Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05205/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05205-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 895
Nature of Suit: Freedom of Information Act of 1974
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 9, 2015 Decided September 29, 2015 

No. 14-5205 

SIERRA CLUB, 

APPELLANT

v. 

UNITED STATES ARMY CORPS OF ENGINEERS, ET AL., 

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:13-cv-01239) 

Douglas P. Hayes argued the cause for appellant. With 

him on the briefs were Eric E. Huber and Joshua Stebbins. 

Michael T. Gray, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for Federal appellees. With him on the brief 

were John C. Cruden, Assistant Attorney General, and Ty 

Bair and David C. Shilton, Attorneys. 

David H. Coburn and Cynthia Taub were on the brief for 

appellee Enbridge Pipelines (FSP), L.L.C. Joshua H. Runyan

entered an appearance. 

Before: BROWN, PILLARD and WILKINS, Circuit Judges. 

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD. 

Opinion concurring in the judgment filed by Circuit 

Judge BROWN. 

PILLARD, Circuit Judge: The central question in this 

appeal is the scope of environmental review the National 

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) required before a 

particular oil pipeline was built. Oil pipelines help to satisfy 

national and global energy demand by pumping tens of 

millions of barrels of oil across the United States each month. 

They have also sparked intense debates about energy and 

environmental policies. The proposed Keystone XL Pipeline 

alone has generated millions of comments to the government 

on a spectrum of issues. The construction and operation of 

pipelines necessarily affect land, water, air, plants, animals, 

and human life, and carry the potential for unintended 

damage. More than a dozen pipeline accidents occur on 

average each month in the United States—most minor, some 

grave. If not transported via pipelines, oil might remain in the 

ground and never be used, or might be brought to market in 

other ways—potentially by methods less efficient and more 

harmful than pipeline transportation. 

 The U.S. Secretary of State must approve oil pipelines 

that cross international borders, see Exec. Order 11,423, 33 

Fed. Reg. 11,741 (Aug. 16, 1968), but that requirement is 

inapplicable to wholly domestic pipelines. Separately, the 

Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration 

(PHMSA) within the U.S. Department of Transportation must 

approve oil spill response plans under the Oil Pollution 

Control Act of 1990 for pipelines that might spill oil into 

navigable waters or the shoreline, see 33 U.S.C. § 

1321(j)(5)(A)(i), (C)(iv), (G); Executive Order 12,777, 56 

Fed. Reg. 54,757, 54,760 (Oct. 18, 1991), 49 C.F.R. § 194.7, 

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but there is no claim here PHMSA must approve a response 

plan before a pipeline can be built and begin operating.1 

Notwithstanding the absence of any general permitting 

requirement for domestic oil pipelines, federal ownership or 

control of lands and other assets, as well as resource-specific 

environmental statutes such as the Clean Water Act, often do 

call for federal approvals before an oil pipeline can be built. 

Where there is federal action, NEPA requires governmental 

review, with public input, of the full range of such action’s 

reasonably foreseeable direct or indirect environmental 

effects. Federal actions subject to NEPA include federal 

authorizations granted to private parties, such as oil pipeline 

construction companies. 

 The Flanagan South oil pipeline pumps crude oil across 

593 miles of American heartland from Illinois to Oklahoma. 

Almost all of the land over which it passes is privately owned. 

As soon as Enbridge Pipelines (FSP), LLC, (Enbridge) began 

building the pipeline in 2013, the Sierra Club, a national 

environmental nonprofit organization, sued the federal 

government seeking to set aside several federal agencies’ 

regulatory approvals relating to the pipeline and to enjoin the 

pipeline’s construction and operation in reliance on any such 

approvals. 

Sierra Club’s chief claim was that various federal 

easements and approvals that Enbridge obtained from the 

agencies gave necessary go-ahead to the Flanagan South 

project as a whole, and thus the entire pipeline was a 

foreseeable effect of federal action requiring public 

environmental scrutiny under NEPA. Sierra Club also 

 

1

 The complaint asserted a PHMSA-related NEPA claim, but the 

district court dismissed that claim for lack of final agency action 

because no oil spill response plan had been finalized. 

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claimed that one of the agencies, the United States Army 

Corps of Engineers (the Corps), unlawfully authorized dredge 

and fill activities at the pipeline’s nearly two thousand minor 

water crossings by verifying that they fell within the authority 

of a general permit, Nationwide Permit 12, that the Corps had 

promulgated under the Clean Water Act. Sierra Club argued 

that the Corps impermissibly conducted its analyses of the 

water crossings’ cumulative impacts by region, rather than 

considering the pipeline as a whole, and that its conclusions 

that the crossings would have only minimal adverse 

environmental effects were inadequately supported and 

conclusory. After Sierra Club filed suit, Enbridge promptly 

intervened as a defendant. The district court denied 

preliminary injunctive relief and entered summary judgment 

in favor of the agencies and Enbridge. 

On appeal, Sierra Club principally contends that the 

district court erred by failing to require the agencies to 

analyze and invite public comment on the environmental 

impact of the whole pipeline under NEPA, including the 

lengthy portions crossing private land and not otherwise 

subject to federal approvals. Sierra Club also presses its 

challenge to the Corps’s Clean Water Act verifications of the 

pipeline’s many water crossings. Sierra Club further contends 

that the district court reversibly erred by failing to allow the 

organization to supplement and amend its complaint. Sierra 

Club’s proposed new complaint added claims that the Corps 

and the Bureau of Indian Affairs within the U.S. Department 

of the Interior (the Bureau) had, while the litigation was 

pending, completed separate NEPA analyses relating to each 

of the easements the agencies had granted for the pipeline to 

cross federally controlled land, and that those analyses were 

insufficient. 

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We hold that the federal government was not required to 

conduct NEPA analysis of the entirety of the Flanagan South 

pipeline, including portions not subject to federal control or 

permitting. The agencies’ respective regulatory actions—in 

the form of easements, Clean Water Act verifications, and 

authorization to harm or kill members of endangered species 

without incurring liability under the Endangered Species Act 

(ESA)—were limited to discrete geographic segments of the 

pipeline comprising less than five percent of its overall length. 

As explained below, the agencies were required to conduct 

NEPA analysis of the foreseeable direct and indirect effects of 

those regulatory actions. However, on the facts of this case, 

the agencies were not obligated also to analyze the impact of 

the construction and operation of the entire pipeline. We 

also reject Sierra Club’s Clean Water Act challenge to the 

Corps’s verifications of Flanagan South’s water crossings 

under Nationwide Permit 12 because the Corps was 

authorized to conduct its review on a regional rather than 

nationwide basis, and the Corps’s District Managers 

adequately supported their verification decisions. Finally, we 

hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in 

denying Sierra Club’s motion to supplement and amend its 

complaint, because the proposed new allegations would not 

have affected the dispositive legal analysis. 

I. Background 

A. Flanagan South Planning 

Enbridge began the planning and permitting process for 

the Flanagan South project in 2011. The 593-mile-long 

pipeline was designed to ship roughly 600,000 barrels of oil 

per day across Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The 

new pipeline would expand Enbridge’s capacity to ship crude 

oil from Flanagan, Illinois, to a major terminal in Cushing, 

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Oklahoma. From Cushing, the oil was to flow to refineries on 

the Gulf Coast and elsewhere. Enbridge designed the pipeline 

to run parallel to an existing pipeline, the Spearhead pipeline, 

which had been in operation since 2006. 

Roughly four-fifths of Flanagan South would track within 

50 feet of the existing Spearhead pipeline. Most of the 36”-

diameter Flanagan South pipeline was to be buried at least 

four feet underground in trenches dug approximately ten feet 

wide and deep. As planned, the pipeline would pass 

underneath roads and streambeds and cross approximately 

400 miles of farmland, 85 miles of forests, 68 miles of 

grasslands, 28 miles of developed land, and 10 miles of 

wetlands. Flanagan South’s construction would require 

grading, excavation, or other forms of earth-disturbing 

activities in order to erect, inspect, and maintain the pipeline 

itself and its supporting infrastructure, such as pumping 

stations, mainline valves, pipe yards and access roads. The 

construction activities would affect swaths of land as wide as 

135 feet, and ongoing maintenance would use a permanent 

50-foot-wide right of way, kept clear by cutting back 

vegetation every three to five years and possible application 

of herbicides. Of the sixty eight miles of access roads 

anticipated for the pipeline, roughly seven miles would be 

newly constructed, with most of the new roads crossing nonforested, agricultural areas not requiring tree removal.

Enbridge budgeted more than $2.5 billion to build 

Flanagan South and sought to complete construction by June 

2014, only ten months after breaking ground. Before starting 

construction, Enbridge negotiated rights of way across 

approximately 2,400 tracts of land owned by approximately 

1,700 private landowners. The company conducted public 

outreach campaigns and solicited input from local officials, 

Indian nations, community groups, and landowners expected 

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to be affected by the project. Enbridge also sought regulatory 

authorizations from local and state governmental entities, as 

well as federal agencies. 

