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Cabrillo Town Center Project City of Santa Ana October 2, 2023 Page 5 of 6 significance threshold plays in providing substantial evidence of a significant adverse impact. (Communities for a Better Environment v. South Coast Air Quality Management Dist. (2010) 48 CalAth 310, 327 ["As the [South Coast Air Quality Management] District's established significance threshold for NOx is 55 pounds per day, these estimates [of NOx emissions of 201 to 456 pounds per day] constitute substantial evidence supporting a fair argument for a significant adverse impact."].) Since expert evidence demonstrates that the Project will exceed the SCAQMD's CEQA significance threshold, there is substantial evidence that an "unstudied, potentially significant environmental effect[]" exists. (See San Mateo Gardens, supra, 1 Cal.5th at 958.) The failure to address the Project's formaldehyde emissions is contrary to the California Supreme Court's decision in California Building Industry Ass'n v. Bay Area Air Quality Mgmt. Dist. (2015) 62 Cal.4th 369, 386 ("CBIA"). In that case, the Supreme Court expressly holds that potential adverse impacts to future users and residents from pollution generated by a proposed project must be addressed under CEQA. At issue in CBIA was whether the Air District could enact CEQA guidelines that advised lead agencies that they must analyze the impacts of adjacent environmental conditions on a project. The Supreme Court held that CEQA does not generally require lead agencies to consider the environment's effects on a project. (CBIA, 62 CalAth at 800-01.) However, to the extent a project may exacerbate existing environmental conditions at or near a project site, those would still have to be considered pursuant to CEQA. (Id. at 801.) In so holding, the Court expressly held that CEQA's statutory language required lead agencies to disclose and analyze "impacts on a project's users or residents that arise from the project's effects on the environment." (Id. at 800.) The carcinogenic formaldehyde emissions identified by Mr. Offermann are not an existing environmental condition. Those emissions to the air will be from the Project. Once built, the Project will begin to emit formaldehyde at levels that pose significant direct and cumulative health risks to residents of the Project. The Supreme Court in CBIA expressly finds that this type of air emission and health impact by the project on the environment and a "project's users and residents" must be addressed in the CEQA process. The existing TAC sources near the Project site would have to be considered in evaluating the cumulative effect on future residents of both the Project's TAC emissions as well as those existing off -site emissions. The Supreme Court's reasoning is well-grounded in CEQA's statutory language. CEQA expressly includes a project's effects on human beings as an effect on the environment that must be addressed in an environmental review. "Section 21083(b)(3)'s express language, for example, requires a finding of a `significant effect on the environment' (§ 21083(b)) whenever the `environmental effects of a project will cause substantial adverse effects on human beings, either directly or indirectly."' (CBIA, 62 CalAth at 800.) Likewise, "the Legislature has made clear —in declarations accompanying CEQA's enactment —that public health and safety are of great importance in the statutory scheme." (Id. [citing e.g., §§ 21000, subds. (b), (c), (d), (g), 21001, subds. (b), (d)].) It goes without saying that the future residents and employees of the Project are human beings and the health and safety of those residents must be subjected to CEQA's safeguards.