Source: https://m.openjurist.org/427/us/390
Timestamp: 2019-07-22 07:38:54
Document Index: 725150471

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 4332', '§ 102', '§ 102', '§ 102', '§ 102', '§ 102', '§ 102', '§ 101', '§ 4331', '§ 102', '§ 4321', '§ 102', '§ 4332']

427 US 390 Kleppe v. Sierra Club American Electric Power System | OpenJurist
427 U.S. 390 - Kleppe v. Sierra Club American Electric Power System
427 US 390 Kleppe v. Sierra Club American Electric Power System
96 S.Ct. 2718
49 L.Ed.2d 576
Thomas S. KLEPPE, Secretary of the Interior, et al., Petitioners,
SIERRA CLUB et al. AMERICAN ELECTRIC POWER SYSTEM et al., Petitioners, v. SIERRA CLUB et al.
Section 102(2)(C) of the National Environmental Policy Act of 19691 (NEPA) requires that all federal agencies include a detailed statement of environmental consequences known as an environmental impact statement "in every recommendation or report on proposals for legislation and other major Federal actions significantly affecting the quality of the human environment." 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C). The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that officials of the Department of the Interior (Department) and certain other federal agencies must take additional steps under this section, beyond those already taken, before allowing further development of federal coal reserves in a specific area of the country. For the reasons set forth, we reverse.
* Respondents, several organizations concerned with the environment, brought this suit in July 1973 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.2 The defendants in the suit, petitioners here, were the officials of the Department and other federal agencies responsible for issuing coal leases, approving mining plans, granting rights-of-way, and taking the other actions necessary to enable private companies and public utilities to develop coal reserves on land owned or controlled by the Federal Government. Citing widespread interest in the reserves of a region identified as the "Northern Great Plains region," and an alleged threat from coal-related operations to their members' enjoyment of the region's environment, respondents claimed that the federal officials could not allow further development without preparing a "comprehensive environmental impact statement" under § 102(2)(C) on the entire region. They sought declaratory and injunctive relief.
The District Court, on the basis of extensive findings of fact and conclusions of law, held that the complaint stated no claim for relief and granted the petitioners' motions for summary judgment.3 Respondents appealed. Shortly after oral argument but before issuing an opinion on the merits, the Court of Appeals in January 1975 issued an injunction over a dissent against the Department's approval of four mining plans in the Powder River Coal Basin, which is one small but coal-rich section of the region that concerns respondents. 166 U.S.App.D.C. 200, 509 F.2d 533. An impact statement had been prepared on these plans, but it had not been before the District Court and was not before the Court of Appeals. In June 1975 the Court of Appeals ruled on the merits and, for reasons discussed below, reversed the District Court and remanded for further proceedings. 169 U.S.App.D.C. 20, 514 F.2d 856. The court continued its injunction in force.
The federal officials petitioned for writ of certiorari on October 9, 1975. On November 7, the Court of Appeals refused to dissolve its injunction,4 and a week later petitioners moved this Court for a stay. On January 12, 1976, we stayed the injunction and granted the petitions for certiorari. 423 U.S. 1047, 96 S.Ct. 772, 46 L.Ed.2d 635. We have been informed that shortly thereafter the Secretary of the Interior (Secretary) approved the four mining plans in the Powder River Coal Basin that had been stayed by the injunction.
While the record does not reveal the degree of concern with environmental matters in the first two studies, it is clear that the NGPRP was devoted entirely to the environment. It was carried out by an interagency, federal-state task force with public participation, and was designed "to assess the potential social, economic and environmental impacts" from resource development in five States Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska.5 Its primary objective was "to provide an analytical and informational framework for policy and planning decisions at all levels of government"6 by formulating several "scenarios" showing the probable consequences for the area's environment and culture from the various possible techniques and levels of resource development. The final interim report of the NGPRP was issued August 1, 1975, shortly after the decision of the Court of Appeals in this case.