The parties do not dispute that, to complete construction 

of the pipeline, Enbridge required easements from the Corps 

and the Bureau to cross spans of federal and Indian lands, and 

Clean Water Act approvals from the Corps to conduct dredge 

and fill activities at water crossings. The parties also 

recognize that, in granting those permissions, the Corps and 

Bureau were required to consult with the U.S. Fish and 

Wildlife Service (the Service) pursuant to Section 7 of the 

ESA regarding the harm to endangered or threatened species 

anticipated to result from those permissions. They further 

recognize that Enbridge could not lawfully harm listed species 

unless it obtained either a safe harbor from the Section 7 

consultation process, see 16 U.S.C. § 1536, or a permit under 

Section 10 of the ESA, see id. § 1539, discussed below. 

Enbridge urged the agencies to act quickly so that it 

could meet its construction deadlines, and the agencies did so. 

Enbridge obtained Clean Water Act verifications from the 

Corps for the pipeline to make water crossings, as well as 

easements from the Corps and the Bureau to cross federal and 

Indian lands. The Corps and Bureau also consulted with the 

Service pursuant to ESA Section 7 regarding their approvals’ 

potential impact on listed species, and the Service issued a 

Biological Opinion regarding the Flanagan South project’s 

anticipated impact. 

The Biological Opinion concluded that building and 

operating Flanagan South would likely result in some 

“take”—i.e., harming or killing—of two listed, endangered 

species, the Indiana Bat and the American Burying Beetle, but 

that the take would not be so extensive as to jeopardize the 

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continued existence of either species.2

 The Biological 

Opinion contained an Incidental Take Statement (ITS) that 

identified reasonable and prudent measures, chiefly habitat 

restoration and monitoring measures, by which Enbridge 

could minimize the anticipated take of the two species that 

would occur incidental to the project, and set forth mandatory 

terms and conditions to that end. The ITS provided Enbridge 

a conditional safe harbor from liability under the ESA for any 

taking of listed species, but that permission was limited: By 

its own terms, it was valid only insofar as the Corps or Bureau 

imposed the ITS on Enbridge by incorporating it as a binding, 

enforceable term of permits or contracts they issued to 

Enbridge to which Enbridge in fact adhered. The easements 

that the Corps and Bureau granted to Enbridge did not purport 

to incorporate and enforce the ITS, and the Corps’s 

verifications did so only within the geographic segments of 

the Corps’s Clean Water Act jurisdiction over the verified 

water crossing areas. Enbridge considered but decided 

against applying to the Service for a Section 10 permit to take 

species, instead of or in addition to obtaining the safe harbor 

resulting from the verifications’ incorporation of the Section 7 

ITS. 

The Corps conducted a NEPA analysis when it reissued 

Nationwide Permit 12, see 77 Fed. Reg. 10,184, 10,197 (Feb. 

 

2

 The Indiana bat is a medium-sized migratory bat found in the 

eastern United States that faces threats to its habitat for hibernation, 

roosting, forage, migration and swarming. It has been listed as an 

endangered species since 1967, when it was originally listed under 

the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, a predecessor to 

the ESA. 32 Fed. Reg. 4,001 (Mar. 11, 1967). The American 

Burying Beetle is a uniquely large, colorful beetle, found chiefly in 

a few central states, whose numbers have been depleted due largely 

to the fragmentation of its habitat. It has been listed as endangered 

since 1989. 54 Fed. Reg. 29,652 (July 13, 1989). 

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21, 2012), and the Corps and the Bureau each completed 

geographically limited NEPA analyses in conjunction with 

the easements they granted. No agency performed a NEPA 

analysis of the full Flanagan South project. 

B. NEPA’s Environmental Review Requirement

NEPA requires the federal government to identify and 

assess in advance the likely environmental impact of its 

proposed actions, including its authorization or permitting of 

private actions. Dep’t of Transp. v. Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. 

752, 756-57 (2004). NEPA’s mandate, which incorporates 

notice and comment procedures, serves the twin purposes of 

ensuring that (1) agency decisions include informed and 

careful consideration of environmental impact, and (2) 

agencies inform the public of that impact and enable 

interested persons to participate in deciding what projects 

agencies should approve and under what terms. Id. at 768. 

The statute serves those purposes by requiring federal 

agencies to take a “hard look” at their proposed actions’ 

environmental consequences in advance of deciding whether 

and how to proceed. Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens 

Council, 490 U.S. 332, 350-51 (1989). The statute does not 

dictate particular decisional outcomes, but “merely prohibits 

uninformed—rather than unwise—agency action.” Id. at 351; 

see also Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 756-57.

At the heart of NEPA is the procedural requirement that 

federal agencies prepare and make publicly available, in 

anticipation of proposed “major Federal actions significantly 

affecting the quality of the human environment,” an 

Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that assesses the 

action’s anticipated direct and indirect environmental effects, 

and that the agencies consider alternatives that might lessen 

any adverse environmental impact. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(C); 40 

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C.F.R. § 1508.11. Regulations promulgated by the Council 

on Environmental Quality (CEQ) provide common guidance 

for all federal agencies in carrying out their NEPA 

responsibilities. Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 757; see 40 C.F.R. 

pts. 1501-02. Some agencies, such as the Corps, have 

promulgated their own, complementary NEPA regulations in 

order to provide additional guidance to their personnel to 

carry out the directives of the statute and the CEQ regulations 

in agency-specific contexts. See, e.g., 33 C.F.R. § 325 App. B 

(Corps regulations); see also 40 C.F.R. § 1500.2(a)-(b). 

The CEQ regulations explain that NEPA’s “federal 

actions” may encompass the federal government’s own 

undertakings, such as promulgating a rule or building a public 

project, as well as government authorizations or support of 

non-federal activities, such as approving private construction 

activities “by permit or other regulatory decision.” 40 C.F.R. 

§ 1508.18(a), (b)(4). The CEQ regulations clarify that the 

term “major” “reinforces but does not have a meaning 

independent of significantly,” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.18, and 

explain that interpretation of the term “significantly” entails 

case-by-case consideration of the context of the action and the 

severity of its impact, id. § 1508.27. 

When it is uncertain whether a proposed federal action 

will “significantly affect” the environment so as to require an 

EIS, the regulations call for the agency to prepare an 

Environmental Assessment (EA)—essentially, a preliminary 

consideration of potential environmental effects in a “concise 

public document” designed to “provide sufficient evidence 

and analysis for determining whether” an EIS is needed. Id.

§§ 1501.4(b)-(c), 1508.9; see Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 757-

58. If, informed by the EA, the agency finds no need for an 

EIS, it must prepare a “finding of no significant impact” 

(FONSI) that includes or summarizes the EA and briefly 

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explains why the agency believes the action will not have a 

significant effect on the environment. 40 C.F.R. 

§§ 1501.4(e), 1508.13. For example, the EAs performed by 

the Corps and the Bureau in this case assessed the anticipated 

environmental effects—on soil, water, species, air quality, 

noise, and cultural resources—of granting Enbridge’s 

requested easements to run Flanagan South across the federal 

lands. The agencies’ EAs resulted in a FONSI for each 

easement. Each form of NEPA analysis—EA/FONSI or 

EIS—requires public notice and comment, id. §§ 1503.1, 

1501.4(e), 1506.6, and each is subject to judicial review, see, 

e.g., Pub. Citizen, 541 U.S. at 763-64; Grand Canyon Trust v. 

FAA, 290 F.3d 339, 340-42 (D.C. Cir. 2002). 

Sierra Club’s objection in this suit concerns the scope, 

not the intensiveness, of the agencies’ analyses. That is, 

Sierra Club does not complain that an agency improperly 

prepared an EA and issued a FONSI when it should have 

prepared an EIS. Rather, it complains that no agency ever 

conducted pipeline-wide NEPA analysis to any degree, 

whether an EA or an EIS. 

Sierra Club identifies three groups of federal agency 

approvals that, it contends, support its claim that federal law 

requires a pipeline-wide NEPA analysis of the Flanagan 

South project: (1) easements granted by the Corps and the 

Bureau for the pipeline to span two parcels of federally owned 

riverside land and 34 parcels of federally managed Indian 

lands; (2) Clean Water Act verifications issued by the Corps 

concluding that 1,950 water crossings complied with the 

Clean Water Act under Nationwide Permit 12; and (3) 

conditional permission for Enbridge to take endangered 

species in the course of constructing and maintaining the 

pipeline without incurring liability under the ESA—

permission provided through an Incidental Take Statement, 

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issued by the Service and implemented by the Corps in its 

verifications. Sierra Club contends that those actions 

triggered a requirement under NEPA that one of the agencies 

review the environmental impact of the entire pipeline, 

including portions outside the segments that the federal 

actions purported to address. 

1. Easements Across Federal or Indian Lands 

Both the Corps and the Bureau granted Enbridge 

easements to cross federal and Indian lands. See 30 U.S.C. 

§ 185(a) (authorizing agencies to issue rights of way for 

transportation of oil and gas across federal lands); 25 U.S.C. § 

321 (authorizing the Department of the Interior to issue rights 

of way for oil and gas transportation across Indian lands). 

The Corps easements allowed the pipeline to cross 1.3 miles 

of land in two parcels owned by the federal government along 

the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers. The Bureau easements 

afforded rights of way across 34 tracts, or 12.3 total miles, of 

Indian lands the Bureau manages in trust for tribes. The 

Corps and Bureau prepared three discrete NEPA analyses, in 

the form of EAs, to consider the anticipated environmental 

effects of granting Enbridge rights to construct segments of 

the pipeline across those lands. Each analysis considered only 

the environmental impact anticipated within its respective 

geographic area.

