Opinion ID: 2585012
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Omitted Public Comments

Text: The Steelworkers contend that certain comments submitted by the public regarding the draft SYP were not taken into account by CDF, which amounts to prejudicial error. (4) It is first undisputed that none of the comments in question were placed in the administrative record. CDF certified the administrative record. A certified record in an action challenging the sufficiency of an EIS/EIR under CEQA is supposed to include all public comments and supporting documentation. (Pub. Resources Code, ง 21167.6, subd. (e)(6)-(8), (10)-(11).) Moreover, as the Court of Appeal stated: The record does suggest that the missing documents were not taken into account. The trial court explained that the order for preparation of the administrative record required the Department of Forestry to prepare a record of all documents that were before the agency and taken into accountโnot just the documents from the agency's file compiled post hoc. Trial counsel for the Department (the Attorney General) conceded at trial that what was not in the certified administrative record was not taken into account. The question, then, is whether the failure of the Department of Forestry to consider the missing documents rendered the Sustained Yield Plan invalid. The trial court found that three types of public comments were not considered by CDF. First, there were documents submitted prior to the November 16, 1998 deadline for receiving public comments on the SYP. Second, there were written documents submitted by members of the public at public hearings. Third, there were a number of letters and public comments submitted after November 16, 1998, which, for reasons discussed below, the Steelworkers contend and the trial court found were timely submitted. Each of these categories will be discussed in turn. As to the first category of comments, CDF characterizes them [7] as cover memos written on behalf of [EPIC], which transmitted reference materials such as scientific articles cited by other members of the public in their comment letters. CDF asserts that these materials contain no substantive comments. An examination of the record reveals that the exhibits in question consist of scholarly articles about various subjects generally related to the kind of subjects addressed in an SYP; for example, an article entitled Forest Vegetation Removal and Slope Stability in the Idaho Batholith. One of the omitted exhibits in this category, submitted by Cynthia Elkins, contains documents pertaining to Pacific Lumber's previous THP's. As the Court of Appeal observed: The articles themselves are not comments on the Sustained Yield Plan but are reference materials that were cited in comment letters that had been previously submitted. Those comment letters are in the certified administrative record and were responded to in the final EIS/EIR. (5) We agree with the implicit distinction drawn by the Court of Appeal. Although CDF has a duty to consider comments by members of the public under the Forest Practice Rules, that duty does not necessarily extend to considering all of the non-project-specific secondary materials submitted in support of the comments. Whether and to what extent CDF reviews such material cited in the comments is a matter to be left to its sound discretion and professional judgment. This deferential standard does not change when scholarly articles are not only cited in the comments but reproduced and submitted along with the comments. There is no indication CDF did not consider the comments themselves. The second category of excluded documents is written comments apparently submitted at public hearings, in conjunction with oral comments, some opposing and some supporting the SYP. CDF contends that this material was not included in the administrative record because it was duplicative. The third category of documents is comments submitted after CDF's comment period closed on November 16, 1998, up to February 22, 1999, comments mainly critical of the SYP. The trial court concluded that the public comment period had been extended and that whether or not it had been extended, CDF should have considered these documents. The Court of Appeal did not dispute this factual conclusion, but held that the failure to consider these documents was nonprejudicial. The record discloses that CDF announced that the public comment period would end on November 16, 1998, unless the public review period is extended by mutual consent of the SYP submitter and the [CDF]. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service posted a notice in the Federal Registry on January 22, 1999, announcing that public comments would be received on the SYP/HCP and the EIS/EIR until February 22, 1999. The notice included the address of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service persons who would be receiving the comments, and also stated that comments on the SYP may be mailed to John Munn of CDF. The notice further explained that during the initial comment period, CDF and other government agencies had received approximately 18,000 comments on the SYP/HCP and draft EIS/EIR and that numerous changes had been made in response to those comments and to the enactment of Assembly Bill 1986. The new public comment period was intended to address these changes. We therefore agree with the trial court and Court of Appeal that the Federal Register notice effectively reopened the public comment period for the SYP until February 22, 1999. The question, then, is whether the error in failing to consider the second and third category of comments is prejudicial. In order to address this question, we first consider what constitutes prejudicial error in cases involving environmental review. As previously noted, Only if the manner in which an agency failed to follow the law is shown to be prejudicial, or is presumptively prejudicial, as when the department or the board fails to comply with mandatory procedures, must the decision be set aside.... ( Sierra Club, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 1236.) In Sierra Club, we found prejudicial abuse of discretion when the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection approved a THP notwithstanding the fact that real party in interest Pacific Lumber had failed to provide information requested by CDF and DFG. The failure of the board to proceed as required by law was prejudicial. The absence of any information regarding the presence of the four oldgrowth-dependent species on the site frustrated the purpose of the public comment provisions of the Forest Practice Act. ([Pub. Resources Code,] งง 4582.6, 4582.7.) It also made any meaningful assessment of the potentially significant environmental impacts of timber harvesting and the development of site-specific mitigation measures impossible. In these circumstances prejudice is presumed. ( Sierra Club, supra, 7 Cal.4th at pp. 1236-1237.) In coming to this conclusion, we cited with approval Rural Landowners Assn. v. City Council (1983) 143 Cal.App.3d 1013 [192 Cal.Rptr. 325] ( Rural Landowners Assn.). ( Sierra Club, supra, 7 Cal.4th at p. 1237.) That