Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-16916/USCOURTS-ca9-12-16916-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Conservation Congress
Appellant
Environmental Protection Information Center

Nancy Finley
Appellee
Tyrone Kelley
Appellee
Trinity River Lumber
Appellee
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Appellee
United States Forest Service
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

CONSERVATION CONGRESS, a

nonprofit corporation,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

and

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

INFORMATION CENTER, a nonprofit

corporation,

Plaintiff,

v.

NANCY FINLEY, in her official

capacity as Field Supervisor, Arcata

Fish and Wildlife Office; U.S. FISH

& WILDLIFE SERVICE, an

administrative agency of the United

States Department of the Interior;

TYRONE KELLEY, in his official

capacity as Forest Supervisor, Six

Rivers National Forest; UNITED

STATES FOREST SERVICE, an

administrative agency of the United

States Department of Agriculture,

Defendants-Appellees,

TRINITY RIVER LUMBER,

Intervenor-Defendant–Appellee.

No. 12-16916

D.C. No.

3:11-cv-04752-

SC

OPINION

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2 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Samuel Conti, Senior District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

October 8, 2014—San Francisco, California

Filed December 16, 2014

Before: Sidney R. Thomas, Chief Judge, and Diarmuid F.

O’Scannlain and M. Margaret McKeown, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Chief Judge Thomas

SUMMARY*

Environmental Law

The panel affirmed the district court’s summary judgment

in an action brought under the Endangered Species Act, the

National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest

Management Act concerning a lumber thinning and fuel

reduction project in northern California, known as the

Beaverslide Project, and its effect on the threatened Northern

Spotted Owl.

The panel first held the district court properly held that

plaintiffs provided sufficient notice of intent to sue to confer

jurisdiction on the district court to entertain the Endangered

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 3

Species Act claims. The panel further held that the

Endangered Species Act claims were not moot because the

Forest Service’s and Fish and Wildlife Service’s newer post2012 consultation on the Northern Spotted Owl’s critical

habitat focused specifically on addressing the redesignation

of critical habitat, and did not remedy the alleged failures in

prior consultations to address information in a revised 2011

Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl.

The panel held that the district court properly granted

summary judgment to the government on the merits of

plaintiffs’ claims under the Endangered Species Act. The

panel held that the district court properly concluded that the

Forest Service did not violate the consultation requirements

of 50 C.F.R. § 402.16 because the Forest Service did not fail

to consider any allegedly “new information” covered by the

2011 RecoveryPlan that was not previously considered. The

district court also properly concluded that the agencies did

not fail to use “the best scientific and commercial data

available,” as required by the Endangered Species Act. 

The panel held that the Forest Service’s and Fish and

Wildlife Service’s consultations and conclusions that the

Beaverslide Project was not likely to adversely affect the

Northern Spotted Owl were adequate under 50 C.F.R.

§ 402.16, 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2), and the “hard look”

standard of National Environmental PolicyAct. Their actions

therefore were neither arbitrary nor capricious.

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4 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

COUNSEL

René P. Voss (argued), San Anselmo, California; James Jay

Tutchton, Tutchton Law Office LLC, Centennial, Colorado,

for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Mark R. Haag (argued) and Robert P. Stockman,

Environment & Natural Resources Division, United States

Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; Ignacia S. Moreno,

Assistant AttorneyGeneral, Washington, D.C.; James Rosen,

Office of the General Counsel, United States Department of

Agriculture, Washington, D.C.; Veronica Rowan, Assistant

Regional Solicitor, United States Department of the Interior,

Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Appellees.

Scott W. Horngren (argued), American Forest Resource

Council, Portland, Oregon, for Intervenor-DefendantAppellee.

OPINION

THOMAS, Chief Judge:

We again consider the fate of the threatened Northern

Spotted Owl, this time in the context of a lumber thinning and

fuel reduction project in northern California, known as the

BeaverslideProject. Conservation Congress contends that the

federal government violated various national environmental

laws in failing to consult adequately as to the project’s

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 5

potential effects on the owl.1 The district court granted

summary judgment in favor of the government, and we

affirm.

I

The Beaverslide Project is located on approximately

13,241 acres of national forest land in Trinity County,

California. According to the United States Forest Service, the

project’s two main purposes are to protect against the current

risk of wildfires due to the dense forest, and to provide a

sustainable, long-term timber supply to local communities. 

The project calls for commercial thinning of trees, reduction

of fuels, and the creation of fuel corridors, among other

treatments.

