Opinion ID: 166930
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Acreage limit

Text: 31 The Forest Service set the acreage limit for Category 13 at 250 acres, slightly below the mean acreage of the 101 salvage projects reviewed, 255. The median acreage of the salvage projects reviewed was 50 acres. Some of the difference between the mean and median acreage is attributable to the inclusion of a few large salvage projects in the relevant sample subset, including one salvage project that covered 9,000 acres and four projects totaling over 6,500 acres (collectively, the largest salvage projects). By removing the largest salvage projects from the sample subset, the mean of the remaining salvage projects drops to 114 acres. The Conservation Groups maintain that because the inclusion of the largest salvage projects affected the results in this manner, it was arbitrary and capricious for the Forest Service to not use either (1) a mean analysis which excluded the largest salvage projects (i.e., removing them from the sample subset as statistical outliers) or (2) a median analysis. 32 The Conservation Groups draw heavily on Ass'n of Oil Pipe Lines v. Fed. Energy Reg. Comm'n, 281 F.3d 239, 246 (D.C.Cir.2002), and American Iron & Steel Institute v. Occupational Safety and Health Admin., 939 F.2d 975, 981 (D.C.Cir.1991), in support of their argument. Accordingly, as a preliminary matter, we address the import of Oil Pipe Lines and Am. Iron & Steel to the case here. 33 We conclude that neither Oil Pipe Lines nor Am. Iron & Steel compels the result urged by the Conservation Groups. In Oil Pipe Lines, the D.C. Circuit found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission failed to adequately explain its decision not to follow its prior method of removing, from the relevant sample set, statistical outliers, which it defined as those data points that are so extreme as to raise a question whether they may be the result of recording or measurement errors or some other anomaly. 281 F.3d at 245. The D.C. Circuit was concerned that the decision to exclude outliers was outcome driven — to avoid increasing the average value: To the extent that FERC refused to exclude outliers on the ground that doing so changed the result, it obviously missed the whole point: the object of excluding outliers is to prevent extreme and spurious data from biasing an analysis, i.e., affecting its result adversely. Id. at 246. 34 In this case, no one has suggested that Forest Service inexplicably deviated from past practices or did not conduct an investigation into the largest salvage projects so as to preordain a particular average. In light of the evidence put forth by the Forest Service, the Conservation Groups have not carried their burden of establishing that the largest salvage projects are abnormal, will not recur, and ought to be eliminated. All 101 salvage projects in the sample set, from the smallest five to the largest five, were individually reviewed and resulted in a finding of no significant impact. The suggestion by the Conservation Groups (without benefit of citation to the record) in its reply brief that the likely anomaly that produced the outliers here was that the [largest salvage projects] reviewed had a relatively small amount of timber removed relative to their acreages is merely a hunch. Aplt. Rply. Br. at 9. The solution proposed by the Conservation Groups, eliminating the largest salvage projects, from the average seems arbitrary and result-oriented given the process an agency is supposed to engage in when coming up with a CE. 35 In Am. Iron & Steel, the D.C. Circuit addressed an industry challenge to OSHA's use of a geometric mean in its technological feasibility analysis as unfair because OSHA does not use the geometric mean in its enforcement. 939 F.2d at 990-91. The D.C. Circuit decided to uphold OSHA's preference for using a geometric mean (which basically excludes statistical outliers) rather than an arithmetic mean (which does not exclude outliers) because OSHA reasoned that the geometric mean was the best statistical method to summarize the routine exposure levels and was, therefore, a good indicator of the feasibility of compliance. Id. We do not read Am. Iron & Steel as holding (as the Conservation Groups suggest) that it would have in fact been arbitrary and capricious for the agency to have included the outliers. As the Forest Service accurately points out, the D.C. Circuit did not address this issue as it ultimately deferred to OSHA's choice of statistical analysis. Id. at 991. 36 Accordingly, we turn to the remaining question of whether the Forest Service acted arbitrarily or capriciously in not using a median analysis when setting Category 13's acreage limit. 3 But we must be mindful that under the arbitrary and capricious standard, our deference to the agency is greatest when reviewing technical matters within its area of expertise, particularly its choice of scientific data and statistical methodology. Louisiana ex rel. Guste v. Verity, 853 F.2d 322, 329 (5th Cir.1988) (noting that we do not review an agency's decision as statisticians, but as a reviewing court exercising our narrowly defined duty of holding agencies to certain minimal standards of rationality). 37 As such, we look to the Forest Service's rationale for using the mean acreage of the salvage projects reviewed when setting Category 13's acreage limit. Explaining its choice, the Forest Service stated, 38 The [sample of projects reviewed] was limited to projects that were either categorically excluded [under the Former CE], could have been categorically excluded had [the Former CE] still been available, or that were otherwise small in scope. Based on this limitation, it follows that project sizes would be biased toward smaller acreages. Consequently, the median project size is ... 50 acres for salvage harvests. Since direct, indirect, and cumulative effects arise from acres of activity and not the number of projects, average acreages were used rather than median project size. 39 Aplee.App. at 18. 40 From our admittedly lay perspective and this record, the Forest Service's rejection of the median because of the over-representation of small projects (and its focus on the acres of activity) does not seem irrational. We cannot substitute our views on statistics (including skewed data and outlier analysis) for those of the Forest Service and insist that one measure or another be used.