Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-3_11-cv-08171/USCOURTS-azd-3_11-cv-08171-5/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 380
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Property Damage
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question: Review Agency Decision

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Gregory Yount, et. al., 

Plaintiffs, 

v. 

Kenneth Lee Salazar, Secretary of the 

Interior, et al., 

Defendants. 

No. CV11-08171-PCT-DGC

ORDER 

 Plaintiff Gregory Yount filed a motion to require supplementation of the 

Administrative Record (“AR”) in these consolidated cases challenging federal agency 

action. Doc. 134. Federal Defendants filed a response in opposition (Doc. 137) and Mr. 

Yount filed a reply. Doc. 143. The parties have not requested oral argument. For the 

reasons stated below, the Court will deny the motion. 

I. Background. 

 Mr. Yount and a number of corporate, associational, and municipal plaintiffs filed 

complaints challenging the January 18, 2012 decision of the Secretary of the Interior to 

withdraw from mineral development over one million acres of public lands in the Grand 

Canyon Watershed in Northern Arizona. See Public Land Order No. 7787, 77 Fed. Reg. 

2563-01, 2012 WL 122658 (January 18, 2012). As is relevant here, Plaintiffs assert 

claims under the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), which requires federal 

agencies to consider the environmental impact of any major federal action by, among 

other things, preparing an environmental impact statement (“EIS”). 42 U.S.C. § 4331, et 

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seq. Plaintiffs assert additional claims under the Federal Land Policy Management Act, 

the National Forest Management Act, and the Establishment Clause of the United States 

Constitution. Mr. Yount asserts six claims under NEPA, one of which also alleges 

violation of the Establishment Clause. Doc. 27. 

 In its January 8, 2013 order, the Court dismissed the NEPA claims of Mr. Yount 

and all but three plaintiffs because they lack prudential standing under NEPA. Doc. 87 at 

47. The Court did not dismiss the non-NEPA claims, and Mr. Yount continues to be a 

plaintiff in this action. Id. 

 After Federal Defendants lodged and served the AR on February 11, 2013, Mr. 

Yount became aware that information he had sent to the BLM via email on May 18, 

2012, disputing the agency’s conclusions about the uranium endowment in the 

withdrawal area, had not been included. Doc. 134 at 2; see, generally, Doc. 134 at 5-19. 

Mr. Yount contacted counsel for Federal Defendants who explained that this information 

post-dated the Record of Decision (“ROD”) and was therefore not included because it 

was not before the agency when it completed its final EIS and the Secretary issued his 

withdrawal decision. Id. at 2-3. Counsel’s response also explained that since no further 

federal action remained with respect to the withdrawal, the requirement that the agency 

supplement its EIS on the basis of new information under 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1)(ii) did 

not apply. Id. 

 Mr. Yount asks the Court to order Federal Defendants to supplement the AR with 

the emails he submitted to the BLM on May 18, 2012, as well as additional emails he 

submitted on March 3, 2012, and “any and all records after the date of the ROD that have 

resulted from new information or analyses.” Doc. 134 at 3-4. 

II. Discussion. 

 A. Applicability of 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1)(ii). 

 NEPA’s implementing regulations require federal agencies to supplement draft or 

final environmental impact statements where “[t]here are significant new circumstances 

or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or 

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its impacts.” 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1)(ii). “[A]n agency need not supplement an EIS 

every time new information comes to light after the EIS is finalized” because to so hold 

“would render agency decisionmaking intractable, always awaiting updated information 

only to find the new information outdated by the time a decision is made.” Marsh v. 

Oregon Natural Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 373 (1989). Rather, the agency must apply 

a “rule of reason” that looks to “the value of the new information to the still pending 

decisionmaking process.” Id. “Supplementation of a prior NEPA environmental analysis 

is only required where ‘there remains major Federal action to occur.’” Center for 

Biological Diversity v. Salazar, 706 F.3d 1085, 1094 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Norton v. 

S. Utah Wilderness Alliance, 542 U.S. 55, 73 (2004)); see also Marsh, 490 U.S. at 374. 

 Mr. Yount notes that the ROD and Public Land Order issued on September 18, 

2012, state that the withdrawal is “subject to valid existing rights.” Doc. 143 at 2; see

Public Land Order No. 7787, 77 Fed. Reg. 2563-01 at 2563. He argues that because 

these rights must be determined through mineral exams conducted by Federal 

Defendants, further federal action remains, and the withdrawal is not complete until the 

validity of all pre-existing claims is determined. Docs. 134 at 3; 143 at 2. The Court is 

not persuaded. 

 Even if, as Mr. Yount argues, hundreds or thousands of mining claimants in the 

withdrawal area seek mineral exams to demonstrate that their claims constitute preexisting rights exempt from the withdrawal, this does not mean that the decision-making 

process with respect to the withdrawal itself is incomplete or that major federal action 

remains before the withdrawal is final. In Bennet v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154 (1997), the 

Supreme Court identified two criteria for determining when an agency action is final for 

purposes of judicial review: “First, the action must mark the consummation of the 

agency’s decision-making process – it must not be of a merely tentative or interlocutory 

nature. And second, the action must be one by which rights or obligations have been 

determined, or from which legal consequences will flow.” Id. at 177-78 (internal citations 

and quotation marks omitted). Here, the Secretary’s decision-making process as to 

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whether to withdraw certain lands from mining operations was complete when the 

Secretary issued his decision on September 18, 2012, and, as the Court has already found, 

legal consequences clearly flow from that decision. See Doc. 87. 

