Opinion ID: 4547167
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Degree of Site Specificity

Text: Theoretically, one could argue that the 2012 EIS could not have been the NEPA analysis for the 2017 lease sale if NEPA clearly required a significantly greater degree of site specificity for the analysis of NPRPA lease sales than was 11 Here, Plaintiffs take a different approach by arguing that the 2012 EIS simply “was” a programmatic EIS for the IAP, and “was not” a sitespecific EIS for a lease sale. NAEC V. USDOI 21 provided in the 2012 EIS. However, we are not persuaded that NEPA so required. The question of whether any site-specific analysis is required, addressed above, is different from the question of what “degree of site specificity” is required. Kempthorne, 457 F.3d at 976. “The detail that NEPA requires in an EIS depends upon the nature and scope of the proposed action.” Block, 690 F.2d at 761. “If it is reasonably possible to analyze the environmental consequences” of a particular type at a particular stage, “the agency is required to perform that analysis.” Kern, 284 F.3d at 1072 (requiring analysis of foreseeable impacts to particular species at the resource management plan stage, notwithstanding that those impacts could be analyzed more precisely at a later site-specific project stage). “We will defer to the agency’s judgment about the appropriate level of analysis so long as the EIS provides as much environmental analysis as is reasonably possible under the circumstances, thereby ‘provid[ing] sufficient detail to foster informed decision-making’ at the stage in question.” Native Village of Point Hope, 740 F.3d at 498 (quoting Friends of Yosemite Valley, 348 F.3d at 800). Thus, when an oil and gas lease constitutes an “irretrievable commitment of resources,” the required degree of analytical site specificity depends on the specificity of the “reasonably foreseeable” environmental impacts in light of the factual context. New Mexico ex rel. Richardson v. BLM, 565 F.3d 683, 718 (10th Cir. 2009). For instance, in Richardson, the challenged lease pertained to a relatively small parcel (less than 2,000 acres); “[c]onsiderable exploration ha[d] already occurred on parcels adjacent to the [leased parcel]”; “a natural gas supply [was] known to exist beneath these parcels”; and the record contained sufficient information on which to predict the 22 NAEC V. USDOI number of wells that the leaseholder would want to construct. Id. at 717–18. Given these facts, the Tenth Circuit concluded that “the impacts of this planned gas field were reasonably foreseeable before the . . . lease was issued.” Id. at 718. By contrast, in Kempthorne, we held that the plaintiffs’ “particular challenge to site specificity lack[ed] merit” because “parcel by parcel” effects were “currently unidentifiable” given the facts at hand. 12 457 F.3d at 977. Though acknowledging that some degree of site-specific analysis was required, 13 we upheld BLM’s method of using 12 We reasoned in part that “NEPA could never be satisfied” if BLM had to conduct “an analysis of the environmental effect with respect to each parcel involved in a possible lease for exploration and development,” because “until the lessees do exploratory work, the government cannot know what sites will be deemed most suitable for exploratory drilling, much less for development.” 457 F.3d at 976. However, we did not address Conner’s admonition that the agency could avoid this difficulty by issuing non-NSO leases. See 848 F.2d at 1451. Nevertheless, Kempthorne is not inconsistent with Conner. We understand the “hypothetical situations” analysis in the Kempthorne EIS, 457 F.3d at 976, to have satisfied Conner’s requirement to “estimate what [the] effects might be,” 848 F.2d at 1450. 13 Native Village of Point Hope does not contradict this interpretation of Kempthorne. See Native Village of Point Hope, 740 F.3d at 493–94 (“An agency is not required at the lease sale stage to analyze potential environmental effects on a site-specific level of detail.” (citing Kempthorne, 457 F.3d at 975–76)). Native Village of Point Hope involved the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OSCLA), 43 U.S.C. §§ 1331–1356. Id. Under OSCLA, a lease conveys “no right to proceed with full exploration, development, or production . . . [but rather] only a priority in submitting plans to conduct these activities.” Tribal Village of Akutan v. Hodel, 869 F.2d 1185, 1187–88 (9th Cir. 1988) (quoting Sec’y of the Interior v. California, 464 U.S. 312, 339 (1984)). Thus, OSCLA leases are necessarily NSO leases, and unlike those at issue in this case. Accordingly, we had no occasion in Native NAEC V. USDOI 23 “hypothetical situations that represented the spectrum of foreseeable results” as a way of analyzing oil and gas leasing in the Reserve’s Northwest Planning Area. 457 F.3d at 976. We find the facts in this case bear a far greater resemblance to those in Kempthorne than those in Richardson. Accordingly, Kempthorne dictates that the type of analysis employed in the 2012 EIS may qualify as the sitespecific analysis required of a critical decision given appropriate factual circumstances. As Plaintiffs urge, Kempthorne does not preclude the theoretical possibility that some greater degree of site specificity (even if not parcel-byparcel) was “reasonably possible,” Kern, 284 F.3d at 1072, or that more site-specific impacts were “reasonably foreseeable,” Richardson, 565 F.3d at 718, than that conducted or those analyzed in the 2012 EIS. However, because we ultimately conclude that the 2012 EIS covered future lease sales, the NPRPA statute of limitations makes it unnecessary for us to resolve whether BLM employed the precise degree of site specificity required. While we agree with Plaintiffs that some degree of site-specific EIS analysis is required for NPRPA leases, we are not persuaded that the degree required for the 2017 lease sale was so clearly greater than that reflected in the 2012 EIS that the 2012 EIS could not have covered the 2017 lease sale. Village of Point Hope to consider the nuance Plaintiffs assert regarding the difference between site-specific analysis, which Kempthorne acknowledged was required to some degree, and parcel-by-parcel analysis, which Kempthorne rejected as impossible at the NPRPA leasing stage. In any event, NPRPA leases were not before us in Native Village of Point Hope, so we could not have decided their requirements. Because OSCLA leases appear to be NSO leases by statute, our statement was accurate for the purposes at hand. 24 NAEC V. USDOI