Opinion ID: 3005368
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Connected Actions. The connected actions

Text: regulation, on which Sierra Club relies most heavily, does not dictate that NEPA review encompass private activity outside the scope of the sum of the geographically limited federal actions. The regulation provides, as relevant here, that “actions” must be analyzed together in the same assessment if they “[a]utomatically trigger other actions which may require environmental impact statements,” “[c]annot or will not proceed unless other actions are taken previously or simultaneously,” or if they are “interdependent parts of a larger action and depend on the larger action for their justification.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(1). The point of the connected actions doctrine is to prevent the government from “segment[ing]” its own “federal actions into separate projects and thereby fail[ing] to address the true scope and impact of the activities that should be under consideration.” Del. Riverkeeper, 753 F.3d at 1313. Delaware Riverkeeper illustrates the connected actions regulation’s anti-segmentation principle, and why it does not accomplish all that Sierra Club asks of it. Under Delaware Riverkeeper, an agency cannot segment NEPA review of projects that are “connected, contemporaneous, closely related, and interdependent,” when the entire project at issue is subject to federal review. Id. at 1308. In this case, the oil pipeline is undoubtedly a single “physically, functionally, and financially connected” project, but one in which less than five per cent is subject to federal review. See id. The Natural Gas Act requirement that natural gas pipelines be pre-certified for (D.C. Cir. 2014); Grand Canyon Trust, 290 F.3d at 346; Kern v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 284 F.3d 1062, 1076 (9th Cir. 2002). 35 public convenience and necessity made the whole pipeline in Delaware Riverkeeper the subject of major federal action triggering NEPA. We held that FERC unlawfully segmented the requisite NEPA analysis by reviewing in separate portions a pipeline that “function[ed] together seamlessly.” Id. at 1307, 1311. Here, the project is an oil pipeline, however, so not subject to any such overall pipeline precertification.8 Sierra Club argues, in effect, that applying the connected actions regulation to the sum of other approvals Flanagan South did require draws into NEPA review the balance of the pipeline project that is not otherwise subject to agency action, thus subjecting it to the connected actions doctrine to the same extent as was the case in Delaware Riverkeeper. Sierra Club adds a step that the regulation does not support: The connected actions regulation requires agencies to review the picture as a whole rather than conduct separate NEPA reviews on pieces of an agency-action jigsaw puzzle; it does not add a multitude of private pieces to the puzzle and so require review of a much larger picture. That limitation is highlighted by the connected actions rule’s lack of reference to private parties— a reference present in the cumulative action regulation, which directs agencies to consider the cumulative impact of action by an “agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person.” Compare 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(1), with id. § 1508.7 (emphasis added). Background, private action is expressly encompassed in the cumulative action analysis in a way that it is not for connected action. 8 Pipelines transporting oil within the United States are not subject to any general requirement of federal governmental evaluation and approval. In that way, oil pipelines are less regulated than natural gas pipelines, which must be supported by a certificate of public convenience and necessity from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission before they may be built. 15 U.S.C. § 717f(c)(1)(A). See Del. Riverkeeper, 753 F.3d at 1307-10. 36 Sierra Club also invokes Karst Environmental Education & Protection, Inc. v. EPA, 475 F.3d 1291, 1296 (D.C. Cir. 2007), for the proposition that full-project NEPA review is required where federal agencies have substantial involvement in a private project such that it would not have been undertaken without the federal action. In Karst, we noted our dictum in Macht v. Skinner, 916 F.2d 13, 19 (D.C. Cir. 1990), approving of the Fourth Circuit’s approach in Maryland Conservation Council v. Gilchrist, 808 F.2d 1039 (4th Cir. 1986), to the “federalization theory.” See Karst 475 F.3d at 1296-97 (citing Macht, 916 F.2d at 14, 19). We went on in Karst, however, to observe that “we have no binding precedent adopting the federalization theory,” and we did not there apply it. 475 F.3d at 1297. Indeed, Macht, too, came out the other way, undercutting Sierra Club’s argument. The rail project in Macht was not subject to whole-project NEPA analysis because federal agencies had regulatory control over “only a negligible portion of the entire project.” 916 F.2d at 19. The same is true here. Sierra Club offers no persuasive explanation why the portions of the pipeline outside the verification and easement areas constitute “federal actions” and thus “should be under consideration.” Del. Riverkeeper, 753 F.3d at 1313. Rather, Sierra Club’s more modest claim at oral argument was that Delaware Riverkeeper and the connected action regulation require that “the federal actions in this case—the easements, the other areas within federal jurisdiction—those are connected” and so should have been analyzed together. Oral Arg. Rec. at 7:33-40.9 That is the accurate statement of the 9 See also Oral Arg. Rec. at 7:57-8:11 (similar concession by Sierra Club, recognizing the same limited holding in Hammond v. Norton, 370 F. Supp. 2d 226 (D.D.C. 2005), upon which it also relies). 37 connected actions doctrine, but, as noted above, the claim resting on it was not preserved.