Opinion ID: 6346804
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: jurisdiction

Text: As a preliminary matter, we must determine whether we have subject matter jurisdiction to hear Plaintiffs’ NEPA and CZMA claims. Because neither NEPA nor the CZMA expressly provide for judicial review, judicial review of these claims is governed by the APA, which limits review to “final agency action.” 5 U.S.C. § 704. We do not defer to the agencies’ interpretation of whether their actions constitute “final agency action” because Congress did not charge BOEM and BSEE with implementing the APA. See Karuk Tribe of Cal. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 681 F.3d 1006, 1017 (9th Cir. 2012). Agency action is final and reviewable under the APA when two conditions are met. The action must “mark the consummation of the agency’s decision-making process,” and it must also determine “rights or obligations” or be one “from which legal consequences will flow.” Bennett v. Spear, 520 U.S. 154, 177–78 (1997) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). The agencies contend that the programmatic EA and FONSI are not “final agency actions” because they will still have to approve permits from private entities wishing to use well stimulation treatments before the treatments will actually be used in the region. The agencies would have us wait until the agencies approve site-specific permits before Plaintiffs could challenge the agencies’ actions under the APA. We disagree and hold that the programmatic EA and FONSI meet both prongs of Bennett’s test for final agency action. 30 EDC V. BOEM
agency’s decision-making process The EA and FONSI conclude the agencies’ programmatic review under NEPA of allowing well stimulation treatments in the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf and reflect the agencies’ understanding that CZMA review is not required for this action. In the programmatic EA, the agencies considered four alternatives ranging from not authorizing well stimulation treatments to authorizing well stimulation treatments without restriction, and, in the FONSI, the agencies found that “the Proposed Action”— authorizing well stimulation treatments without restriction— “would not cause any significant impacts.” There is nothing preliminary or tentative about these documents, even if the agencies included a disclaimer in the EA that it is “not itself a decision document.” To be sure, the use of well stimulation treatments will not occur in practice until an individual permit application has been approved. But as the district court explained, the agencies concede that no further programmatic environmental review of these treatments will be conducted. And it is “the effect of the action and not its label that must be considered.” Or. Nat. Desert Ass’n v. U.S. Forest Serv., 465 F.3d 977, 985 (9th Cir. 2006) (citations omitted). Here, the effect of the FONSI is that it provides the agencies’ final word on the environmental impacts of the proposed action and concludes that the authorization of well stimulation treatments will not have a significant impact. This programmatic conclusion will not be revisited, so Plaintiffs here “are able to show . . . a completeness of action by the agency.” Kern, 284 F.3d at 1070. Absent the proposed action approved in the EA, no permits could be sought. EDC V. BOEM 31 We have repeatedly held that final NEPA documents are final agency actions. Friedman Bros. Inv. Co. v. Lewis, 676 F.2d 1317, 1318 (9th Cir. 1982); Te-Moak Tribe of W. Shoshone of Nev. v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 608 F.3d 592, 598 (9th Cir. 2010); Rattlesnake Coal. v. EPA, 509 F.3d 1095, 1104 (9th Cir. 2007); Hall v. Norton, 266 F.3d 969, 975, n.5 (9th Cir. 2001). We are bound by these decisions and see no reason to depart from that principle here. The NEPA review process concludes in one of two ways: (1) the agency determines through an EA that a proposed action will not have a significant impact on the environment and issues a FONSI, or (2) the agency determines that the action will have a significant impact and issues an EIS and record of decision. See 40 C.F.R. §§ 1505.2 (record of decision), 1508.13 (FONSI). Final NEPA documents constitute “final agency action” under the APA, whether they take the form of an EIS and Record of Decision or an EA and FONSI, because they culminate the agencies’ environmental review process. We reject the agencies’ claim that the EA and FONSI are merely their “first, preliminary steps toward making a decision about the use of well stimulation treatments in the federal waters off the California coast,” particularly in the context of this litigation, where 51 