The Northern Spotted Owl is a nocturnal predator that

occupies forest land stretching from southwest British

Columbia through Washington, Oregon, and California. The

owl has been listed as a threatened species under the

Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531, et seq., since

1990, and many populations of the owl continue to decline. 

Recognizing the threat to the owl, the United States Fish and

Wildlife Service issued a 2008 Recovery Plan, as well as a

revised 2011 RecoveryPlan, providing recommendations and

suggesting actions to aid in protecting the Northern Spotted

Owl. RecoveryPlans are prepared in accordance with section

1533(f) of the Endangered Species Act for all endangered and

threatened species, and while they provide guidance for the

conservation of those species, they are not binding

1 The Environmental Protection Information Center joined Conservation

Congress in both the administrative process and before the district court,

but did not join this appeal.

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6 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

authorities. Friends of Blackwater v. Salazar, 691 F.3d 428,

432–34 (D.C. Cir. 2012).

A

The Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service

consulted on the project’s potential effects on the Northern

Spotted Owl. Both the Endangered Species Act and the

National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C.

§ 4321, et seq., establish frameworks for consultations.

The Endangered Species Act “is a comprehensive scheme

with the broad purpose of protecting endangered and

threatened species.” Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. U.S.

Bureau of Land Mgmt., 698 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir. 2012)

(citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Particularly

relevant here is section 7(a)(2) of the Endangered Species

Act, which governs the consultations that must take place

between agencies. 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2). The Endangered

Species Act imposes both substantive and procedural duties

on agency consultation. Forest Guardians v. Johanns,

450 F.3d 455, 457 (9th Cir. 2006). Substantively, agencies

contemplating certain kinds of federal action are required to

insure that the action they take “is not likely to jeopardize the

continued existence” or “result in the destruction or adverse

modification of [critical] habitat” of an endangered or

threatened species. Conservation Cong. v. U.S. Forest Serv.,

720 F.3d 1048, 1051 (9th Cir. 2013) (alteration in original)

(quoting 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2)). Agencies must consult

with either the Fish and Wildlife Service (for land-based

species) or the National Marine Fisheries Service (for marine

species) to determine the likely effects of their proposed

actions on endangered or threatened species. Id.

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 7

According to the implementing regulations, the first step

in the consultation process is for the acting agency to

independently determine whether its actions “may affect” an

endangered or threatened species or that species’s habitat. 

50 C.F.R. § 402.14(a). If so, the agency must initiate either

informal or formal consultation with the consulting agency. 

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

581, 596 (9th Cir. 2014); see also 50 C.F.R. § 402.14. 

Informal consultation is an “optional process that includes all

discussions, correspondence, etc.” between the two agencies

and is “designed to assist the Federal agency in determining

whether formal consultation or a conference is required.” 

50 C.F.R. § 402.13(a). If upon completion of informal

consultation, the two agencies agree in writing that the

proposed action “is not likely to adversely affect” any

endangered or threatened species, no further action is

necessary. Conservation Cong., 720 F.3d at 1051; see also

50 C.F.R. §§ 402.13(a), 402.14(b)(1). However, if either

agency determines that the proposed action is “likely to

adversely affect” a listed species or habitat, formal

consultation is required. See 50 C.F.R. § 402.14. Formal

consultation entails the consulting agency preparing a

“biological opinion” stating whether the proposed action,

“taken together with cumulative effects, is likely to

jeopardize the continued existence of listed species or result

in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat.” 

50 C.F.R. § 402.14(g)(4).

NEPA is “our basic national charter for protection of the

environment.” Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Forest

Serv., 349 F.3d 1157, 1166 (9th Cir. 2003) (citation and

internal quotation marks omitted). The “twin aims” of NEPA

are first, to “place[] upon an agency the obligation to consider

every significant aspect of the environmental impact of a

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8 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

proposed action,” and second, to “ensure[] that the agency

will inform the public that it has indeed considered

environmental concerns in its decisionmaking process.” 

Baltimore Gas &Elec. Co. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc.,

462 U.S. 87, 97 (1983) (citation omitted). Unlike the

Endangered Species Act, NEPA does not provide substantive

protections, only procedural ones—it “exists to ensure a

process.” The Lands Council v. McNair, 537 F.3d 981, 1000

(9th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (citation and internal quotation

marks omitted), overruled on other grounds by Winter v.

Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008).

Foremost among these procedural requirements is that

agencies considering “major Federal actions significantly

affecting the quality of the human environment” are required

to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement (“EIS”). 