In addition, since 1973 the Department has engaged in a complete review of its coal-leasing program for the entire Nation. On February 17 of that year the Secretary announced the review and announced also that during study a "short-term leasing policy" would prevail, under which new leasing would be restricted to narrowly defined circumstances and even then allowed only when an environmental impact statement had been prepared if required under NEPA.7 The purpose of the program review was to study the environmental impact of the Department's entire range of coal-related activities and to develop a planning system to guide the national leasing program. The impact statement, known as the "Coal Programmatic EIS," went through several drafts before issuing in final form on September 19, 1975 shortly before the petitions for certiorari were filed in this case. The Coal Programmatic EIS proposed a new leasing program based on a complex planning system called the Energy Minerals Activity Recommendation System (EMARS), and assessed the prospective environmental impact of the new program as well as the alternatives to it. We have been informed by the parties to this litigation that the Secretary is in the process of implementing the new program.8
The major issue remains the one with which the suit began: whether NEPA requires petitioners to prepare an environmental impact statement on the entire Northern Great Plains region.9 Petitioners, arguing the negative, rely squarely upon the facts of the case and the language of § 102(2)(C) of NEPA. We find their reliance well placed.
The local actions are the decisions by the various petitioners to issue a lease, approve a mining plan, issue a right-of-way permit, or take other action to allow private activity at some point within the region identified by respondents. Several Courts of Appeals have held that an impact statement must be included in the report or recommendation on a proposal for such action if the private activity to be permitted is one "significantly affecting the quality of the human environment" within the meaning of § 102(2)(C). See, E. g., Scientists' Institute for Public Information, Inc. v. AEC, 156 U.S.App.D.C. 395, 404-405, 481 F.2d 1079, 1088-1089 (1973); Davis v. Morton, 469 F.2d 593 (CA10 1972). The petitioners do not dispute this requirement in this case, and indeed have prepared impact statements on several proposed actions of this type in the Northern Great Plains during the course of this litigation.10 Similarly, the federal petitioners agreed at oral argument that § 102(2)(C) required the Coal Programmatic EIS that was prepared in tandem with the new national coal-leasing program and included as part of the final report on the proposal for adoption of that program. Tr. of Oral Arg. 9. Their admission is well made, for the new leasing program is a coherent plan of national scope, and its adoption surely has significant environmental consequences.
But there is no evidence in the record of an action or a proposal for an action of regional scope. The District Court, in fact, expressly found that there was no existing or proposed plan or program on the part of the Federal Government for the regional development of the area described in respondents' complaint. It found also that the three studies initiated by the Department in areas either included within or inclusive of respondents' region that is, the Montana-Wyoming Aqueducts Study, the North Central Power Study, and the NGPRP were not parts of any plan or program to develop or encourage development of the Northern Great Plains. That court found no evidence that the individual coal development projects undertaken or proposed by private industry and public utilities in that part of the country are integrated into a plan or otherwise interrelated. These findings were not disturbed by the Court of Appeals, and they remain fully supported by the record in this Court.11
Quite apart from the fact that the statutory language requires an impact statement only in the event of a proposed action,12 respondents' desire for a regional environmental impact statement cannot be met for practical reasons. In the absence of a proposal for a regional plan of development, there is nothing that could be the subject of the analysis envisioned by the statute for an impact statement. Section 102(2)(C) requires that an impact statement contain, in essence a detailed statement of the expected adverse environmental consequences of an action, the resource commitments involved in it, and the alternatives to it.13 Absent an overall plan for regional development, it is impossible to predict the level of coal-related activity that will occur in the region identified by respondents, and thus impossible to analyze the environmental consequences and the resource commitments involved in, and the alternatives to, such activity. A regional plan would define fairly precisely the scope and limits of the proposed development of the region. Where no such plan exists, any attempt to produce an impact statement would be little more than a study along the lines of the NGPRP, containing estimates of potential development and attendant environmental consequences. There would be no factual predicate for the production of an environmental impact statement of the type envisioned by NEPA.14