permits authorizing well stimulation treatments were approved without environmental review. There is no argument or evidence that these 51 already-approved permits will be revisited, especially after the agencies approved unrestricted use of well stimulated treatments in the EA and FONSI. It would make no sense to have a full environmental impact evaluation on one permit or multiple individual permits without considering the total environmental impact of the full picture. Environmental law does not require a court to 32 EDC V. BOEM miss the forest for the trees. The agencies’ programmatic approval is not insulated from judicial review. The FONSI and programmatic EA satisfy the first prong of the Bennett test because they are the final step in the agencies’ programmatic review under NEPA and reflect the agencies’ determination that review under the CZMA is not warranted. 2. The EA and FONSI determine rights and obligations and are actions from which legal consequences will flow The programmatic EA and ensuing FONSI also satisfy the second prong of the Bennett test for final agency actions. By finding that well stimulation treatments have no significant environmental impact, the agencies have allowed the permitting process for these treatments to proceed. This return to the pre-settlement status quo and lifting of the moratorium on well stimulation treatments in the Pacific Outer Continental Shelf strongly affects the legal rights of oil companies, as demonstrated by Intervenors’ involvement in this suit and DCOR’s request for reconsideration of the judgment to allow the agencies to act on its pending applications. Also, the rights of Plaintiffs to further environmental review, and the obligation of the agencies to prepare a full EIS, are fully and finally determined by the FONSI and are not subject to any further administrative procedure. Legal consequences flow from the FONSI insofar as oil companies do not need to abide by any depth, discharge, or frequency limitations in their permit applications because the agencies have not imposed any such limitations on permit applications. In fact, the FONSI green lights the unrestricted use of well stimulation treatments, with no cautionary limitations. EDC V. BOEM 33 The agencies urge us to look for a decision document outlining a binding plan that is separate from final NEPA documents for agency action to be “final,” but they concede that their programmatic review of well stimulation treatments offshore California is complete. In fact, the agencies describe their “work left to do” as only reviewing and approving individual, site-specific permits. The conclusion of the programmatic environmental review of offshore well stimulation treatments determines rights, obligations, and legal consequences. The EA and FONSI meet the Bennett test for “final agency action,” and we have subject matter jurisdiction over Plaintiffs’ claims.
The agencies also contest the ripeness of the NEPA and CZMA claims. 4 Their ripeness arguments echo their arguments contesting final agency action under the APA. Although they issued final NEPA documents, the agencies contend that Plaintiffs’ claims are not ripe because the agencies have not yet issued a formal plan for well stimulation treatments or acted on site-specific permits. We review de novo questions of ripeness. Laub v. U.S. Dept. of Interior, 342 F.3d 1080, 1084 (9th Cir. 2003). We note at the outset that the agencies raise concerns of prudential ripeness, which are discretionary. Thomas v. Anchorage Equal Rights Comm’n, 220 F.3d 1134, 1140 (9th Cir. 2000). In any event, we conclude that the agencies’ action satisfies the test for prudential ripeness as established in Ohio 4 Defendants challenge the ripeness of the ESA claim as well. Because NEPA and ESA have different language pertinent to ripeness, we address Defendants’ challenge to ripeness on the ESA claim in our discussion of the ESA appeal infra Part IV. 34 EDC V. BOEM Forestry Ass’n, Inc. v. Sierra Club, 523 U.S. 726, 733 (1998). Evaluating ripeness in the agency context requires considering “(1) whether delayed review would cause hardship to the plaintiffs; (2) whether judicial intervention would inappropriately interfere with further administrative action; and (3) whether the courts would benefit from further factual development of the issues presented.” Id. All three considerations support the conclusion that these claims are ripe for review. First, delayed review would cause hardship to Plaintiffs because they are alleging only procedural violations in this case. Under NEPA, Plaintiffs challenge the agencies’ decision not to issue an EIS; under the ESA, the agencies’ failure to consult with