42 U.S.C. § 4332(C); see also W. Watersheds Project v.

Kraayenbrink, 632 F.3d 472, 486–87 (9th Cir. 2011). The

EIS “shall provide full and fair discussion of significant

environmental impacts and shall inform decisionmakers and

the public of the reasonable alternatives which would avoid

or minimize adverse impacts or enhance the quality of the

human environment.” 40 C.F.R. § 1502.1.

B

To comply with the Endangered Species Act, the Forest

Service issued a Biological Assessment in September 2009,

which independently analyzed the Beaverslide Project and

concluded that the project “may” but was “not likely to

adversely affect” the Northern Spotted Owl. In October

2009, the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed with the Forest

Service’s conclusion in a Letter of Concurrence.

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 9

In May 2010, the Forest Service issued an “Amendment

#1” to its Biological Assessment, responding to anticipated

changes in the Forest Service’s Supplemental Environmental

Impact Statement, discussed further below. The Forest

Service’s determination that the project “may affect” but was

“not likely to adversely affect” the owl remained unchanged. 

In September 2011, the Fish and Wildlife Service again

agreed with this determination in a Technical Assistance

Letter. By this time, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s 2011

Recovery Plan was available, and the Technical Assistance

Letter also concluded that the Beaverslide Project was

consistent with the plan’s recommendations. All other

consultation prior to the letter pre-dated the revised plan.

In May 2011, Conservation Congress sent a notice of

intent to sue under the Endangered Species Act’s citizen-suit

provision to the agencies, as required by 16 U.S.C. § 1540(g). 

It submitted a second notice in October 2011, after the 2011

RecoveryPlan was published. The second notice alleged that

the Forest Service’s Biological Assessment, its Amendment

#1, and the Fish and Wildlife Service’s concurrence letters no

longer used the best scientific and commercial data available,

and cited to information contained in the 2011 RecoveryPlan. 

In response to these notices of intent, the Forest Service and

the Fish and Wildlife Service consulted and exchanged

letters, both of which concluded that reinitiating further

consultation in light of the 2011 Recovery Plan was not

necessary.

After litigation in this case had commenced, the agencies

informed us that they conducted one final round of

consultation on the Beaverslide Project. In December 2012,

the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a rule revising the

designation of critical habitat for the Northern Spotted Owl. 

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10 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

In response, the Forest Service issued a new assessment in

March 2013, analyzing how the change in the owl’s critical

habitat designation affected the project. It again concluded

that the project was not likely to adversely affect the owl. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service also separately prepared a

Biological Opinion in response to its new rule, and concluded

that the project would not result in destruction or adverse

modification of the owl’s habitat.

Concurrent with its consultation under the Endangered

Species Act, the Forest Service also took steps to comply

with NEPA. In November 2009, it issued its EIS. 

Conservation Congress, among other parties, filed an

administrative appeal challenging the EIS and its

accompanying Record of Decision, on claims unrelated to

this case. The appeal reviewing officer reversed the Forest

Service’s decision, finding that the EIS did not sufficiently

demonstrate that it was consistent with the forest’s Aquatic

Conservation Strategy. The Forest Service then issued a

Supplemental EIS in October 2010.

Conservation Congress brought suit against the Forest

Service and Fish and Wildlife Service. Its amended

complaint, filed in January 2012, alleged that the agencies

violated the Endangered Species Act, NEPA, and the

National Forest Management Act in their consultation on the

Beaverslide Project.2 On July 2, 2012, the district court

granted summary judgment to the agencies on all claims. 

Conservation Congress timely appealed the district court’s

order. On April 12, 2013, the agencies filed a Suggestion of

Partial Mootness in this Court, describing their post-2012

2 Conservation Congress did not appeal any of its National Forest

Management Act claims.

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 11

consultation on the Northern Spotted Owl’s critical habitat

and arguing that this mooted Conservation Congress’s claims

under the Endangered Species Act.

We have jurisdiction over this case pursuant to 28 U.S.C.

§ 1291. We review a district court’s grant of summary

judgment de novo. Karuk Tribe of Cal. v. U.S. Forest Serv.,

681 F.3d 1006, 1017 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc). Summary

judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine issue of

material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as

a matter of law. Id.

