Case ID: f-appx_690/html/0987-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

OREGON WILD, an Oregon non-profit corporation; Cascadia Wildlands, an Oregon non-profit corporation, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. BUREAU OF LAND MANAGEMENT, an administrative agency of the United States Department of Interior, Defendant, and Scott Timber Co.; Carpenters Industrial Council, Intervenor-Defendants-Appellants.
    No. 15-35336
    United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
    Submitted May 9, 2017  Portland, Oregon
    Filed May 11, 2017
    Nicholas Stanton Cady, Cascadia Wild-lands Project, Eugene, OR, Jennifer Schwartz, Law Office of Jennifer R. Schwartz, Portland, OR, for Plaintiffs-Ap-pellees
    Brian Matthew Collins, Trial Attorney, DOJ — U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Enforcement Section, Washington, DC, for Defendant
    Scott W. Horngren, Esquire, Attorney, American Forest Resource Council, Portland, OR, for Intervenor-Defendants-Ap-pellants
    Before: BYBEE and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges, and RAKOFF, Senior District Judge.
    
      
       The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
    
    
      
       The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, Senior United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, sitting by designation.
    
   MEMORANDUM

Appellants Scott Timber Co. and Carpenters Industrial Council appeal from a grant of summary judgment in favor of Plaintiffs Oregon Wild and Cascadia Wild-lands. The district courj; held that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) when it authorized the White Castle Variable Retention Harvest Project without considering a reasonable range of alternatives, creating an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), or taking a hard look at the project’s potential environmental consequences. We dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

1. District court orders remanding to an agency for further proceedings “generally are not ‘final decisions’ for purposes of [28 U.S.C. § 1291].” Alsea Valley All. v. Dep't of Commerce, 358 F.3d 1181, 1184 (9th Cir. 2004). When, as here, the agency subject to the remand order chooses not to appeal, private litigants generally cannot appeal the remand order. See Pit River Tribe v. U.S. Forest Serv., 615 F.3d 1069, 1074-77 (9th Cir. 2010) (concluding that a district court’s remand order directing the BLM and other agencies to complete a new EIS was not an appealable order under § 1291). Although the district court here did not explicitly remand to the BLM for further proceedings, it functionally did so. There is no other way to interpret its acknowledgment that the “BLM cannot proceed with the project until it complies with NEPA.” Oregon Wild v. BLM, No. 6:14-CV-0110-AA, 2015 WL 1190131, at *13 (D. Or. Mar. 14, 2015). Under these circumstance, “[t]he reasoning of Alsea remains persuasive.” Pit River Tribe, 615 F.3d at 1076. Appellants can participate in further BLM proceedings and challenge any adverse outcome of those proceedings. See id.

2. We also lack jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). We have consistently rejected attempts to recharacterize non-final remand orders as injunctions. See Pit River Tribe, 615 F.3d at 1077-78; Alsea Valley All., 358 F.3d at 1186-87. Were we to accept Appellants’ argument that jurisdiction exists under § 1292(a)(1) because the remand order had the practical effect of enjoining the BLM from carrying out the project until it complies with NEPA, we would effectively undo the general rule that private parties cannot appeal a remand order when the agency decides not to appeal.

DISMISSED. 
      
       This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.