wildlife experts; and under the CZMA, the agencies’ failure to conduct a consistency review. Delaying review of these procedural injuries would cause hardship to Plaintiffs by denying them the fundamental safeguards provided by the three environmental statutes. The “asserted injury is that environmental consequences might be overlooked.” Salmon River Concerned Citizens v. Robertson, 32 F.3d 1346, 1355 (9th Cir. 1994). Delaying review would extend and compound the harms Plaintiffs allege. Programmatic environmental review “generally obviates the need” for subsequent review at the application level “unless new and significant environmental impacts arise.” Id. at 1356. And any additional protective measures Plaintiffs could obtain by challenging the agency’s conclusions later, at the time the agencies review specific applications, would only apply at the site-specific, not the programmatic, level. If the programmatic procedures offend the law, they should be reviewed now. EDC V. BOEM 35 Second, reviewing Plaintiffs’ claims at this point would not “inappropriately interfere with further administrative action.” Ohio Forestry, 523 U.S. at 733. We have established that judicial review does not interfere with further administrative action when the agency’s decision is at “an administrative resting place.” Citizens for Better Forestry v. U.S. Dep’t of Agric., 341 F.3d 961, 977 (9th Cir. 2003). Here, the agencies’ NEPA documents, and the decisions contained therein—not to issue an EIS, not to conduct a consistency review, and not to consult with the wildlife services—demonstrate that the agencies’ decision making is at an administrative resting place. The agencies have concluded their programmatic review of well stimulation treatments offshore California and maintain that they have met their procedural obligations under the relevant environmental statutes. No further administrative action will be required until oil companies submit permits for sitespecific review. We hold that the final NEPA documents in this case constitute an administrative resting place for purposes of procedural injuries. See Kern, 284 F.3d at 1071. Third, there is no need for “further factual development.” Ohio Forestry, 523 U.S. at 733. For claims of procedural injury, we have held that the need for factual development ceases when the alleged procedural violation is complete. Cottonwood Env’t Law Ctr. v. U.S. Forest Serv., 789 F.3d 1075, 1084 (9th Cir. 2015). Our ripeness analysis for claims brought pursuant to environmental statutes is affected by whether plaintiffs allege a procedural or substantive violation. This stems from Ohio Forestry, in which the Supreme Court distinguished between the ripeness of substantive and procedural claims brought under environmental statutes. 523 U.S. at 737. There, the plaintiff’s substantive challenge under the 36 EDC V. BOEM National Forest Management Act to the agency’s forest plans was unripe because the plans had not yet been implemented at the site-specific level. Id. at 739. Yet the Court specifically distinguished its holding from cases where procedural injuries are alleged, explaining that, by comparison, a person injured by “a failure to comply with the NEPA procedure may complain of that failure at the time the failure takes place, for the claim can never get riper.” Id. at 737. We have endorsed this distinction. Cottonwood, 789 F.3d at 1084; Kern, 284 F.3d at 1071; Citizens for Better Forestry, 341 F.3d at 977. In Kern, plaintiffs challenged an EA and an EIS for two proposed actions in an area along the Oregon coast. 284 F.3d at 1066. We concluded that both challenges were ripe and justiciable, differentiating between the substantive claim at issue in Ohio Forestry and the procedural rights conferred by NEPA. Id. at 1071. Similarly, in Citizens for Better Forestry, we concluded that procedural claims challenging an agency’s EA, FONSI, and failure to consult under the ESA were ripe, even though sitespecific proposals had not been issued. 341 F.3d at 970–71. Site-specific action, we held, is “simply a factual coincidence, rather than a basis for legal distinction.” Id. at 977. This is because the imminence or occurrence of sitespecific action is irrelevant to the ripeness of procedural injuries, which are ripe and ready for review the moment they happen. Plaintiffs need not wait for the agencies to act on site-specific permits authorizing well stimulation treatments. Plaintiffs’ procedural challenges under NEPA and the CZMA to the agencies’ proposed action allowing the use of well stimulation treatments off the coast of California, as adopted in the final EA and FONSI, are immediately ripe for review. EDC V. BOEM 37