Opinion ID: 179768
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Marine Mammal Protection Act Claim

Text: Plaintiffs contend that NMFS's application of the MMPA is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). We agree with their contention, at least to the extent that we conclude that NMFS has not satisfactorily explained the basis of its decision. Under the APA, the agency must examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action including a `rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.' Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n of U.S., Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983) (quoting Burlington Truck Lines v. United States, 371 U.S. 156, 168, 83 S.Ct. 239, 9 L.Ed.2d 207 (1962)). The reviewing court should not attempt itself to make up for [an agency's] deficiencies: `We may not supply a reasoned basis for the agency's action that the agency itself has not given.' Id. (quoting SEC v. Chenery Corp., 332 U.S. 194, 196, 67 S.Ct. 1575, 91 L.Ed. 1995 (1947)). Here, we hold that NMFS has not offered a satisfactory explanation for its action. First, the agency has not adequately explained its finding that sea lions are having a significant negative impact on the decline or recovery of listed salmonid populations given earlier factual findings by NMFS that fisheries that cause similar or greater mortality among these populations are not having significant negative impacts. Second, the agency has not adequately explained why a California sea lion predation rate of 1 percent would have a significant negative impact on the decline or recovery of these salmonid populations. These procedural errors require us to direct the district court to vacate NMFS's decision and remand to the agency to reconsider the action or provide a fuller explanation.
In four environmental assessments prepared between 2003 and 2007, NMFS concluded that fishery takes comparable to (or greater than) takes by California sea lions would not have a significant adverse effect on the survival or recovery of many of the same listed salmonid populations involved here. In 2003, NMFS prepared, under NEPA, an environmental assessment of a fisheries plan submitted by Oregon and Washington for the Lower Columbia River and concluded that the plan, which would result in the taking of up to 4 percent of steelhead in one area, would adversely affect[] ESA-listed salmon and steelhead in the Lower Columbia populations but  will not appreciably reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery of Lower Columbia River steelhead, chinook salmon, and chum salmon in the wild (emphasis added). In April 2005, NMFS prepared a NEPA environmental assessment with respect to a comprehensive plan for the management of fisheries in the Columbia River. The plan, based on an agreement between NMFS, the states of Oregon and Washington and several Indian tribes, allows fisheries to take between 5.5 and 17 percent of listed Columbia River salmonids annually, depending on the size of the run. NMFS found that implementation of the decision would be expected to result in  minimal adverse effects on Listed Salmonid [populations] in the Columbia River Basin,  and that [c]umulative impacts from NMFS's Proposed Action would be minor if at all measurable  (emphasis added). In January 2007, NMFS conducted a NEPA environmental assessment addressing a fisheries plan submitted by Oregon and Washington for the Middle Columbia River. The agency found that the plan, which would result in the taking of up to  10 percent of the annual abundance of natural-origin adult and juvenile steelhead (emphasis added), would not appreciably reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery of salmon and steelhead listed under the ESA. Finally, in March 2007, NMFS conducted a NEPA environmental assessment of a plan to provide limited ocean fishing of Klamath River fall Chinook salmon. NMFS found that the plan, which permitted fishing of 10 percent of Klamath River fall Chinook salmon, would not jeopardize the long-term productivity of the Klamath River fall Chinook population and would result in no significant adverse effects to the environment. NMFS has not adequately explained its finding that sea lion predation is having a significant negative impact on salmonid decline or recovery in light of its positive environmental assessments of harvest plans having greater mortality impacts. The absence of an explanation is particularly concerning with respect to the 2005 fishery environmental assessment. In that assessment, NMFS found that a plan providing for fisheries to take between 5.5 and 17 percent of listed salmonids annually, depending on run size, would be expected to result in minimal adverse effects on Listed Salmonid [populations] in the Columbia River Basin, and that the [c]umulative impacts from NMFS's Proposed Action would be minor if at all measurable. Those findings are in apparent conflict with NMFS's finding in this case that sea lions responsible for less or comparable salmonid mortality have a significant negative impact on the decline or recovery of these same populations, yet the agency has not offered a rationale to explain the disparate findings. Cf. FCC v. Fox Television Stations, Inc., ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1800, 1811, 173 L.Ed.2d 738 (2009) (explaining that an agency must offer a reasoned explanation when its current course rests upon factual findings that contradict those which underlay a previous course). Without an adequate explanation, we are precluded from undertaking meaningful judicial review. Divergent factual findings with respect to seemingly comparable causes of salmonid mortality raise questions as to whether the agency is fulfilling its statutory mandates impartially and competently. A satisfactory explanation is therefore required. We cannot gloss over the absence of a cogent explanation by the agency by relying on the post hoc rationalizations offered by defendants in their appellate briefs. Defendants' briefs offer several explanations designed to reconcile NMFS's findings: that [t]he facile