2. Clean Water Act Verifications Under 

Nationwide Permit 12 

The next category of federal actions involved 

verifications by the Corps, which authorized the Flanagan 

South pipeline to cross minor waterways consistent with the 

Clean Water Act. The Corps has responsibility for 

implementing the provisions of the Act relevant here, 

including by requiring permits for construction activities that 

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involve dredge and fill of water features (including wetlands) 

subject to the Act’s jurisdiction. See 33 U.S.C. § 1344. The 

Corps grants Clean Water Act permits in one of two ways: It 

issues individual permits that are tailored to specific projects, 

id. § 1344(a), or it promulgates general permits, such as 

Nationwide Permit 12, and later “verifies” that specific 

manifestations of a generally approved type of project, such 

as crossings by pipelines and other utility lines, qualify 

thereunder, see id. § 1344(e); see also Reissuance of 

Nationwide Permits, 77 Fed. Reg. 10,184, 10,271-72 (Feb. 21, 

2012). 

General permits authorize categories of actions that will, 

alone and together, cause only minimal adverse 

environmental effects. 33 U.S.C. § 1344(e). They may 

extend to activities throughout a state, a region, or the nation; 

must be reevaluated at least every five years if they are to be 

reissued; and may contain general conditions applicable to all 

projects subject to approval thereunder. See id. Nationwide 

Permit 12 “addresses the construction, maintenance, repair, 

and removal of all utility lines throughout the nation,” 

including lines “carrying resources (like water, fuel, and 

electricity), facilitating communication (like telephone lines, 

internet connections, and cable television), and removing 

waste.” Sierra Club, Inc. v. Bostick, 787 F.3d 1043, 1058 

(10th Cir. 2015); see also 77 Fed. Reg. at 10,271-72 (broadly 

defining “utility line” to include “any pipe or pipeline for the 

transportation of any gaseous, liquid, liquescent, or slurry 

substance, for any purpose, and any cable, line, or wire for the 

transmission for any purpose of electrical energy, telephone, 

and telegraph messages, and radio and television 

communication”). There is no dispute that the Flanagan 

South oil pipeline qualifies as a “utility line” under 

Nationwide Permit 12. Nationwide Permit 12 authorizes 

utility line construction activities that affect no more than a 

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half-acre of jurisdictional waters at any single crossing. See

77 Fed. Reg. at 10,271, 10,290. 

After the Corps has promulgated a general permit, with 

public notice and an opportunity for a hearing, regional staff 

members consider requests for “verifications” of projects 

thereunder. For a project to qualify for verification under a 

general permit, a Corps District Engineer must conclude that 

it complies with the general permit’s conditions, will cause no 

more than minimal adverse effects on the environment, and 

will serve the public interest. 33 C.F.R. §§ 330.1(e)(2), 

330.6(a)(3)(i). Because the Corps cannot accurately 

anticipate the effects of thousands of future activities at the 

time it promulgates a general permit, the general permit’s 

basic terms may later be supplemented by a Corps District 

Engineer’s decision to attach additional, project-specific 

conditions at the verification stage. 33 C.F.R. §§ 330.1(e)(2), 

330.6(a)(3)(i); see also Ohio Valley Envtl. Coal. v. Bulen, 429 

F.3d 493, 501 (4th Cir. 2005). If a District Engineer deems a 

project inappropriate for verification under a general permit, 

the engineer may require that the project instead proceed 

under an individual permit. 33 C.F.R. § 330.6(a)(2), (d). 

In this case, four regional Corps offices each issued 

verifications of the Flanagan South project for their respective 

regions under Nationwide Permit 12. The 1,950 crossings the 

Corps verified here collectively comprise about 13.7 miles, or 

roughly 2.3 percent, of the Flanagan South pipeline’s 593-

mile route. The Corps did not require any separate permits. It 

did, however, impose conditions on the verifications to ensure 

compliance with the Endangered Species Act, as 

contemplated by the Clean Water Act’s minimal-adverseimpacts requirement. 

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The Corps performed a NEPA analysis when it 

promulgated Nationwide Permit 12, and Sierra Club does not 

here challenge the adequacy of the Corps’s analysis at that 

stage. See 77 Fed. Reg. at 10,187. The Corps did not conduct 

any further NEPA analysis of its verifications of Flanagan 

South under the nationwide permit. The Corps’s practice is to 

perform NEPA analysis for general permits in advance of 

their promulgation, and not to conduct additional NEPA 

analysis when it verifies specific activities under the general 

permits. See, e.g., Bostick, 787 F.3d at 1054;3 Snoqualmie 

Valley Pres. All. v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 683 F.3d 

1155, 1158 (9th Cir. 2012). The Corps represented to this 

court that it is very common for domestic oil pipelines to be 

constructed without any whole-pipeline NEPA analysis, and 

estimates that 180 oil pipelines have been constructed 

primarily over private lands without analysis of the 

environmental effects of the pipeline as a whole. 

3. Endangered Species Act 

Consultation and Authorization

The third type of federal action at issue is the conditional, 

limited authorization of the Flanagan South pipeline under the 

Endangered Species Act. Following interagency consultation 

required by Section 7 of the ESA in connection with federal 

agency actions, the Service issued and the Corps implemented 

 

3

 For thoughtful analysis of the scope of the Corps’s obligations 

under NEPA, see Bostick, 787 F.3d at 1062 (McHugh, J., 

concurring). To the extent that the Corps, both in Bostick, see id. at 

1062-63, and in this case, see Oral Arg. Rec. (Apr. 9, 2015) 30:20-

31:37, understood its NEPA obligations as confined to considering 

environmental effects on CWA jurisdictional waters, its view 

misapprehends the obligations of any agency taking action subject 

to NEPA to do a comprehensive analysis of all types of foreseeable 

environmental effects. See 40 C.F.R. §§ 1508.8, 1508.27. 

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an Incidental Take Statement to minimize the project’s impact 

on two endangered species, the Indiana Bat and the American 

Burying Beetle, and to authorize incidental take of those 

species. 

When Congress enacted the ESA, it “intended 

endangered species to be afforded the highest of priorities.” 

Tenn. Valley Auth. v. Hill, 437 U.S. 153, 174 (1978); see 

generally 16 U.S.C. § 1531. The ESA generally prohibits the 

“take” of any members of endangered animal species, 

defining “take” as “to harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, 

wound, kill, trap, capture, or collect, or to attempt to engage 

in any such conduct.” 16 U.S.C. §§ 1532(19), 1538(a)(1)(B). 

Notwithstanding that prohibition, private parties such as 

Enbridge may obtain authorization for incidental take of 

species where the take is not the project’s objective and is 

sufficiently limited that it does not jeopardize the survival of 

the species. See id. §§ 1536(a)(2), 1539(a)(2)(B). A party 

may obtain such limited permission for the incidental take of 

species in either of two ways. 

First, a party may apply to the Service for a permit under 

Section 10 of the ESA, and the Service may issue a permit 

directly to that party to take members of listed species “if 

such taking is incidental to, and not the purpose of, the 

carrying out of an otherwise lawful activity.” Id. § 

1539(a)(1)(B); see, e.g., Gerber v. Norton, 294 F.3d 173, 175 

(D.C. Cir. 2002) (Service issuing Section 10 permit to a 

developer to take endangered fox squirrels incidental to 

constructing a residential housing project). A Section 10 

permit application must include a conservation plan that 

specifies the likely impact of the anticipated take as well as 

steps for minimizing and mitigating such impact (with 

identified funding sufficient to implement those steps), and 

that identifies which potentially less harmful alternatives were 

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considered and why they are not being used. 16 U.S.C.

§ 1539(a)(2)(A). Enbridge considered and decided against 

seeking a Section 10 permit, as detailed below.

Second, and less directly, a private party may take listed 

species by complying with an ITS issued by the Service 

pursuant to ESA Section 7. Section 7 requires other federal 

agencies to consult with the Service whenever they have 

reason to believe that listed species or critical habitats may be 

affected by their planned actions, including authorizations of 

private parties’ actions. Id. § 1536(a). Accordingly, in this 

case the Corps and the Bureau, as “action agencies,” 

consulted with the Service in light of the Clean Water Act 

verifications that the Corps was issuing and the easements 

that both agencies were granting to Enbridge. See id.; see 

generally U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv. & Nat’l Marine 

Fisheries Serv., Endangered Species Consultation Handbook 

(March 1998) (hereinafter “Section 7 Handbook”), 

http://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa-library/pdf/ 

esa_section7_handbook.pdf. The Service allows private 

parties to participate in a Section 7 consultation when the 

contemplated action involves the action agency’s approval of 

private-party conduct, see 16 U.S.C. § 1536(b); 50 C.F.R. § 

402.14, and Enbridge actively participated in the ESA Section 

7 consultation relating to Flanagan South. 

In a Section 7 consultation, the Service prepares a 

Biological Opinion identifying the project and any likely 

impact on listed species or their habitat. 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)-

(c); 50 C.F.R. §§ 402.02, 402.14(e), (g)-(h). The Service 

cannot approve proposed actions that are likely to jeopardize 

the continued existence of listed species or critical habitats. 

