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Nature of Suit Code: 893
Nature of Suit: Environmental Matters
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 4, 2015 Decided May 26, 2015

No. 14-5121

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

UNITED STATES FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE AND SALLY 

JEWELL, IN HER OFICIAL CAPACITY AS SECRETARY, U.S.

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:12-cv-02013)

Rafe Petersen argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant. 

Nicholas A. DiMascio, Attorney, U.S. Department of 

Justice, argued the cause for appellees. 

With him on the brief were John C. Cruden, Assistant 

Attorney General, and Joan M. Pepin, Attorney.

Before: BROWN, SRINIVASAN and PILLARD, Circuit 

Judges.

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BROWN, Circuit Judge: Four associations challenge 

consent decrees that require the U.S. Fish and Wildlife 

Service to determine, in accordance with a settlement-defined 

schedule for action, whether 251 species should be listed as 

endangered or threatened. Because the associations lack 

standing to raise their challenge, we affirm the district court’s 

dismissal. 

I

Under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA” or “Act”), the 

public may petition the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

(“Service”) to list a particular species as endangered or 

threatened. The Service is required to determine, within 

twelve months, if listing is (1) not warranted, (2) warranted, 

or (3) warranted-but-precluded. 16 U.S.C. § 1533(b)(3)(B). 

A warranted-but-precluded determination allows the Service 

to defer action on a candidate species in order to focus agency

resources on higher priority determinations. The Service 

must monitor precluded candidate species and annually revisit 

the determination. On revisiting, the Service may continue to 

identify the species as precluded. See id. § 1533(b)(3)(C). 

“[T]he number of warranted-but-precluded findings has 

outpaced the number of listings, [and] the backlog of 

[precluded] candidate species had grown to 251 as of 2010.” 

Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., 34 

F. Supp. 3d 50, 54 (D.D.C. 2014). Two environmental groups 

brought suits seeking “to compel the . . . [agency] to comply 

with deadlines set forth in the Endangered Species Act.” In re 

Endangered Species Act Section 4 Deadline Litig.-MDL No. 

2165, 704 F.3d 972, 974 (D.C. Cir. 2013). Under the terms of 

subsequent settlements, the Service must meet strict deadlines 

for submitting either a warranted or not-warranted finding for

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all 251 candidate species. The Service maintains discretion 

regarding the substance of each listing determination. 

 

Appellants, four membership associations involved in 

building and developing land, filed suit under the APA and 

the ESA’s citizen-suit provision, 16 U.S.C. § 1540(g), seeking 

to set aside the consent decrees implementing the Service’s 

settlements. The district court granted the Service’s motion to 

dismiss for lack of standing. Our review is de novo. 

LaRoque v. Holder, 650 F.3d 777, 785 (D.C. Cir. 2011).

II

As we have noted, the practical effect of the Service’s 

heavy reliance on warranted-but-precluded determinations 

was an “average delay in candidate species listings” of more 

than ten years. Section 4 Deadline Litig., 704 F.3d at 975. 

Appellants’ members were apparently able to exploit this 

leisurely pace to seek cooperative solutions to the problem of 

habitat destruction and thus ameliorate the impact of the ESA

on their commercial activities. But from the 

environmentalists’ perspective, going slow was a perversion 

of the Act. Soon after the ESA became law, the Supreme 

Court recognized that “Congress intended endangered species 

to be afforded the highest of priorities,” and “[t]he plain intent 

of Congress in enacting th[e] statute was to halt and reverse 

the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.” Tenn.

Valley Auth. v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 174, 184 (1978). And the 

1982 amendments, which added the warranted-but-precluded 

procedures, were designed to force the Service to pick up the 

pace. The consent decrees acknowledge this core purpose.

Appellants assert procedural injuries based on loss of 

opportunity to comment at the warranted-but-precluded stage, 

withdrawal of the warranted-but-precluded classification, and 

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acceleration of final listing determinations. See generally Ctr. 

for Law & Educ. v. Dep’t of Educ., 396 F.3d 1152, 1157 

(D.C. Cir. 2005) (relaxing certain standing requirements in 

cases of procedural injury). These theories of procedural 

harm are foreclosed by binding precedent from our Circuit.

We have previously held there is no procedural right to 

comment at the warranted-but-precluded stage. Section 4 

Deadline Litig., 704 F.3d at 979. There may be benefit in 

information obtained through comments submitted after

species are classified as precluded, but “neither the ESA nor 

the implementing regulations require the Service to invite 

comment when [] it makes a warranted-but-precluded 

finding.” Id. Appellants likewise have no procedural right 

against withdrawal of the warranted-but-precluded status or 

the acceleration of listing determinations. Appellants identify 

no plausible statutory basis for such rights and fail to show

that the procedures are “designed to protect some threatened 

concrete interest of [theirs] that is the ultimate basis of [their] 

claim of standing.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 

555, 573 n.8 (1992); Section 4 Deadline Litig., 704 F.3d at 

978–79 (the only purpose of the warranted-but-precluded 

provisions is to allow the Service to delay a rulemaking to 

focus resources on other species facing greater threats).1

 In 

 1 Appellants argue the procedures need not be designed to protect 

their members’ interests because suit was brought under the ESA’s 

citizen-suit provision, as well as the APA, thus negating the APA’s 

zone-of-interest test. Any negation of the APA’s zone-of-interest 

test is beside the point. Appellants must still satisfy the 

“irreducible constitutional minimum of [Article III] standing,” 

Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560, and “[t]he grant of a procedural right cannot 

serve as the basis for Article III standing unless the procedures in 

question are designed to protect some threatened concrete interest 

of [the plaintiff] that is the ultimate basis of his standing.” Fund 

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practice, prolonged delay of final listing decisions may have 

benefited Appellants’ members’ interests, but the procedures 

at issue are not designed to protect such interests. The 

warranted-but-precluded “procedures . . . [are instead 

intended] to expedite the listing process consistent with the 

Service’s available resources.” Id. at 979.2 Unfortunately for 

Appellants, the warranted-but-precluded determination is a 

safety valve for the Service, not an escape hatch for 

beleaguered landowners. 