Judicial review of NEPA and Endangered Species Act

claims is conducted under the Administrative Procedure Act,

which allows courts to overturn agency action only if it is

“arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not

in accordance with law.” Kraayenbrink, 632 F.3d at 481

(quoting 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A) (internal quotation marks

omitted). This standard requires “a rational connection

between facts found and conclusions made” by the defendant

agencies. League of Wilderness Defenders/Blue Mountains

Biodiversity Project v. Connaughton, 752 F.3d 755, 760 (9th

Cir. 2014) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). In

addition, “when reviewing scientific judgments and technical

analyses within the agency’s expertise, the reviewing court

must be at its most deferential.” Conservation Cong.,

720 F.3d at 1054 (citation and internal quotation marks

omitted).

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12 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

II

A

The district court properly held, contrary to the

government’s assertions, that Conservation Congress

provided sufficient notice of intent to sue to confer

jurisdiction on the district court to entertain the Endangered

Species Act claims. The Act precludes the commencement

of citizen suits “prior to sixty days after written notice of the

violation has been given to the Secretary, and to any alleged

violator of any such provision or regulation.” 16 U.S.C.

§ 1540(g)(2)(A)(i). The notice requirement is jurisdictional,

and thus “failure to strictly comply” is an “absolute bar to

bringing suit under the [Endangered Species Act].” Sw. Ctr.

for Biological Diversity v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation,

143 F.3d 515, 520 (9th Cir. 1998). We review the adequacy

of a notice of intent to sue de novo. Ctr. for Biological

Diversity v. Marina Point Dev. Co., 566 F.3d 794, 799 (9th

Cir. 2009).

No one disputes that Conservation Congress provided

written notice over sixty days prior to filing its complaint, but

the agencies allege that the notice was insufficient because it

did not inform them that Conservation Congress intended

specifically to argue that the agencies failed to consult about

the project’s short-term effects on the owl. The district court

disagreed, finding that “[w]hile Plaintiffs’ notice could have

been more specific, it provided sufficient detail to put

Defendants on notice of the violations set forth in Plaintiffs’

complaint.”

We agree. The purpose of the Endangered Species Act’s

notice provision is “to put the agencies on notice of a

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 13

perceived violation of the statute” and to give them the

“opportunity to review their actions and take corrective

measures if warranted.” Sw. Ctr. for Biological Diversity,

143 F.3d at 520 (citation omitted). However, a notice need

not provide the exact details of the legal arguments that the

plaintiffs intend to eventually make. See Marbled Murrelet

v. Babbitt, 83 F.3d 1068, 1072–73 (9th Cir. 1996) (notice that

focused almost exclusively on alleged violations under

section 9 of Endangered Species Act was sufficient even

though plaintiffs ultimately sued under section 7).

Here, Conservation Congress’s second notice of intent

specifically asserted, under a heading entitled “Revised

Spotted Owl Recovery Plan and the need for additional

habitat protection,” that the consultation at hand “did not

discuss the management recommendations detailed in the

revised recovery plan.” This notice could indeed have been

more specific, as the district court observed, but it was

sufficient to notify the agencies that Conservation Congress

intended to sue in part based on the recommendations in the

2011 Recovery Plan regarding possible short-term effects to

the Northern Spotted Owl. The notice was sufficient to

satisfy the requirements under the Endangered Species Act,

and the district court therefore had jurisdiction to consider the

claims.

B

The Endangered Species Act claims are not moot, as the

government contends. “A claim is moot if it has lost its

character as a present, live controversy.” Am. Rivers v. Nat’l

Marine Fisheries Serv., 126 F.3d 1118, 1123 (9th Cir. 1997)

(citation omitted). “If an event occurs that prevents the court

from granting effective relief, the claim is moot and must be

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14 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

dismissed.” Id. (citation omitted). The party alleging

mootness “bears a ‘heavy burden’ in seeking dismissal.” 

Rosemere Neighborhood Ass’n v. EPA, 581 F.3d 1169, 1173

(9th Cir. 2009) (citing Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw Envtl.

Serv., Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 189 (2000)).

The agencies argue that the new consultation between the

Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service following the

2012 redesignation of the owl’s critical habitat constitutes a

reinitiation of consultation under the Endangered Species Act

that utilizes the best available data in the 2011 RecoveryPlan. 

Thus, the agencies assert that whatever remedial actions

Conservation Congress could obtain under the Endangered

Species Act have already been performed.