16 U.S.C. §§ 1536(a)(2), (b)(4). If an action will likely result 

in at most a limited take that is incidental to the project, the 

Service provides the consulting agency and private party with 

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an ITS as part of the Biological Opinion. Id.; 50 C.F.R. 

§ 402.14(i). An ITS identifies reasonable and prudent 

measures—such as mitigation, monitoring, and reporting—

necessary or appropriate to minimize the impact on species 

likely to be incidentally affected by the project, and terms and 

conditions required to implement those measures. 16 U.S.C.

§ 1536(b)(4); 50 C.F.R. § 402.14(i)(1)(ii), (iv); see, e.g., San 

Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Auth. v. Jewell, 747 F.3d 581, 

597-99 (9th Cir. 2014), cert. denied, 135 S. Ct. 948 (2015). 

It is up to an action agency that has consulted with the 

Service under Section 7 to determine whether and how to 

proceed with its proposed action (including permitting private 

activity) in light of an ITS issued by the Service. 50 C.F.R. § 

402.15(a); see 16 U.S.C. § 1536(b)(4). However, the action 

agency and private party (unless it has obtained a Section 10 

permit) must comply with the Service’s ITS if they wish to be 

insulated from ESA liability for taking species incidental to 

the project. 16 U.S.C. § 1536(o)(2); 50 C.F.R. § 402.14(i)(5); 

see, e.g., Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 169-70 (1997). 

In this case, the Service consulted with the Corps and the 

Bureau, and Enbridge participated. The agencies and 

Enbridge negotiated for more than a year over several 

questions, including whether Enbridge would seek a Section 

10 permit or a Section 7 ITS; whether the Biological Opinion 

and its ITS would cover only the verification and easement 

areas or the whole Flanagan South project; and the geographic 

extent to which the Corps was responsible for incorporating 

the ITS in its verifications and enforcing it outside those 

jurisdictional areas. The Service ultimately prepared a 

Biological Opinion that examined the entire length of the 

pipeline. See 50 C.F.R. § 402.02 (“Action area means all 

areas to be affected directly or indirectly by the Federal action 

and not merely the immediate area involved in the action.”). 

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Neither the Service nor the Corps or Bureau prepared any 

NEPA analysis of the issuance or implementation of the ITS. 

The Service determined that, if Enbridge took certain 

mitigation measures and performed onsite monitoring for five 

decades, the project would result in a tolerable degree of 

incidental take of the two identified endangered species and 

their critical habitat. The Service so specified in the ITS it 

issued pursuant to Section 7. If the ITS were made a binding 

condition of a contract, permit, lease or easement, and 

Enbridge complied with those terms and conditions, the ITS 

specified that it would provide Enbridge a safe harbor from 

ESA liability for incidentally taking those species within the 

geographic scope of any area in which Enbridge was bound 

to, and did, comply. 

C. Procedural History 

 Sierra Club filed suit against the Corps in August 2013, 

on the day Enbridge began construction of Flanagan South. 

The organization amended its complaint soon thereafter to 

add new claims and name new federal-agency defendants. 

The amended complaint asserted that NEPA analysis was 

required in light of requested easements over federal lands, 

Clean Water Act verifications, and the issuance of the ITS. 

Sierra Club claimed that those actions, “individually and 

collectively, constituted major federal action that triggered 

defendants’ NEPA obligations” to prepare NEPA analysis of 

“the entire Project.” Compl. ¶ 5. Sierra Club contended that 

a “massive pipeline has been authorized . . . without any 

NEPA review of the extensive environmental impacts of the 

entire pipeline.” Id. ¶ 7.4 Sierra Club also asserted a Clean 

 

4

 Sierra Club also alleged that the agencies failed to designate a 

“lead agency,” preferably the Corps, to oversee the NEPA analysis. 

Compl. ¶¶ 40, 187; see 40 C.F.R. § 1501.5(c). 

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Water Act claim against the Corps, alleging that the 

verifications the Corps issued under Nationwide Permit 12 

were unlawful because, as relevant here, the agency failed to 

evaluate the pipeline’s cumulative impacts. Id. ¶ 192. Sierra 

Club asserted its NEPA and Clean Water Act claims in 

conjunction with the Administrative Procedure Act, seeking a 

declaration that the alleged federal actions were all unlawful 

and an order “enjoining Enbridge from conducting any 

activities in reliance on” them. 

Sierra Club moved for a preliminary injunction, Enbridge 

intervened as a defendant, and the district court denied 

preliminary relief. Later, on cross-motions for summary 

judgment, the district court ruled in favor of the defendants, 

observing that the agencies had “permitting authority over 

only small segments of this private pipeline project and none 

of the defendant agencies, alone or in combination, ha[d] 

authority to oversee or control the vast portions of the [] 

Pipeline that traverse private land.” Sierra Club v. Army 

Corps of Eng’rs, 64 F. Supp. 3d 128, 133-34 (D.D.C. 2014). 

The court also ruled against Sierra Club on its Clean Water 

Act claim, holding that the Corps lawfully conducted regionbased analyses of the adverse cumulative effects of the water 

crossings it verified under Nationwide Permit 12. Id. at 155-

57. On the same day that it entered summary judgment, the 

district court entered a separate order denying Sierra Club’s 

two pending motions to supplement and amend its first 

amended complaint. Sierra Club timely appealed. 

II. Mootness 

At the threshold, we must confirm our subject matter 

jurisdiction. North Carolina v. Rice, 404 U.S. 244, 246 

(1971). Enbridge contends that, as a prudential matter, we 

should dismiss this appeal as moot because the agencies have 

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already granted the various authorizations at issue and 

construction of the pipeline is now complete. In Enbridge’s 

view, the court cannot now remedy any injuries that might 

stem from the claimed NEPA violations because NEPA’s goal 

of requiring the federal government to study and publicly 

explain anticipated environmental effects before taking action 

would not be furthered by post-construction NEPA review. 

At this point, Enbridge argues, there is “no real opportunity 

for any of the Defendants to reconsider their decisions,” and 

“any further public comment could have no impact on the 

Defendants’ decision-making, since the agencies could not 

effectively act on the input provided.” Enbridge Br. 13, 16. 

Enbridge likewise argues that Sierra Club’s Clean Water Act 

claim is moot because “the minimal impacts to jurisdictional 

waters under [Nationwide Permit 12] at stake in this litigation 

have already occurred” and “[t]here are no ongoing 

unmitigated impacts.” Id. at 16-17. 

This case is not moot because an order wholly or partly 

enjoining operation of the pipeline, pending further analyses 

of the pipeline’s environmental impact, would provide some 

degree of “effectual relief.” See Church of Scientology of 

Cal. v. United States, 506 U.S. 9, 12-13 (1992). “Even 

though it is now too late to prevent or to provide a fully 

satisfactory remedy for” the harms Sierra Club identifies, the 

court has the “power to effectuate a partial remedy,” and that 

“is sufficient to prevent this case from being moot.” Id. at 13. 

“[T]his case presents a live controversy” because, were this 

court to hold that the agencies’ NEPA analysis was 

inadequate or their decisions otherwise arbitrary and 

capricious, they “would have to correct the decision-making 

process.” Columbia Basin Land Protection Ass’n v. 

Schlesinger, 643 F.2d 585, 591 n.1 (9th Cir. 1981). If the 

NEPA analysis were legally inadequate, “we could order that 

the [pipeline] be closed or impose restrictions on its use,” at 

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22 

least on federally authorized segments, “until [the agencies] 

complied with NEPA.” Airport Neighbors All., Inc. v. United 

States, 90 F.3d 426, 429 (10th Cir. 1996). 

More extensive environmental analysis could lead the 

agencies to different conclusions, with live remedial 

implications. If a broader NEPA analysis uncovered 

additional environmental harms, the removal of the 

challenged project, at least from certain areas, “could be 

required.” Schlesinger, 643 F.2d at 591 n.1. Even assuming 

claims “relating to the construction of” the pipeline were 

moot, “we still may consider whether [the agencies] complied 

with NEPA by adequately addressing the environmental 

impacts resulting from the enhanced use of” it. Airport 

Neighbors All., 90 F.3d at 429. The agencies could call for 

additional mitigation and monitoring, or could decide not to 

renew their respective authorizations. See, e.g., 33 C.F.R. 

§ 330.5(d). There is no basis for Enbridge’s contentions that 

none of the types of environmental effects that agencies must 

investigate under NEPA could be avoided, undone, or more 

robustly mitigated and monitored. 

This case is thus distinguishable from those in which the 

court could not provide any of the relief sought. In Sierra 

Club v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, for example, 

environmental challenges to the Corps filling wetlands to 

construct a sports complex were moot once the construction 

was fully completed because it was undisputed that the 

wetlands could not be restored, and the wetlands were the 

only resource in which the plaintiffs claimed an interest. 277 

F. App’x 170, 173 (3rd Cir. 2008). The completion of the 

project and the limited nature of the plaintiffs’ asserted 

interest in that case eliminated “the opportunity for any

meaningful relief to Plaintiffs’ alleged injuries.” Id. 

(emphasis added). 

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This case presents a live controversy, and we reject 

Enbridge’s suggestion that we dismiss the appeal for 

prudential reasons. That conclusion comports with 

Congress’s objective in the various federal laws at issue here 

that require environmental review and authorization in 

advance. “If the fact that [projects] are built and operating 

were enough to make [a] case nonjusticiable,” agencies and 

private parties “could merely ignore the requirements of 

NEPA” as well as other statutes requiring pre-construction 

authorization or review, “build [their] structures before a case 

gets to court, and then hide behind the mootness doctrine.” 