case considered the approval of an EIR for the annexation and development of certain agricultural land by the Lodi City Council, when the draft EIR had not been timely submitted to the Governor's Office of Planning and Research, as required by law. The city council had therefore failed to consider that agency's substantive comments before approving the EIR. ( Rural Landowners Assn., supra, at pp. 1017-1018.) The trial court found that because the state agency's comments were incorporated into an addendum after the approval, and the city council had not changed its decision, failure to include the comments in the EIR was harmless error. ( Id. at p. 1019.) The Court of Appeal in Rural Landowners Assn. disagreed with this line of reasoning: Were we to accept respondent's position that a clear abuse of discretion is only prejudicial where it can be shown the result would have been different in the absence of the error, we would allow ... a subversion of the purposes of CEQA. Agencies could avoid compliance with various provisions of the law and argue that compliance would not have changed their decision. Trial courts would be obliged to evaluate the omitted information and independently determine its value.... We conclude that where that failure to comply with the law results in a subversion of the purposes of CEQA by omitting information from the environmental review process, the error is prejudicial. The trial court may not exercise its independent judgment on the omitted material by determining whether the ultimate decision of the lead agency would have been affected had the law been followed. The decision is for the discretion of the agency, and not the courts. ( Rural Landowners Assn., supra, 143 Cal.App.3d at pp. 1022-1023.) The remedy for this deficiency was for the trial court to have issued a writ of mandate compelling the city to prepare a supplemental EIR. ( Id. at p. 1025.) The above rule emerges out of the difficulty courts have in assessing the effects of the omitted information, much of it generally highly technical, on the ultimate decision. A trial court's independent judgment that the information was of `no legal significance' amounts to a `post hoc rationalization' of a decision already made, a practice which the courts have roundly condemned. ( Rural Landowners Assn., supra, 143 Cal.App.3d at p. 1021.) On the other hand, errors in the CEQA or THP process which are insubstantial or de minimis are not prejudicial. ( Environmental Protection Information Center, Inc. v. Johnson (1985) 170 Cal.App.3d 604, 623, fn. 11 [216 Cal.Rptr. 502].) [8] (6) The Forest Practice Rules require the director to review public input at the close of a public comment period prior to approval of an SYP. (FP Rules, ง 1091.10, subd. (e).) Public comments are therefore an integral part of the SYP approval process, as they are in the EIR approval process, and such comments, like the comments from state agencies at issue in Rural Landowners Assn., may contain information critical to that process. Public review is essential to CEQA. The purpose of requiring public review is ``to demonstrate to an apprehensive citizenry that the agency has, in fact, analyzed and considered the ecological implications of its action.'...'... `[P]ublic review and comment ... ensures that appropriate alternatives and mitigation measures are considered, and permits input from agencies with expertise in timber resources and conservation.' [Citation.] Thus public review provides the dual purpose of bolstering the public's confidence in the agency's decision and providing the agency with information from a variety of experts and sources. ( Schoen v. Department of Forestry & Fire Protection (1997) 58 Cal.App.4th 556, 573-574 [68 Cal.Rptr.2d 343].) If it is established that a state agency's failure to consider some public comments has frustrated the purpose of the public comment requirements of the environmental review process, then the error is prejudicial. (See Sierra Club, supra, 7 Cal.4th at pp. 1236-1237; Rural Landowners Assn., supra, 143 Cal.App.3d at pp. 1022-1023.) As the case law establishes, courts are generally not in a position to assess the importance of the omitted information to determine whether it would have altered the agency decision, nor may they accept the post hoc declarations of the agencies themselves. ( Rural Landowners Assn., supra, 143 Cal.App.3d at p. 1021.) [9] On the other hand, an agency's failure to consider public comments is not necessarily prejudicial. For example, when the material not considered was, on its face, demonstrably repetitive of material already considered, or so patently irrelevant that no reasonable person could suppose the failure to consider the material was prejudicial, or when the omitted material supports the agency action that was taken, then such omissions do not subvert the purpose of the public comment provisions and are nothing more than technical error. Short of these showings, which the agency that failed to consider the comments would have the burden to make, the omission of the information must be deemed prejudicial. [10] With these principles in mind, we turn to the present case. The Court of Appeal stated that [t]he Steelworkers do not dispute that the missing comments were duplicative, raising objections to the Sustained Yield Plan that were covered by over 16,000 written comments made by others during the public comment period and responded to in the final EIS/EIR. The Steelworkers did not contest the accuracy of that statement in its rehearing petition to the Court of Appeal nor in its briefing before this court. [11] Rather, the Steelworkers argue only that under Rural Landowners Assn., the question whether the comments are duplicative is irrelevant, because a court may not exercise its independent judgment on the omitted material by determining whether the ultimate decision of the lead agency would have been affected had the law been followed. ( Rural Landowners Assn., supra, 143 Cal.App.3d at p. 1023.) But a determination of whether omitted information would have affected an agency's decision is significantly different from a determination of whether the omitted material is duplicative of information already considered. The former determination is highly speculative, an inquiry that takes the court beyond the realm of its competence. The latter determinationโwhether omitted evidence is duplicative or cumulativeโis an inquiry courts commonly make. (See, e.g., People v. Keehley (1987) 193 Cal.App.3d 1381, 1386-1387 [239 Cal.Rptr. 5].) To be sure, the question whether public comments were duplicative, particularly when these comments involve, as they do here, highly technical material, may not be obvious to a reviewing court. As stated above, when an SYP or EIR is challenged for failing to consider comments alleged to contain significant new information, it is the burden of the agency that erroneously omitted the comments to establish they are merely duplicative. When, however, their duplicative nature essentially is not contested, as in the present case, no further inquiry is necessary. We conclude CDF's failure to consider these comments was not prejudicial.