percentage-based comparisons that [plaintiffs' brief] offers oversimplify and, in several instances, mischaracterize the complex facts addressed in those [earlier] analyses; that the 2005 fishery take environmental assessment is not comparable to the MMPA determination here because the former cover[s] all fishing on over 280 miles of the Columbia River, Snake, and Clearwater rivers whereas the decision at issue here involves mortality from a single source at a single location; that the fishery plans reviewed under the 2003 Lower Columbia River environmental assessment completely prohibited the retention of any unmarked wild steelhead, limiting mortality to incidental injuries associated with catch and release of listed steelhead; that the fishery plans under review in the 2007 Middle Columbia River fishery environmental assessment completely prohibit[ed] the retention of wild listed salmonids; and that, unlike fishing, NMFS lacks the ability to regulate sea lion predation from year to year so as to reduce the effects in years when salmon and steelhead runs are low. These distinctions might be valid, but with one exception they are raised for the first time in defendants' briefs and were not mentioned by NMFS in the decision under review. [3] They are therefore not part of our review. See Nw. Envtl. Def. Ctr. v. Bonneville Power Admin., 477 F.3d 668, 688 (9th Cir.2007) ([W]e `may not accept appellate counsel's post hoc rationalizations for agency action.' (quoting Burlington Truck Lines, 371 U.S. at 168, 83 S.Ct. 239)). Defendants' post hoc explanations serve only to underscore the absence of an adequate explanation in the administrative record itself. Defendants also object to the very premise that an agency is obligated to address apparent inconsistencies such as those at issue here. They point out that the previous environmental assessments addressed the impact of fisheries under NEPA, whereas the present action assessed the impact of pinnipeds under the MMPA. They contend that the MMPA action here cannot reasonably be construed as a swerve from prior precedent. We agree with defendants' argument up to a point: NMFS's MMPA action here is not a swerve from prior precedent, as the courts have applied that principle in administrative law cases. [4] But an agency's duty to explain cogently the bases of its decisions is not limited to circumstances in which the agency departs directly from an earlier path. An agency must examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action including a ` rational connection between the facts found and the choice made.' State Farm, 463 U.S. at 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856 (emphasis added) (quoting Burlington Truck Lines, 371 U.S. at 168, 83 S.Ct. 239). In the circumstances of this case, NMFS's factual findings in the earlier environmental assessments appear to be relevant data, such that it was incumbent on the agency to offer a satisfactory explanation for its decision in light of the earlier findings. [5] NMFS cannot avoid its duty to confront these inconsistencies by blinding itself to them. We do not suggest that an agency has a duty to identify and address any potential tension between current and earlier factual determinations in marginally related administrative actions. But in this case the agency's seemingly inconsistent approach to, on the one hand, fishery and hydropower activities, which are deemed not to be significant obstacles to the recovery of listed salmonid populations, and, on the other hand, sea lion predation, which is deemed to be a significant barrier to salmonid recovery, has occupied the center of this controversy from the start. The issue surfaced prominently in the task force proceedings, see generally Minority Report, Final Report and Recommendations of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, Section 120 Pinniped-Fishery Interaction Task Force: Columbia River (Nov. 5, 2007), and has been raised repeatedly and forcefully by the Marine Mammal Commission, which is a federal entity possessing expertise on issues relating to the protection of marine mammals, see 16 U.S.C. § 1402, throughout the administrative decisional process, see, e.g., Letter from Timothy J. Ragen, Executive Director, Marine Mammal Commission, to Donna Darm, Assistant Regional Administrator, Protected Resources Division, NMFS, at 3 (Apr. 2, 2007) ([T]o put the estimated level of pinniped predation on listed stocks in context, it should be compared to other sources of mortality, including the various forms of human-related take.); Letter from Timothy J. Ragen to D. Robert Lohn, Regional Administrator, Northwest Region, NMFS, at 1 (Nov. 23, 2007) (recommending that NMFS compare the estimated level of removals of ESA-listed salmonids by pinnipeds with authorized levels of incidental and directed take from other sources and explain why some sources are considered significant while others are not); id. at 3 (same); id. at 5 (noting that the comparison of pinniped predation with authorized levels of takes from other sources is an area largely glossed over by the Task Force, and recommending that NMFS provide[ ] clear explanations to support any determinations that some are significant while others are not); id. at 6 (noting that this issue is at the heart of the controversy over pinniped predation and advising NMFS to provide a rationale to support its decisions on how to reduce a significant take level when multiple risk factors are involved); cf. H.R.Rep. No. 103-439, at 47 (1994) (House Committee Report on the Marine Mammal Protection Act Amendments of 1994, Pub.L. No. 103-238, which added section 120 to the MMPA) ([T]he Committee recognizes that a variety of factors may be contributing to the declines of these stocks, and intends that the current levels of protection afforded to seals and sea lions under the Act should not be lifted without first giving careful consideration to other reasons for the decline, and to all other available alternatives for mitigation.). Under these circumstances, NMFS was required to provide some explanation for the apparent inconsistencies.
