California AB 1855: Air pollution.

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 Bill Text - AB-1855 California Environmental Quality Act: exemption: passenger rail service.

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 |Add To My Favorites |Track Bill | Version: 02/11/26 - Introduced

 AB-1855 California Environmental Quality Act: exemption: passenger rail service.(2025-2026)

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 Date Published: 02/11/2026 09:00 PM

AB1855:v99#DOCUMENTBill Start

 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
 2025–2026 REGULAR SESSION

 Assembly Bill

No. 1855

Introduced by Assembly Member Jeff Gonzalez
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Castillo, Jackson, Johnson, and Wallis)
(Coauthors: Senators Seyarto and Valladares)

February 11, 2026

 An act to amend Section 21080.25 of the Public Resources Code, relating to environmental quality. 

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

AB 1855, as introduced, Jeff Gonzalez.
 California Environmental Quality Act: exemption: passenger rail service.

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 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.

CEQA, until January 1, 2040, exempts from its requirements certain projects for the improvement, institution, or increase of passenger rail service,
 including the maintenance, construction, or rehabilitation of stations, terminals, or existing operations facilities, which will be exclusively used by zero-emission trains or certified Tier 4 or cleaner rolling stock or locomotives, as provided. CEQA requires, for purposes of this exemption, that the project be located entirely within an existing rail right-of-way or existing highway right-of-way, as provided.

 This bill would instead eliminate the condition that the public project be exclusively used by zero-emission trains or certified Tier 4 or cleaner rolling stock or locomotives, thereby expanding the scope of the exemption. The bill would require, for purposes of the exemption, the mainline rail of the project, instead of the whole project, to be located entirely within an existing right-of-way or existing highway right-of-way. 

As part of the above-described exemption, CEQA prohibits a public project from being
 eligible for that exemption if used by certified Tier 4 or cleaner rolling stock or locomotives that are not zero-emission rolling stock or locomotives and the project is located in an air basin designated as a serious, severe, or extreme nonattainment area for particulate matter and ozone.

This bill would instead authorize an otherwise ineligible project, as described above, to be eligible for the exemption if the project would provide daily passenger rail service between termini more than 5 miles apart where none exists as of January 1, 2027, and the rail service would run parallel to a state highway or interstate highway corridor.

Because a lead agency would be required to determine whether a project qualifies for these expanded exemptions, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program.

The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local
 agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement.

This bill would provide that no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason.

Digest Key

 Vote:
 MAJORITY 
 Appropriation:
 NO 
 Fiscal Committee:
 YES 
 Local Program:
 YES 

Bill Text

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.

 Section 21080.25 of the Public Resources Code is amended to read:

21080.25.

 (a) For purposes of this section, the following definitions apply:

(1) “Affordable housing” means any of the following:

(A) Housing that is subject to a recorded covenant, ordinance, or law that restricts rents or sales prices to levels affordable, as defined in Section 50052.5 or 50053 of the Health and Safety Code, to persons and families of moderate, lower, or very low income, as defined in Section 50079