(a) The lead agency shall prepare and certify the record of the proceedings in accordance with this section and in accordance with Rule 3.1365 of the California Rules of Court.

(b) No later than three business days following the date of the release of the draft environmental impact report, the lead agency shall make available to the public in a readily accessible electronic format the draft environmental impact report and all other documents submitted to or relied on by the lead agency in the preparation of the draft environmental impact report. A document prepared by the lead agency after the date of the release of the draft environmental impact report that is a part of the record of the proceedings shall be made available to the public in a readily accessible electronic format within five business days after the document is prepared or received by the lead agency.

(c) Notwithstanding subdivision (b), documents submitted to or relied on by the lead agency that were not prepared specifically for the capitol building annex project, annex project related work, or the state office building project, as applicable, and are copyright protected are not required to be made readily accessible in an electronic format. For those copyright protected documents, the lead agency shall make an index of these documents available in an electronic format no later than the date of the release of the draft environmental impact report, or within five business days if the document is received or relied on by the lead agency after the release of the draft environmental impact report. The index must specify the libraries or lead agency offices in which hard copies of the copyrighted materials are available for public review.

(d) The lead agency shall encourage written comments on the capitol building annex project, annex project related work, and the state office building project, to be submitted in a readily accessible electronic format, and shall make any such comment available to the public in a readily accessible electronic format within five days of its receipt.

(e) Within seven business days after the receipt of any comment that is not in an electronic format, the lead agency shall convert that comment into a readily accessible electronic format and make it available to the public in that format.

(f) The lead agency shall indicate in the record of the proceedings comments received that were not considered by the lead agency pursuant to subdivision (d) of Section 21189.55 and need not include the content of the comments as a part of the record.

(g) Within five days after the filing of the notice required by subdivision (a) of Section 21152, the lead agency shall certify the record of the proceedings for the approval or determination and shall provide an electronic copy of the record to a party that has submitted a written request for a copy. The lead agency may charge and collect a reasonable fee from a party requesting a copy of the record for the electronic copy, which shall not exceed the reasonable cost of reproducing that copy.

(h) Within 10 days after being served with a complaint or a petition for a writ of mandate, the lead agency shall lodge a copy of the certified record of proceedings with the superior court.

(i) Any dispute over the content of the record of the proceedings shall be resolved by the superior court. Unless the superior court directs otherwise, a party disputing the content of the record shall file a motion to augment the record at the time it files its initial brief.

(j) The contents of the record of proceedings shall be as set forth in subdivision (e) of Section 21167.6.

(Amended by Stats. 2018, Ch. 40, Sec. 12. (AB 1826) Effective June 27, 2018.)