We recently rejected a similar mootness argument, made

by the same agencies against the same plaintiffs and arising

out of a nearly identical new round of consultation. In

Conservation Congress v. United States Forest Service,

720 F.3d 1048, 1053–54 (9th Cir. 2013), Conservation

Congress appealed a denial of its motion for a preliminary

injunction against the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife

Service, based on consultation regarding the “Mudflow

Project” and its effect on the Northern Spotted Owl. The

agencies also filed a Suggestion of Mootness in that case,

arguing that Conservation Congress’s Endangered Species

Act claims were mooted by new consultation on the Mudflow

Project, which responded to the same 2012 redesignation of

the owl’s critical habitat described above. Id. We disagreed,

holding that the agencies “continue precisely the behavior

[Conservation Congress] challenges—approving the

Mudflow Project without conducting a cumulative effects

analysis.” Id. at 1053–54.

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 15

We are presented with the same circumstance here. The

agencies’ newer consultation focuses specifically on

addressing the redesignation of critical habitat, and does not

remedy the alleged failures in prior consultations to address

information in the 2011 Recovery Plan. Conservation

Congress’s claims under the Endangered Species Act are

therefore not moot.

III

The district court properly granted summary judgment to

the government on the merits of Conservation Congress’s

claims under the Endangered Species Act.

A

The district court properly concluded that the Forest

Service did not violate the consultation requirements of 50

C.F.R. § 402.16. That regulation requires a federal agency to

reinitiate consultation on a proposed action “[i]f new

information reveals effects of the action that may affect listed

species or critical habitat in a manner or to an extent not

previously considered.” 50 C.F.R. § 402.16(b). Contrary to

the government’s assertion, this requirement applies to both

formal and informal consultation. See Forest Guardians v.

Johanns, 450 F.3d 455, 458 (9th Cir. 2006). However, 50

C.F.R. § 402.16 does not require agencies to stop and

reinitiate consultation for “every modification of or

uncertainty in a complex and lengthy project.” Sierra Club

v. Marsh, 816 F.2d 1376, 1388 (9th Cir. 1987).

Here, Conservation Congress alleges that the 2011

Recovery Plan contained “new information” that was “not

previously considered” and therefore that the Forest Service

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16 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

violated 50 C.F.R. § 402.16 by failing to reinitiate

consultation to consider that information.

Assuming for argument’s sake that at least some

information in the 2011 Recovery Plan is new, which is far

from clear,3 we are unpersuaded that the Forest Service failed

to consider any of the allegedly new information covered by

the 2011 Recovery Plan. Conservation Congress contends

that although the Forest Service considered the overall longterm benefits of the Beaverslide Project to the owl, it did not

sufficiently consider potential short-term effects, contrary to

the suggestions of the plan. However, a close reading of the

Forest Service’s Biological Assessment reveals that it directly

and sufficiently addressed several short-term effects,

including the likely effects of the project’s burning and

thinning methods on the owl’s habitat and the preferred

“refugia and escape cover” vegetation of its most common

prey.

Conservation Congress also argues that the Forest Service

failed to consider the plan’s new information, particularly

drawing from the Dugger study, on how to combat the threat

of invasive barred owls. This assertion is also contradicted

by an examination of the record. Competition from barred

 

3

 There is considerable question, as the district court noted, that any of

the information in the 2011 Recovery Plan is in fact “new.” While the

plan itself post-dates much of the consultation in question, most of the

conclusions and data contained within the plan do not. Conservation

Congress specifically cites to two studies discussed in the plan by

Forsman et al. and Dugger et al. (the “Forsman” and “Dugger” studies,

respectively), which were published in 2011, but much of the information

analyzed in both of these studies is also not “new.” Indeed, the abstract

for the Forsman study describes it as a “meta-analysis” of data drawn from

eleven studies from the period of 1985 to 2008.

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 17

owls has long been recognized as a major threat to the

Northern Spotted Owl, and was considered in the Forest

Service’s Biological Assessment. Moreover, in response to

Conservation Congress’s notice of intent to sue, the Forest

Service analyzed whether it needed to reinitiate consultation

based on the Dugger study or other information on barred

owls in the 2011 Recovery Plan, and concluded it did not.

Finally, Conservation Congress contends that the Forest

Service did not follow recommendations in the 2011

Recovery Plan and in the Forsman study to develop a broader

conception of “high value” habitat for the Northern Spotted

Owl. But declining to adopt particular recommendations in

a recovery plan or a study—neither of which is binding on an

agency—does not constitute failing to consider them under 50

C.F.R. § 402.16. Indeed, the Forest Service specifically

considered both the data in the Forsman study and the best

ways to protect the Northern Spotted Owl’s habitat

throughout its consultations.

The Forest Service did not fail to consider “new

information” that “reveals effects of the action that may affect

listed species or critical habitat in a manner or to an extent

not previously considered.” Therefore, the duty to consult

was not triggered, and the district court properly granted

summary judgment on the claim.