III

This is therefore “not a ‘procedural injury’ case.” 

Defenders of Wildlife v. Perciasepe, 714 F.3d 1317, 1323 

(D.C. Cir. 2013). Appellants must show actual or imminent, 

concrete and particularized injury-in-fact; causation, such that 

the injury is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct; and 

redressability. See generally Lujan, 504 U.S. at 572–73. 

Appellants assert harm to the property interests of 

members who own land where subject species or their 

 

Democracy, LLC v. SEC, 278 F.3d 21, 28 (D.C. Cir. 2002) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). 2 Appellants also suggest the Service failed to use the best available 

science by determining listing priority pursuant to the settlements’

schedule. Because the warranted-but-precluded status is not 

designed to protect Appellants’ members’ interests, any such failure 

is not the basis of a valid procedural injury. To the extent 

Appellants’ theory is that later “warranted” determinations were not 

based on the best available science, this argument is misplaced in a

challenge against the consent decrees that includes no challenge to 

the merits of any listing determination. Cf. infra Part III. 

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habitats are present.3 Notably, “[t]he ESA’s protections apply 

only after a species is formally listed,” Section 4 Deadline 

Litig., 704 F.3d at 974, but Appellants do not challenge the 

warranted determination as to any candidate species. They 

instead challenge the consent decrees implementing the 

Service’s settlements. “[T]he consent decree[s] do[] not 

require [the Service] to promulgate a . . . [listing] rule.” 

Perciasepe, 714 F.3d at 1324 (emphasis omitted). As in 

Perciasepe, the settlements simply require the agency to 

render a final listing decision—warranted or not-warranted—

using a specific timeline, without dictating the agency’s

substantive judgment. Accordingly, Appellants have failed to 

allege cognizable harm, see id. at 1324–25; Appellants’ 

“members face only the possibility of regulation, as they did 

before.” Nat’l Ass’n of Home Builders v. EPA, 667 F.3d 6, 13 

(D.C. Cir. 2011). “Article III standing requires more than the 

possibility of potentially adverse regulation. . . . That the 

consent decree[s] prescribe[] a date by which regulation could 

occur does not establish . . . standing.” Perciasepe, 714 F.3d 

1324–25. 

Appellants also contend their members have been harmed 

because they have expended resources on conservation efforts 

to reduce risk to candidate species, and the purpose of such 

expenditures is obviated4 with the withdrawal of the 

 3 Appellants specifically claim their members’ properties are

occupied by, or are habitats suitable for, nine subspecies of 

Mazama pocket gopher and four Central Texas salamander species. 

4 Although Appellants have understandable concerns about the 

potentially serious economic ramifications for landowners of a 

listing under the Act, the ESA has offered limited traction to 

support weighing such economic factors in some cases. See, e.g., 

Thomas Sarver, Note, Salmon, Suckers and Sorrow: Rural 

Cleansing Under the Shadow of the Endangered Species Act, 8 

DRAKE J. AGRIC. L. 455, 461–65 (2003); Editorial, Can Congress 

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warranted-but-precluded status. Yet, none of the expenditures 

specifically identified in the complaint and declarations were

dictated by the Service. Appellants’ members expended 

resources to satisfy various state and local requirements, see 

Worf Aff. ¶¶ 6–9, or as a voluntary effort to reduce harm in 

the hopes of persuading the Service that listing was 

unwarranted. As to state requirements, “independent action 

of some third party not before the court” is not fairly traceable 

to challenged actions by the Service. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560.

5

 

And, as to volitional expenditures, Appellants’ members 

cannot show injury by “inflicting harm on themselves based 

on their fears of hypothetical future harm that is not certainly 

impending.” Clapper v. Amnesty Int’l USA, 133 S. Ct. 1138, 

1151 (2013). 

 

help the Klamath Basin restore itself? It must, OREGONIAN, Nov. 

22, 2014 (describing how a 2001 shutoff of the water supply to 

irrigators in the Klamath Basin caused over $40 million in losses to 

farmers and ranchers); John Kass, California Gives Up Its 

Swatters’ Rights, CHI. TRIBUNE, Sept. 2, 1999 (noting the discovery 

of perhaps a dozen endangered flies stopped a $500 million 

building project and cost a hospital about $4 million in added 

construction costs). See also San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water 

Auth. v. Jewell, 747 F.3d 581, 593 (9th Cir. 2014) (“We recognize 

the enormous practical implications of this decision[,] . . . [b]ut the . 

. . law prohibits us from . . . balanc[ing] the [delta] smelt’s interests 

against the interests of the citizens of California.”).

5 Appellants argue the Service coerced state and local officials, but 

Appellants’ declarations simply indicate that local officials 

“forward[ed] the proposal to the local [Service] office for comment, 

notwithstanding the fact that the proposal had already received 

[state agency] approval.” Kaufman Aff. ¶ 19. As the district court 

concluded, this is insufficient to create an inference of coercion. 

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IV

For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s dismissal is

Affirmed. 

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