Opinion ID: 36501
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: NEPA Documentation for Existing IR-178

Text: Petitioners also claim that the Air Force failed to prepare necessary supplemental EIS’s for IR-178 due to changes in the route and underlying land since the route’s creation in 1985. CEQ regulations require agencies to supplement an EIS if the agency makes substantial changes to the proposed action or significant new circumstances or information arise bearing on the proposed action or its impacts.55 A claim asserting that NEPA documentation must be supplemented has three elements: (1) ongoing or remaining federal 54 See Sierra Club v. Peterson, 185 F.3d 349, 369-70 (5th Cir. 1999), vacated on other grounds on reh’g, 228 F.3d 559 (5th Cir. 2000); Sabine River, 951 F.2d at 678; accord Nat’l Audubon Soc’y v. Hoffman, 132 F.3d 7, 14-15 (2d Cir. 1997). 55 40 C.F.R. § 1502.9(c)(1). 26 action and (2) new circumstances or information relevant to the environmental impact of the proposed action that are (3) significant enough to warrant supplementation of existing NEPA documents.56 The district court held this claim time-barred, finding that the Air Force’s alleged NEPA failures occurred more than six years before petitioners filed suit.57 Although NEPA and the APA do not contain limitations periods, this court has held that claims under the APA are subject to the general six-year statute of limitations for claims against the government.58 The limitations period begins to run when the right of action first accrues.59 Because petitioners allege 56 Marsh, 490 U.S. at 374. 57 Davis Mountains, 249 F. Supp. 2d at 794-96. A short history of IR-178 is necessary to understand petitioners’ complaint. The Air Force completed an Environmental Assessment (EA) and established the route in 1985 as IR-165. When the Air Force combined IR-165 with IR-128/180 in 1991, it changed the route name to IR178. In 1994 an alternate exit was added to the route, taken from IR-144. The Air Force has no NEPA documentation for IR-144. Petitioners contend that these changes, in addition to changes in underlying land use, necessitated preparation of some kind of NEPA documentation - either a supplemental EA or EIS. 58 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a) (“[E]very civil action commenced against the United States shall be barred unless the complaint is filed within six years after the right of action first accrues.”); Geyen v. Marsh, 775 F.2d 1303, 1306-07 (5th Cir. 1985); see also Jersey Heights Neighborhood Ass’n v. Glendening, 174 F.3d 180, 186 (4th Cir. 1999). 59 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a); 5 U.S.C. § 704; Glendening, 174 F.3d at 186. 27 agency inaction or delay under 5 U.S.C. § 706(1), we must determine whether this cause of action accrued more than six years before petitioners brought suit. Petitioners argue that the limitations period does not apply to its IR-178 claim, because the Air Force’s actions regarding IR-178 are ongoing. At least one court has concluded that the six-year limitations period does not apply to claims of unlawful delay under § 706(1), reasoning that unlawful delay of a statutory duty is a continuing violation of the statute.60 Applying this line of reasoning in the present case would effectively remove the limitations period from claims that an agency has unlawfully delayed supplementation of NEPA documents, because a necessary element of such a claim is ongoing agency action. We find the better view to be that a claim for agency delay in supplementing NEPA documents accrues when circumstances requiring supplementation first arise. Such a view prevents plaintiffs from circumventing the limitations period by phrasing their complaints against agencies as continuous delay (from the moment they failed to do something required by NEPA) rather 60 Am. Canoe Ass’n v. U.S. EPA, 30 F. Supp. 2d 908, 925-26 (E.D. Va. 1998) (stating that applying limitations period to claim of unlawful delay would be “grossly inappropriate, in that it would mean that [the agency] could immunize its allegedly unreasonable delay from judicial review simply by extending that delay for six years.”) 28 than a failure to act at a discrete point in time. Petitioners argue that certain modifications to IR-178 required supplemental NEPA documentation and that the Air Force did not prepare it. That cause of action accrued when the modifications were implemented without the required documentation. Because all modifications that may have warranted supplementation occurred more than six years before petitioners filed suit, petitioners’ supplementation claim is barred.61