The Court's reasoning and action find no support in the language or legislative history of NEPA. The statute clearly states when an impact statement is required, and mentions nothing about a balancing of factors. Rather, as we noted last Term, under the first sentence of § 102(2)(C) the moment at which an agency must have a final statement ready "is the time at which it makes a recommendation or report on a proposal for federal action." Aberdeen & Rockfish R. C. v. SCRAP, 422 U.S. 289, 320, 95 S.Ct. 2336, 2356,5 L.Ed.2d 191 (1975) (SCRAP II ) (emphasis in original). The procedural duty imposed upon agencies by this section is quite precise, and the role of the courts in enforcing that duty is similarly precise. A court has no authority to depart from the statutory language and, by a balancing of court-devised factors, determine a point during the germination process of a potential proposal at which an impact statement Should be prepared. Such an assertion of judicial authority would leave the agencies uncertain as to their procedural duties under NEPA, would invite judicial involvement in the day-to-day decisionmaking process of the agencies, and would invite litigation. As the contemplation of a project and the accompanying study thereof do not necessarily result in a proposal for major federal action, it may be assumed that the balancing process devised by the Court of Appeals also would result in the preparation of a good many unnecessary impact statements.15
Assuming that the Court of Appeals' theory about "contemplation" of regional action would permit a court to require preproposal preparation of an impact statement, the court's injunction against the Secretary's approval of the four mining plans in the Powder River Basin nevertheless would have been error. The District Court had found that respondents would not have been entitled to an injunction against any individual projects even if their claim of the need for a regional impact statement had been valid, because they had shown no irreparable harm that would result absent such an injunction and the record disclosed that irreparable harm Would result to the intervenors who sought to carry out their business ventures and to the public who depended upon their operations. The Court of Appeals made no finding as to the equities at the time it originally entered the injunction; when it continued the injunction following its decision on the merits, it stated only that the "harm" justifying an injunction "matured" whenever an impact statement is due and not filed. But on the Court of Appeals' own terms there was in fact no harm. First, the Court of Appeals itself held that no regional impact statement was due at that moment, and it was uncertain whether one ever would be due. Second, there had been filed a comprehensive impact statement on the proposed Powder River Basin mining plans themselves, and its adequacy had not been challenged either before the District Court or the Court of Appeals in this case, or anywhere else.16 Thus, in simple equitable terms there were no grounds for the injunction: the Districtourt's finding of irreparable injury to the intervenors and to the public still stood, and there were on the Court of Appeals' own terms no countervailing equities.
There are two ways to view this contention. First, it amounts to an attack on the sufficiency of the impact statements already prepared by the petitioners on the coal-related projects that they have approved or stand ready to approve. As such, we cannot consider it in this proceeding, for the case was not brought as a challenge to a particular impact statement and there is no impact statement in the record.17 It also is possible to view the respondents' argument as an attacupon the decision of the petitioners not to prepare one comprehensive impact statement on all proposed projects in the region. This contention properly is before us, for the petitioners have made it clear they do not intend to prepare such a statement.
We begin by stating our general agreement with respondents' basic premise that § 102(2)(C) may require a comprehensive impact statement in certain situations where several proposed actions are pending at the same time. NEPA announced a national policy of environmental protection and placed a responsibility upon the Federal Government to further specific environmental goals by "all practicable means, consistent with other essential considerations of national policy." § 101(b), 42 U.S.C. § 4331(b). Section 102(2)(C) is one of the "action-forcing" provisions intended as a directive to "all agencies to assure consideration of the environmental impact of their actions in decisionmaking." Conference Report on NEPA, 115 Cong.Rec. 40416 (1969).18 By requiring on impact statement Congress intended to assure such consideration during the development of a proposal or as in this case during the formulation of a position on a proposal submitted by private parties.19 A comprehensive impact statement may be necessary in some cases for an agency to meet this duty. Thus, when several proposals for coal-related actions that will have cumulative or synergistic environmental impact upon a region are pending concurrently before an agency, their environmental consequences must be considered together.20 Only through comprehensive consideration of pending proposals can the agency evaluate different courses of action.21
At another point, the document containing the Secretary's approach22 states that a "regional EIS" will be prepared "if a series of proposed actions with interrelated impacts are involved . . . unless a previous EIS has sufficiently analyzed the impacts of the proposed action(s)." Id., at 20a-21a. Thus, the Department has decided to prepare comprehensive impact statements of the type contemplated by § 102(2)(C), although it has not deemed it appropriate to prepare such a statement on all proposed actions in the region identified by respondents.