Schlesinger, 643 F.2d at 591 n.1. But “[s]uch a result is not 

acceptable.” Id.; see also West v. Sec’y of Dep’t of Transp., 

206 F.3d 920, 925 (9th Cir. 2000). We thus proceed to the 

merits of Sierra Club’s challenge. 

III. NEPA 

Sierra Club contends that the agencies should have 

conducted NEPA review of the pipeline as a whole. The only 

alleged federal action that, by its terms, addressed the entire 

pipeline was the Service’s ITS in its Biological Opinion. 

Sierra Club argues that either the Service’s issuance of the 

ITS during Section 7 consultation with the Corps and Bureau, 

or the Corps’s implementation of the ITS as a condition of the 

Clean Water Act verifications it issued to Enbridge, 

constituted federal action encompassing all of Flanagan 

South, thereby mandating whole-pipeline NEPA review. The 

Bureau also consulted with the Service in light of the 

easements it was granting to Enbridge, but Sierra Club does 

not invoke the Bureau or its easements in arguing that the ITS 

triggered NEPA—perhaps because the easements, unlike the 

Corps’s verifications, contained no explicit terms 

implementing the ITS. 

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We conclude, on the facts of this case, that the Service’s 

issuance of the ITS was not, standing alone, federal action 

triggering NEPA review. By contrast, the Corps’s 

implementation of the ITS as a condition of its Clean Water 

Act verifications was federal action, but with geographic 

scope far more limited than the NEPA review Sierra Club 

seeks. In advocating for review of the entire pipeline, Sierra 

Club unsuccessfully invokes the doctrine against 

impermissible segmentation of NEPA review in an effort to 

trigger NEPA’s connected- and cumulative-actions doctrines 

and the Corps’s agency-specific NEPA regulations. Sierra 

Club did not preserve a claim for NEPA analysis limited to 

the verification and easement areas, so we have no occasion 

to consider it. We must therefore reject Sierra Club’s NEPA 

arguments on appeal. 

A. Implementation of the ITS as Federal Action

An ITS, as explained above, is a set of terms and 

conditions that the Service provides under Section 7 of the 

ESA to other federal agencies planning actions likely to affect 

listed species. In this case, Section 7 required the Corps and 

the Bureau—action agencies—to consult with the Service and 

the Service to render a Biological Opinion regarding the 

Corps’s anticipated Clean Water Act verifications and the 

Corps and the Bureau’s grants of easements. See 16 U.S.C. 

§ 1536; 50 C.F.R. § 402.14. The Biological Opinion 

examined the entire Flanagan South project and set forth in 

the ITS measures to mitigate, monitor, and report take of 

endangered species incident to the project. The Corps 

implemented the ITS in its Clean Water Act verifications, 

although only to a limited geographic extent. Compliance 

with the ITS, insofar as action agencies made it binding and 

enforceable, provided Enbridge with a safe harbor from ESA 

liability. 

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The Service’s development and issuance of the Section 7 

ITS, standing alone, was not federal action. But, as explained 

below, the Corps’s implementation of the ITS was federal 

action, albeit of confined scope. An agency’s advice to 

another agency on how that agency should proceed with its 

permitting actions does not amount to federal action under 

NEPA. The Service could, in a different context, be held to 

be an “action agency” for NEPA purposes. See San Luis, 747 

F.3d at 644 (explaining that, in Ramsey v. Kantor, 96 F.3d 

434 (9th Cir. 1996), the National Marine Fisheries Service, a 

consulting agency, also was an action agency when its 

conduct was, in substance, identical to the process for issuing 

a permit). But the record in this case makes clear that the Fish 

and Wildlife Service acted only in its consultative role, 

“merely offering its opinions and suggestions to [the Corps], 

which, as the action agency, ultimately decides whether to 

adopt or approve the [ITS].” Id. at 642. In that respect, the 

Service and the Corps’s relationship here is analogous to that 

between the Service and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 

San Luis, in which the Service had issued an ITS to 

Reclamation regarding the effect of a major water works 

project on the endangered Delta Smelt. See id. at 592. The 

Service’s role in San Luis was to consult, and Reclamation 

was the action agency implementing the ITS. Here, similarly, 

it was the Corps’s action, by way of adopting and 

incorporating the ITS in the verifications of Flanagan South’s 

water crossings under the Clean Water Act, that qualified as 

federal action under NEPA. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.18(b). 

The Service was not obligated in San Luis or in this case 

to complete a NEPA analysis, because an agency need not 

complete such analysis “where another agency will authorize 

or implement the action that triggers NEPA.” 747 F.3d at 

644; accord Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Fla. v. United 

States, 430 F. Supp. 2d 1328, 1335 (S.D. Fla. 2006). This 

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case is thus unlike Ramsey, in which the National Marine 

Fisheries Service issued a Biological Opinion and ITS and 

was, under the particular circumstances of that case, also the 

agency that authorized the species-taking action, thus making 

the Service’s Section 7 ITS, standing alone, “functionally 

equivalent to a permit.” 96 F.3d at 444; see also San Luis, 

747 F.3d at 643-45 (distinguishing Ramsey on that basis). 

The defendants are only partly correct that the ITS in this 

case was not the functional equivalent of a permit. Agency 

Br. 44; Enbridge Br. 37, 39; see also Sierra Club, 64 F. Supp. 

3d at 149-50 (drawing that conclusion). The Service’s 

issuance of the ITS was not the functional equivalent of a 

permit, but the Corps’s incorporation of the ITS was. When 

the Service issues an ITS in its consultative role, Enbridge 

correctly notes, it “do[es] not allow or authorize (formally 

permit) incidental take under section 7.” Enbridge Br. 38 

(quoting Section 7 Handbook, supra, at x). When the Service 

issues a Section 10 permit directly to a private party, it 

functions as an action agency. Before it began construction, 

Enbridge considered applying to the Service for a private 

Section 10 permit. Once the Service estimated that the 

Section 10 process could “take years to complete,” Enbridge 

decided against the Section 10 route. Enbridge instead opted 

only to participate in the speedier Section 7 process and 

settled for a much more limited authorization of anticipated 

take. It was only when the Corps formally incorporated the 

ITS into its Clean Water Act verifications that it gave 

Enbridge permission to take species free from the threat of 

ESA liability. The Corps-implemented ITS is the functional 

equivalent of a permit and thus constitutes federal action 

subject to NEPA. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.18(b)(4). But 

because its permission is limited to the areas subject to the 

verifications, it is federal action of much more limited scope 

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than Sierra Club contends; contrary to Sierra Club’s claim, it 

does not require NEPA review of the whole pipeline. 

The district court concluded that the Corps’s 

incorporation of the ITS in its verifications did not trigger 

NEPA because, the court reasoned, a verification is “not a 

major federal action in and of itself” and thus cannot be 

“transformed” into cognizable action on account of 

incorporating an ITS. Sierra Club, 64 F. Supp. 3d at 149. 

The court’s conclusion was based in part on the assumption 

that the Corps had already made a “fully-informed decision to 

authorize certain activities . . . ex ante under the nationwide 

permitting system.” Id. at 147. That assumption is 

unfounded in this context, however: Nationwide Permit 12 

and Corps regulations make clear that the Corps did not assess 

effects on specific listed species when it authorized categories 

of actions through promulgation of the general permit; rather, 

it deferred any consideration of species impacts and 

authorization of species take until the verification stage, in the 

context of specific projects. See 33 C.F.R. § 330.4(f); 77 Fed. 

Reg. at 10,187; App. 327 (Decision Document for Nationwide 

Permit 12). 

The defendants contend that the ITS, even as 

implemented by the Corps, did not constitute action triggering 

NEPA because its requirements are “modest” and “limited to 

monitoring.” Agency Br. 46. They note that, under the 

regulations, “reasonable and prudent measures” that an ITS 

requires “cannot significantly modify the proposed action.” 

Id.; see 50 C.F.R. § 402.14(i)(2). The defendants thereby 

seek to distinguish this case from those in which NEPA 

analysis is triggered by ITS conditions that “substantially 

modify” the action, Agency Br. 48, or “substantially alter the 

status quo,” Enbridge Br. 43. 

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The defendants fail their own test. The “status quo” is 

not, as their argument assumes, a fully approved and 

constructed Flanagan South pipeline; rather, the baseline 

against which the significance of the federal action must be 

measured is no pipeline approved and no species killed or 

habitat disturbed. Authorizing take of endangered species in 

connection with pipeline construction and operation across 

jurisdictional waters, and doing so only on the conditions that 

Enbridge take mitigating conservation measures and monitor 

species impact for the anticipated useful life of the pipeline, 

was regulatory approval amounting to significant federal 

action requiring environmental review under NEPA. See 40 

C.F.R. § 1508.18(b)(4); see also San Luis, 747 F.3d at 642-

45; cf. Tenn. Valley, 437 U.S. at 172-73 (reflecting that, 

although “[i]t may seem curious to some that the survival of a 

relatively small number of three-inch fish . . . would require 

the permanent halting of a virtually completed dam for which 

Congress has expended more than $100 million,” the plain 

language of the ESA “require[d] precisely that result”). 