 Mr. Yount argues that the withdrawal action is like the dam construction project 

approved in Marsh, 490 U.S. at 374, for which the Supreme Court found that significant 

federal action remained. Doc. 143 at 4-5. The Court does not agree. In Marsh, dam 

construction was incomplete at the time the plaintiffs sought to have the agency consider 

new information regarding possible adverse effects on downstream fishing and water 

turbidity. 490 U.S. at 368-69, 373. Here, nothing remained to be constructed or 

completed after the final EIS was completed and the withdrawal action went into effect. 

The mineral exams to which Mr. Yount points were not required to effectuate the 

withdrawal; they are required to determine which unpatented mining claims may be 

exempt from the withdrawal. Even if, as Mr. Yount asserts, it takes years for the 

appropriate federal agencies to conduct all the mineral exams needed to show which 

claims are exempt and which are not, this will have no bearing on the withdrawal 

decision itself. The withdrawal has taken effect. 

 The Supreme Court’s opinion in Norton, 542 U.S. at 73, is instructive. In Norton, 

the Court recognized that approval of a land use plan “is completed when the plan is 

approved.” 542 U.S. at 73. Mr. Yount argues that Norton is inapposite because the 

approved plan in Norton only set guidelines for land use and did not define specific 

required future actions as does the withdrawal due to its being “subject to” valid existing 

rights that must be determined through required mineral exams. Doc. 143 at 4-5. As 

explained above, however, the fact that mineral exams are required to prove valid 

existing rights for purposes of exemption from the withdrawal has no bearing on the 

finality of the withdrawal itself. Such exams may determine which mining claims are 

exempt from the withdrawal, but they will not alter the fact that the withdrawal is in 

effect as decided by the Secretary of the Interior. 

 The Ninth Circuit addressed an analogous situation in Center for Biological 

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Diversity v. Salazar, 706 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. 2013). In Salazar, the plaintiffs had argued 

that BLM’s issuance of new gravel and air quality permits and an updated reclamation 

bond for a mining operation that had been approved following proper NEPA procedures 

in 1988 required the agency to supplement its original EIS. Id. at 1095. The Ninth 

Circuit disagreed, finding that while the subsequent federal actions may have constituted 

“major federal action” sufficient to trigger their own NEPA requirements, “none of those 

actions affected the validity or completeness of the 1988 approval of the Arizona 1 

Mine’s plan of operations nor did they prevent Denison from mining under that plan.” 

Id. Likewise, the pendency of future mineral exams, even if they constitute major federal 

action in their own right, will not affect the validity or finality of the withdrawal, 

particularly where that action already makes allowance for valid existing rights. 

 Mr. Yount argues that Salazar does not apply because the mineral exams in this 

case are “an integral part of” the ROD and Public Law Order effectuating the withdrawal. 

Doc. 143 at 3-4. Because the withdrawal is subject to valid existing rights, Mr. Yount 

argues, its full effect cannot be determined until all required mineral exams are complete. 

Id. at 3. The Court fails to see how conducting mineral exams will be any more integral 

to the withdrawal than the required permits and bonds in Salazar were to the approved 

mining plan. Here, as in Salazar, future federal actions may flow from a federal action 

governing permissible mining operations, but where those future actions have no impact 

on the validity or the finality of the initial action – in this case the withdrawal – the Ninth 

Circuit’s finding that no supplemental EIS is required applies. 

 Mr. Yount’s reasoning would require Federal Defendants to keep the original EIS 

process open indefinitely for any and all new information until all those with potentially 

valid claims had exhausted all available remedies for validating their claims. This not 

only would violate the “rule of reason” that requires agencies to consider new evidence 

only to the extent it has value to the “still pending decisionmaking process,” Marsh, 490 

U.S. at 373, it would also “render agency decisionmaking intractable” and ultimately 

frustrate the course of judicial review, see id. 

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 B. Grounds for Considering Extra-Record Evidence. 

Courts reviewing agency action are generally limited to consideration of the 

administrative record in existence at the time of the challenged decision. Fla. Power & 

Light Co., v. Lorion, 470 U.S. 729, 734-44 (1985) (“‘[T]he focal point for judicial review 

should be the administrative record already in existence, not some new record made 

initially in the reviewing court.’”) (quoting Camp v. Pitts, 411 U.S. 138, 142 (1973)); Sw. 

Ctr. For Biological Diversity v. U.S. Forest Serv., 100 F.3d 1443, 1450 (9th Cir. 1996) 

(same). The Ninth Circuit has recognized four narrow exceptions to this rule: “(1) if 

admission is necessary to determine whether the agency has considered all relevant 

factors and has explained its decision, (2) if the agency has relied on documents not in the 

record, (3) when supplementing the record is necessary to explain technical terms or 

complex subject matter, or (4) when plaintiffs make a showing of agency bad faith.” 

Lands Council v. Powell, 395 F.3d 1019, 1030 (9th Cir. 2005) (internal citations and 

quotation marks omitted). 

 Because Mr. Yount lacks NEPA standing, he cannot make NEPA claims in this 

case and cannot, therefore, seek supplementation of the AR in support of his NEPA 

claims. Whether any other party can successfully seek to supplement the AR under the 

Ninth Circuit exceptions – with Mr. Yount’s material or other material – is a matter that 

must be decided when the Court considers fully briefed arguments on the NEPA claims 

in this case. The Court will not grant Mr. Yount’s freestanding request that extra-record 

materials be considered. 

IT IS ORDERED that Plaintiff Yount’s motion to require supplementation of the 

Administrative Record (Doc. 134) is denied. 

 Dated this 29th day of May, 2013. 

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