Respondents' basic argument is that one comprehensive statement on the Northern Great Plains is required because all coal-related activity in that region is "programmatically," "geographically," and "environmentally" related. Both the alleged "programmatic" relationship and the alleged "geographic" relationship resolve, ultimately, into an argument that the region is proper for a comprehensive impact statement because the petitioners themselves have approached environmental study in this area on a regional basis.23 Respondents point primarily to the NGPRP, which they claim and petitioners deny focused on the region described in the complaint.24 The precise reon of the NGPRP is unimportant, for its irrelevance to the delineation of an appropriate area for analysis in a comprehensive impact statement has been well stated by the Secretary:
As for the alleged "environmental" relationship, respondents contend that the coal-related projects "will produce a wide variety of cumulative environmental impacts" throughout the Northern Great Plains region. They described them as follows: Diminished availability of water, air and water pollution, increases in population and industrial densities, and perhaps even climatic changes. Cumulative environmental impacts are, indeed, what require a comprehensive impact statement. But determination of the extent and effect of these factors, and particularly identification of the geographic area within which they may occur, is a task assigned to the special competency of the appropriate agencies. Petitioners dispute respondents' contentions that the interrelationship of environmental impacts is regionwide25 and, as respondents' own submissions indicate, petitioners appear to have determined that the appropriate scope of comprehensive statements should be bas on basins, drainage areas, and other factors. See Supra, at 410-411. We cannot say that petitioners' choices are arbitrary. Even if environmental interrelationships could be shown conclusively to extend across basins and drainage areas, practical considerations of feasibility might well necessitate restricting the scope of comprehensive statements.
In sum, respondents' contention as to the relationships between all proposed coal-related projects in the Northern Great Plains region does not require that petitioners prepare one comprehensive impact statement covering all before proceeding to approve specific pending applications.26 As we already have determined that there exists no proposal for regionwide action tt could require a regional impact statement, the judgment of the Court of Appeals must be reversed, and the judgment of the District Court reinstated and affirmed. The case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
While I agree with much of the Court's opinion, I must dissent from Part IV, which holds that the federal courts may not remedy violations of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), 83 Stat. 852, 42 U.S.C. § 4321 Et seq. no matter how blatant until it is too late for an adequate remedy to be formulated. As the Court today recognizes, NEPA contemplates agency consideration of environmental factors throughout the decisionmaking process. Since NEPA's enactment, however, litigation has been brought primarily at the end of that process challenging agency decisions to act made without adequate environmental impact statements or without any statements at all. In such situations, the courts have had to content themselves with the largely unsatisfactory remedy of enjoining the proposed federal action and ordering the preparation of an adequate impact statement. This remedy is insufficient because, except by deterrence, it does nothing to further early consideration of environmental factors. And, as with all after-the-fact remedies, a remand for preparation of an impact statement after the basic decision to act has been made invites post hoc rationalizations, cf. Citizens to Preserve Overton Park v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 419-420, 91 S.Ct. 814, 825, 28 L.Ed.2d 136 (1971), rather than the candid and balanced environmental assessments envisioned by NEPA. Moreover, the remedy is wasteful of resources and time, causing fully developed plans for action to be laid aside while an impact statement is prepared.
* The premises of the Court of Appeals' approach are not novel and indeed are reaffirmed by the Court today. Under § 102(2)(C) of NEPA, 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2) (C), "the moment at which an agency must have a final (environmtal impact) statement ready 'is the time at which it makes a recommendation or report on a Proposal for federal action.' " Ante, at 406, quoting Aberdeen & Rockfish R. Co. v. SCRAP, 422 U.S. 289, 320, 95 S.Ct. 2336, 2356, 45 L.Ed.2d 191 (1975) (first emphasis added). Preparation of an impact statement, particularly on a complicated project, takes a considerable amount of time. Flint Ridge Dev. Co. v. Scenic Rivers Assn., 426 U.S. 776, 789 n. 10, 96 S.Ct. 2430, 2438, 49 L.Ed.2d 205 (1976); Sixth Annual Report, Council on Environmental Quality 639 (1975). Necessarily, if the statement is to be completed by the time the agency makes its formal proposal to act, preparation must begin substantially before the proposal must be ready. In this litigation, for instance, the federal petitioners assert that a statement on the region in which respondents are interested would take more than three years to complete. Brief for Federal Petitioners 28 n. 22. Accordingly, since it would violate NEPA for the Government to propose a plan for regional development of the Northern Great Plains without an accompanying environmental impact statement, if the Government contemplates making such a proposal at any time in the next three years it should already be working on its impact statement.
While the Court's disapproval of this four-part inquiry precludes any future demonstration of its workability, the test is designed to allow judicial intervention only in the small number of cases where the need for work to begin on an environmental impact statement is clear and the agency violation blatant.1 And, indeed, the Court of Appeals refused to find a violation in this case, concluding instead that on two of the four factors the evidence was such as to negate the need for a prompt start on an impact statement.
I believe the Court of Appeals' test is a sensible way to approach enforcement of NEPA, and none of the Court's reasons for concluding otherwise are, for me, persuasive.2