B. Limited Scope of the ITS 

The Corps’s implementation of the ITS through its Clean 

Water Act verifications was federal action that required 

NEPA review, but the NEPA obligations arising out of that 

action extended only to the segments under the Corps’s 

asserted Clean Water Act jurisdiction. The verifications 

purported to enforce the ITS against Enbridge only with 

respect to the water-crossing segments that the Corps verified 

under Nationwide Permit 12; they did not purport to permit 

any take of species (or authorize any other action, for that 

matter) outside those segments along the rest of the pipeline. 

Indeed, the Corps explicitly disclaimed that it would enforce 

compliance with the ITS with respect to the pipeline as a 

whole. 

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The record contextualizes and confirms the geographic 

limitation of the verifications’ implementation of the ITS. 

The Corps, the Service, and Enbridge debated jurisdictional 

issues in the course of their Section 7 consultation. The 

Service and Enbridge sought a pipeline-wide ITS, while the 

Corps emphatically disclaimed responsibility outside the 

verification areas. Enbridge requested that the Corps consult 

with the Service under Section 7 “on the entire pipeline route 

instead of the areas tied to Corps jurisdiction/regulatory 

control,” perhaps because it envisioned that would be 

tantamount to a shortcut Section 10 process. App. 402-403; 

see also App. 382. The Corps suggested that the Service 

issue a Section 10 permit covering non-Corps areas, but the 

Service responded that it could not do so because Enbridge 

had chosen not to apply for a Section 10 permit. App. 403. 

The Corps continued to maintain that it had authority over “a 

very small percentage” of the pipeline and that it would “only 

initiate Section 7 ESA consultation, as appropriate, for the 

limited activities associated with this project that it has 

sufficient control and responsibility to evaluate,” noting the 

Service might “provide authorization for any take . . . outside 

of the Corps permit area under Section 10.” Id. 

The fact that the Service’s Biological Opinion assessed 

the entire Flanagan South project does not undermine our 

holding concerning the limited scope of NEPA-triggering 

implementation of the ITS via the verifications. The ITS 

provided that “the Corps . . . must insure that the [ITS’s 

measures] become binding conditions of any contract or 

permit issued [to Enbridge] to carry out the proposed action 

for the exemption in section 7(o)(2) to apply.” App. 296. It 

further provided that the ITS’s safe harbor could lapse if the 

Corps failed to “implement the terms and conditions” or 

“require any contracted group to adhere to the terms and 

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conditions of the [ITS] through enforceable terms that are 

added to the permit.” Id. 

The four regional Corps offices, in turn, issued 

verifications defining the limited scope of the ITS’s “binding 

conditions,” see id., by “authoriz[ing] [Enbridge’s] work . . . 

conditional upon [Enbridge’s] compliance with the mandatory 

terms and conditions associated with the incidental take that 

may occur within the Corps delineated permit areas,” App. 

176 (emphasis added); see App. 385, 421 (other verifications 

with same language); see also App. 225-26 (biological 

opinion delimiting the Corps’s jurisdictional areas as the 

verified water crossings and the two easements). The 

verifications reiterate that “[f]ailure to comply with the terms 

and conditions [of the ITS] within the Corps permit areas

(i.e., separate and distant [sic: distinct] waterbody crossings, 

where work is verified by the Corps under Nationwide Permit 

Number 12), where take of the listed species occurs or 

adverse effects to designated critical habitat occurs, would 

constitute an unauthorized take, and it would also constitute 

non-compliance with your Corps permit.” App. 176

(emphasis added). The verifications explicitly advised 

Enbridge that the ITS does not constitute authorization for 

Enbridge to take endangered species beyond the verified 

crossings. In particular, “in order to legally take a listed 

species,” the Corps emphasized that Enbridge “must have 

separate authorization under the Endangered Species Act (e.g. 

an ESA Section 10 permit, or a Biological Opinion [] under 

ESA 7, with ‘incidental take’ provisions with which 

[Enbridge] must comply).” Id. 

Sierra Club’s claim for whole-pipeline NEPA analysis 

based solely on the ITS therefore fails because, per the terms 

of the ITS and the verifications themselves, the Corps had not 

bound Enbridge to comply with the ITS beyond those 

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segments of the pipeline subject to the Corps’s Clean Water 

Act jurisdiction. Moreover, Enbridge did not obtain a Section 

10 permit to take listed species on the balance of the pipeline 

outside the scope of the ITS-implementing verifications. 

Given that NEPA-triggering federal action occurred with 

regard to the segments of the pipeline subject to the 

verifications by virtue of the ITS being incorporated with 

respect to those sections, we need not separately consider 

whether the Corps’s verification of the pipeline’s water 

crossings under Nationwide Permit 12, standing alone, would 

have required NEPA analysis. Even assuming the 

verifications, by themselves, did warrant NEPA analysis, the 

verifications do no more than the ITS to extend the 

geographic scope of the federal action; it remains limited to 

the verified segments. 

C. Failure to Preserve NEPA Claims for Less Than 

Whole-Pipeline Review 

Sierra Club has failed to preserve its claim that the 

several easement actions, verifications and ITS, taken 

together, amount to a single federal action that requires its 

own NEPA analysis. We assume arguendo that the Corps’s 

and Bureau’s discrete easement actions and verifications 

incorporating the ITS were all component parts of the same 

federal action, but Sierra Club has failed to preserve an 

argument that the government was required to perform a 

unified NEPA analysis on anything less than the entire 

Flanagan South pipeline. As discussed below, Sierra Club 

has consistently argued only that some agency should have 

conducted a pipeline-wide NEPA assessment. In the district 

court, Sierra Club’s contention that the easements, 

verifications, and ITS should have been considered together 

under NEPA was an intermediate step in its argument that 

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there should have been one, coordinated NEPA review that 

encompassed the balance of the pipeline—including sections 

not otherwise subject to federal review or authorization. 

The district court record makes clear that whole-pipeline 

review was the only theory of NEPA deficiency that Sierra 

Club pursued. Sierra Club’s claim that the agencies were 

required to assess the entire Flanagan South project underlay 

all the NEPA claims in its complaint. See, e.g., Compl. ¶ 5 

(objecting that the alleged actions “triggered Defendants’ 

NEPA obligations,” but “none of the Defendant agencies 

prepared either an [EA] or an [EIS] for the entire Project 

pursuant to NEPA”), ¶ 7 (“In short, . . . this massive pipeline 

has been authorized . . . without any NEPA review of the 

extensive environmental impacts of the entire pipeline . . . .”). 

In seeking preliminary relief, Sierra Club argued that the crux 

of its NEPA claims was that the federal government was 

obligated to scope a NEPA analysis to the entire pipeline.5

 

The district court remarked in its preliminary injunction ruling 

that the gravamen of Sierra Club’s NEPA claims was that the 

agencies had a collective obligation to perform environmental 

 

5

 In its briefing in support of its motion for a preliminary injunction, 

Sierra Club contended that the “Flanagan South Pipeline is a major 

federal action” and framed the agencies’ alleged NEPA violations 

as stemming from a failure to assess the impacts of Flanagan South 

as a whole. Mot. for Prelim. Inj., No. 1:13-cv-1239 KBJ (Sept. 4, 

2013), ECF No. 14, at 13. Sierra Club repeatedly objected that no 

agency had prepared NEPA analysis scoped to the “entire” project. 

E.g., id. at 5, 8, 19-21, 28, 38; Pls. Reply (Sept. 23, 2013), ECF No. 

34, at 1-2, 7-10, 19-21. At the preliminary injunction hearing, too, 

Sierra Club underscored its position that “[t]he question is whether 

any federal agency has to look at the entire oil pipeline in its 

[NEPA analysis].” Tr. of Prelim. Inj. Hr’g (Sept. 27, 2013), ECF 

No. 91, at 11; see also id. at 12 (“The law. . . requires an agency to 

consider the entire [pipeline] . . . .”). 

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review of the entire pipeline. Sierra Club v. U.S. Army Corps 

of Engineers, 990 F. Supp. 2d 9, 13 (D.D.C. 2013). Later, 

aware of the court’s framing of its case, Sierra Club continued 

at the summary judgment phase to press the same theory 

exclusively.6

We will not reverse the judgment of the district court 

based on the argument, not advanced below, that an agency 

unlawfully failed to perform NEPA analysis on sections of 

Flanagan South short of the entire length of the pipeline. See, 

e.g., Potter v. District of Columbia, 558 F.3d 542, 547 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009) (limiting our review to “only those arguments that 

were made in the district court, absent exceptional 

circumstances”). That claim is forfeited. Therefore, the only 

NEPA question preserved for our consideration is whether the 

federal actions of verifying the Pipeline’s water crossings 

under Nationwide Permit 12, incorporating the ITS, and 

granting the easements to cross federal lands required NEPA 

analysis of the entire Flanagan South pipeline. 

D. Inapplicability of the Connected Actions, Cumulative 

Actions, and Corps-Specific NEPA Regulations 

In contending that the federal actions within the 

verification and easement areas required the government also 

to assess the rest of the pipeline under NEPA, Sierra Club 

invokes the doctrines of “connected actions” and “cumulative 

actions” delineated in the CEQ regulations. See 40 C.F.R. 