B

The district court also properly concluded that the

agencies did not fail to use “the best scientific and

commercial data available,” as required by the Endangered

Species Act. 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2).

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18 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

“The determination of what constitutes the ‘best scientific

data available’ belongs to the agency’s ‘special expertise,’”

and thus when examining such a determination, “‘a reviewing

court must generally be at its most deferential.’” Jewell,

747 F.3d at 602 (quoting Baltimore Gas & Elec. Co.,

462 U.S. 87, 103 (1983)). Agencies “must support their

conclusions with accurate and reliable data,” but “so long as

an agency considers all relevant data, it may rely on that

available evidence even when it is imperfect, weak, and not

necessarily dispositive.” Connaughton, 752 F.3d at 764.

Conservation Congress’s claims that the agencies failed

to use “the best scientific and commercial data available” are

based on the same arguments it employed in arguing its

consultation claims. It contends that both the Forest Service

and the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to use the best

available information on short-term effects to the owl, the

threat of the barred owl, and broader habitat definition and

protection.

However, as we have previously explained, the Forest

Service considered the available data and scientific

information in reaching its conclusions. Under our

deferential standard of review, we are not permitted to

substitute our judgment for the agency’s in determining

which scientific data to credit, so long as the conclusion is

supported by adequate and reliable data. The Forest Service’s

analysis satisfied the requirement of the Endangered Species

Act.

As to the Fish and Wildlife Service, its letters clearly and

extensively reference the Forest Service’s analysis on the

Beaverslide Project, along with the 2011 Recovery Plan. 

Because the Forest Service’s analysis is sufficient under the

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CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY 19

Endangered Species Act, we conclude that the Fish and

Wildlife Service’s consultation based on that analysis is

sufficient as well. We thus agree with the district court that

Conservation Congress “cannot state an [Endangered Species

Act] claim against Fish and Wildlife [Service] based on its

failure to reject adequate analysis by the Forest Service.”4

IV

The district court properly granted summary judgment on

Conservation Congress’s NEPA claims. Courts employ a

“rule of reason” to decide “whether the EIS contains a

reasonably thorough discussion of the significant aspects of

probable environmental consequences.” Neighbors of Cuddy

Mountain v. U.S. Forest Serv., 137 F.3d 1372, 1376 (9th Cir.

1998) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). This

standard is considered “essentially the same” as the standard

of abuse of discretion, and our analysis under it “consists only

of insuring that the agency took a ‘hard look’” at the

environmental impacts. Id. An agency sufficiently takes a

“hard look” when it conducts a “full and fair discussion of

significant environmental impacts.” W. Watersheds Project

v. Abbey, 719 F.3d 1035, 1047 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting 40

C.F.R. § 1502.1) (internal quotation marks omitted). 

“General statements about possible effects and some risk do

not constitute a hard look absent a justification regarding why

more definitive information could not be provided.” 

Kraayenbrink, 632 F.3d at 491 (citation and internal

quotation marks omitted).

4 Given our affirmance of summary judgment, it is not necessary to

reach the agencies’ argument that the district court erred in supplementing

the record.

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20 CONSERVATION CONGRESS V. FINLEY

Conservation Congress contends that the Forest Service

violated NEPA because its two issued EISs failed to take the

requisite “hard look” at information in the 2011 Recovery

Plan describing potential short-term effects to the Northern

Spotted Owl and the threat of barred owls. However, the two

EISs prepared by the Forest Service contain full and fair

discussions of possible short-term effects to the owl. Indeed,

the Forest Service devotes entire sections of its reports to

analyzing the project’s possible consequences to the owl’s

habitat and to the owl’s most common prey. This analysis

includes discussion of numerous short-term effects. 

Likewise, the EISs directly respond to concerns about barred

owls by discussing findings on whether barred owls are

present in the project area, and how the project affects the

barred owl threat. We therefore agree with the district court

that the Forest Service took the requisite “hard look” at

potential dangers to the Northern Spotted Owl and, using its

expertise and discretion, reached its conclusion through a

reasoned analysis.

V

The Forest Service’s and Fish and Wildlife Service’s

consultations and conclusions that the Beaverslide Project is

not likely to adversely affect the Northern Spotted Owl are

adequate under 50 C.F.R. § 402.16, 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2),

and the “hard look” standard of NEPA. Their actions were

neither arbitrary nor capricious. The district court properly

granted summary judgment to the government.

AFFIRMED.

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