The DEIR Fails to Accurately Quantify Potentially Significant Impacts on Air Quality and Public Health Under CEQA a project has significant impacts if it “[v]iolate[s] any air quality standard or contribute[s] substantially to an existing or projected air quality violation” or “[e]xpose[s] sensitive receptors to substantial pollutant concentrations.”75 The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (“BAAQMD”) maintains thresholds of significance for criteria air pollutants that are to be used in determining the significance of a project’s air quality impacts under CEQA.76 The DEIR acknowledges that the proposed project would result in a significant impact if 71 Sierra Club v. State Bd. Of Forestry (1994) 7 Cal.4th 1215, 1236. 72 Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova (2007) 40 Cal.4th 412, 435. 73 Id., Madera Oversight Coal., Inc. v. County of Madera (2011) 199 Cal. App. 4th 48, 102. 74 Berkeley Jets, 91 Cal.App.4th at 1355. 75 CEQA Appendix G. 76 Bay Area Air Quality Management District 2022 CEQA Guidelines Thresholds of Significant (2022), available at: https://www.baaqmd.gov/~/media/files/planning-and-research/ceqa/ceqa- guidelines-2022/ceqa-guidelines-chapter-3-thresholds_final_v2- pdf.pdf?rev=a976830cce0c4a6bb624b020f72d25b3&sc_lang=en.