§§ 1508.25(a)(1)-(2), 1508.7.7

 It also invokes Corps-specific 

 

6 See, e.g., Pls. Mot. for Summ. J., No. 1:13-cv-1239 KBJ (Dec 9, 

2013), ECF No. 61, at 2, 13, 15-16, 45; Pls. Reply (Jan. 27, 2014), 

ECF No. 75, at 1, 3, 7. 

7

 Those regulations dictate the appropriate scope of EAs as well as 

EISs. See Del. Riverkeeper Network v. FERC, 753 F.3d 1304, 1314 

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NEPA scoping regulations. See 33 C.F.R. § 325 App. B. 

None of those bases supports Sierra Club’s claim. 

1. Connected Actions. The connected actions 

regulation, on which Sierra Club relies most heavily, does not 

dictate that NEPA review encompass private activity outside 

the scope of the sum of the geographically limited federal 

actions. The regulation provides, as relevant here, that 

“actions” must be analyzed together in the same assessment if 

they “[a]utomatically trigger other actions which may require 

environmental impact statements,” “[c]annot or will not 

proceed unless other actions are taken previously or 

simultaneously,” or if they are “interdependent parts of a 

larger action and depend on the larger action for their 

justification.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(1). The point of the 

connected actions doctrine is to prevent the government from 

“segment[ing]” its own “federal actions into separate projects 

and thereby fail[ing] to address the true scope and impact of 

the activities that should be under consideration.” Del. 

Riverkeeper, 753 F.3d at 1313. 

Delaware Riverkeeper illustrates the connected actions 

regulation’s anti-segmentation principle, and why it does not 

accomplish all that Sierra Club asks of it. Under Delaware 

Riverkeeper, an agency cannot segment NEPA review of 

projects that are “connected, contemporaneous, closely 

related, and interdependent,” when the entire project at issue 

is subject to federal review. Id. at 1308. In this case, the oil 

pipeline is undoubtedly a single “physically, functionally, and 

financially connected” project, but one in which less than five 

per cent is subject to federal review. See id. The Natural Gas 

Act requirement that natural gas pipelines be pre-certified for 

 

(D.C. Cir. 2014); Grand Canyon Trust, 290 F.3d at 346; Kern v. 

U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 284 F.3d 1062, 1076 (9th Cir. 2002). 

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35 

public convenience and necessity made the whole pipeline in 

Delaware Riverkeeper the subject of major federal action 

triggering NEPA. We held that FERC unlawfully segmented 

the requisite NEPA analysis by reviewing in separate portions 

a pipeline that “function[ed] together seamlessly.” Id. at 

1307, 1311. Here, the project is an oil pipeline, however, so 

not subject to any such overall pipeline precertification.8 

Sierra Club argues, in effect, that applying the connected 

actions regulation to the sum of other approvals Flanagan 

South did require draws into NEPA review the balance of the 

pipeline project that is not otherwise subject to agency action, 

thus subjecting it to the connected actions doctrine to the 

same extent as was the case in Delaware Riverkeeper. Sierra 

Club adds a step that the regulation does not support: The 

connected actions regulation requires agencies to review the 

picture as a whole rather than conduct separate NEPA reviews 

on pieces of an agency-action jigsaw puzzle; it does not add a 

multitude of private pieces to the puzzle and so require review 

of a much larger picture. That limitation is highlighted by the 

connected actions rule’s lack of reference to private parties—

a reference present in the cumulative action regulation, which 

directs agencies to consider the cumulative impact of action 

by an “agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person.” Compare

40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(1), with id. § 1508.7 (emphasis 

added). Background, private action is expressly encompassed 

in the cumulative action analysis in a way that it is not for 

connected action. 

 

8

 Pipelines transporting oil within the United States are not subject 

to any general requirement of federal governmental evaluation and 

approval. In that way, oil pipelines are less regulated than natural 

gas pipelines, which must be supported by a certificate of public 

convenience and necessity from the Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission before they may be built. 15 U.S.C. § 717f(c)(1)(A). 

See Del. Riverkeeper, 753 F.3d at 1307-10. 

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36 

Sierra Club also invokes Karst Environmental Education 

& Protection, Inc. v. EPA, 475 F.3d 1291, 1296 (D.C. Cir. 

2007), for the proposition that full-project NEPA review is 

required where federal agencies have substantial involvement 

in a private project such that it would not have been 

undertaken without the federal action. In Karst, we noted our 

dictum in Macht v. Skinner, 916 F.2d 13, 19 (D.C. Cir. 1990), 

approving of the Fourth Circuit’s approach in Maryland 

Conservation Council v. Gilchrist, 808 F.2d 1039 (4th Cir. 

1986), to the “federalization theory.” See Karst 475 F.3d at 

1296-97 (citing Macht, 916 F.2d at 14, 19). We went on in 

Karst, however, to observe that “we have no binding 

precedent adopting the federalization theory,” and we did not 

there apply it. 475 F.3d at 1297. Indeed, Macht, too, came 

out the other way, undercutting Sierra Club’s argument. The 

rail project in Macht was not subject to whole-project NEPA 

analysis because federal agencies had regulatory control over 

“only a negligible portion of the entire project.” 916 F.2d at 

19. The same is true here. 

Sierra Club offers no persuasive explanation why the 

portions of the pipeline outside the verification and easement 

areas constitute “federal actions” and thus “should be under 

consideration.” Del. Riverkeeper, 753 F.3d at 1313. Rather, 

Sierra Club’s more modest claim at oral argument was that 

Delaware Riverkeeper and the connected action regulation 

require that “the federal actions in this case—the easements, 

the other areas within federal jurisdiction—those are 

connected” and so should have been analyzed together. Oral 

Arg. Rec. at 7:33-40.9

 That is the accurate statement of the 

 

9 See also Oral Arg. Rec. at 7:57-8:11 (similar concession by Sierra 

Club, recognizing the same limited holding in Hammond v. Norton, 

370 F. Supp. 2d 226 (D.D.C. 2005), upon which it also relies). 

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37 

connected actions doctrine, but, as noted above, the claim 

resting on it was not preserved. 

2. Cumulative Actions. The cumulative actions 

regulation is no more helpful to Sierra Club. “Cumulative 

actions” are those that must be assessed together because they 

have “cumulatively significant impacts.” 40 C.F.R. § 

1508.25(a)(2). A cumulative impact is that “which results 

from the incremental impact of the action when added to other 

past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions 

regardless of what agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person 

undertakes such other actions.” Id. § 1508.7. The cumulative 

actions doctrine is not concerned with geographic 

segmentation; if it were, it would be wholly redundant of the 

connected actions doctrine. See Coal. on Sensible Transp., 

Inc. v. Dole, 826 F.2d 60, 70-71 (D.C. Cir. 1987). Instead, it 

prevents agencies from ignoring the environmental effects of 

other actions, without regard to whether their author was 

federal, because those effects set the baseline state of affairs 

and thus the context in which the significance of proposed 

federal action must be evaluated. An agency deciding 

whether to approve construction of a replacement airport, for 

example, must consider the prospective impact of the airport’s 

added noise in the context of noise from other sources—

including private sources not traceable to agency action. See 

Grand Canyon Trust, 290 F.3d at 346. Sierra Club’s 

argument is not, however, that the agencies’ NEPA analyses 

ignored the environmental impacts of cumulative actions on 

discrete swaths of the pipeline, but that they failed to analyze 

the entire length of the pipeline. The cumulative actions 

doctrine therefore does not advance Sierra Club’s case. 

3. Corps Regulations. Appendix B of the Corps’s 

agency-specific NEPA scoping regulations provides that 

when a party requires a Clean Water Act permit to conduct a 

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38 

specific activity that is part of a larger project, the Corps’s 

NEPA analysis should encompass not only the specific 

activity, but also “those portions of the entire project over 

which the [Corps] has sufficient control and responsibility.” 

33 C.F.R. § 325 App. B(7)(b)(1); see also id. § 325 App. 

B(7)(b)(2)-(3). Sierra Club asserts that the Corps had the 

requisite control and responsibility over all of Flanagan 

South, citing the Corps’s jurisdiction over the verified water 

crossings and the easement areas. The agencies respond that 

Appendix B is categorically inapplicable to verifications (or 

easements). As they interpret the text, structure, and history 

of the Corps’s Appendix B, it applies only to NEPA analysis 

triggered by issuance of individual Clean Water Act permits, 

as opposed to general permits and verifications thereunder. 

We owe deference to the Corps’s interpretation of its own 

NEPA regulations, see, e.g., Bostick, 787 F.3d at 1054; 

Kentuckians for the Commonwealth v. U.S. Army Corps of 

Eng’rs, 746 F.3d 698, 708 n.3 (6th Cir. 2014), and conclude 

that the Corps’s interpretation of its own NEPA-implementing 

regulations in that regard is a permissible one, see Bostick, 

787 F.3d at 1054; cf. Save Our Sonoran, Inc. v. Flowers, 408 

F.3d 1113, 1121 (9th Cir. 2005) (consulting Appendix B for 

scope review based on an individual permit). As the Tenth 

Circuit has stated, “in adopting Appendix B, the Corps 

indicated that [it] would not apply to nationwide permits (or 

verifications of permit coverage),” as the “appendix was 

apparently designed to guide Corps officials in evaluating 

permit applications for individual projects.” Bostick, 787 

F.3d at 1054.10 

 

10 We hold today only that the agencies were not required to 

perform a pipeline-wide NEPA review; we do not opine on whether 

an agency lawfully could have conducted such a review, had it so 

chosen. 