We also conclude that further explanation is required for NMFS's conclusion that California sea lion predation greater than 1 percent would have a significant negative impact on the decline or recovery or the listed salmonid populations. [6] NMFS said only that the 1 percent target is intended to balance the policy value of protecting all pinnipeds, as expressed in the MMPA, against the policy value of recovering threatened and endangered species, as expressed in the ESA. Pinniped Removal Authority, 73 Fed.Reg. at 15,486. This may be a worthy public policy goal, but the agency's explanation does not help us to understand why this level of predation amounts to a significant negative impact or how this level of removal is related to the decline or recovery of listed salmonids. Without that explanation, we cannot ascertain whether NMFS has complied with its statutory mandate under the MMPA. In this respect we once again echo the concerns of the Marine Mammal Commission, which repeatedly emphasized to NMFS the need to identify the level at which predation of salmonids by pinnipeds no longer would be considered significant, because the taking authority should lapse once predation is reduced to a level where it no longer is having a significant impact. Letter from Timothy J. Ragen to D. Robert Lohn, Regional Administrator, Northwest Region, NMFS, at 1, 6 (Nov. 23, 2007); see also Letter from Timothy J. Ragen, Executive Director, Marine Mammal Commission, to Donna Darm, Assistant Regional Administrator, Protected Resources Division, NMFS, at 2 (Apr. 2, 2007) (imploring the task force to take a hard look at the justification for the number of any lethal removals that it recommends be authorized); Letter from Timothy J. Ragen, Executive Director, Marine Mammal Commission, to D. Robert Lohn, Regional Administrator, Northwest Region, NMFS, at 1 (Nov. 23, 2007) (recommending that NMFS identify the level at which predation of salmonids by pinnipeds no longer would be considered significant and adopt that level as the goal of any authorized removal program); id. at 6 (urging NMFS to determine the level at which the impact would cease to be significant, at which point the taking authority would lapse); id. (criticizing the task force for adopting a 1 percent predation target without engaging in any quantitative analyses to support it); id. at 10 (indicating that some members of the task force appeared to be driven more by the pragmatic goal of designing the authorization they thought most likely to resolve the pinniped-fishery conflict than by whether that authorization would satisfy the requirements of section 120 of the MMPA); Letter from Timothy J. Ragen, Executive Director, Marine Mammal Commission, to Garth Griffin, NMFS, at 3 (Feb. 19, 2008) (stating that a justification should be provided for establishing [the 1 percent] level of predation as ... a threshold at which predation would no longer be considered significant); Letter from Timothy J. Ragen, Executive Director, Marine Mammal Commission, to Robert Lohn, Regional Administrator, Northwest Regional Office, NMFS, at 2 (Feb. 25, 2008) (There are two issues about which the Service should be particularly clear in its rationale. The first is the basis for determining the extent to which predation must be reduced to promote conservation and recovery of the salmonid stocks.... The second is the manner and rationale by which the Service is, in effect, allocating allowable salmonid mortality among different sources of mortality.). The finding that predation at the 1 percent level is significant is not adequately explained. For each of the foregoing reasons, we hold that NMFS's explanation is incomplete and inadequate to permit meaningful judicial review. On the current record, NMFS has not explained its significance determination in light of seemingly inconsistent factual determinations in earlier environmental assessments of fishery impacts. Nor has the agency properly explained the basis of its determination that California sea lion predation of salmonids is significant at the 1 percent level. The agency's action is therefore arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). Accordingly, we direct the district court to vacate NMFS's decision approving the states' MMPA application and remand to NMFS to afford the agency the opportunity either to articulate a reasoned explanation for its action or to adopt a different action with a reasoned explanation that supports it. See Local Joint Exec. Bd. v. NLRB, 309 F.3d 578, 585 (9th Cir.2002). [7] In so holding, we do not impose an undue burden on NMFS on remand. The APA requires only a cogent explanation. Nw. Envtl. Def. Ctr., 477 F.3d at 691. We recognize the challenges NMFS faces in addressing salmonid conservation and recovery in the Columbia River, the efforts it has taken to address multiple sources of mortality and the practical difficulties presented by uncertainties and changing conditions on the ground. We also recognize that sea lion predation is a serious and potentially significant problem in this location, and that Congress, in enacting section 120 of the MMPA, has authorized NMFS to give priority to ESA-listed salmonid populations over MMPA-protected pinnipeds under specific circumstances. As judges, our limited role is to ensure that NMFS has properly determined that those specific circumstances exist. To do so, we require an explanation from the agency that enables meaningful judicial review. We conclude that a remand is necessary in this case to permit us to fulfill our function.
