Opinion ID: 859088
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Procedural Requirements and Consent Decrees

Text: A consent decree is a hybrid; it is both a settlement and an injunction. See United States v. ITT Cont’l Baking Co., 420 U.S. 223, 237 n.10 (1975) (“Consent decrees and orders have attributes both of contracts and of judicial decrees or . . . administrative orders.”). This “dual character . . . has resulted in different treatment for different purposes.” Local No. 93, Int’l Ass’n of Firefighters v. City of Cleveland, 478 U.S. 501, 519 (1986). Although a consent decree typically represents “an amalgam of delicate balancing, gross approximations, and rough justice,” and “need not impose all the obligations authorized by law,” United States v. Oregon, 913 F.2d 576, 581 (9th Cir. 1990) (internal quotation marks omitted), a district court may not approve a consent decree that “conflicts 3 D.R. Johnson also urges us to rule on the correctness of one sentence of the district court’s order granting partial summary judgment. Because we reverse this order on other grounds, we need not address this argument. 10 CONSERVATION NORTHWEST V . SHERMAN with or violates” an applicable statute, Local 93, 478 U.S. at 526. In Boody, we adopted a strict interpretation of when the BLM must follow formal procedures in the context of amending Survey and Manage. 468 F.3d at 556. We explained that under FLPMA, “if BLM wishes to change a resource management plan, it can only do so by formally amending the plan pursuant to 43 C.F.R. § 1610.5-5.” Id. In that case, the BLM had first issued a memorandum downgrading the Survey and Manage classification of the red tree vole from Category C to Category D, and subsequently issued a second memorandum removing the vole’s Survey and Manage designation entirely. Id. at 553. We rejected BLM’s argument that this decision to downgrade the vole’s status fit within the scope of simple plan “maintenance,” which could proceed pursuant to § 1610.5-4, and without formal amendment. Id. at 556–58. We found that the agency action should have followed the process described in § 1610.5-5, and went on to hold that “[b]ecause the [changes at issue] trigger[ed] the § 1610.5-5 requirements under FLPMA, they also trigger[ed] the NEPA requirements under 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1)(i).” Id. at 561. We explained that enforcement of a low threshold to trigger formal amendment procedures ensure[s] that whenever resource management plans are changed in any meaningful way, the changes must be made via amendment (i.e., supported by scientific environmental analysis and public disclosure). This is consistent with FLPMA’s requirement that BLM ensure the views of the general public and third-party CONSERVATION NORTHWEST V . SHERMAN 11 participation are adequately incorporated into the land planning process. Id. at 557 (internal quotation marks omitted). We stated that the “BLM must amend a management plan when an action is proposed that changes either the scope of resource uses or the terms, conditions and decisions of the plan.” Id. at 556 (internal quotation marks omitted). While Boody did not involve changes enacted through a consent decree, it nonetheless informs our understanding of the procedural issues in the case at bench. Our decision in United States v. Carpenter, 526 F.3d 1237 (9th Cir. 2008), is also instructive. In Carpenter, we held that the Attorney General’s decision to settle litigation “without complying with the procedural mechanisms . . . set forth in the FLPMA” was reviewable. Id. at 1241–42. That we refrained from passing on the merits of the Attorney General’s action in that case does not undermine the conclusion that we are bound to consider procedural requirements in the context of an agency’s voluntary resolution of litigation. See id. at 1242. Nor does the fact that Carpenter involved a settlement as opposed to a consent decree render its holding inapposite. See Oregon, 913 F.2d at 580 (“A consent decree is essentially a settlement agreement subject to continued judicial policing.”) (internal quotation marks omitted). That consent decrees involve an additional layer of “judicial action” does not mean that we must ignore the many ways in which they resemble settlements. See Local 93, 478 U.S. at 519. Our recent decision in Turtle Island lends further support to the conclusion that procedural requirements remain relevant in the context of consent decrees. In that case, the 12 CONSERVATION NORTHWEST V . SHERMAN National Marine Fisheries Service had amended a Fishery Management Plan to remove certain set limits and increase the annual incidental take limit on loggerhead sea turtles. 672 F.3d at 1163. Environmental plaintiffs challenged the changes to the rule, and eventually entered an agreement with the defendants to vacate those portions of the amendment that raised the take limit on loggerhead turtles while the agency undertook further action regarding that limit. Id. at 1163–64. The Hawaii Longline Association, which had intervened as a defendant, challenged the consent decree on the ground that it violated “federal law by allowing the National Marine Fisheries Service to change duly promulgated rules without following [applicable] procedural rulemaking requirements.” Id. at 1162. We observed that the challenged consent decree “merely vacated a portion of a regulation and temporarily reinstated the relevant prior portion.” Id. at 1166. That the decree “merely temporarily restore[d] the status quo ante pending new agency action and [did] not promulgate a new substantive rule” was central to our decision to resolve that case on the “narrower” ground that the relevant statute did not preclude the use of consent decrees in the agencies’ resolution of litigation. Id. at 1167. We did recognize, however, the existence of a “broader issue regarding applicability of statutory rulemaking procedures to judicial acts in general” that we found unnecessary to address directly in that case. Id. It follows that where a consent decree does promulgate a new substantive rule, or where the changes wrought by the decree are permanent rather than temporary, the decree may run afoul of statutory rulemaking procedures even though it is in form a “judicial act.” Id. We therefore hold that a district court abuses its discretion when it enters a consent decree that permanently and substantially amends an agency rule that would have otherwise been subject to statutory rulemaking procedures. CONSERVATION NORTHWEST V . SHERMAN 13