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IV. Clean Water Act 

As detailed above, the Flanagan South pipeline makes 

approximately 1,950 discrete crossings of waters subject to 

the Clean Water Act, and those water crossings involved 

dredge and fill activity that required Enbridge to obtain 

authorization from the Corps of its compliance with the Act. 

Enbridge sought and obtained that authorization in the form 

of verifications issued by four regional offices of the Corps 

pursuant to Nationwide Permit 12. Sierra Club argues that the 

Corps regional offices’ assessments of the cumulative effects 

of the water crossings verified under Nationwide Permit 12 

were unlawfully narrow and conclusory. See 33 U.S.C. § 

1344(e)(1); 33 C.F.R. §§ 330.1(e)(2), 330.6(a); 77 Fed. Reg. 

at 10,287. We review Sierra Club’s Clean Water Act claim 

de novo, Sierra Club v. Van Antwerp, 661 F.3d 1147, 1150 

(D.C. Cir. 2011), and hold that it lacks merit. 

Sierra Club first faults the Corps for assessing cumulative 

effects on a regional basis, as opposed to a pipeline-wide 

basis. It relies on Nationwide Permit 12’s instruction that the 

district engineer’s decision shall “include an evaluation of the 

individual crossings . . . as well as the cumulative effects 

caused by all of the crossings authorized by the [Nationwide 

Permit].” 77 Fed. Reg. at 10,287 (emphasis added). That, 

Sierra Club asserts, means regional Corps staff must assess 

the water crossings across the entire pipeline. Sierra Club 

ignores, however, Nationwide Permit 12’s explication that 

“cumulative effects are evaluated on a regional basis” and that 

“[c]umulative effects analysis may be done on a watershed 

basis, or by using a different type of geographic area, such as 

an ecoregion.” Id. at 10,264. 

Sierra Club also faults the Corps for what Sierra Club 

sees as inadequately explained conclusions. It asserts that the 

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40 

District Managers merely parroted the language of the statute 

and the general permit at the end of each verification 

memorandum: “The proposed activity would result in only 

minor individual and cumulative adverse environmental 

effects and would not be contrary to the public interest.” E.g., 

App. 449. Such bare incantations, Sierra Club contends, 

provide no insight into how or on what basis the agency 

reached its decision. 

As the district court recognized, however, the District 

Managers’ conclusions were not unsupported boilerplate; they 

were “made at the end of a lengthy memorandum explaining, 

among other things, the details concerning the scope of the 

proposed project in each respective district, the expected 

effect of the project on [jurisdictional] waters . . . within that 

district, and specific mitigation techniques to be employed in 

response . . . .” 64 F. Supp. 3d at 157. In light of the 

surrounding context, we conclude that the Corps’s cumulative 

effects conclusions were adequately supported and reasoned. 

See Snoqualmie, 683 F.3d at 1163. 

V. Motion to Supplement and Amend 

Sierra Club also appeals the district court’s order denying 

the organization’s motions to supplement and amend its 

complaint. The defendants assert that Sierra Club failed to 

appeal that order, pointing out that Sierra Club’s notice of 

appeal explicitly referred only to the district court’s summary 

judgment order. The district court issued both orders 

concurrently, however, and we are satisfied that Sierra Club’s 

notice of appeal adequately expressed its intent to appeal both 

orders. Further, the defendants suffer no prejudice from our 

consideration of the order denying the motions to supplement 

and amend. See, e.g., Martinez v. Bureau of Prisons, 444 

F.3d 620, 623 (D.C. Cir. 2006). 

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41 

Reviewing the district court’s denial of the motions to 

amend and supplement for an abuse of discretion, Hall v. CIA, 

437 F.3d 94, 101 (D.C. Cir. 2006), we affirm the district court 

for substantially the same reasons explained in the challenged 

order. Sierra Club sought to add to its complaint allegations 

meant chiefly to show that the agencies had taken actions that, 

the agencies recognized, required NEPA review as to some 

portions of the pipeline. Specifically, Sierra Club sought to 

allege that the Corps and Bureau issued EAs for the easement 

areas—developments Sierra Club believed confirmed the 

ripeness of its NEPA claims and provided a stronger foothold 

for its arguments that the agency actions effectively 

federalized the entire pipeline. Sierra Club also sought to add 

allegations that EPA had commented to the Corps in 

December 2013 that the Corps’s NEPA analysis of the 

Arkansas River easement was deficient because it failed to 

assess the entire pipeline. 

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying 

Sierra Club’s motion as futile. As the court explained, its 

summary judgment analysis assumed that the grants of the 

federal easements were ripe federal actions triggering some 

degree of NEPA review. App. 633-34; see also 64 F. Supp. at 

133 n.1. The completion of those EAs did not affect the 

NEPA inquiry before the court, which concerned only the 

scope of the NEPA analysis Sierra Club claims was required, 

not the intensiveness of that review. Sierra Club’s own 

motion advised that the proposed newly styled claims and 

new allegations did “not involve any new . . . legal arguments 

that [were] not already before [the] court.” And the existing 

claims concerned only the breadth, not depth, of the agencies’ 

NEPA analysis. See, e.g., Compl. ¶¶ 5, 7. The proposed 

supplement and amendment would not, for instance, have 

added a new claim that the agencies should have performed 

EISs rather than EAs on account of the easements. The 

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42 

district court never had occasion to opine on such a claim, nor 

do we. 

* * * 

For the reasons stated, we affirm the judgment of the 

district court. 

So ordered. 

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BROWN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment: This 

is not a close case. As the district court aptly noted, three 

basic facts decide it: “a private company is constructing the 

[Flanagan South] pipeline largely on privately-owned land; 

the federal agencies that have been consulted about aspects of 

the pipeline project have control over only a small portion of 

the land and waterways that the pipeline traverses; and no 

statute authorizes the federal government to regulate or 

oversee the construction of a domestic oil pipeline.” Sierra 

Club v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 64 F. Supp. 3d 128, 157 

(D.D.C. 2014). NEPA requires agency environmental review 

when the agency undertakes a major federal action defined as 

an action that significantly affects the human environment and 

is subject to federal control and responsibility. 42 U.S.C. § 

4332(2)(C); 40 C.F.R. § 1508.18; see also Winnebago Tribe 

of Neb. v. Ray, 621 F.2d 269, 273 (8th Cir. 1980) (“As for 

federal involvement, the fact that part of the line will cross the 

Winnebago Reservation does not suffice to turn this 

essentially private action into federal action. . . . Thus we 

conclude that the Corps did not have sufficient control and 

responsibility to require it to study the entire project.”). 

Little more ink needs to be spilled to conclude that — given 

federal control over less than 20 miles of the 600-mile 

pipeline — NEPA cannot compel federal review of the entire, 

essentially private, pipeline.

Sierra Club has put forward several claims, all of them a 

variation on the theme that NEPA requires some federal 

agency, if not all of them collectively, to review the entire 

pipeline as a connected action. The likelihood of Sierra 

Club’s success on the merits was briefed, argued, and 

thoroughly considered by the district court when it dismissed 

their motion for preliminary injunction. See Sierra Club v. 

U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 990 F. Supp. 2d 9, 44 (D.D.C. 

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2

2013). After a second perusal when federal defendants1 filed 

motions to dismiss and both parties cross-motioned for 

summary judgment, the district court again concluded that 

“[p]laintiffs are wrong to insist that any federal agency had an 

obligation under NEPA or any other statute to conduct an 

environmental review of the impact of the entire FS Pipeline 

. . . given that the Federal Defendants have permitting 

authority over only small segments of this private pipeline 

project and none of the defendant agencies, alone or in 

combination, have authority to oversee or control the vast 

portions of the FS pipeline that traverse private land.” Sierra 

Club, 64 F. Supp. at 134. 

The majority opinion retreads this familiar ground but 

with considerably more angst. This case is wholly removed 

from the contexts of San Luis & Delta Mendota Water 

Authority v. Jewell, 747 F.3d 581 (9th Cir. 2014), and 

Ramsey v. Kantor, 96 F.3d 434 (1996) — cases the opinion 

devotes several pages to distinguishing. See Maj. Op. 25-27. 

Here, no instance of federal involvement (alone or 

collectively) amounted to the “functional equivalent” of a 

permit nor was this a circumstance in which one federal 

agency was advising another. And no amount of artful

pleading can convert these minor federal engagements into a 

“connected action” that subjects the 580 miles of private

pipeline to NEPA review. See Delaware Riverkeepers v. 

FERC, 753 F.3d 1304 (D.C. Cir. 2014). 

While the majority ultimately arrives at the same 

destination, its route is needlessly circuitous, creating the 

 1 “Federal defendants” here refers collectively to the United States 

Corps of Engineers, the Department of Transportation Pipeline and 

Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, the Fish and Wildlife 

Service, the Department of Interiors Bureau of Indian Affairs, and 

the Environmental Protection Agency. 

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3

impression that Sierra Club’s challenges fail by a hairsbreadth 

rather than a hectare. Because I favor the district court’s 

direct approach, I concur only in the judgment. 

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