We are not persuaded by plaintiffs' argument that NMFS's interpretation of the MMPA is impermissible or unreasonable under the Chevron framework. See Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 467 U.S. 837, 104 S.Ct. 2778, 81 L.Ed.2d 694 (1984). [8] Chevron establishes a two-step framework for reviewing agency interpretations of statutes they administer. Under the first step, we determine whether Congress has directly spoken to the precise question at issue. If the intent of Congress is clear, then we must give effect to the unambiguously expressed intent of Congress. Id. at 842-43, 104 S.Ct. 2778. Under step two, if the statute is silent or ambiguous with respect to the specific issue, the question for the court is whether the agency's answer is based on a permissible construction of the statute. Id. at 843, 104 S.Ct. 2778. If a statute is ambiguous, and if the implementing agency's construction is reasonable, Chevron requires a federal court to accept the agency's construction of the statute, even if the agency's reading differs from what the court believes is the best statutory interpretation. Nat'l Cable & Telecomm. Ass'n v. Brand X Internet Servs., 545 U.S. 967, 980, 125 S.Ct. 2688, 162 L.Ed.2d 820 (2005). Here, plaintiffs challenge NMFS's interpretation of the MMPA's requirement that individually identifiable pinnipeds are having a significant negative impact on the decline or recovery of listed salmonid populations. Following the suggestion of the Marine Mammal Commission, NMFS adopted a two-part interpretation for this requirement, in which it would first determine whether California sea lions collectively were having a significant negative impact on listed salmonids and would next determine which sea lions were significant contributors to that impact and therefore eligible for lethal removal. Plaintiffs contend that the agency's interpretation is contrary to the plain language and the legislative history of the statute, which, they argue, require a finding that an individual pinniped is having a significant negative impact on fishery stocks, not whether sea lions in the aggregate are having the requisite impact. The legislative history lends some support to plaintiffs' position, see S.Rep. No. 103-220, at 524 (1994), 1994 U.S.C.C.A.N. 518, 525 (The Secretary would be authorized to allow the lethal removal of a nuisance pinniped if it is identified as habitually exhibiting dangerous or damaging behavior that cannot be deterred by other means. (emphasis added)), but the language and purpose of the statute as a whole do not preclude the agency's two-part interpretation. See 16 U.S.C. § 1389(b)(1) (authorizing the intentional lethal taking of individually identifiable pinnipeds which are having a significant negative impact (emphasis added)), (b)(2) (requiring applicants to specify a means of identifying the individual pinniped or pinnipeds  sought to be removed (emphasis added)), (d)(3) (requiring the agency to consider the extent to which such pinnipeds are causing undue injury or impact to, or imbalance with, other species in the ecosystem, including fish populations (emphasis added)). We therefore cannot say that the agency's interpretation is an unreasonable one. Plaintiffs also challenge NMFS's interpretation of the phrase significant negative impact, arguing that the three factors relied on by the agency to make a finding of significance amount to an impermissible interpretation. Because we conclude that NMFS's action is inadequately explained and must be remanded under the APA for reasons we have explained above, we need not resolve this question here. See Shays v. FEC, 414 F.3d 76, 97 (D.C.Cir.2005) ([W]e need not decide whether these ... rules represent altogether impermissible interpretations ...the Chevron step two inquirybecause in any event the [agency] has given no rational justification for them, as required by the APA's arbitrary and capricious standard.) (citation omitted).