Opinion ID: 622359
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Adequacy of the Record

Text: Even if the district court had abused its discretion in denying Tri-Valley CAREs' motion to supplement the record for failure to comply with the local rules, it nonetheless could have appropriately denied Tri-Valley CAREs' motion to augment the administrative record on the merits. In its complaint, Tri-Valley CAREs only contended that augmentation was necessary to ascertain whether the agency considered all relevant factors or fully explicated its course of conduct or grounds for decision. Such an assertion fails to demonstrate how the NRC report satisfies any of the exceptions under Inland Empire. The only ground on which Tri-Valley CAREs asserts that this evidence should be admitted into the record is that it is relevant to determining whether the agency considered all relevant factors, or the first exception under Inland Empire. The post-decision bar, however, renders this exception inapplicable, as the NRC report was completed over nearly two years after the commencement of this litigation. See Ctr. for Biological Diversity, 450 F.3d at 943 (9th Cir.2006) (explaining the post-decision bar may not be applied to require augmentation of information used to rationalize, attack, or even analyze an agency decision post hoc). Accordingly, the district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to grant Tri-Valley CAREs' motion to supplement the record with the NRC report.